Boo!

Well, it's the last week of October! Sorry I missed last week, but here's this week's photo of my back yard:

Sunday afternoon, October 26th, off the deck

You can see that the leaves are pretty much done. We had a Nor'Easter blow in and for several days the wind was simply howling. We could have had a sweeter leaf season, if not for that. I'm actually amazed that there are leaves on anything after that storm, as it almost flipped our big table on the deck!

Last week I worked on my Queen of Hearts, and I'm super close to being done:

I was painting the hedgehogs, and the one on the left came out fine... but the one on the right turned into the Dormouse. This is what happens when I paint. I simply cannot plan everything out. Sometimes, it has its own ideas, and in this case it was including the Dormouse!

I need to paint the rose hedge that goes around the painting, because I will be including some white and red roses as well as some in-between that are dripping red paint. Those are more complicated elements, and I don't want to over complicate the painting by adding in more detailed flowers and such in the rest of the Garden just yet. I need to check the balance. I thought the hedge would be last, but that just shows what I know! Nothing! The painting rules me!

I am really looking forward to being done with it, however. I did paint some mini-canvas creatures for the online auction I participate in on Facebook:

"Elsie" Poor Elsie. She just wanted to go out trick-or-treating with everyone else... but no one asked her to go! I think they worried she might eat all of their candy, as Elsie has a fearful chocolate addiction - particularly if it has caramel too! 

"Charlie" Charlie is a friendly sort, but as he was out and about on Halloween night he suddenly noticed all manner of wee beasties knocking on doors and asking for candy! It was pretty scary for poor Charlie, so he went and hid in the pumpkin patch until it was all over!

"Gus" Gus is the bravest of our three little misfits. Once he realized what was going on, he made his own happy Halloween friend out of a pumpkin... isn't that what everyone else was doing when they carved theirs? Well, Gus certainly thought so! But he didn't want to get much closer to find out more. No, no... this is close enough. Definitely close enough.

I'm thinking more and more about reabsorbing my Whimsical Misfits (these sorts of creatures) with my Fairy Tale page. I'm just not certain what to do though. They're pretty specific, and yet, they certainly can be their own fairy tale too.

Hmm.

This upcoming week, I hope to finish the Queen (FINALLY!) That's my primary goal. After that, I think I'm going to take an Alice-break and work on Holiday art. Specifically to finish the kittens from last year for Holiday cards, and a few others as well. Christmas certainly comes fast for the artist community, because we have to be working well in advance! It makes me want to put my tree up early, though.

Normally, we put all the Christmas decor up the first week of November, except for the family tree. The family Christmas tree goes up after thanksgiving dinner (so we all don't go into comas after the pie) that way we know the whole family, and often out of town family are there to join in. This year, with showing the house since it's for sale, I can't put up any Christmas decor until Thanksgiving weekend. Although... if showings die off, I may sneak down and start putting stuff up anyway. It cheers me up, and I'm one of those people who has to have everything down on January 2nd because it bugs me after the fact. So, my holiday time is limited! Gah!

I hope everyone has a nice week ahead! We're having a teenage horror-movie party on Halloween. That ought to be... interesting. Or scary. Probably scary.

Scary Movies and Queens!

This week I have less art and more life to share, I think, as far as the visuals go. Here is my weekly shot from my back deck for autumn. Actually, I think I'll just continue to do this until we move. I'll have no view at all of anything in North Carolina. I asked what a view is there, and it's either a "city" view (when you live in the city and high up like in an apartment building), or trees. That's right, if you have trees smack up against your windows and can't see your neighbors, that's the best you can do for a view. Well, at least where I am moving. I imagine there are some amazing places on the beach and up in the mountains, but that's not where I'll be living.

A bit chilly and dark this morning... but pretty colors!

My son completely bailed on the Inktober challenge, and my daughter, despite saying she was going to pick it up, didn't. I just sorta let it go after that. So, my Inktober challenge was very, very short lived.

This is fine though, because I shifted my focus to my Queen of Hearts. I tried painting like normal, but the truth was... I was having trouble seeing. Darnit. I finally gave in and got my glasses. I just HAVE to wear them now while painting, even when I'm not doing close-up work. As a matter of fact, I need to go buy super-magnifying reading glasses for the close-up and tiny stuff. I'm NOT happy. I feel like a librarian when I wear them (no offense to any librarians, but I got yelled at by a lot of them growing up because I checked out too many books for their liking and they didn't believe I was reading that many every week! Speaking of which, I just finished the Maze Runner trilogy. I then proceeded to download a ton of romances to my kindle because I need non-apocalyptic brain-candy for a while or I'll go insane!)

