Procrastination (part 2): Persevere and Prevail

December 19th, 2012: A lesson in Perseverance   

     A couple of weeks ago I told you I was not going to give up. That failure was NOT an option when it came to creating a painting for my in-laws. This week I came to the realization that Christmas is less then a week away and the "big one" was still sitting in my bedroom untouched. I have had zero motivation to paint these past few weeks but I NEEDED to get off my lazy butt and get it done because if I didn't start this week it wasn't going to get done at all (I'm already nervous it wont dry in time for our gift exchange). So reluctantly I pulled out my oils, sketched on canvas and reference material, turned on the holiday music (hoping it would put me in a merrier mood), and got to work.

1) Painting is substantially more difficult when one has to stop every few minuets to keep tabs on a very mobile baby. Lil E decided yesterday that he was going to be a handful and get into EVERYTHING. So the first half of the work, which was the most difficult part, took almost twice as long to complete.

2) Painting is substantially more difficult when there is a lack of motivation to do any sort of art project.

3) Painting is substantially more difficult where there is a Law & Order: SVU marathon on T.V.

 After 3 hours this is what I had accomplished:

If I never paint another rock in my life it'll be too soon

 

At this point Lil E went down for a nap and I got significantly more accomplished. After a few more hours I breathed a sigh of relief. I could officially say I was DONE.

I stood back and took a nice long look and decided it wasn't full of crap. Like, not at all. I was actually PROUD of what I had just accomplished. My hope is that Fiancé's parents like it and will be equally as proud to hang it on their wall.

 

The Finished Product- Chimney Rock, Priest Lake, ID:

 

The color is just a touch off because of the poor lighting in the house and the stupidness of my camera flash

 

Now everyone cross your fingers it dries in time for me to frame it for Christmas!!

 





Procrastination and failure

Monday, December 3rd: A Lesson In Failure

I am a procrastinator. I have gotten every other art project done for Christmas gifts except one. The one I've been dreading. Logic would suggest to do the "big one" first and get it out of the way. Logic and I have been battling for the past 3 months. So instead of sitting down with my oils and brushes to do the "big one,"  I did all the fun, little holiday projects instead. Before I get too far ahead of myself, Let me start from the beginning...

Last year my soon-to-be mother-in-law commissioned me to do a painting for her. It is to be a painting of  Chimney Rock large enough to fit over the fireplace at the family cabin. I reluctantly said yes and have been putting it off for over a year now. I have 2 main issues with this piece of artwork. 1) it is large. I have never painted anything bigger then 11x14 so to look at a canvas that is 16x20 or large is daunting. That is a lot of white space to cover up.
2) Painting mountains is not a difficult task compared to other types of landscapes...painting Chimney Rock however is a challenge. I don't normally like to paint from photographs because I feel artistically restricted and obligated to make my painting look exactly like the picture. It NEVER turns out looking like the picture...ever. However, to make the Chimney Rock Painting look like Chimney Rock I have to paint Chimney Rock. I know that didn't make a whole lot of sense. In other words I need to paint from a photograph with as much accuracy as possible so I don't make Chimney Rock look like just another mountain. Its the focal point of the entire piece so I better get it right. That's a lot of pressure...pressure I've put on myself, but still. I have a fear of disappointing my "clients."

A month or so ago, after a 2 small scale and failed trial runs I sat down to take on this terrifying task with my over sized canvas, oils, and brushes and began to paint. I finished "a" painting but it wasn't "the" painting. I stood back and looked at my masterpiece and realized it sucked. Not just a little but a whole lot of suckage. Suckity, suck, suck, sucked. I scrapped it and vowed to start over. I decided the photograph I was using that I took this past summer was one of the main problems. It was a photo of Chimney Rock and the Selkirk Mountains from across the lake. The Rock was set in the background of Priest Lake and the mountains and forested hills that surrounded it sort of took away from the focal point. After scouring the Internet, family pictures, and personal pictures of that damn Rock, I pieced them together and sketched it out onto a fresh canvas. Where it has sat...for a month.

 

 Trial on canvas paper attempt #1. Apparently I forgot how to paint mountains.



 

Trail on canvas paper #2. Not AS bad but still full of suck.









Okay. Here it is. The reason I am starting over from scratch. 16x20. It. Is. Crap.

 

The new "big one" will be a totally different angle. It is a look from atop the ridge to the side of Chimney Rock as opposed to the view from across the lake.

