Playing with marbles.

I was delighted last winter when our landlady, Kelly, asked if we would be interested in doing some artwork to add to the sign that advertises her apartments for rent.

Built for Charles L.Palmer, Mayor of Baker City 1902

 

What Kelly wanted was to replace the purple wooden balls on the top of each post with larger globes that would have original art designed on them. Since the house was built in 1906 and one of my favorite eras for art, Art Nouveau, was still in fashion then, I was excited to begin looking for inspiration and start drawing designs.

Dutch Art Nouveau style (Jugenstil) book cover - public domain

Art Nouveau takes it's inspiration from nature and often features flowing lines and floral motifs. I suppose it is not much of a surprise that I like this style so much. I made several sketches, imagining a copper metallic design painted over colored globes in this linear style.

This is only one of the pages out of my sketchbook!

Next, I started thinking about the color and design of the globe itself. Many of the Nouveau pieces I had been studying had metal work over beautiful glass. 

To see some of them, here's a link to my "Wonderful Nouveau" collection of images on Pinterest. (Because of copyright laws, I am not certain which images were o.k. to post on my blog!)

I was going to be using outdoor paint on metal, so I decided I would try a technique I have wanted to do for years, painting faux stone. Pinterest was also a great resource for finding tutorials on how to do marbling techniques. Here are a couple of good ones that I thought were helpful if you would like to try this technique out yourself...Hand painted faux marble tutorial and Painting marble fragments.

For color, I had access to the paint used on the house and the sign. The front door is warm purple, and I like the orange accent that is on the sign and in the front hallway of the house. I found photo examples of natural marble stone with purplish veining, but it wasn't exactly what I had in mind. I actually found a better color and texture match for what I was looking for in these polished amethyst beads.

Hopefully it is ok to use this image since it credits Fire Mountain Gems and Beads.

Putting all this information together, plus 
paint and brushes for several hours on a Saturday afternoon yielded this, my first result...

It is such a joy when one of my creative experiments works!

I was thrilled, sometimes you do get projects to go right the first time! :D The only problem was when I tested putting my favorite line design over the stone texture, it didn't seem to be working very well.

Testing out ideas, another reason to like digital art tools!

It was hard for me to give up on doing the Nouveau style line-work since I had spent so much time on those designs and I really liked them! But, I do know from experience that making art is a balancing act and putting too many ideas into one art piece can overwhelm it. 

I still wanted some faux copper metal on the globe and Jeff suggested a simple band around the middle, like a holder for the stone.

I liked his suggestion, so I added one on the middle and around the base. I think it matches the line work on the sign and shows off the faux stone. Success! (Note: the small block of wood that is supposed to cover the metal rod hasn't been installed yet.

It's cool to think my art will be here long after we are gone.

Overall, I am really happy with the way this project turned out. Plus, I still have some great Nouveau designs that might come in handy another day!

>^-^<

Tina

Missed it by that much!

I love, love mixing color. I can’t wait to figure out a palette for a painting, it's like rushing to get to my favorite part of a story. I dove into this painting of a blue iris for my bedroom in that fashion, no drawing on the canvas, no blocking out, just color! Pure fun baby! That is something I love about acrylics, you can paint over them to your heart's content. No worries about getting it right the first time.

Blue Iris, palette test

Unfortunately, towards the end of getting most of the colors and shapes blocked out, I noticed that the iris wasn't fitting on my canvas how I wanted it to. The background, the left back petal and foreground petals seemed too small, the center section seemed off. What the ...? 

Color and shapes blocked onto canvas, 1st time.

I kept looking at my drawing and my canvas wondering what was wrong. Eventually, it dawned on me. In my haste to get painting, I had forgotten all about proportion! The proportional size of the drawing that I created from my reference photo didn’t match the canvas proportion! Sheez, that is usually one of the first things I check when starting a new painting and I missed it. Harrumph!

First drawing,  4.5 x 6 inches,
wrong proportion for a 16 x 20 inch canvas!

I thought it was appropriate that I posted about failure last month, since I literally had to go back to the drawing board to correct my mistake this month. I re-proportioned my drawing and added a basic grid, then re-sketched the iris on the canvas using the same grid. I was absolutely making certain that I would flip failure on it's head!

Second drawing, 4 x 5 inches

Canvas size, 16 x 20 with new grid.

Of course I was a bit annoyed, I had made a goal with this painting to be more efficient with my time. Specifically, focus more on blocking out shapes and colors before details. I have a tendency to get caught up in the little details too soon and boy, I certainly missed seeing the bigger picture this time! :D I am glad I figured it out, since I am much happier with the result. As I finished blocking out the color the second time, everything fit where it should. Hurrah!

