Day 26

Day 25

Hideaway with several hundred people.

Day 24

Day 23

Day 22

Day 21

Day 20

The last couple of days I've been feeling a bit slumpy about my art making, questioning why I am doing it in the first place.  Sometimes, I seem to lose perspective on where I am going with my work and what I am doing it for. It's days like these I need to remember my own previous rants on creativity, that it is something innate within us all and should not become yet another proponent for guilt and self doubt. I have to go to work this morning and have not completed a new drawing for the day but will have one later this afternoon. Today is a day just like any other day, yet completely new and different. I wonder what will happen.

As the day went on, I was able to feel excited about doing some drawings tonight. I couldn't quite scan these because the paper is too big for my scanner, so Iphone pics will have to do for now. I think what I'm struggling with lately is this desire to simply make art. It's when I start to over-think and plan and control my work, it looses all the air. When I'm just letting it happen (which I'm afraid sounds careless) but seems to more readily open this flood gate to the point where I'm racing to continue, to really just play with images and colors, and explore what is going on there, where there are no words or logic. I think when I start to control the work, it can trigger in me a confined feeling of conformity, which I have always battled with and tried to run away from. I need to learn how not to run away completely, to leave some chaos, but to add touches of order in small doses. I do need to play with the chaos a bit more I think though.

Day 19

The point isn't to figure out what it means but to watch where it's pointing.

Day 18!

"We could be there, feeling off guard, not knowing what to do, just hanging out there with the raw and tender energy of the moment. This is the place where we begin to learn the meaning behind the concepts and words."

- Pema Chodron

Day 17

Day 16

Day 15

"You need not leave your room. remain sitting at your table and listen. you need not even listen, simply wait. don't even wait; just learn to become quiet, and still, and solitary. the world will offer itself to you freely, to be unmasked. it has no choice; it will roll in ecstasy at your feet."

- Franz Kafka

Day 14!

I've had fun the last few days just playing around with mark making. I really haven't had an agenda, just kind of letting the pen/pencil do the work. I have been looking at loosening up and really observing the power and subtlety of lines. 

I've also been painting and trying to look at my paintings in a new way, not as something I'm trying to conquer or accomplish but simply as a playful exercise, like drawing. I'm really starting to breathe life into them and go into them. I had a dream recently where I suddenly realized I was dreaming. I knew I had to act immediately before I went back into the dream, that of dreaming which feels like and becomes reality in a sense. I knew this was not reality but whatever I wanted it to be, freedom! I decided I needed to do something that I could otherwise never do. I could do anything! I was in my bedroom but there was a huge tv on top of the dresser. I decided to jump inside it. Once I got through, my view opened up to a huge expanse of space on the beach and then in the ocean where a huge whale was swimming around. At this point, I guess I began to go back into the dream. I noticed I was halfway in the tv and halfway out and their were shards of glass all around. I was basically stuck and had lost control. But I bring this whole experience up because I feel like I'm starting to hit on this with my painting. I'm not there yet and I still keep getting stuck but there is this point when I'm swimming out in the ocean with the whale and my critical mind has been washed away. I see that I can have some say in my reality and the way I look at life. These paintings are reflections of my experience and I just need to jump through the tv with confidence.

Day 13

Day 12

I found doing this drawing to be really meditative.  I sat and did a few quick drawings of these blobs that always start to become people. I'm starting to see the drawings in a sculptural form and look forward to working with clay a little this week. 

"Art is a continuous activity with no separation between past and present."

- Henry Moore

Day 11

These drawings were inspired by a photograph of the artist, Paula Modersohn-Becker, a german expressionist painter. I actually just discovered her work in a book yesterday and was really drawn to it. She was starting to transcend into emotional, expressive work, inspired by Gauguin, Cezanne, and others. She was working at the time of the founding of Die Brucke, when other artists, like Nolde and Rohlfs were also getting their start. She apparently avoided the bright colors often used during this period but carried the tradition of more free-formed painting, even being influenced by Egyptian mummy portraits, which I totally relate too. Unfortunately, this woman died very young, right after her child was born at 30. It would be amazing to see more of her work if her life hadn't been cut so short. I decided to do these rough little drawings in honor of her passion and exploration of expressionism. I plan to do a painting as well.

Day 10

Day 9

After midnight but who's counting?  I had fun drawing tonight. I stopped worrying about creating a great image and just played around, drew with my left hand and just felt more freedom and obviously lost track of time.

Day ocho!

"It's never too late to be what you might have been."

- George Eliot

Okay, 11 minutes late, but still close enough. I, unfortunately, wasn't near my scanner today and couldn't get a drawing up but I had been looking through some older pics on my computer today and came across this image I took of a piece on display in Senegal this winter. I really like the different marks and the mask-like faces and facial expressions. Also the other image below was printed on a table cloth in Senegal, as well.

Day seven!

So, I've decided to slow it down a bit. I realized that I was "creating" too much pressure on myself to make a good drawing everyday. I think this mentality of production can make the work somewhat forced, and lacking in spontaneity.

