On to adulthood

I few posts ago I showed you picture of an "adolescent"painting still in its ugly awkward phase (click here to see). Here's the finished painting, all ready to be delivered to its new home. 

T.J.'s Winter, oil on copper

I'm so proud to have been able to usher it on to adulthood.  ;-)

T.J.'s Winter, detail

Drastic Measures had to be taken

New Beginnings and New Beginnings II

You may remember this picture of two of my paintings at the Birmingham Art Association juried show from this post and I told you here of some of the struggles I had with New Beginnings. However, I don't think I ever shared with you the kinda scary measures I had to take to complete New Beginnings II.  

I was having a REALLY hard time getting the shape of the egg right. It was turned at a sort of awkward angle and I just couldn't quite get the curve. One of the things I love about painting is that pretty much everything is fixable. Just paint over it! This time, though, more extreme measures had to be taken. I felt the need for a clean start in that area (a "new beginning," Ha!). So, I sanded it down. Yep! It was a little scary. Look below-

Sorry for the kinda awful photos. My husband had the good camera with him. Do you see the really shiny halo around the egg? That's where I sanded it back down to the bare aluminum. Then I turned both the painting and my reference photo upside down (a good little trick to turn off that voice in your head that says, "An egg looks like this,").

                                                 

I've written a lot about letting your paintings go through their ugly stage and not giving up on them prematurely (see this post and this post, for example). In this case, it just took a little more extreme parental involvement!

New Beginnings

 Hi all! I was excited to see some of you at the show the other night at Parkside. It was a really fun night- good turnout, relaxing evening. All in all I'd call it a success!

A couple of posts ago I showed you an area of a painting that I had to just leave alone for a while. However, I never did show you the finished painting! Here it is!

New Beginnings I

And here is a companion piece:

New Beginnings II

These are actually kind of big paintings for me. I typically work rather small (around 10"x10" size). These are both 20"x24" inches. I really enjoyed doing some bigger work, however, and I think I'm going to continue experimenting with size and scale.

Nesting

Nesting 10"x10"
Oil on metal

At long last here it is, my latest painting depicting a tiny speckled egg nestled in a what I imagined I would use for a nest if I were a mama bird held, of course, in a silver bowl.

Bi-State Art Competition

Shine
5"x7"
Oil on Brass

I am excited to announce that two of my paintings, Bright Idea and Shine have been accepted to the 39th annual Bi-State Art Competition at the Meridian Museum of Art.

Bright Idea
12"x12"
Oil on Copper

Currently they are on their way to Meridian. Please join me in wishing them good luck, God speed, and safe travels!

You may remember Bright Idea from my series of "work-in-progress" posts. You were a part of its birth and development! Now don't you feel proud of our little painting going out on its own? ;-)

Shiny things

Here's a quick study of the little nesting metal canisters I unearthed in my messy studio

Something borrowed

As I was attempting to organize my studio the other day (is this an ongoing battle for anyone else?) I ran across this super cool... thing (not sure what to call it) that I borrowed a year ago from my dear friend (and awesome artist) Mary Liz Ingram with the intention of painting it.

Sorry Mary Liz! I will return it as soon as possible. But first, doesn't this just HAVE to be immortalized in a work of art? Look at those reflections! Here for your viewing pleasure (and because I couldn't help myself) are a few more shots of that delicious shine. 

Everyday Beauty: Cup of tea

What caught my eye today:

 And my quick study interpretation of it (from a slightly different angle).

I especially love the reflections in the spoon, of course. You know me!

Work in Progress Finished- Take 2!

Oops, I lied. In my last post I told you that Bright Idea, my work in progress that you have watched me finish step-by-step, was done. However, the more I looked at it, the more I felt that something was missing. Let's play the "What's different?" game.
Here's the "finished" painting that I showed you in the last post:

And here it is now:

Do you see it? It's not the bolder color. Sorry, that was a photography error on my part. The second photo is truer to the actual painting. Look again. It's subtle and tiny, but I think that it makes a big difference. Do you give up?

It's the filament inside the lightbulb. I left it out on purpose originally because, though my work is classified as realism, I purposefully don't make it exact or photorealistic. That's where creative license comes in. Like I said, though, the more I looked at it, the more I realized it NEEDED the filament. My husband (and art critic in the best sense of the term) agreed. 

That's what I love about painting. No mistake is totally permanent. Some take more work than others, but everything is fixable. it's nice to have an area of life that's so forgiving. 

What do y'all think? Do you agree that the filament was a necessity? Have you ever thought something was finished and then revamped it? Maybe even totally. I'd love to see or hear about it!