Color mostly re-blocked in, grid almost covered.

Thankfully, it's only a painting and one that was possible to fix when the calculations were off. It's not like having your space probe crash into a planet! However, it is a good lesson to remember next time I am tempted to start building without making sure my foundations are in place!

>^-^<

Tina

Flipping Failure on it's Head

 

Well, I’ve had two months working on the 15 min. daily habit of creating. I started out pretty great, but after several weeks of success, I began to struggle a bit until suddenly I found myself in a complete crash and burn, i.e., me cheating on my creative time with a bowl of popcorn and a classic old movie on YouTube! Sigh.

 

Looking for some insight, I searched my "helpful suggestions" file and found a blog post from 2015 that I had saved from Zen Habits which gave me the exact shift in perception I needed.

 

Basically, Leo Babauta who writes Zen Habits suggests that failure is great when we start new habits because every time we experience it, we actually have real information on how to do better the next time. The good news is that the more times we fail, the more information we have to improve! How's that for flipping failure on it's head?

 

The key thing is to actually take a moment and try to figure out what is causing your failure. Make an adjustment and try again, and again, and...you get the picture. Just keep failing and fine-tuning until you create the solution that suits you. This outlook certainly takes the sting out of FAILURE for me and that is already a huge help!

 

Looking at my own experience, I can see where my habit needs some fine tuning.  For example, I recognize that for my habit to be successful, I need to adjust to spending more of my daily 15 min. in relaxing creative play rather than always trying to create or complete something. I think I will do better with a little less pressure. All I can do is adjust and try again...

 

I do think focusing on making this 15 min. daily habit has had some success too, in that it has moved creating to the top of my priority list for each day. I do get more done on my days off when I can spend a couple hours on a project, because I have moved those ideas forward in little steps the rest of the week.

 

Here's the link to Zen Habits original great article:

Fail Faster at Habits

 

& here's to learning how to flip failure on it's head!

 

>^-^<

 

Tina

But I'm so little!

"But I'm So Little!" 6"x 8" watercolor on 140lb paper, ©2017

 Setting goals are out and making new habits are in! This is the message I have distilled from many of the other blogs and articles I have read recently for tips on making 2017 a successful creative year.

I think there might be something to it. If you can make a habit of doing something regularly, you are more likely to reach the destination you want. Kind of like taking a measured number steps up a mountain you want to climb. If you can keep going, eventually you will get there.

I struggle with believing that creating for only a small amount of time daily can help me move a project forward, but I am willing to try it.  

I was really inspired by Melissa Dinwiddie's blog about committing to "small daily acts" of making art. I was completely impressed by what she was able to accomplish with a 15 minute a day commitment. For example, she created a whole body of art, 150 pieces in 2011. Wow, that blew my mind!

My "mountain top" destination is finishing my seven song album, "The Upside of Down" that I started over two years ago.  All the songs are in various stages of completion and I just need to focus and finish them. I also have art-work in mind to go with each song, so those are included with this project.

Who wants to join me? Do you have a project that is haunting you that needs completion? Can you imagine a creative way you can take a few "steps" everyday? If you want some inspiration and ideas, check out Melissa's blog and podcast here.

I would love to hear about your stalled project and what habit you plan to do daily.  I will keep you posted about mine.

Here's to finishing even more beautiful things in 2017!

>^-^<
Tina  

"But I'm so Little" 4"x 5" sketch, pencil on paper

Lost your joy?

 

"A Joyful Heart" 7"x 6" watercolor on paper ©2016

I don’t know about you, but I can get completely overwhelmed and burned out on all the horrible and ugly things going on in the world. 

“Life is pain, Highness. Anyone who says differently is selling something.”

― William Goldman, The Princess Bride

Sure we may laugh, but for years I have been secretly hoping it wasn’t true! I don’t think I am alone here. Many of us expect life to be much better than it is and then feel really upset and disappointed when our lives take unexpected turns or our fellow humans keep doing really awful things.

I admit, most of my life I have been a “cup half empty” type of person. I never realized until lately that I had this negative point of view because I was expecting life and people to be better! You would think as an amateur student of history I wouldn't be so clueless.

The irony is that finally accepting that life is often hard and painful and really difficult at some point for everyone has actually helped me feel happier. If the norm is pain and difficulty, then perhaps anything in my life that isn’t painful and difficult is beating the odds and deserves to be celebrated!

