Saturday Morning Watercolor

Friendship, Inspiration, and Realizations

Saturday, November 23, I had the extreme pleasure of attending Jennifer Edwards' art show and book signing at Southwinds Gallery in Kernersville, NC. I realized just how great this thing of blogging and internet groups, Facebook, etc., really is! I would never even know Jennifer if not for this form of communication and avenue of sharing our art and our lives. 

My life is so much fuller and busier than it used to be that blogging has moved down on my list of priorities, but when I think of stopping altogether, I realize what would be lost! And I think, "What if Jennifer had never blogged about Genevieve?" "What if she had never written and shared Letters to the Artist, which has encouraged me so much?"

These thoughts also bring me to the realization that what I have to share matters just as much. What you have to share matters just as much; because our sharing touches the life of at least one other person. Each of us has something to bring as an offering to God and to others. We are artists and our unique vision matters. Our voice matters. Money made from our work is not important - that is not the goal of our art, though it would be nice to enjoy that benefit, what really matters is what we give to the world by expressing what's inside of us.

It's possible no one will get it. Maybe we will never feel or experience the glory, the praise, the joy of others' approval, or financial success from our art. Maybe we're criticized. But how will we ever know if we don't offer what we have - dare to live an artful life. I don't want to spend the rest of my life seeing what others can do, watching others be brave, standing on the sidelines in fear of what might happen. Like Genevieve, I have a kite to fly. We all have a kite to fly. 

A Spot of Tea - Literally

With a recent dinner at Village Tavern I ordered this beautifully served cup of hot tea.  My strong urge of course was to paint the beautiful light and form of this tea arrangement. There is just something about white china or pottery.

In my purse I discovered I didn't have my watercolors or a paintbrush. But I did have a sketchbook and a water soluble graphite pencil -- just nothing to make washes with the graphite - no brush.  So I realized in a spark of creativity and resourcefulness that I could use the wet used teabag to paint this page! If you look closely you can see that it's still wet in the photo. I squeezed the teabag to make a nice wash and how authentic and appropriate that it is actually a wash of pure TEA! It also served to dissolve the graphite lines into a nice was to produce the values. I had a glue stick so I was able to glue the teabag tags and papers on the page. What a memory!

First Post of a New Season

I haven’t posted since April, and so much has happened in the past six months, I hardly know how to catch everyone up! When I go about making life changes, I don’t know when to stop. Let me start by giving a quick synopsis of all the personal life changes, and then we’ll get into the art, which is what my blog is about – my art.
I’ll be brief with the personal: in the past six months, I have gotten divorced, remarried, started a new job, purchased a new car, and moved to a new house. I even have a new cell phone. Nothing in my life is very familiar yet. Except thank God I have my daughter who has bravely weathered all these changes with me and is enjoying this new life we have. As a senior in high school she’s changing as well. So much is new that it’s overwhelming and sometimes frightening.
That brings me to my art. All my life changes have naturally led me to pare down, purge, and simplify my massive collection of art supplies. I have written several times about my being completely overwhelmed when I sat down to create because I didn’t know where to begin or what media to use. I would dabble in all of it and end up creating a never-ending supply of unfinished projects. Then I would have to deal with the guilt of not finishing anything. Very frustrating. In the midst of moving in with my husband, which thankfully I was able to do slowly and thoughtfully as I moved in over a period of about two months, I ran across this blog post…
http://seawindbt.com/rainy/blog/2013/02/26/art-supplies-maybe-less-is-better/
and this one…
http://kellykilmer.blogspot.com/2013/02/journaling-having-too-much-stuff-or.html
I printed these off on 5/31/2013 and pondered and read them (meditated on them maybe) for some time. And in the midst of moving, I finally did it. I sold a whole carful of art supplies to Penney Klaproth for $500. It felt like she had done me the BIGGEST favor EVER! I felt so free and unencumbered. (You MUST visit her blog! I feel so incredibly blessed to have her living nearby and working right here in my town! This woman is wildly talented and she’s been published in several magazines – and I KNOW her!!! Just think she will be creating with some of “my” supplies.)
In addition to selling all those supplies, I gave my newly acquired sewing machine to my best friend. It was too much frustration for me. I want immediate results, like you get with a pencil or a brush. Threading and maintaining a sewing machine was WAY TOO TEDIOUS for this impatient artist. I am proud that I taught myself to sew and I needed to do that in order to know that it is just not my thing.
So gone are my sewing machine, thread and sewing supplies, all my fabric, acrylic paints, easel, acrylic brushes. I even gave up most of my magazine collection and several books. I felt like I had inspiration overload with so much!
I narrowed down my stash to the bare essentials. My narrowed focus now – watercolor; colored pencil; and journaling supplies, such as pens, markers, Inktense pencils, acrylic ink, etc.

