Color

Today I went to my art class and I loved it!  I have been working on a pastel drawing of Jonathan. It is from a photo that I love. I thought I was getting pretty close to getting it done. There were just some parts that I couldn't get right and I had some questions about it. My teacher, Anna, is SO helpful. We talked about portraiture and then looked at my drawing to see what needed to be done with it. The face (I now realize) was really brown. I need to darken some parts of it to create shadows that are more accurate, but I was afraid that adding brown or black would just make it look more muddy. So, she showed me that, in the photo, if you look up close,  you can see purples and greens and reds - not brown. Sure enough - you can. She showed me some other helpful tips to help me see the colors I need. So, I added purples and greens and reds and yellows to the brown face, and wow! It made a difference. I love the depth that the colors add. If I had been working on this on my own I would have, first of all, missed certain details and proportions that I just didn't see, and second, I would have been satisfied with the brown face and never would have known to add color this way. It wasn't bad, but now that I have added color, I love seeing the difference. When I do finally finish this piece, I plan to post photos of the process to show the different steps I took and what I learned along the way. I am really excited for this class.  Anna is a good teacher, and I am learning so much! 

An update

I thought I would post a short update on what I have been up to lately.
First of all, I didn't win the art contest, but I did get an honorable mention. And, my art will still be up through the month of March. It was fun to see what other people entered too.
I am still working on the piece that I love. I worked on it in my class on Thursday, and will hopefully get some time this week to finish it up. I also decided to take private art lessons from the teacher at this art place. I have been doing Thursday evenings from time to time, but nights are so busy with kids and it was just too hectic. So, I decided to take lessons during my youngest daughter's preschool.  That will make it less stressful and more enjoyable for me. I am looking forward to it.

I also have been working on the storm at sea quilt that I blogged about earlier. I have discovered that assembly line quilting is the way to go for that kind of quilt. I just assemble the same sets of pieces in a big long chain - like an assembly line, and it has gone much faster than I expected it to. I still have quite a bit to do, but I am making headway and I am seeing results. I have a few other quilts I want to work on too. That alone could keep me busy but I am divided in many directions, and can't focus all of myself on one thing. This is where I just have to be patient and keep moving forward.

And, with art, I have several pieces lined up (in my head) that I want to do. There are so many ideas that I sometimes get stuck on which one to start with first. March is looking like a busy month, and April and May always are, so we will see what I can actually get done. I hope to post on here soon with more photos of what I have been doing.  In the mean time, I hear the words in my head, "just keep swimming, just keep swimming..." :)

"Monkeys"

I mentioned that I turned some pieces in for an art show/ contest. I went to the store yesterday and saw the pieces hanging up, so I know they are ready for viewing. I haven't decided if this is good or bad, but there were only about 15 pieces total - three were mine.  They even extended the deadline to try to get more people to turn things in.

This is one of the pieces I turned in for the art contest. When I found out I could turn in three pieces, I decided (kind of last minute) that I wanted to make a new piece for it. I learned that I don't like working under pressure. Because I had a deadline, I felt a little rushed. And I sure had a hard time with the faces on this - especially the little boy in the middle. First he looked like a little boy body with a man's head and face. Then, he looked like there was something wrong with him - eyes too far apart, one higher than the other. Then, I did some more tweaking and more tweaking, and finally came up with this. I still don't love it, but he at least looks like a little boy.  And the first girl had some proportion problems - one arm was really skinny, the face looked really smashed and distorted, like play-dough or something. This was the first time I tried doing a drawing with charcoals and white pencils (chalk pencils). It was a bit of an experiment. It was harder to get the fine details. This drawing is 18x24 I believe, so the faces are only a couple inches tall. It was hard for me to get the features right with a fat charcoal pencil (I couldn't get mine to sharpen really fine) and then to rub it - fingers worked best, but even my pinky was too big. So, there was a lot of trial and error.

That being said, I like the subject of this drawing. I think it is funny.  It comes from a photo my husband took of my kids (though these kids are not drawn to look exactly like mine). They were being silly on a trip, and he shot the photo.  I also like the contrast of lights and darks in this drawing. I am learning and trying to do more with sharper contrasts. I tend to be a bit conservative on the darks sometimes. So, I keep trying. I did like the look of this medium. I even went and bought some more colored pastel papers to try to do more drawings in charcoals. This one was hard, but I will learn as I go and hopefully improve as I try more. We shall see what happens.