I even snapped this photo, proving that I gave in to my glasses.
Getting old stinks.

When last you saw my Queen painting, she looked like this:

And then I actually made quite a bit of progress! I started painting away, and finished with her at this point on Friday:

I'll add flowers to the garden behind her very last to balance out the colors overall. It'll be pretty!

A close up of the queen and the pink flamingo on her shoulder:

So, the first thing I have to say is how sinister flamingos can look. I went through all sorts of reference photos and I have to be honest here; flamingos kinda freak me out. I actually dialed back the rather sinister feel from the real pictures to make it a little less scary, and they're still quite the intense minions for the queen.

The second thing is, yes, I am making the lower flamingo blue. Well, to be precise, it's a mixture from purple to teal. Both flamingos have iridescent paint that make their feathers light up, and while that's pretty on the pink one, it's amazing on the blue because it brings to mind a peacock. Which makes me want to paint a peacock. I know I have painted a few (like Flight) but it makes me want to do an even bigger one!

Anyway, the queen's dress is done except for her sleeves which will be a sheer white once I paint her hands (unless I go back and embellish her dress a bit more with some gold here and there. I haven't decided yet... there's something to be said about gussying her up a bit over the top. On the other hand, she's pretty severe and intense as she is, and I don't want to distract from that either. I don't think she needs extra stuff to make her point, so to speak?)

Now, one of the things I have spoken about before is how I don't actually like the genre of horror films. Because. You know. They're SCARY. Yet, if I put one on (that has a plot line - violence with no plot and point are a complete waste of space in my opinion) and I work, I make amazing progress. My reasoning is that I don't want to be too drawn into the scary movie, so instead of putting my hands over my face to peek through my fingers, I paint, and occasionally peek at the screen instead. Given that there is rarely a time I want to focus on the screen, I end up pretty intent on my painting and make great progress!

Well, I was playing the movie Silent Hill (I can't replay any horror movies I have seen before, because they're not exactly movies I want to relive - so if you have suggestions for movies please tell me) because it happened to be on cable. Monsters. Scary things. And this is what I saw when I looked over to my right, on my bed (I'm painting in my bedroom, I'm so desperate for a big enough studio!):

Socrates, yawning because the horror movie bored him.

The horror genre has nothing on my cat, I'm telling you. Look at those teeth! Good thing he never bites, or I'd lose an appendage! My daughter's sleep mask to the side of him makes me giggle though.

Actually, Socrates has been quite the character this past week. He set up a toll-booth one morning and wouldn't let anyone pass without paying the toll:

"What's the airspeed velocity of an unladen swallow?"

My son paying the toll before school. No exceptions!

Over the weekend we worked on house projects. One of them involved a forklift and I couldn't help with it, so I made pumpkin spice lattes and my daughter and I sat on the deck and watched. It's better than reality TV!

I'm looking forward to a nice week, with the hope that I might get close to finishing the Queen... we'll see. It may be another week after that yet, but I suppose it depends on how many horror movies I can catch! Good thing it's close to Halloween, then, right? Have a great week!

Trying To Find The Calm

Since I took a picture last week of Autumn starting up here in Vermont, I decided I'd do one every week, just to show the changing season right now. So, here is this week's Fall foliage photo, taken from my deck, Sunday morning:

You can see that the colors are definitely heating up! Peak season falls around the first two weeks of October, so we're right on schedule. It gets flat out brilliant. I'm waiting for my oak on the left there to start turning orange!

I finished my piece for the live auction on Facebook on The Rabbit Hole Artist Collective:

"Sail Away" 8x10" acrylic on fine professional canvas panel.

I really am happy with the way the auction piece came out, and I am planning several paintings. I've just got the whole hair-turning-into-night-thing stuck in my head. I've got all sorts of ideas. Luckily, that will fuel my surreal side very nicely for a while.

I also painted a mini that was months past-due:

And then with all those obligations finally taken care of, I was finally able to start back to work on my Queen of Hearts (which I am sure the client who has reserved her is relieved about! Heck, I'm relieved too!):

This is where I had last left it, and started back in...

And the light was gone by the time I stopped (hence the bad lighting in the photo), but this is where I ended it. 

Now, I know I covered up a lot of the spiral trees, but that's part of how I paint. Maybe I didn't need to spend as much time on them, but the truth is that *I* know they are there and I'm not 100% sure how my paintings are going to come into being. They tend to have a mind of their own, and if I try to control too much I end up messing them up. So, I complete a lot of the painting that perhaps no one will ever see (like the wall on the White Rabbit painting, for example) because it's important to me to do it right and not have gaping holes if it goes in a direction I didn't expect. So, while no one will see how much went into those spiral trees, I know they're really there.