To see the full journey from start to finish, check it out, here,  here, here, here, here, and here (in that order).

Work in progress: Movin' right along!

Thanks to my wonderful baby getting on a nap-time routine, I've really made some progress on Bright Idea. I've decided that in a weird way working around baby girl's schedule has actually made me a little more disciplined. I know that I only have an hour to paint and I get right to work rather than letting other stuff get in my way and distract me. Here's how it looked my last post:

The next time I painted I mainly focused HERE: 

And here it is now:

I think all I have to do is figure out those silly corners that are giving me such trouble. Any tips anyone?

Work in progress- Day 2- First coat finished

Obviously, I finished the first coat- it's always my least favorite coat, however it also goes the fastest. I don't get to really get lost in the colors and details of the painting during this coat, though, because it's all about mapping it out generally. Plus, since I work on metal, I can't get too detailed with the first coat just because the surface is still so slippery. Now the fun part :)

Work in progress- Day 1 "Work past the ugly"

My friend Sunny Carvalho took a class once from a woman who kept reminding her students that "ya gotta work past the ugly." That has become my mantra because most paintings, especially the ones that turn out well, have at least one point where you look at them and go, "What am I doing? This looks terrible!" As visual artists, I think it's really easy to immediately cast a work of art aside when it gets to that stage, whether it's because we're afraid to proceed, embarrassed for others to see the ugly stage, or because we don't know that even the most beautiful of swans has to spend some time as an ugly duckling.

I started a new painting today and currently, it looks pretty awful. I've come to expect that, though. However, its ugliness inspired me to share the many life phases of my paintings with you. So, here it goes!

Day 1: I drew an outline in pencil of where the main objects and reflections of the painting would be, however I didn't take a picture (it probably wouldn't have shown up anyway). So, we'll skip just to the painting part. I didn't quite finish the first coat, but above is what I got done today.

Not lookin' great, huh? The prettiest part of the painting currently is the copper which has yet to be painted. Be patient, though. It'll get there. I'll be posting in-progress pictures of the painting in the next few posts and we'll see how it turns out. In the meantime, take it easy on yourselves. If you're working on something that just doesn't seem to be flowing, remember, "Ya gotta work past the ugly."

I confess I have been quite distracted and unproductive lately. I don't know if it's due to summer, pregnancy brain (we just found out we're having a girl), or what, but I vow this week to get back track. I've done pretty well so far and, I must say, I feel better when I'm productive.

When I was a little girl my Memaw gave me a tiny brass vase. I didn't really think about or notice it much growing up, however it is in my mental snapshots of every place I've ever lived- from my childhood bookcase, to teenage dresser, to college dorm desk, to my current spare room studio.  It's held a wide array of flowers from remnants of bouquets to weeds that I thought were pretty. It makes me happy. I know it's just a vase, but I like that it's been with me so long. I like the millions of different colors I see in it. And I love who gave it to me.

Recently my little vase has found its way into my art. I have wondered if I should polish it, but I like that if you look closely there are millions of fingerprints on it. I wonder if I would see all the reds, greens, and lavenders in it if I cleaned it up. So, I think for now I like it just the way it is. My sturdy, loyal, little vase. 

Life is just a bowl of... doorknobs?

Bowl o' Doorknobs

I don't know if I've mentioned it before, but I have a degree in counseling and worked at Mitchell's Place here in Birmingham as a one-on-one behavioral therapist for children with autism for a few years. I have also led social skills groups for teenagers with autism and Asperger's  syndrome as well as taught art classes to children and adults with various developmental disabilities. I'm telling you all this because I think that working with this population has had a profound impact not only on my art, but also in how I view the world in general. 

One of the hallmarks of the autism spectrum is a tendency to notice and be caught up in small details rather than the big picture. For example, it's not unusual to see a child with autism staring transfixed at the way the wheels move on a toy car rather than driving the car around, crashing into other cars, etc like his or her classmates. While it's important that the child learns to socialize and take part in what his or her peers are doing, I think there's also something to be learned from that attention to detail.

I don't know whether I learned to notice things like the way light shines on a brass doorknob or the way reflections change when you move your head the slightest degree from working with individuals with autism or if perhaps I already looked at the world that way and that's part of why I'm so drawn to that population. Whichever came first, I'm glad that I can get distracted by such everyday things. There are too many beautiful details in the world around us that we forget to notice.
So look around you. Notice the spiderweb right outside your kitchen window or the way your shadow looks distorted and alien. Notice the cool, pink light cast on the counter when the sun shines through a glass of juice or the way the dining room looks reflected in the bowl of your spoon. Go ahead. Be amazed.