I am noticing more that even on my difficult days, I have a lot of reasons to celebrate!                                                                    

Don't get me wrong, I still believe that anything we can do to ease the pain and suffering in the world is worth doing and if I look at the big picture of history, mankind has actually made some progress.

I have also learned that being on full anxiety alert all the time isn't healthy for me or anyone else. It is necessary to regularly take a break from the hard realities and lift my own heart. 
 

"A Joyful Heart" 3"x 2.75" pen on paper sketch ©2014

One thing I like about cats is their sense of fun. They can find the most ordinary things fascinating and delightful, i.e. boxes, crumpled paper, a marble under the fridge, and the joy of joys, ornaments on a Christmas tree. They seem completely engrossed and happy in getting that shiny, swinging thing off of the tree! 

What is your shiny ornament on a Christmas tree? Have you ever thought about it?

My equivalent of batting around the Christmas tree ornaments is playing the guitar badly and singing along. Singing brings me so much joy, but the crazy thing is I often don’t do enough of it, unless I actually put in on my to do list! Ridiculous, right? 

This month I have been singing Christmas songs. I would like to leave you with this one in which I made some changes to the lyrics. 

1.     Have yourself a merry little Christmas,

        let your heart be light,

        even though our troubles are well in sight.

2.     Have yourself a merry little Christmas
        make the Yuletide gay,
        even though our troubles are here to stay.

Once again we will hold the day, each golden day is ours.
Faithful friends who are dear to us,
Will hear from us once more.

 3.   Maybe soon we all will be together,

        if the fates allow,
        until then we’ll bless the life we live somehow.
        so have yourself a merry little Christmas now!

>^-^<

Tina

My apologies to Hugh Martin who wrote the lyrics originally for the 1944 movie “Meet Me in St. Louis” starring Judy Garland. Mr. Martin claims that Ralph Blane didn't have anything to do with the lyrics...but that is another story.
 Check out the interesting history of this song on wikipedia here.

Unmotivated?

"Hide and Seek" 11" x 14" acrylic on 140lb. paper ©2016

Do you ever feel completely unmotivated? Do you feel like I did all summer, i.e. depressed and uncertain why I felt the way I did. Disappointed in yourself, and wondering why it's just easier to give up trying to do that one "creative thing" whatever it is, that you committed to do, (i.e. painting and posting regularly on your blog) but you find yourself using your spare time to watch a movie or read a book?

Do you recognize beneath that awful "stuck" feeling that you may be really discouraged and why?

Just for fun I put "why am I unmotivated" in the Google search box and eureka, among the sludge and nonsense, I struck gold.  An article by child therapist Kenneth Barish Ph.D. titled "Understanding your child's lack of motivation and effort." Here's the link to the article...

I know, I know, most of us are not kids, but what Dr. Barish had to say made sense to both my adult self and to my inner-kid-that-was. What resonated with me was this reminder that I am summarizing here in my own words...

Basically we all want to do well and feel successful when we pursue our goals, but if we can't seem to find a way to get the results we hoped for, it can lead to feeling deeply frustrated and  unmotivated to keep trying.

This simple equation said it all for me:

Motivation = having a goal + feeling that we can achieve it.

My goal...

I started this blog in hopes that I would document my path to a successful art career. I thought perhaps I could help others on the way with encouragement and sharing what I learned about creative anxiety.

+ Lack of achievement...

I had four years to try and learn how to create and run an art business and I didn't figure out how to make steady money from making art, so...

I thought I could handle a simple part-time barista job and keep up with the same level of creating art, blogging about it and building a business, but...

the reality was:
+ I was really exhausted mentally and physically when I got home from that job, especially for the first couple of months.
+ I was struggling with feelings of being a failure. What could I possibly share that would help anyone else, I certainly wasn't being successful in what I set out to do!
+ I was trying to make my first video of how I create my paintings and I found myself overwhelmed by the editing phase. I didn't have the video ready that I wanted to post, so I didn't post at all!

= Zero motivation   Stuck.

The beauty of that little equation is that it gave me a clue on how to reconsider my problem.

+Time for a goal reset.

+Time to adjust to what I can realistically achieve in the situation I am in now.

+Time to let go of complex plans and simply share what I have learned.

If you have found yourself stuck and giving yourself "lectures" for being lazy, perhaps this little reminder equation will help you too!

>^-^<
Tina

Why the title "Hide and Seek"? Underneath that sweet cat is a first painting of white orchids done from memory that I absolutely hated. I didn't even take a picture of it, but I did decide to paint over it and try again, this time with a plan in mind. I'm glad I did.

Testing colors

Final Palette

Final drawing and painting in progress.

  Trying again = Success!

Got Worry?

