A few notes on being a big girl on campus

Wow, two posts in one week!! Amazing! Well, I've been meaning to describe my thoughts about going back to school for awhile now. Since September I guess. And each time I think I'm going to write about the snotty 19 year olds that curse a blue streak in class and dress like they have no self respect, I meet a young kid that blows me away with her generosity and encouragement. Every time I want to complain about unprepared and unprofessional professors one of them (or most of them) does something out of the blue that is so kind I have to go into the bathroom so no one will see me cry. Silly, I know.

The thing is, it's just not easy going to school when you are older than the professors. It's not. You have to want it more than everyone else. You have to work harder, take more notes, and never slack off, because it means more. That said, it can't be easy teaching a 43 year old either. My B.S. detector is so much more finely tuned than the kids'. I'm not easily impressed and I'm set in my ways.

Anyway... they did give me a scholarship which makes all the molding a little more bearable. I just hope when I'm through I can recognize my work as my own. Here are some progress shots of my disappointing self portrait.

I do have more thoughts, all mixed up in my brain about going back to school. And more stories, like the time I walked all the way across campus with the garage door opener stuck to my butt...Ay me! Another time.

Christmas time!

That time of year again, Christmas.  I know I should love it, but like most moms, whether they will admit it or not, it all just wears me out. Soon it will be the new year, one of my favorite times of the year. I love new beginnings; back to school, new year's, spring cleaning. Ok maybe not the spring cleaning itself but that feeling afterward...priceless. This is kind of a blurry picture of a sketch from this morning.  Our little snowmen/ jingles. So sweet. Good memories of when John bought them.

Every year I think I will make Christmas ornaments.  Last year I planned to make these little mice. (Side note: I just did a little fist pump that I figured out how to insert a link and have it actually work) But I didn't finish them until yesterday. Above is the sketch of this year's planned ornament. I have them almost finished and while I am a little disappointed in the quality... there is something about finishing a project. Here is a little sneak peek mid way through the process.

One more little sketch I made last week, or was it the week before?

Nearing This Semester's Finish Line

I'm trying to organize this semester's work and choose a few pieces to use in my for my application to stay in the art program. It has to be submitted next week and I realize I'm a little nervous. Partly because I don't have a lot of work that I really love or that particularly feels like me. Also I haven't been very good about photographing all along. I'll have to dig everything out this week and shoot pictures. Here's what I have so far:

Charcoal still life

The dreaded self portrait. As you can see I drew my old friend my to-do list weighing down on me.

And the collages:

Don't ask me. I don't understand collage. I never know what I'm doing.

I'm really behind when it comes to photographing prints, in fact I've photographed none. Nope, none. Nada. So... each class requires a cd of images of all your work throughout the semester. Not only am I behind in making the work... Thought I would spend Thanksgiving break catching up, but time is filling up fast. Wish me luck!

Catching Up

It seems I make art all the time, but rarely anything that makes me happy. Lots of sketches and lots of non-objective compositions that just make me tired. So tired. These are the few sketches I've made for fun in the last couple of months. Pretty pitiful and I had to really make time to do them.

This sketch was made in my little handmade book, filled with all different types of paper. On this spread the left side is white sketch paper and the right is tan pastel paper. I tried to match the skin tone on the left to the paper color on the right. Just for kicks.

Kind of a sad little sketch of Big Tex from our visit to the Texas State Fair a week or so before he caught fire. Side note, the day of the UT/OU rivalry game is not the day to go to the state fair!!! Mass craziness.

Trying to get back into the swing of sketching with no purpose. Feeling the need for scripture all the time these days.

The sketch above and the one below were done as sketches for linoleum cut prints for my printmaking class. The one above was changed too much and I didn't like it much at all after it was cut and printed. The one below was transferred almost exactly onto the linoleum. I printed it for the first time on Thursday.

A little sketch I did a couple of weekends ago in Conway while Mara and Caleb were working and Carsen and I caught up on Doctor Who.

I've found a new love, the Caldwell Zoo, here in Tyler. I'd heard we had a pretty nice zoo but I didn't pay much attention until we had a sketching assignment there. I went again and bought a year pass and have spent the last two Mondays there. I wish I could go every Monday. Gonna try. So peaceful. And the animals are gorgeous. Just fascinating. There are many, many more sketches in my class sketchbook but its too big for the scanner and I just didn't want to fool with it. There will be many, many more. Bet on it.

