Broken

"Broken"
5 1/4X8 1/4"
Pen and ink

I haven't posted for a long time, because I had a very tragic event happen. My husband died. In fact, he died very suddenly and unexpectedly the day after I drew this picture. I had no idea of what was coming at the moment I was drawing. I was simply messing around with an earlier idea I had for a painting.

Now this picture has come to symbolize how I'm feeling. I am trying to hold myself together, but I am in pieces. Nothing feels right. I could fall apart at any moment...and I frequently do. The nights are the hardest. We were married for three years and ten months, but in that whole time, we were never apart except for work and times when he went to run errands by himself. There is a part of me missing that I cannot retrieve. I am in pain, but there is no medication to ease it or make it go away. The world goes on as if nothing has happened, and I am shattered.

Me and My Shadow

Shadow Self
6.5X9"
Watercolor

I caught a glimpse of my shadow one day. I had just taken a shower and my hair was hanging down in an interesting way and my big fat nose was sticking out. I'm not sure why I found the shape of the shadow so interesting, but I made a quick sketch and then decided to paint it.

I had originally planned to make a series of progressively darker shadows against my face in profile. But then I decided that it might be more interesting to come face to face with my shadow. The sketch just looked like somebody staring off into space, and it bugged me a little bit. I found that this was a good exercise, trying to duplicate the shapes of the right-hand face in reverse.

I guess you could call this a kind of self-portrait, although I wasn't trying for a photo realistic depiction of my own face. The blue eyes and the curly, light brown hair are definitely my signature features. As for staring at my own shadow, I have to admit that I do contemplate the darker side of my being from time to time. We all have a darker side, one that we usually try to hide away from the rest of the world--secrets and thoughts that we wouldn't want anyone else to know about. I like to think about this darker side of myself as a reminder that I'm not as good as I'd like to think I am....or as good as I'd like other people to think that I am. Keeps me from getting too full of myself.

Back to Work--Part 2

"Meditation"
8X10"
Colored pencil

Here's another project that has been sitting around waiting for me to finish my novel. I've been working on it for quite awhile. It was inspired by a very relaxed and peaceful period in my life that happened around the middle of September. I have worked on it during lunch breaks at work, at home during quiet mornings, and at a local park when the weather was especially nice. I can't really say right now if I ever intend to finish it. It not only gives me a sense of peace to look at it, but it also is very relaxing to work on. I decided to post it here, in case anyone else could benefit from the same sense of peace that I get when I look at it. With the busy holiday season upon us, it's always a good idea to take a moment to just breathe and relax.

Back to Work--Part 1

"Lady in Waiting"
6.5X9"
Pen, ink, and watercolor

Now that my little noveling adventure is over, it's time to get back to work. I have a couple of projects that I put on pause while I wrote. This lovely little thing was one of them.

After testing several colors with this line drawing (see earlier "Ladies in Waiting" post), I decided to do something slightly different. I still wanted to paint the dress red, even though the dress that inspired this whole thing was black. But instead of sticking with a single color for the whole picture, I decided to work in some greens. I liked the effect much better than any of the colors I had used previously.

What I love most of all about this painting, though, is the happy little accident that occurred with the tree. When I started painting the leaves, I initially let some of the strokes go over the branches. I didn't like how that turned out once the paint dried, and I was afraid that I'd ruined the whole thing. However, I decided to go back over the trunk with another color. As I started to brush water over the branches in preparation for the new color, I noticed that the leaf strokes started to disappear and merge with the trunk color. Hah! There was no need to even mix up the new color. I already had the effect I wanted. So hurray for happy accidents!

My Latest Creative Achievement

To be clear, the logo you're seeing here is NOT my own design. I have not worked on anything except a couple of bulletin board graphics for the last month. But I did have to do something incredibly creative to earn the logo you see here. I had to write an entire book in 30 days or less. And I did it...in 28 days. Yes, an entire book complete with characters and plot. Not too shabby...

Why in the world would someone want to undertake such a ridiculous task? I can only answer for myself: Because it sounded like an amazingly fun and crazy thing to do. Besides, I ran across an old journal entry about a week before I started this little adventure, and I discovered that writing a book had been a dream of mine for awhile. Mission accomplished.

I learned some interesting things during this month, things that I think will carry over into my visual art. One of the most important was letting go. In order to crank out 50,000 words of fiction in one month's time, one cannot worry about coming up with the perfect phrase or amazing plot twists or flawless spelling and grammar. No, the quantity of the writing becomes the ultimate goal. I was amazed to find that in worrying about the quantity of my writing, a surprising amount of quality crept in.

Another good lesson I learned was to get lost in the process and don't worry so much about the end product. Although I had a basic idea of how my story would go and what my characters would do, I was surprised at the twists and turns that the whole thing took. Characters that I hadn't considered before suddenly appeared and added another dimension to the plot. Things happened in the story that I wasn't expecting. I think the whole thing would've been ruined had I thought it all out ahead of time.

So what happens now? Well, if you're curious about my story, you can read a brief excerpt on my author page (while you're there, check out the rest of the Nanowrimo site). I will probably let the book sit for awhile and do some editing before I let anyone read more of it. In the meantime, I'm going to start diving back into my visual art with a new approach and see what I come up with. Stay posted for all the exciting new developments!

Turkey Time

Turkey
8.5X8.5"
Marker and colored pencil

Yep, it's that time of year again. Cooler temps, leaves falling, Christmas advertising, and my favorite thing of all...turkey time!

I haven't been doing too much artwork in the last couple of weeks. My focus for this month is actually novel writing. Yeah, you read that right. I am writing a novel. It's National Novel Writing Month, and I've decided to participate in this crazy fall ritual. Rather than explain it in detail here, I'll send you to their website for more information (http://www.nanowrimo.org/). Click on the "About" tab to learn what it's all about.

Okay, so if I'm writing a novel this month, where did this turkey illustration come from? Well, as much as I'd like to take a month off from work to write, it's just not possible. I still have to do my job. As part of my job, I was recruited to do a bulletin board display on food safety. I needed a really cool color graphic to put with my display, so I decided to draw (and color) my own turkey. He looks so friendly and beautiful that I may just have to go vegetarian this Thanksgiving. Who could eat such a delightful-looking bird? Besides, my husband and I need to finish off last year's Thanksgiving leftovers that we froze before we attempt to cook another bird.

So, while I'm on a holiday and novel writing hiatus, I hope you enjoy the turkey...both the one pictured here and the one that you will probalby be eating in a couple of weeks. Happy Thanksgiving!

Meteor Shower

"Meteor Shower"--sketch
8X6"
Pencil

Sometimes a painting sits around in my brain for a long time before I get around to executing it. This sketch is an example of one such idea.

I went with a friend to see a meteor shower about five years ago. Since we were living in a major city at the time, we had to drive to a park outside of the city in order to see anything. The sky was very clear that night, and there was a slight breeze through the trees. It was late September, so a few of the trees had lost their leaves. It was an amazing experience, something that I have always treasured.

I wanted to paint or draw something to capture my memory of the event right after it happened. But every time I sat down to do something, I just couldn't get the picture to look the way I wanted. Well, within the last couple of weeks, I started thinking about this painting again. I realized that now I have more artistic tools at my disposal than when I first had the idea for this painting. So I sat down and drew this sketch. The scene has changed slightly from my original idea, but I like it better this way. Sometimes a good idea just needs to ferment in the brain for awhile before it's put down on paper.