New Visual Journaling Class being offered.

I'm floating an idea to see if it resonates with folks - because my Visual Journaling class filled so quickly, I am thinking about offering another, daytime, one if there are enough folks interested in taking it.  It would meet Tuesday mornings 10 - 12:30 for six weeks in my studio on Southside Richmond.  We'd spend the first 2-3 weeks making the journal itself, then the rest of the time filling it by playing/doing exercises/experimenting, etc.  If you think you might be interested, get in touch with me.  We'd start next week and go through 10/23!  (I can only take 6 folks due to the size of my studio, so register right away if you're interested.)  There's more info about the class itself on my website.

Artist's Magazine Finalist!

I just got some very exciting news.  My self portrait, "Yes, this is me." has been chosen as a finalist in the Portraits/Figures category of The Artist's Magazine 29th Annual Art Competition.  It'll be published in the December 2012 edition.  It's the first time my work has been accepted in a national arts magazine.  It makes me smile with glee!

I have submitted work to The Artist's Magazine and Pastel Journal before, at $15 a pop - it ain't cheap - and haven't had work accepted before, so I was a bit skeptical about trying again, but I decided to try anyway.  I'm so happy that they chose my piece.

The portrait is done in pastels over top of an oil painting with a very active surface - that's why it has an unusual texture.  I've used the technique a couple of times and like how it works.  The painting is done from a photograph my husband Chris took of me one night when I was trying to get some images to paint from.

I do art because I have to - it's how my brain processes the world - it takes information in as images or feelings or thoughts or facts or whatever and spits it back out as images created in paint or graphite or whatever else.  I didn't use to be an artist - had no clue that I was - but now that I've realized that's who I am, the world feels very different.  I recognize that this is how I fit into the world.  I can comprehend the world better once I've processed it through expression on the page (sometimes in words, but I think more effectively in images).  When I'm having strong feelings, I turn to the easel.  When I see something I am not familiar with, I paint or draw it to learn about it.  When I want to fully understand a concept, I conceptualize it visually and it becomes clear. 


One sure sign I'm an artist is because if I don't do something creative on a given day, I end up feeling very grumpy and irritable.  My kids lovingly suggest I might want to spend some time in the studio to help me feel better when I get like that.  It virtually always works!

Another sign is that when I go on vacation and have nothing I have to do, I pull out my art supplies and play.  When we were at the beach a few months ago and I was done in, exhausted, and wanted nothing more than to sleep and read and relax, I felt compelled by the beauty outside of the window to draw it!  I set up the easel right away and began drawing.  And it filled my soul and took away my exhaustion and fatigue.

I am so thankful to be able to live my life as an artist, doing what I feel so compelled to do.  It is a rich blessing.

My Freudian phase

For the fourth image I was working on last week, I tried to incorporate Lucien Freud's style.  What I like about Freud's work is the utter humanity in it.  His paint surfaces are thick and groddy with lots of grey in them.  I never use grey.  I avoid grey!  Freud's studio is a horrible mess with rags and globbed paint and dirt all over the place.  I try to keep mine neat and clean and tidy so I can find everything, and I have to clearn up and organize before starting a new picture each time.  Freud's studio looks like he's never done that.  I feel sorry for his models who lie on piles of rags or a ragged bed or sofa.  I don't judge it so much as I'm aware I would be very uncomfortable being there!  But I LOVE his paintings.  There is a raw strength in them that comes from both the presence of the painted surface and from the presence of the models in his work.  He works from life and spends 100's of hours on each piece.  He models the surface almost like a sculptor with clay.

When I decided to study his work and to try to emulate aspects of his style, I realized several things - my paint had to be lots thicker; I had to use grey; I couldn't use many colors; I had to put on more layers than I'm used to, in much thicker paint.

I mixed up a pallette of colors and literally put dirt and chalk into them to thicken them and dry them out.  I also mixed up an achromatic grey using black and white.  I had never painted with black before.  I still didn't use it directly, but it certainly is in all the colors I used.  The first part I started to paint was the leg.  I had some lovely layers on it and was feeling good about it when Thomas came up, globbed on about an inch of paint on a flat brush and applied it crudely to the canvas - "No!  Now that's more like it!"  Ugh!  He ruined my pretty picture!  AND, admittedly, (pout), made my picture more powerful because I had to bring it all up to that level.  Now the leg looks like you see it on the right - it looks like I put clay on the canvas and made the darn thing 3-D.  I don't find it appealing and don't want to paint this way in general, but it's an outstanding exercise for learning what the possibilities are.  I would otherwise NEVER glob so much paint on!  Ugly!!

I finished the rest of the model's lower body similarly with lots of paint.  It felt freeing to glob the paint on and to let it be so ugly.  I didn't worry about messing up because I knew I could cover it in another layer with more paint.  That gave me a sweet freedom to experiment with colors and shading I might not have done otherwise.

That took me through the end of the morning.  In the afternoon, I began on her upper body.  Thomas wasn't around so much, so I drifted back somewhat to my more normal way of painting.  The paint is smoother, but I still worked with the colors more like I perceive him to.  I used grey and found that to be quite powerful.  I upped the amps on the colors to a certain extent the way Jenny Saville did, so sort of began to combine what I'd learned from both artists.

I think this upper part is more the way I'll try to paint in my next piece: considerably thicker paint, stronger color, bolder choices, more trust of the paint.  I'm realizing I have the skills now to render what I want to.  Now that I can do that, I can begin to experiment more and use my skills to explore other things.  The skills are there.  I can count on them and can begin to see just what it's possible to do with paint.