I am still promoting the idea of making art for art's sake, but I don't want the work to lose the fun. I still will post everyday but may post something like what I'm posting today, this little picture I took when I decided to organize my supplies. Sometimes, I really like going through everything and remembering what I have to work with. I recently started volunteering at a place that supports adult artists with developmental disorders. I see how they take so much pride in their work and their materials. It has inspired me to really focus on my space and to create a little more order in my creative space. I think this also creates a little more order in my mind.

I hope to draw more today and possibly post later but for now, I like the idea of posting inspiration and ideas as well as actual work.

Drawing 6

Drawing 5

I drew this today while watching a girl apologize profusely over the phone to a friend. She seemed so sad and sorry for whatever she’d done. I was drawing her and the drawing kept coming out wrong, so I decided to draw with my left hand, and to just draw from my head (whatever that means). I did the drawing fast because I was in a hurry before work. Note to self, don’t rush the process. Don’t force it. Just have fun with the drawing because it is about nothing but that.

Drawing four!

I drew this while listening to a podcast about insomnia. I was actually starting to get really sleepy and was pondering the idea of a luxurious nap but I drew up until the time when I have to go to work, so no rest for the wicked. I like when random drawings sort of become something. I wasn’t trying to draw anything but feel like this somehow was inspired by what I was absorbing at the time.

Drawing three

This is my new roommate's cat. I was in my mom's 2nd grade classroom the other day and the kids asked me to draw a cat. I can't remember how I managed to avoid this request but I really felt I didn't know how to simply draw a cat. So, this is my attempt practice on Arturo (Arty for short), the cat.

Drawing two

So day two of creation station extravaganza! Today, I actually am posting three drawings. I will usually simply be posting one but I had fun drawing tonight and this am, and I wanted to sort of display what I came around to. I must admit I'm super rusty but it was nice to get back into the whole game of staring at people, pretending not be staring at them, but stubbornly doing it because how else do you draw people anyway? Thanks to this blog's accountability, weird, staring, drawing girl has re-emerged once again! Also, drawing today, I realize how much I do not look at things. I want to draw from life for a while because I want to really draw what I see, almost seeing it for the first time.

Drawing number uno!

This is the first drawing and, mind you, it will positivitally not be the last! Mind you. I'm starting this blog right now because I feel like it's more than necessary. I'm an artist. I struggle with that fact, daily which I find ridiculously counterproductive to my artistry. I struggle with believing that it is in fact true, that I am an artist. "I do exist!"I have to keep telling myself. I think many artists fight this good fight as well, but in reality, let's be honest, it's a terrible fight, a really stupid, pointless, absurd battle. Of course, you, me, all us, are artists!

Okay, this may sound a bit naive and many would begin to argue and make very valid points to oppose, explaining that in actuality, not everyone is an artist, that some people simply do not make things, that they lack the "talent" or "skill". Well, I'm here to attest, that truth be told, we all create and we all have creative qualities. In some, they are not yet awakened or appreciated. In others, they are not labeled as creative. A mathematician is creative, come on they are. Watch how they rapidly derive equations and algorithms, that appear to non-mathers, like myself, to resemble writings found on the Rosetta Stone. Scientists are creative. They have to develop ways to study and learn and change the world with these studies. Think about the invention of flight, how creative is that?! And physicists, think chaos theory and string theory, pretty creative! Then there are doctors, lawyers, teachers, even police people, who all have to be creative to hold their jobs. They have to figure out how to deal with people, how to help them, protect them, affect their minds. This is all a form of creation and if we lacked creation, we wouldn't be here, well obviously. I mean we all were created, right, so my point is, don't you think that gene passes down, that creative gene, we all have it, we do.  I mean, look back to the paleolithic era. Before our human ancestors created language, they painted images, symbols on the walls of caves to express, to be creative. It's innate. It's a part of us.

After language, we became very excited about language and ended up believing language was the main way to communicate and express. We started to believe if people used other forms of expression, they were special and gifted, and that form of expression was not meant for us. But, in reality, we all have something in us that words cannot express. Our consciousness is not verbal. It's not cognitive. It's a lot more and as artists, as creative beings, we all can express this in, really, any way. It doesn't have to be through painting a painting, or making a sculpture, but art is a great way to connect with that silent voice within, that may not even really understand itself.

So, with that being said, the difference between being an artist and creating is actually pretty tiny. The only difference between the two is that one (the artist) is titled as an artist and the other is not. But I'm laboriously trying to prove the point that, again, we are all artists. I should really listen to myself here, in my struggle to truly believe I am an artist. I don't want to be that person that says, "Do as I say, not as I do." So I'm writing this blog to hold myself accountable for being an artist like you, like everyone, and I'm parading proudly about it. I'm going to do a drawing a day, no matter how busy I am or how tired I am or how much I feel like my drawing is a piece of crap. Even if it is, I will still put it up to maintain the idea, that I am creating. I will create, damnit!! If anyone who is reading this wants to join me in this creative endeavor, (maybe we could even create a creative movement!), please draw with me, daily. Trust me, it's super therapeutic to draw if you can free your mind, and realize you are no better or worse than any other artist. You are just simply creating, which, quite frankly, is awesome!

It has begun.