I went with a yellow flowering tree in opposition to the purple flowering tree (and if you look beneath them, they have opposite colored iris flowers too.) I plan on making the garden an explosion of floral color, so although it just looks very green now... it won't for much longer! I have to be careful though, because I know those flamingos are going to be a huge wash of pink!

I'm sill trying to decide about her skirt too. All one color? Red? Black? What about red and black stripes down? The center will be white ruffles, of course. But this is how the painting grows on its own; I'm never quite certain how it'll all end up. Just mostly certain. Mostly.

That wrapped my busy week up. Then it was time for two house showings on Saturday. There was a live bid on the house, but it's dead now because the other side was looking for a cut-throat deal and that simply isn't going to happen. I'm well aware we're past the Vermont real estate window, and I'm simply preparing to be here until next Spring. We're actually fine with that, because it is better for us financially anyway, we'll be likely to get a much more reasonable bid on the house, and I get to have one last winter! Win-win! If we got a reasonable offer, we'd take it, of course, but until that happens I'm happy with where we are.

All this back and forth is messing with my calm, though. I just found it, just started back to work on painting, and now I'm having problems keeping my calm because I want to yell at someone. The truth is that we're fine. Better than fine, actually. So, I should be calm and all this should be background noise. I just like things settled. Calm. I need to find my calm.

Saturday also brought with it a fever for me, which wasn't a huge surprise as my kids were sick this week too, and I'm worn down by all the unsettled energy going on. A cold isn't all that much of a shock. It's kind of like the other shoe finally dropping, actually!

I've been trying to take a few more "selfies" because my daughter pointed it out that it's fun to look back years later and see yourself. As I have avoided the camera as much as possible, there are actually very few pictures of me around. So, what the heck, right? This is me on Saturday with a fever, a migraine setting in, and laying down for a nap. For the record; I have a lot more wrinkles than this... which is probably why I like the picture! Sure, I feel like heck, but I look 10 years younger! HA!

I felt a bit better Sunday even worked out! Saturday was just a very big day after a very big week, I guess!

I'm typing this out on Sunday, and it's my day off... but I think I want to paint. Because it's a day off from the major studio work, I have decided to paint some Halloween minis! So, I'm off to do that! I hope you all had a wonderful weekend!

(I did start a halloween mini, and we had a last of the season fire last night)

Doodles

Just this past week, I suffered a two-day migraine. It's very frustrating when you can't do any of the things you normally would. I've had migraines since I was very young, and I have always just sort of accepted them, but this time I actually had plans and I saw how I had to back out and let others down because of it. I felt very guilty.

On the business side, I was all set to paint in the white rabbit on my Queen of Hearts painting:

I even took my picture with the canvas, just as pain was sneaking in behind my right eye, but I didn't know it was going to be a migraine:

About 20 minutes after that picture, I realized it was a migraine and took something. An hour later I was in my bedroom, miserable, and nothing I took helped. It was a weird one, lasting two days and nothing really knocking it. I lost time, progress on work, and let people down.

It finally let up yesterday morning, but I had a sort of migraine hangover. I couldn't focus right, even though my brain was clamoring for me to get working on my Queen as soon as possible. I didn't want to mess her up, though.

So, since it was the weekend anyway and I'm not supposed to be working-working, I decided to do some sketching-doodling fun instead! I used to doodle monsters, all sorts of monsters. I called them guardians, and I once had the idea that I'd make them out of clay (about 20 years ago.) They'd be the little gargoyle friend that you put next to or under your bed and they would chase all the other monsters away because they were special. I had all sorts of sketches, but they are long lost now. I probably threw them away!

Well, I started doodling again and thinking about them while I did. Drawing little monsters is easy and fun for me, and I decided I'll do a painting of some of the best ones (not all of them turn out to be red carpet worthy *ahem*) in oil or acrylic. Here is one from last night:

I am having people suggest CUTE animal body parts and I'm combining them into monsters. This one is Bird, Sloth, Cat, Rabbit, and Duck. My son didn't like her, and said she was creepy.  Me? I like her.

I'm going to do more today, and see what happens. Maybe I'll revisit my clay idea if I can figure out which clay to use, and more as a figurine than something to give a little kid (I had envisioned something about six inches tall and substantial, but now I'm imagining something smaller and shelf-worthy instead!) Hopefully, no more migraines will hit and I can work on my queen this coming week.

I have no news about whether we're moving. It all got messed up by human error, and now we're waiting on pins and needles to see if all is lost or not. We really want to move, so cross your fingers for us! We should know over the next two weeks (but then, they've been saying that for the past seven weeks and I've been going nuts!)