Click on the following link for some sketches and journal pages that I’ve done over the past six months. With the new job and all the major changes, I haven't been quite as prolific, but it sure is a good life these days and I love my new sunroom studio.

May - October 2013 paintings and journal pages

An inspiring trip to...Wal-Mart!?

Who knew a routine trip to Wal-Mart could be just the ticket to inspire me to art journaling this evening?!! They have expanded their line of craft and art supplies and I am sooo excited! Who needs to eat??? My new weight loss plan: spend the grocery money on art supplies!

I went in to buy sidewalk chalk (which is luscious by the way) for a project I was commissioned to do and of all things, a blender to make smoothies for breakfast.  And when I left I was inspired and excited to go home and CREATE, make marks, play, splash color!

 

Paint markers (open stock) for $1.97 each!! Oh my!

 New journal page using white chisel point Painter

Sunday sketching

Found a journal with graph paper at Big Lots for $3! Used Prismacolor woodless graphite 4B pencil.

Journal page backgrounds and doodles

Recent fun in the reorganized studio. I can't make it without a space of my own to create, ponder, and play.

A Still Life in Progress

Painting a bowl of fresh fruit in watercolor and charcoal pencil

A Return to 4" x 6" Doodles

Ahh color. Glorious color. A return to my simple, portable, 4" x 6" doodles. I love doing these.

I am still finding it hard to concentrate on simplifying and I'm constantly seeing something in a magazine that I want to try. Eventually I know I will drag out all my supplies and set up permanent shop again in my kitchen/studio. But it will be new and fresh and hopefully it will be less overwhelming. I have worked on cleaning house lately and restoring a sense of order and control to my life. Waiting out all the changes in my life and walking carefully through this time of transition. Doing a lot of writing in my journal. Doing some doodling. A lot of meandering, reading, contemplating, reassessing, and reordering. I feel like it's an incubation period. I have to go through this time in order to have a rebirth, a renewal. It's not easy. It's not fun. It's work and it's exhausting. But it will be worth it. I pray for God's grace to come through it knowing I relied on the power of the Holy Spirit to bear the fruit of love, joy, peace, patience, kindness, goodness, gentleness and self-control in me. That's all I really want out of this. To know that even in the worst of times, my actions didn't grieve the Holy Spirit in me. I want to be free - not free to do whatever I want - that's not true freedom. I want to be free of my shame, my shackles, an oppressive and depressed spirit that has held me in it's grip for far too long. I want to be free to live and to laugh and to enjoy. To fly. Wherever God takes me on wings of Faith, Hope, Love. No more spiritual bondage, no more feeling "less than" or unworthy. I want to be able to walk through this knowing God is with me and with my head held high, not because I'm proud, but because I'm His, and He is protecting me.

Simplify

As a member of the Facebook Group “Everyday Matters”, I posted about my current creative block or whatever it is I’m having. It’s more of an information overload. I have tried many things artistically, as this blog shows.  Before yesterday this was my studio “corner” of the kitchen, which had basically taken over the kitchen and made me crazy as I walked through the door of my home.



What you can’t see in the picture is my dining room table pushed up against the organizer on the left so tightly that you couldn’t pull the bench out to sit down.  You see the sewing machine on the table under the window. I believe that is partly what started my dilemma. I decided to learn to sew. I bought a machine last Christmas on Black Friday and taught myself how to sew, having never threaded a sewing machine and certainly having never free-motion stitched. I successfully learned this and produced some small art pieces, which I have posted in earlier blog posts.