As for the art show, the pieces are hanging in Creativity Art Studio, (for anyone around here who would like to go)  One piece is in the main area (the girl drawing with chalk on the sidewalk), the piece above is between the main area and the art classroom in back, and the last piece is in the back (Mesa Arch).
The store is by University Mall, between Five Guys and Farrs Fresh, if that helps give you a reference. Audrey plans to enter some pieces too, if they will still accept them. They got so few from young kids they said they would still take them (hopefully). If it is too late for the contest, she can at least have them hanging. They will all be on display until April 1.

Flashback - other mediums

Since I have been busy and out of town, I don't have a lot to post at the moment, so here is one of my flashback posts for now.

One thing I really liked about my art teacher in high school was that he let me try lots of different types of art.  He even had a "crafts" class that did things like stained glass, metal working, and other atypical  mediums like that.  These are  some of the other non-drawing, non-painting pieces of art I made.

I don't even know what this is called now. It is some kind of metal foil - stronger than aluminum foil, of course, but pliable enough to make dents in, so you can do a relief of sorts. 

Below is a print that I  made. It is called screen printing. You make a design, and then you make stencils of each color. All I remember about the stencils was that you peel back this green filmy stuff off of a clear plastic where you want the color to be. Then, you somehow attach (with a chemical) that green filmy stuff to a screen and make all of your prints. The problem is that once you have used the stencil, you destroy it, so you can only do prints once, so you need to make as many as you need in that one time.  Then you go on to the next color and the next, trying to line it all up.   I am not sure why I did this face - it has no particular meaning and it isn't any particular person.

Below is something I made from actual metal. Copper and brass, I think?  We had to make up a design and then cut it out with a little hand saw. You drill the hole and then insert the saw and cut. Of course, I had to pick something complicated, so I broke several saw blades in the process of trying to do the volleyball net.  (I played volleyball in high school and it was the subject of several things I drew at the time).

And this piece below was done with the other teacher I had (Mr. King). He was really into modern art, finding all the meaning in the art work and liked to get deep into what the work was about. I am afraid I had fun with it by making up all kinds of stories about what I thought art meant, and he thought I was being deep, when, in fact, I was just being creative and making fun of it. 

With this piece below, he had me draw up several small sketches of the same picture, emphasizing certain shapes and structure. Then, I did the final piece on this black board. I forget the name of it - scratch board, or ink board. It is covered in black ink and you use a little scraping tool to scratch off what you want, and below it will be white.  You can get some tones by doing lines that are thinner or thicker, but it is mostly just black and white. (think of the activity you did in elementary school where you covered a paper with crayon scribbles, then colored the whole thing black, then scraped off the black to make a picture)

This drawing was another piece that I entered into the art fair (with my cloth drawing) but it didn't win anything. Oh, and the picture I chose to put on here had an emphasis on triangles, so I had to make everything rather triangular.

Well, I did it

Today I turned in my art for the show/ contest that I mentioned before. Details about when you can come see it (if you live near by, and, of course if you want to) will be coming soon...

In the works...

Right now I am working on a few different projects, thus no posting of anything new.  I have a drawing that I LOVE so far that is my first portrait - meaning just the head - that I have done in pastels. I have been doing it with the latest art class I have been taking, and the teacher has taught me some great tips - things I have never heard before. It has been great.  And, there is an art show/ contest coming up that I can submit three pieces to, so I am trying to create one new one before Thursday when I have to turn it in. I think the time pressure is hurting me though because I feel rushed and so far, it is not going the way I want it to. I would finish the pastel portrait, but I really want to save that one for art class for finishing it. So, I may just turn in three pieces that I have already finished. We will see. This week is pretty busy, so I will have to really carve out time to draw if I am going to get this piece done. And, I will post details about the art show soon (for anyone around here who would like to come see it). So, I am a little boring at the moment, but things are happening, and there will be more posts coming soon.