Sail Away

There hasn't been a lot of art making happening in my studio lately, instead there has been many trips to hospitals and doctors.  A few weeks ago my mom found out she had a tumor on her brain and needed brain surgery.   She had surgery 2 weeks ago to remove it and as we suspected, her ovarian cancer had returned.  Last October was when she had stopped her chemo because there were no signs of cancer.  She is doing amazingly well since having surgery.  She had surgery on a Monday and came home on Wednesday!  I just find it so unbelievable what they can do these days!

My parents live 3 1/2 hours away from me so I ended up staying most of the week with them to help out and support them.  I went home for 4 days and returned back to my parents so I could be with them for her appointment this past Thursday with the radiation doctors and to hear about her options and treatments that are available.

While I went to my mom's appointment, my cousin watched my kids and my sisters kids.  After the appointment we went to pick up our kids and we hadn't been there even 10 minutes and my son Fischer came crying into the house saying that he fell while jumping on the trampoline and his cousin landed on his arm.  I had Fischer lie on the couch to settle down, but he kept crying and was looking pasty in color and if he even moved his arm a little bit, he would wince in pain.  So off we were to the Emergency Room of a different hospital than the one we had been at earlier in the day.  Fischer ended up breaking his humerus down in the elbow joint!  We went home with a splint and sling.  The next day we had to follow up with an orthopedic pediatrician and Fischer got a long arm cast with a built in sling. 

The same day Fischer broke his arm, my cousin's son slept over at a friends' house that night and got up during the night, stubbed his toe on some weights and ended up breaking his big toe right at the growth plate, and needed surgery to pin it on Friday.

There's some bad mojo surrounding our family right now.  Even our dog went to the doctor this past week because she's been limping so bad and come to find out she has a tick-borne disease and is on antibiotics for  30 days.

So needless to say, there hasn't been a lot of time to do much drawing or painting, but I have found a little.  On the Monday my mom had brain surgery is when the main assignment for MATS Assignment Bootcamp was given.  It was to make wall art using the nautical theme and icons and drawings that we had done the previous week.   I really wasn't able to think about it at all while I was at the hospital with my mom or even when she first came home.  While sitting in the waiting room I tried to doodle but my heart and mind just wasn't in it.  That week I got home late Friday and knew I was leaving again on Tuesday to return to my parents.

While at home, I knew I should have been doing chores but instead I tried to work on the assignment.  I had 2 failed attempts by the time I had to leave for my parents.  I was feeling stressed out about the assignment and of course even more so about my mom.  On the day I was packing up to leave I decided to do some last minute sketching, when again I probably had other more important things I should have been doing.  Luckily I came up with another idea that I really liked, but my time was running out, so I scrambled around packing up things that I might need to make this piece of art work.  I packed my scanner and all sorts of papers and paints to take along to my parents.

After everything that had happened, the assignment kept getting pushed aside.  I was starting to think I wouldn't be able to do it.  I haven't missed a deadline yet with MATS A and B or with Bootcamp so I was feeling a little bummed about it but realizing also that things happen that are out of our control.

Yesterday actually ended up being a free day at my parents house so I decided to give the assignment a try and I was able to make the deadline today just in the nick of time!  I'm happy with the results given what has all happened over the last 2 weeks and that I've had to do it all away from my studio at home.    Once things settle down I might try it again because I really enjoyed the theme and I have pages and pages of icons that I drew for this assignment.

The piece is called "Sail Away"  which really sounds very dreamy to me right now.  I would love to close my eyes and sail away with nothing but happy thoughts!

Drawing faces

Make Art That Sells Assignment Bootcamp with Lilla Rogers is back this month.  Last month we had off while she did another class.  We received our mini assignment on Monday, faces and people.  I was very excited to see this.  I've been meaning to work on drawing people and figures.  I thought we would just look at a bunch of pictures of people and do some people watching, which of course is too straight forward for Lilla, instead she suggested we start by drawing vintage dolls!  At first this seemed a bit odd to me, but once I got started drawing them, I could easily see the value in it.  There is such a variety in dolls, from vintage pose dolls to kokeshi dolls, Bradley dolls and even homemade dolls.  This has been a wonderful way to explore drawing faces and experiment with it in my drawing.  If I were to draw instead from actual faces I don't think I would be able to open up and have as much fun.  This is a great way to play with the odd, quirky, beautiful and sometimes scary!
The first image is just lots of faces that are made up with a few that are pretty close to what the dolls faces looked like.  The second image is a fun doodle I did a few days ago of my own version of faces.

Cuckoo clock redo

I decided to redo my cuckoo clock girl that I did in MATS Assignment Bootcamp.  My original one was done as a collage but I wasn't happy with how it turned out but I still liked the girl and the idea.  My new version seems to "pop" more.  I also added a few coordinates to go with it.  I think I'd like to add some texture to her hat and maybe her collar but I haven't quite figured out how to do it correctly!



Here is the old version for comparison:

Jello molds

This month for Lilla Rogers Assignment Bootcamp we had to draw jello molds!  This subject took me completely by surprise.  It's something I would never have picked on my own, that's for sure!  I found this subject really hard and not very inspiring.  We had a week to work on our sketches and then last Monday we got the main assignment which was to use our sketches to make a design for bolt fabric.  I almost didn't do it, I wasn't feeling it.  The thought of skipping it this month just seemed to easy though, I knew I'd be mad at myself, but I couldn't find the joy in the subject matter.  I found that I didn't really enjoy drawing desserts.  I kept telling myself what Lilla always says, find your joy, do what makes you happy.  So I stopped listening to those little gremlins and decided to go for it, what did I  have to loose?  Even if I didn't like the results, I knew I would learn from it and grow.

Again I started out in Illustrator, but I didn't like where it was going, it was feeling too flat and way too digital, I then went to paper and started doing it in watercolor, but quickly I realized I didn't like where that one was going and went back to Illustrator.  I'm slowly figuring out Illustrator and Photoshop but it still is such a hurdle for me when it comes to developing my ideas.

On Monday Lilla posted some color palettes for us to try in our work, muddy pinks, purples, neutrals, acid yellows, to push ourselves and go beyond our comfort zone.  My current colors weren't working well for me so I gave hers a shot and I feel it is what made all the difference in my piece and actually made me feel excited about it.





I'm very happy with the results and how it looks.  A dark grey background is very different for me and I NEVER use purple, that was a hard color for me to work with but I ended up using it on the main character!

Here it is as a repeat:




I'm working on some coordinates to go with it, which is super fun to do.  I'm really enjoying learning Illustrator and Photoshop, it's getting a little bit easier, but I have so much to learn yet.  I want to figure out how to incorporate my mixed media work, but my skill level hasn't allowed that yet.  I have to remind myself to be patient, it will happen.