SUNDAY SKETCHES - Children

From another fiverr gig comes this request to draw two charcoal children to be used as a computer background. A neat idea!

I relived how fiendishly hard it is to create a true likeness of someone, especially from a photo. For some reason, it was harder from a photo than from real life!

THis will be my Sunday Sketches submission for the day

cheers!

Fun Creativity questions

fun questions found at Harmony Thoughts

I’m most creative when: when the sun goes down - up until 3 or 4 am. Most creative, most productive, etc. Don't ask me why...
If I were a color, I’d be: dunno...? prob. red bc I like it so much. plus the Chinese think it's good luck
I often imagine myself: traveling around with no fixed address - I dunno, just having that sort of job - and only 3 possessions. Or living in a small,white, minimalist apartment with only 7 belongings - or living off the land in a farm-type environment, with lots of people and gardens. Austerity really appeals to me, though it doesn't currently fit my temperament or lifestyle!
I really wish I knew how to: be more in the world re. interactions with others and benefitting financially from talents/skills and having a place in society
I’d love to spend a lazy Sunday: at an art museum full of old masters' works and modern art greats. haven't gone in a long long while
My secret talent is: I can write two separate thoughts at the same time, one with my left hand, one with my right

PPF - boats, Turner, and Kickstarter Campaign

Am linking this to Paint Party Friday - though it is a piece I finished a while ago, it is one of a series of 90 I intend to create - if I could receive funding.

To say this fundraising process has ruined my life is probably a little extreme, but it has been one of the more unpleasant experiences of my life. I don't think I will ever try this again.

I utterly despise bugging others to notice what I do, let alone ask for funds. The timing was horrific, coming just weeks after Xmas and a lot of people were going through some bad stuff in the process. And there's a lot of back end I just did not do to ensure a success.

But I have gotten other things, such as belonging in a fun online community of artists ('kickstarted' by my desire to draw traffic to the thing, but in essence its own reward), and the chance to produce some video or other. I also had the chance to craft an A - to - Z artists proposal project.

So saying, since I don't particularly have anything much more remunerative going on, I will continue pushing this thing till the bitter end.


http://kck.st/tC9jLX

I only have ten days to fund it. As you can see, it's a marathon painting process. I intend to paint 90 Turner reproductions in 90 days, starting mid February, if I can receive funding.

Some interesting tidbits:

• already have had 2 local media mentions (Madison County, NC)
• have received an interesting friendly email from the Tate Museum, regarding the project
• have a private investor stating his willingness to front $1,000 if I can manage to raise the rest. So, in the end, all I really need is to raise $2,000 to make my dream come true!

So, please, if you thought supporting the arts in this very tangible way - above all the great things you already do - please consider making a small donation to my campaign. Or, if you know any person or institution who might find my project interesting, please send it along to them.

I have also updated the video, since I got feedback that it was waaaaaaay too long. So everybody please go take a look.

Sunday Sketches - micro comission

Appropriately timed for Sunday Sketches, here is a micro commission for a site called fiverr that I did for some people.

The fun of charcoal is that it allows many depths of expression with little colour, which is fun for me since I tend to go for the exceedingly oversaturated look re. my colour pallete.

Another fun part is finding is looking a bit like a chimney sweeper afterwards, what with all the charcoal all over the place!

All please peruse the other great entries on Sunday Sketches. Another week of creativity in action.

Paint Party Friday - Sad House

paint party friday - tempera

I don't know why the house is sad - poss. because it's the dark moon and I am sad, because all I wanted has failed to come to pass and it's pretty much my fault, my doing, etc. And because it takes so long to paint a simple painting and then you might not be happy with it. Or just because it resembles some of the sad houses, abandoned, in the area. A mix between a barn and a house, not having seen inhabitants for ages. Also 'sad' due to 'blue', and the blueness of it, which denotes the sad.

Anyway - this was all tempera on paper - with some acrylic thrown in for good measure. I saw some people utilize cool background effects and I tried for that.

I have used this method before - same paints, then epoxy resin and cardboard/sheetrock back. Lasts forever and looks insanely cool. The difference is astounding between the re epoxy and post epoxy as can be seen here

Creative Tuesday - Capricorn chews gum

Seem a fitting whimsical drawing for saying goodbye to Capricorn in a day or so - though the astrologically inclined might quickly point out that Sagitarrius is actually the half-man, half-beast. I tend to see the satyr figure, with its direct relation to goats, as falling more in the realm of Capricorn.