The problem for me was that I had developed so many varied art interests and so many ideas for projects that when I sat down to create in my short little time spans available, I developed a form of ADHD. All these materials and supplies and all these unfinished projects bombarded me and I could do nothing, or maybe I would do something and then get distracted and move on to something else until nothing was complete and I felt disjointed and like my head was spinning around on my shoulders…which left me frustrated and unfulfilled.

And so began the search to find a solution…My true love, my first love --- drawing, and then I learned to watercolor, and paint and draw with colored pencils. There was a lovely time when I owned a few tubes of watercolor, which were very familiar and well-loved; a few brushes, pencils and colored pencils, and a few pens.  And all these things were used and loved. I was learning and growing as an artist and creating. Life was simple. I had few books and read what I had, one art magazine subscription – “The Artist’s Magazine”. These were simple times.

Not that I didn’t enjoy trying all the new things I have tried and buying all the supplies I have. FUN! But I’m at a place where I must say to myself, “ENOUGH.” Now it’s time to put those things to use, but not all at the same time; at least not right now. I have to return to simplicity. I have to, or I will stop making art altogether. And that would be like stopping my breath. I can’t imagine.

So… yesterday I put all extraneous supplies into boxes neatly on shelves and in my closet and in the one organizing unit all stacked into one neat tower. And I left out just the essentials in my desk organizer. A few pens, a few brushes, a few colored pencils, and my watercolor palette – only one. A small table and lamp and a few supplies. Just enough to feel like I can breathe again. Concentrate. Focus. I will sketch and journal using the basics. I will not do it out of a sense of duty or obligation. I will do it as I want to and enjoy the precious moments of creativity. I will not feel guilt over the hoard of supplies I have put away, but will leave them there boxed away, and if after a couple years I have not returned to some of them at all, then I will donate them. But not until I’m sure they can go. In the meantime, they are there.

The day after Christmas, my mother became very ill. She had mini strokes and seizures and has been in the hospital for over 2 weeks. She is now in a continuing care facility and her mind is not well. She is confused and severely so at times. Her eyes have taken on a glazed look, she seems a lot like a child. But she is content and happy I believe; I feel very at peace about her being there. I have seen God’s faithfulness and grace in all that she has gone through. He is with her. She has been a faithful follower of Jesus Christ for many, many years. She is an example to us all of a true saint of God. And now as always, His grace is sufficient. I saw her today and had a good visit.

I will soon be divorced. Something that has been coming for the entirety of my 18-year marriage. Separated and reunited many times, now it’s time to accept that an ending and a new beginning is in order. Out of that marriage came the biggest blessing I have ever received, a beautiful now 17-year-old daughter who is my greatest joy.

“For, lo, the winter is past, the rain is over and gone; The flowers appear on the earth; the time of the singing of birds is come…” Song of Solomon 2:11-12

Spring is coming soon. I have grieved for too long. It is time for me to fly…
So with my simplification – there is a casting off of the burden and a spreading of my wings, a stretching, rediscovering, season of growth and discovery and reaching new heights. I’ve been through so much and God’s grace is, as always, sufficient.

I will post pictures of my simplified studio and some simplified artwork soon…
Thank you all for being my art friends and for taking the time to stop and visit here.

Pilot Mountain

Quick sketch of Pilot Mountain on my way to see my mother in hospital. (I wasn't driving) For those who aren't familiar, this mountain is in NC near Winston-Salem and has been carved in this shape by Mother Nature. A hiking trail goes around the mountain.

First Post of a New Year – Happy 2013!

A small art quilt made from an old linen napkin with stains purchased from an auction. Scrap fabric, free-form embroidery, Inktense pencils and blocks, gel medium, gesso, watercolor… mmm what else is in there – oh the writing is done with a Bic Correction Pen. My theme for this year is “It’s Time for Me to Fly!”
My blog has been recreated and I am off to a brand new start!