Two new portraits

I finished this first portrait a few weeks ago, but I wanted to show his parents the painting first. It was a fun one to do. I like his little toothless smile.  :)

Benjamin

This weekend I have had some time to do another portrait. This is my nephew. I did his brother back in May and kept thinking I would get around to doing him, and it kept getting put off. But, I am happy to say that I have finally done it.  It also went fairly well, which is always nice :)  I haven't seen him since Christmas, and he has changed a lot since then. I found some more recent photos and this one grabbed me the most. It is just a little harder doing a portrait of someone I haven't seen in awhile.  I will say that doing this portrait style was a lot easier the second time around. Maybe I am starting to get the hang of this :).

Theo

Progress

I think I have figured out how to find a little time to do some art and quilting. So, I may actually be posting more on here again. I hope. 

Here is what I have been up to:

This is the storm at sea quilt I mentioned in a couple of posts. Fortunately, in this photo, you can't see all the places where things don't line up.  :)  I am not done. I am actually putting it on hold while I do some other projects.  I plan to put a border around it, and of course I have to do a backing and quilt it and put on a binding. But, honestly, the hardest part is done.  There are 1297 pieces that I put together to make this. The bulk of the cutting and a lot of the piecing was done awhile back. I just finally got around to finishing the piecing and putting it all together. It makes me happy.  :)

Storm at Sea

Work in progress

This is the current quilt I am working on.  It is a wedding gift for my sister (a year and a half later...). We are using the material that she used for table centerpieces so it is all in her colors.  I have all of the pieces cut and laid out, and now it is time to assemble.  Unfortunately, I had a little accident with my rotary cutter (not doing quilts, ironically) and I can't sew little pieces together very well due to lack of function with my index finger, so I will have to put this on hold for a couple of weeks.

I can still draw though.  I finished a portrait, which I will post as soon as I have had a chance to show the people who commissioned it.   It went remarkably well, and it gives me hope that I really can do this more often.   It has been three months since the last portrait.  Too long.

That is what I have been up to in between all of the other normal day to day tasks of life. I have felt happier and calmer since I started getting back into creating things. It is a therapy of sorts for me, and I hope to do more.

I finished something

On my phone, I keep a to do list. In fact, it has several lists. I have house projects, art projects, quilts, sewing projects (non-quilt) etc.  This is so, when I find I have time to do something, I scroll down my list to see what I feel like working on. It is also my way of seeing what I have actually accomplished because I keep the items on the list, just with a strike going through them. That list barely changed all summer. Then, school started, and my life turned into an explosion of chaos. It hasn't been the freedom I had hoped for. I am trying to accept the fact that I feel like I have less time to myself than in the past few years. I try not to fall into the "this isn't what I thought it would be like" trap. So, I made a decision to make the entire hour and 15 minutes of my "free" time dedicated to me. It means I am not getting much of anything else done (because the rest of the day I have at least one child by my side), but it is keeping me sane. So far.
I have kind of been in an art funk for awhile. I am not fully sure what the deal is, but I decided that I needed to first get my brain thinking in a creative artistic way again.  So, I looked at my phone to-do list and I decided to work on a quilt. I started this quilt back in February. In fact, I was almost done with the top of it, and then it sat for a long time. so, I decided to finish it. My son needed a not-so-girlish quilt on his bed, so I  made this one. It is smaller than I had originally hoped, but that is okay. He doesn't use most of his bed anyway, and he does have a large soft blanket if he gets cold. I showed him the material I had to work with, and he made up the design. The quilt isn't stellar. It wouldn't win an award (except, maybe, "how not to do a quilt") but I finished it, and there is a lot of satisfaction in that.  here is a photo:

And, now that I have finished something that requires a bit of creativity, my brain is starting to feel a little more artistic. I started a sketch of a portrait I am going to do next. And, I finally put all of the pieces together for the storm at sea quilt that I  mentioned many many posts ago. Now I just need to assemble the blocks and put the top together. I also have two-three other quilts I have lined up, so there is no shortage of projects on my list. I am glad to finally have a little time to work on these things, despite my disappointment of having less time than I planned. And, maybe, just maybe, I can survive this school year.