To find the hardworking, ever-serious Cappy in such a playful, time-wasting mood may seem weird until one remembers that towards the end of the sign, he starts to relax somewhat, looking forward to more freedom and airiness of the following sign (hence the bubble)

This actually was inspired by Creative Tuesdays theme: bubble gum. More can be seen here: http://creativetuesdays.blogspot.com/2012/01/bubblegum-50.html

Soul Challenge - Andanza

The Animus & the Anima, riding in on horseback

This painting, which Elis Regina and her heraldic Andanza helped create, seemed to me the perfect candidate for a "Soul Challenge".


All my life Brazil has called to me as a primary receptacle of what one might call 'soul'. The music, in particular - and the few times I managed to visit, there was something in the air, the people, the way skyscrapers clung to the seascape, the vast diversity of people, electricity everywhere, the giant butterflies, the portentous weight of humidity - but especially the music. Brazil has duende, Elis has duende, and duende is 'soul'.

Something of proudly forging ahead on a trusty horse (the physical body, or vehicle), through shadowy, uncertain, swampy grounds (real life), looking out for friendly guides and co-travelers (the animals various), and never forgetting those shadowy hungry things that follow us (cloud person), we, the brave riders (as soul on the horse), can find our brave and epic passage through life.

Whee!

Sunday Sketches - stumbling onto online art co-ops

Sometime around 11pm last night, my internet spazzed out. I fought with it for an hour or so, then gave up.

Here I was at 1am with no internet! What was I supposed to do?

Seeing as I can never honestly get to sleep much before 3am, I decided to look at some old sketchbooks, recalling the days when I spent more time with pencil and paper than the electronic beast. I started with the bug, which led to the tree, which led to the... etc

So here it is - the first freeform sketch I've done in at least a year.

I have a dear friend on this blog who has indirectly introduced me to artists' blogs (due to her lively comments life), and I have, the past few days, become interested in what other artists do online. I have no idea why it never occurred to me to do this sooner - let's just say there's heaps of things that reasonable people do that don't easily occur to me.

But it's fun! And even more fun are the art co-ops, a very Aquarian modality of artists getting together to pool resources of creativity and support, and create a venue for structure, deadlines, and light critique - all things dearly missing to anyone blessed enough to have spent time in an arts learning institution.

So, here a list of some of these fine art co-ops

• Sunday Sketches
• Creative Tuesdays
• Paint Party Fridays
• Monthly Challenges at Blogland
• Sweet Saturdays
  

So, I took out my old sketchbook, looked at that tree thing that emerged last night, and decided "why not? it was sketched on a Sunday, after all." So I added the type a few minutes ago, and presto. Instant Sunday Sketch.

The interesting part is that the THEMATIC so clearly resembles the thematic of the SS blog button - entirely unintentional - I had not seen it till a good 10 hours after sketching the above. Interesting, eh?

---------

When i first set out to sketch, period, I was a little nervous, i guess. It's been 2 years since I habitually sketched something - no matter what it was, on pen, pencil and paper - that I wondered if I had somehow 'lost it'. At that point in time I used to go out in public and sketch people, a lot. I have 2 or 3 journals of live people sketches in various poses - not all of them good, but yes serving to keep a hand in the whole live figure rendering process.

Having a weekly process such as this might well be the thing to get me back into that vibe, which I wonder why I got off in the first place.

on CREATING vs PROMOTING

I had launched my Kickstarter campaign, which did real well for a few days, then...nada. Part of this is reasonable - have managed to neglect this campaign for some days due to

• holiday cheers & events during the New Year - visiting with peeps in the mountains
  
• finishing a painting that was actively commissioned (which I was paid for - yay!)
  