"Be Here Now" 5:7 digital art ©2016 

Last November, we had only been back in the USA for a month. We were staying with friends in New Mexico, we knew we were going to visit Jeff’s parents for Christmas in Oregon and then stopping to see my Uncle in California, but we had no job, no home, and no certain plans beyond that. It was so hard not to let my mind just go crazy with worry!

After two months of feeling just awful and recognizing that I really wasn't changing anything, I made a resolution to try to do something to address my worry. The first step I came up with was to focus on what my situation was that day, and what could I do to make that day really good. This one shift of mindset did help relieve some of my distress.

In January, when we were staying with one of my nieces in Arizona, I noticed a book in their spare room/office called “Stop Worrying and Start Living” by Dale Carnegie.  Curious, I picked it up and read sections here and there. I told Jeff  “I think I need this book!” It was easy to find a copy on-line and it didn’t take long to read. Like Mr. Carnegie says, the information isn’t really new, but being committed to putting the concepts into practice and being willing to change are the key part of addressing the problem of worry.

It was a real boost for me to find more suggestions and examples on how to stop the worry habit.  I thought I would share some of may favorite helpful insights that I learned.

Dale Carnegie’s five questions:

1. Do I often to put off living in the present in order to worry about the future, or to yearn for some “magical rose garden over the horizon?"
2. Do I sometimes embitter the present by regretting things that happened in the past?
3. Do I get up in the morning determined to “seize the day” to get the utmost out of these twenty-four hours?"
4. Can I get more out of life by “living in day-tight (24 hour) compartments?” 
5. When shall I start to do this? Next week? Tomorrow? Today?

 

Willis H. Carrier “A Magic Formula for solving worry situations"

1. Ask yourself, what is the worst that can possibly happen?
2. Prepare to accept it if you have to.
3. Calmly proceed to improve on the worst.

(Aha! An actual useful direction to take when I am awake at night imagining the worst!)
 

Herbert E. Hawkes, former Dean of Columbia College, Columbia University.

“Confusion is the chief cause of worry”…”Half the worry in the world is caused by people trying to make decisions before they have sufficient knowledge on which to base a decision." 
 

I hadn't thought of it that way, that not getting all the facts could add to my worry.
 

Three basic steps of problem analysis:

1. Get the facts.
2. Analyze the facts.
3. Arrive at a decision and then act on that decision.

I like that Mr. Hawkes added to this that you are not allowed to wallow in regret if your well thought-out choice still doesn't work out how you wanted. Disappointment in how our 4 year plan to improve our work/living situation was unfolding was one of the thoughts that was really causing me pain. I needed that reassurance that it wasn't necessary to shame yourself when you have done your best to make a good choice. We all learn through imperfect choices.
 

We often get stuck when we only pay attention to the facts that justify our desires.

“Everything that is in agreement with our personal desires seems true. Everything that is not puts us into a rage.”  Andre Maruois 

Boy, isn't that the truth, and this mind-set can get us stuck in more aspects of life than worrying too much!

The rest of the story...

In March, Jeff was offered a job with the Forest Service for the summer! We finally had a place to go and a way to earn money and I found a part-time job too!  There have been some difficulties, but all in all, life’s been good! 

October is looming ahead of us though, and the uncomfortable worry thoughts are stirring again. Through thinking about why I do what I do, I've concluded that my worst worry inducing habit is predicting the future. I have proof that my predictions are often not accurate. For example, last winter when I thought we had few options to hope for, places for us to stay and help that I  never imagined as possible appeared one by one, like stepping stones, through the kindness of family and friends.

Reminder: I am not a fortune teller!  

I also resist letting go of the good I have today for fear I will never have it again. Somehow I have a belief that there is a limited supply of good for me. I have already experienced that this isn't true by living in so many places, and in so many different situations, and they all have had something worthwhile for me to enjoy. 

Reminder: Focusing on "not enough" is stressful and often not true.

Even with these thoughts in mind, I absolutely needed to review what I learned this winter and it helps me to put my thoughts into words to share.  I hope it will help some of you too, my kind readers. 

One last favorite quote: 

“Our main business is not to see what lies dimly ahead, but to do what lies clearly at hand” Thomas Carlyle  1871

I am not perfect at eliminating this worry habit yet, but I am certainly more aware of what I can do to worry less and live more. Sometimes something as simple as just walking around the block several times can help lift the worry vise off my mind!

>^-^<  

Tina 

p.s. Copies of the artwork "Be Here Now" that was inspired by my Worry-Less Resolution this year are available at Fine Art America. Click here to visit my FAA page