Mirror Lake in the Uintas

Mirror Lake

It has been really hard this summer to find time to draw. There always seems to be someone who needs me, and I haven't made it down to my art room in awhile.  Until the past few days. When I finally was at the end of my sanity, I locked myself in my room for just one hour, and started this drawing. I felt SO much better afterwards. It was amazing. I could deal with all the things going on again and didn't feel so overwhelmed. Lesson to myself - drawing is therapy and I need to get proper doses of it.  Because I have done so many portraits lately, I decided to take a break and do something totally fun with no pressure. I wasn't kidding when I said I thought landscapes would be easier. I can't believe how much easier they seem. That being said, I see things I want to change or try next time, now that I am looking at this, but it was kind of a free exercise to see what I could do with my newer pastels and all of the techniques I have learned.  And, strangely enough, some of the techniques I learned for portraits helped with this. 

It took me a few days of locking myself in my room to get this done, but I did it. This is from a photo of Mirror Lake in the Uintas.  I took the photo 3 years ago and have wanted to draw it for a long time. I think it was a good one to try. 

Now I just have to decide what is next.  Portrait, landscape, or something else? 

My latest commission

This is what I have been working on lately. I have found that it is quite tricky finding time to draw now that my children are home all day. I have made a few arrangements that have helped, but I definitely get more done during the school year.  That being said, I enjoyed drawing these four children. We have known them from before the oldest was born. In some ways that makes it harder because I keep saying, "no, that isn't quite them yet... no, I don't think the eyes are right.... hmmm... that one looks too old..." etc. I actually got on an artist website (wetcanvas.com) and posted one of the drawings to get some feedback.  It was incredibly helpful, so I plan to post more on that site in the future.  It helps to get other eyes looking at it, and I had about 10 people comment with suggestions.

As for the rest of the summer, I don't plan to do as much art.  I will still welcome commissions, but I may not start them until mid August. That could change and surprise me, but we have a lot of  plans coming up and I don't really want deadlines at the moment. I have one other commission that is lined up, but I also have some projects of my own I want to try.  There is a landscape I want to try drawing.  Now that I have done faces, landscapes seem easy.  I don't say that to downplay landscapes, it is just that if you make the branch of a tree go at a slightly different angle, it still looks like a tree.  If you make eyes go at the wrong angle, it looks like a Picasso.  :)

Maybe I will work on some quilts this summer and post them here, or maybe I will post photographs from our adventures. We shall see... when I started this blog, I planned on posting all of my creative outlets.  I haven't done that for awhile. 

My Mother

This is a drawing of my Mother.  She passed away about four years ago.  I was trying to decide who to draw for this medium (I wanted to try charcoal and white) and she seemed like the perfect subject. I also have some old photos of her that I think would be fun to draw - from her college days.  But, this is how I remember her - before she got sick, before she lost weight.  This kind of captures her - the beads (she wore beaded necklaces a lot) and the big smile - she so often had a big smile on her face.
When I started this drawing, it looked like a man with a helmet.  I would walk by it and think, "how is this ever going to look like my Mom?"  But it evolved and then there was a point where I suddenly looked at it and said, "oh, there she is!" and it was finally her. It was kind of cool for her to suddenly be right there in front of me, as lines and shapes suddenly became more than that, and became my Mother.  Maybe she helped me with it a little :)

Summer is here

Summer has officially started. My kids are out of school. And, despite the fact that I tried not to overschedule my summer, I am finding it to be very hard to get time to draw.  This happened to me last summer, and it wasn't good for me. Doing art is my outlet, my serenity.
I am currently working on, oh, at least six portraits. I have a big list of other things I want to draw too. I want to try another landscape - I haven't done one in awhile. I want to do another one of my "moments" drawings. But, really, I need to just finish something.  One drawing is going pretty well so far. Another one is causing me enough anguish to make me want to tear it up and start over. Others are just sketched out, and one is just barely getting started.
My art class is going well. I am bummed though - my teacher is moving at the end of July. She has been great - I have learned so much from her.  I kick myself for not going in and starting classes sooner, but what can I do now, except to try to fit in what I can before she moves.  My next assignment, I think, is going to be a self portrait done by looking in the mirror. It ought to be interesting. I have kind of put off doing myself. I don't know if I want to examine my face that closely - all the wrinkles, etc. :)  But, it would be good for me to try it, so I will.
Hopefully I will figure out how to get more time to do art. Otherwise, this site may be quite sparse this summer. We shall see. I did say I would post photographs on here too. (As in pretty pictures I took with my camera, not photographs of my art). Maybe I will get some nice ones of the Oregon coast or Yosemite.  We shall see....

New portrait

"Henson"