Tightening Up

The business of art is a tricky proposition. Art is seriously undervalued in our society, and as an artist we not only have to work very hard at creating, we also have to market and sell and ship and manage all on our own. Are we chasing our dreams or working for our clientele? Isn't there some middle ground?

What's become more and more evident as I work my way through things, is that the phrase "Jack of all trades, master of none" has become a very real thing. I can do a lot. A LOT. I work in watercolor, acrylic, oil. I can use pastels, sculpt, and throw on a wheel. I'm good at all of those things, I've sold from all of those mediums. Then you have genres further widening what you can do (abstract, portrait, fantasy, fairy tale, still life, realistic, etc) and suddenly you realize you could completely populate a gallery with every medium and style all on your own. Which is really cool, except... Except it simply doesn't work as a business model.

I've had to come to grips with the reality that it doesn't matter that I can paint in the abstract and throw a set of dishes and sculpt a dancing lady for the front lawn while painting a dragon. It might matter to me, but when it comes to business... well, business is business. In business, your clientele NEEDS to know what you offer. They need you to be a master at what you do and know exactly what they're getting when they come to look at your work. They need some idea of expectations.

More, when you are branching out with all those other mediums and styles, you can find that you have stopped growing. Sure, you may get better at one aspect or another, but "good at" is not "mastering" anything. I have come to realize and accept that as a business I need to focus on a few mediums that all have something in common with one another (and this is easy for me: oil, acrylic and watercolor is my answer), and one style with a focused subject.

I thought that doing my Fairy Tale art would allow for me to just throw a random dragon or fairy down (aren't they all part of the fantasy realm after all?), but that turns out to not be the case. It's too broad a category. I realize that now, and I'm accepting it. I realize that my art business needs to be tightened up. I need to be the master in it, and you cannot be a master in anything if you keep moving on to new things.

This all sounds depressing, but I'm actually very excited! I realize that I derive a deep satisfaction from certain paintings, and next to nothing from others. I realize that when I work on my actual Fairy Tale paintings, I feel fulfilled. 

This painting took me months, but I'm beyond proud of it!

When I do a random dragon or Christmas tree or mouse, I realize... I'm playing. That's not business, but it's nice to understand that I AM still able to play. It's something I thought I had forgotten how to do, and now realize that I was actually doing too much of it. Yes, I've been selling my playful results, but I realize that may actually be a mistake business-wise. 

I did this painting for a special friend, but it only took one afternoon. I like it, but it's not something I'm going to look back on in 30 years and feel like my life's work was well spent. This, I realize, is me playing. Play is important, but it's not work.

I had a dream the other night, and in it I saw my business as it needed to be set up. I woke up feeling like "I've got it. I've really got it now. I understand!" I saw my art booth set up exactly as I plan to do it. I realized that my major originals (like the White Rabbit) are undervalued, and under and misrepresented in my offerings. But I know how to fix it. I've finally GOT IT.

So, my new focus is similar to what I've been saying, but... it isn't. My love is of Fairy Tales. I will continue to paint my Fairy Tales, but all my professional work will be directly related to that topic, with a deeper meaning and more going on within the paintings. My paintings need to be a story. The ones that have a story, a deeper process, those are the ones that make me feel like I am doing what I am here for. Maybe painting fairy tales isn't curing cancer, but it makes me feel like I have a place in this world, as silly as that may sound.

Part of this is also accepting that I am not a fast painter. The reason my bigger fairy tale paintings take longer is because I spend a lot of time thinking them through.

This video is of Tea Time, but it took me months and months to paint it. The physical act? Probably 120 hours, maybe more... but the thinking through it? More. Even though it was all mapped out, it took more. Plus, I was also doing what I have been doing - extra little side art that doesn't mean as much to me, but I thought was all a part of my larger business. 

I feel good. My business has a focus. More, I know that if I want to play, I need to NOT do it during business hours. Those hours need to be focused on my bigger paintings, and I feel that with that focus will actually come more productivity even though my process is a slow one. I still plan on writing my own fairy tale and painting a series to go with it, because that's all still part of the correct path.

The little art, the playing, the "daily art" will stop and find it's correct place - my play time. I'll still sell it, but it won't be the backbone of my business anymore and it won't be the bulk of my offerings. I had inadvertently set the balance there, and I'm realizing my mistake and fixing it. 

So, I'm excited. A bit frustrated that it took this long for me to get what I pretty much already knew, but excited nonetheless.

