Stage Play

  I had some fun last week trying my hand at doing a couple of the old French puppets from my last post in pastels. I realized that the paper I used fits perfectly behind the opening of the little stage that came with them, so for now that's where it's going (I've since toned down the green background some).  We actually found a somewhat inconspicuous spot in our little house to hang the stage - it required a little art re-arranging but worked out fine and we'll be able to enjoy it. My husband is quite amused at how entertained I'm keeping myself with these puppets, but even he has admitted he's succumbed to their charms. 

Puppet Love

Quick sketch of one of my new puppets - haven't quite figured out what his character is!

I have a thing about puppets, not new stuffed animal ones that you mess with your dog's head with, but ones with history, or that are works of art.  Puppets, marionettes, anything in that realm.  So when I saw these old French hand puppets at an antique fair recently, I fell in love.  Especially since they came with a little theater. Apparently Guignol in France was similar to Punch and Judy in England (and probably scarred as many children - when my Father saw these I discovered that he was one of them, having grown up in England).  I don't know the exact history of these or if they originally came with the stage, but I just love them.  I sense more puppet-based art forthcoming!

Mystery Man

 I was doing some more pastel practice, creating a portrait.  After quite a lot of lost time in which I got completely absorbed in it ( I love when that happens), I stopped, stepped back and looked and thought "Who are you?"  He started out very differently, and I almost feel like I just exposed a face that was already there rather than creating him from my imagination.  Anyway, he's a total mystery to me, and I like wondering about his story. 

Back to the Basics

I signed up for an online class from Gillian Lee Cox a lifetime ago it felt like, and it was starting in April just as my life went crazy.  I've now finally started it, and am really enjoying it. It feels like a condensed college art course, and is the closest I'll ever get to that, but from Gillian's wonderful perspective.  I don't take too many online art classes, I'm notoriously bad about doing all the exercises, and tend to just watch the teacher do the exercises and skip to doing the fun stuff myself, even though I know better.  So I'm trying to be better this time, and am being semi-successful.  I can't claim to be doing all the exercises, but I'm doing better than my average I'd say.

Below are some of them, so far it's just been some drawing and some work with soft pastels and color theory. I hesitated to post these as they're nothing special, but since this blog is supposed to be a record of my art journey, and I have nothing else to show for my time, I'm inflicting them on unsuspecting passersby anyway. 

I'm starting with my favorite - this is when I finally figured out that, OH, that's what Gillian was going on about - doing pastels on a textured surface really does make all the difference!  This is done on a piece of very fine sandpaper.  It's inspired by part of a painting I tore out of a magazine years ago- unfortunately none of the artist info was on it.

These two are pre- AHA moment

 

Some drawing exercises

What a relief...

To have finally created ANYTHING. I can't explain how hard it was for me to finally sit down to try, it's like I was away too long and lost my confidence, and I had absolutely no idea what I even wanted to work on. I kept procrastinating, finding new little projects around the house that needed my attention first, not to mention reading the newest Diana Gabaldon book (over 1200 pages). Last weekend I finally forced myself to sit down at my art desk. I grabbed a journal, glued down a few random pieces of paper and created a loose face out of pastels. And miraculously, I started enjoying it, losing myself in playing with the pastels, and it was such a relief.  The page is nothing special but it feels like a huge accomplishment for me.

Later I worked on drawing this face, from a magazine, detailed drawing is also something that I can lose myself in. But what cracks me up, and this has happened to me before, is that it wasn't until I downloaded this picture that I saw how crooked her eyes are, and don't even look at her ears.  It's just amazing how I could have stared at the page so long and not seen it til now - I find it to be an interesting phenomenon. I'll fix it tonight, but I thought what the heck, you can see the unadulterated version and chuckle.

At last....

I've beaten back the chaos, unpacked all the boxes, found a place for everything (which was frequently the donation box) and have a studio at last. I tried to make it so that I'd feel inspired when I'm in it, surrounded by things I love, but we'll see how functional it is - pretty doesn't do much good if what you need most isn't at hand, so there may well be some rearranging.  I threw together a temporary work table with a door and couple of cupboards to hold it up - I'll replace it hopefully soon since it turned out to be much too high, I just don't know with what yet. In the meantime I'll be sitting on the fattest cushion I can find!  The little secretary desk below used to be my only work surface, so having some room to spread out will be amazing, propped up on a pillow or not.

The little monkey above, sitting on the old mail sorter or whatever it is, is a recent birthday gift from my Grandmother and is precious to me.  It was my great-grandfather's, and the head lifts off and there's a bottle inside that he used to keep his whiskey in.  If he was trying to hide his whiskey habit, I wouldn't think drinking out of a monkey would be the way to do it, but I love it!

Maybe my next post will have some actual art, if I still remember how!  

Excuse the Mess

It appears that my studio is going to be the last room to be dealt with in this move. I'm currently just keeping the door shut and ignoring it while we deal with the myriad things that must be done first before I can call the rest of the house good and summon the energy to face this chaos. As you can see, I went with a pretty bold color - if you can't do it in your art studio then where, am I right?

I'm missing out on Summer of Color this year, which makes me sad, but I'm popping in occasionally to see what my friends are doing, and it looks like lots of fun is being had and wonderful art being created, as always with Summer of Color.  I can't wait to be sitting in my newly organized studio and create something, anything.