• becoming involved in a different funding appeal involving non profit work
  
• putting up a photo show in Brevard, NC
• learning how to edit audio and thus cut my first-ever CD of poetry reading + music (inquire for further details)
  
• seeking other opps for income/creativity/etc

It seems interesting to me that I would rather

• spend 40 hours + learning some new iteration of Final Cut software and audio editing, foraging through endless audio files and cutting a CD - for no reasonable monetary expectation
  
• framing and mounting 30 photographs and schlepping them to a cafe in Brevard - for only the flimsiest hopes of sales
  
• Interact with folks in a Psychic Network so as to be a reader for them for 41 cents an hour (a throwback to a previous lifetime for me as an itinerant Tarot reader in the streets of Los Andes)
• Follow through on another specious lead re. Spanish English interpreting work in local hospitals
• read, write, and otherwise interact with different blogs, podcasts, etc on subject matters as diverse as New Atheism and Time Management
• have my own homegrown version of a designer sweatshop through producing flyers on fiverr.com for the princely sum of $5
• play Solitaire
• vacuum the living room, rearrange the kitchen cupboards, and back up my harddrive

than work on promoting a Kickstarter campaign.

To be honest, though I'd be more than thrilled to have this campaign succeed, I don't see how it's going to happen. Mainly because I just don't have enough of what one might call 'friends', I suppose - both in the airy-fairy Web 2.0 sense and in the 'let's meet up at the pub and hash it out' sense. But probably more due to the extreme detestation I have for anything that demands this 'PR bullshit mode' from me.

My strong suit in life has always been to CREATE, not to PROMOTE - and due to a naturally self-reliant, skeptical, introverted sort of identity, social integration is and has always been a real handicap for me. In fact, I have always felt this unbridgeable dichotomy in my life between PRODUCTIVITY/SELF FULFILLMENT and SOCIAL LIFE - where the few times I've been actively engaged in what I might call a social life it's been through an experience of pointless, trivial dissipation - idle chatter and booze. I find it all very entertaining for its own sake, but it is a place where productivity and creativity cannot happen.

Now, though i DO have encountered the sorts of silly butterflies (IE in art school, jobs, elsewhere) who were so successful in their little social lives due to compromising the solo time and discipline needed to really hone a craft - and who thus had an opposite life experience to mine , I also understand that many people (and 90% of the successful ones, really, in any ambit) are the ones who have created a nice balance between CREATION and PROMOTION -

Where PROMOTING, of course, involves participating, thriving and really contributing to the sorts of social lubrication which fall under the umbrella of a SOCIAL LIFE - something which, to me, takes my time away from things i personally find more interesting and fulfilling.

I'm not really sure why I thought that Kickstarter (which fundamentally REQUIRES fundees have a huge, lively, and enrolled social network) would actually WORK for me due to this - it almost seems like I was indulging in magical thinking.

Nevertheless, I DO believe in my artistic process and product, which was the fundamental reason I set out to do this. I have in addition received enough positive feedback re. my output to fuel my desire to do this thing. But what's really lacking is an entryway into a larger audience, the kind who would also enroll enough in this project to fund this thing. And... that's something I'm just not good at.

And it's not like I'm this big misanthropist luddite hermit taking some principled stand against all of society - far from it. I am happy to interact with others at any level. For the sake of the 2.8 people who will actually READ this ever, and who may not know me, I can be OK and fun to be around. I'm willing to learn, and be taught, how better to participate in society and life. I enjoy the few friends and networks I participate in. It's just that I don't often care to interact more - and this NOT CARING usually comes at the intersection of a social moment where I'm confronted with others' indifference, open enmity, or the necessity to compete or prove myself in some way - IE all those trolls at the gate that would allow for ENTRY into some social realm or other - and my response tends to be, I DON"T CARE. From the 2nd grade on I have honed a strong response of SCREW YOU - you won't play with me - I actually have bettter things to do. And I usually do - and have. Ever since. And though some could say 'it's a long road from the 2nd grade to 33' I remain unconvinced. Experiences in Kickstarter and everything else (even simple job application) demonstrates to me that all learning, all knowledge, creativity, fire dies at the gates of social isolation. But I DO understand that at some pt a sentient being needs to relearn coping mechanisms - that 6-year-old social techniques don't serve one in later life.

So, in the end, I see only 3 real solutions to this conundrum:

1. either I will be born into a new, more social, winning modality at some point or for whatever reason,

2. one unexpected day my work will speak for itself

3. I will learn to hunker down in whatever minute corner of reality i can occupy, barely making it but basically content, until I meet a bleak, unsung, impoverished end.

sounds pretty bleak, but hell, that's life! I'm still better off than most, and probably have more fun - albeit in my weird -o, socially irrelevant, loner, creative way - than many.

Happy new year!