My Queen of Hearts is on my easel, and I'm working my way through her. I don't know if I'll be done with Alice after her, or start working on a new Fairy Tale. I haven't decided yet, but I think I want to move on to something new. I can always come back and add to the series if something gets stuck in my head that simply must be painted!

Working out the garden area, inching closer to the rabbit behind her.

And a tree with wisteria! I love purple! I hope we move somewhere that I can grow these in my yard in reality!

So that's where I am at. Tightening up my focus and buckling down. It actually feels really good to not be casting about and wondering what to do! 

Upstream

It's blustery and snowy outside right now. I'm amazed that in March, we're still experiencing winter!

I finished up some more ACEOs for the open auction tomorrow on the artist collective on Facebook:

While fine, I'm finding they're a diversion. I'm not deriving the kind of satisfaction from them that I need. As I said in my previous post, I need to get back to what makes me fulfilled in the studio, and those are the big pieces with stories in them. Things going on that make you want to stop and stay awhile to figure it out.

I know this more than ever now, because when I look at my paintings and what I'm proud of, I feel a lot more from some than others. I know that's natural, but it's deeper than that. So, back to the big paintings! And allowing myself peace that I simply work slow. It is what it is.

My queen of hearts is on my easel once again:

I wanted to share this. It's not a before and after. This is a picture in normal light on the left, and a spotlight on the right. This is what adding iridescent paint to my work does. I wanted a sort of undercurrent of fierce power coming from the queen, and these highlights accomplish that. Light isn't usually spotlighted onto a painting like this, so instead it's much more subtle throughout the day as lighting conditions change. It gives a sort of living quality to my pieces, and it certainly does what I want it to for the queen. I probably need to do small videos so people can really see what my paintings do, it's so hard to capture it in a simple photo.

These are some of the iridescent paints I use (I have a whole slew of them). They are not opaque, for the most part. They seem, like they would be, but then they sort of spread out more like a glaze.

I have no updates to share about my potential move. This ups my stress level considerably, because I feel like I'm losing time. If it's really a yes, then the amount of work I have to do simply to get this house ready for the market is overwhelming. The less time I have to do it in, the more panic that is likely to ensue, and it's making me nervous! If they really would like him to start this new position in late June... well, it's late March now! Eeek!

I think the hardest part isn't even all of that though. No, the hardest part is that I'm a pessimist. You see, now that I actually want to move, I think the odds go higher that something will happen and we won't. If it had been something I was dead set against, it would happen without question. It's still a move where I am jumping off into the unknown, not having been to the place at all... but I'm so unhappy here, that I figure it's got to be an improvement!

So, we're still here without a 100% solid answer. My husband feels it's a done deal, but as more time passes my gut instincts think something is up. Now, to be fair... whatever life throws at you (minus tragedy) tends to be what should happen. What I mean by that is that nothing has ever been taken away or happened that wasn't for the better, as if it was sort of meant to be. Do I believe in fate? No, not really. It's just the way things have worked out. Perhaps, it's us making the best of whatever situation we are thrown, but sometimes it just feels like something more.

It happened when we purchased our first house. It was a booming market in 1998, and houses were being snapped up within hours of being on the market. The prices were rising daily. Every time we had enough saved up, the prices would jump and we wouldn't have enough of a down payment. Every house we tried to bid on went under contract before we could send our bid in (sometimes just by minutes!) We were so depressed.

I was pregnant, and ill most of the time so I was unable to work, and I finally decided I had to get out of the house. I took a pottery class, because I've always enjoyed throwing. There, at the class, the woman next to me mentioned she was going to be selling her house. We weren't very well off, so I said I'd like to hear about it - sure that it was out of my reach. Instead, the house was perfect, right in our reach, and located exactly where we wanted. Through that chance meeting, we put her house under contract before it went to market and thus purchased our very first house. It was a better house than the others we had been bidding on, in a better neighborhood, and closer to my mother. All things we couldn't find in one place that sort of fell into our lap. It was easy!

My mother is a big fan of saying "Whatever is meant to be, will be" and "If you find yourself fighting so much, that you know you're trying to swim upstream? You need to ask yourself if you're doing the right thing. Yes, the things you want, you have to fight for. However, some times you find you're fighting TOO HARD, and there is a reason; it's not the right thing for you."

Yes, my mother is Yoda.

Anyhow, she's usually right. Those thoughts bear out over and over. Whatever is meant to be will happen, and it'll be what's best for us as long as I am paying attention and making good choices. We may not get what we always want, but maybe we weren't supposed to have it anyway. Maybe it was the wrong thing for us, and letting it go was best.

So, this is me trying to be Zen. Not fighting, but hoping for the change we need.

I happen to suck at being Zen, though. I should probably go for another run.