I have failed at this 3 times now. If the 3rd time is a charm, what is the 4th time?

I refuse to give up

Wish me luck....I'm gunna need it.

 

The lull between projects

I've finished some projects this past week but I'm not ready to publish them yet so I thought I'd share with you one of my passions
painting.
One of my fondest memories growing up was going to my grandmas house and watching her paint. She paints with oils, draws with pencil, charcoal and pastels, and she even used to own a ceramic shop. She is a true artist. I remember walking with my sisters and cousins to her ceramic shop and collecting the broken or discarded pieces of clay and using them as chalk on the sidewalk outside her store. My sisters and I used to paint a ceramic ornament to put our school picture in each year for the Christmas tree (one day I'm hoping to steal these little treasures from my mother for my own tree).

When I was about 10yrs old or so my grandmother decided to give my little sister, my cousin, and I a few painting lessons and I believe it was at this moment my view on art changed drastically. I developed a whole new respect for grandma because being an artist was hard...
like REALLY hard.
I learned all things worth doing are difficult and the pride in the outcome is worth all the frustration and struggle.

This is my first painting...ever (notice the sloppy 4th grader cursive handwriting). I remember Grandma holding my hand in hers and guiding my brush strokes until I got it just right. She taught me how to hold a paint brush correctly and her voice still echos in my brain to this day when I pick up a brush: "stop holding it like a pencil Missy."

This is the second painting I did. I was 11 or 12 yrs old at the time (notice I gave up on the cursive). There are far less "examples" and far more of my own brush strokes by now and in just a few lessons my ability to paint leaves improved drastically. My cherries however, look like apples. Perspective...something I still struggle with to this day.

By the time I was 14 or 15 I was on my own. Grandma gave me the basic skills to do the job and it was all on me to use my creativity and knowledge to create a masterpiece. I chose a purple rose. This is the painting I am the most proud of. This is the first piece of art I did 100% on my own. Grandma was always there to offer some guidance but all brush strokes belonged to me. I entered this into the fair and won first place. It was a very happy moment.

I did one more painting when I was a teenager and then packed up my brushes, paint, and creativity to focus on high school and choir and family and life.

After a long hiatus I started up again when I was 22yrs old. After completing my first painting in what seemed like an eternity I realized I forgot to apply 90% of what grandma taught me. 

It was a horrible piece of artwork

Back to square one.

After re-teaching myself much of what I was taught 10 years prior (and a few "I don't know what I'm doing" pleas to Grandma) I finally got it down.

Please excuse the poor photo quality on some of these (please note these are NOT in chronological order):

Sunset

Midnight at the park

Fjord



Study

My first painting using acrylics

Hibiscus

coffee beans.

Brooklyn Bridge experiment
using Gesso

Summer Stream

Morning Sky

I've learned that there is beauty in everything...its all around us. Its hard to see at times because our view is shaddowed, darkened, and narrowed by lifes unexpected trials and tribulations. By opening our eyes and finding the right collor pallet, the beauty around us shines through even the darkest of times.

I stopped painting again when I got pregnant with Lil E. Apparently inhaling Oil paints and paint thinner is bad for fetal development (pout). Now that Lil E is here I have a list of painting projects that will last me for years. I better get started before I forget how to paint again :)

DIY Painted Glassware

So last weekend I decided I wanted to do an art project.
Then I remembered I'm not very creative so I scoured the internet looking for ideas. I wanted to do something that seemed easy and was cheap as I didnt want to spend a ton of money on a complete failure of a project. I found a TON of websites about handpainting wine glasses. I thought to myself, "I'm artistic I can do this!" and "I oil paint on canvus, how much more difficult could this possibly be!?"
*SIGH*
I realized with my first brush stroke that I have unusually shakey hands and cannot draw a striaght line for the life of me. This is very bad for detail work and fine lines. The following is my not so handy work:

SUPPLIES:

I taped my picture to the inside of the glass and (tried to) trace the picture with the enamel paint. After cussing numorous times and wiping it clean to start over twice I finally (sort of) got to right. Once it dried I followed the directions on the paint bottle which was to put the glass in a COLD oven and heat to 350 degrees. Bake for 30 min and then let the glass cool off in the oven. These are now dishwasher safe :)







THE FINISHED PRODUCTS:

They are Flip Flops...Not my best artwork for sure