No time for sketching when you're an art major

Well, I may not have posted much lately, but it's not because I'm not making art. Since I started school again I've been up to my eyeballs in art and art supplies. The truth is I'm having a little bit of trouble getting everything done in a timely manner. This old guy is the only non-assigned sketch I've managed and that was to test out the paper in my printmaking and drawing sketchbook. You know I'm weird about my sketchbook paper.

Here are a few sketches from before school started back

The birds and the bees

In my on-going attempt to find a suitable sketchbook I started working in this book, a Strathmore Visual Journal that uses watercolor paper. The paper is lovely, crisp and toothy, but the spiral! Urgh the spiral!! So, last night I decided I would bind my own sketchbook, with a mix of papers that would be fun and challenging to work with. Of course I don't have any book-binding supplies, knowledge or skill but I don't let things like that stop me. Should be sketching in the new book today or tomorrow. I'll keep this one of course. There is no guarantee that my homemade version won't start falling apart the minute I use it.

Searching for the right sketchbook and a zombie for good measure

The original idea, when I started this blog was to post AT LEAST once a week, to push myself to keep making pieces, keep drawing in the old sketchbooks. Well, it really has worked in a way. I'm not in the mood to paint anything right right now, but I'm pretty faithful in the sketchbooks. Every few days, when life slows down for a moment, I pull one out and play. Posting, on the other hand is kind of a pain. So the sketches stack up. I began to wonder what they blog was for in the first place. Never-the-less, here are the ones that have been scanned so far.

These are in a new sketchbook I bought during a Moleskine shortage. What I really wanted was another watercolor sketchbook like the one I just finished, but didn't want to shop all over the internet. I just went down to Hobby Lobby and picked up one that said it could handle light watercolor washes. It was wrapped in cellophane so I couldn't check out the paper. It's really thing poor quality stuff. I have no problem dumping the book, but what do I do with these poor tester sketches? I'll figure out something.

You can see the paper buckles pretty badly. There is something freeing about drawing on poor paper though. You aren't afraid to jump in there. It's not like it's your best quality stuff and you might waste it. There is some joy there.

This is the last sketch from my old watercolor sketchbook, that I loved and would like to find another. It's a silly sketch about a silly show, but that's what my sketchbooks are. Just a little visual reminder of what was happening in my days, what I was thinking, what I was trying to learn. A little time capsule of unimportant days.

Summer Joy

Here is the piece I finished today. It's an odd little wooden frame with 9 separate wooden squares. It measures 13 3/4 inches square (approx.- all the numbers are worn off my ruler in the craft room, I've used it for so long). This is really not a great photo. I stood on my drafting chair to get a dead-on photo (the wooden squares are not yet affixed to the frame and will fall out if I try hanging it) but it kept spinning and I'm desperately afraid of heights. So it's not quite square. You get the idea. I don't know what it really is except some sort of leaf sampler. When I quilted and did needle arts, samplers were a favorite. I don't see why painting should be any different. Although I have the Sesame Street song "One of these things is not like the others" playing in my head... Still I can cross this office my list and that is a little slice of Summer Joy!

Here are the last two spreads from my Moleskine #2. This book lasted a year, along with a watercolor book that I filled at the same time. Hoping to speed up production and fill a book every few months.

And lastly the first three spreads in the new Moleskine. This one I'm theming Everyday Matters and using numbered prompts from the Everyday Matters group website inspired by Danny Gregory's book Everyday Matters, which focuses on just that, things we see every day.

Hope you are all experiencing your own summer joys. I am extremely grateful for all of my own!!

Longhorn Blues

She looks more like some ole cow than a longhorn, but that was the original idea. I have mixed feelings about this one. There are a couple of parts that I really love but the composition has bugged me from the first. I tried different placements in sketches and determined that in order to get any length in the horns she had to be off-center, but I wish I had painted this horizontally on a rectangular canvas. Too late now.

Here is her original sketch:

And here is a close-up of my favorite part.

I painted this after getting the idea from someone in particular, so Hannah, if you're seeing this, I'm not sure I managed what you had in mind but if you want her she's all yours.

Lovebirds

I finally got my desk set up at the new house and have a great place to work with lots of light, so I stretched my painting muscles a little. This painting is made up of four separate canvases measuring 6 x 6 each. I don't have any idea why I painted one painting on four canvases, it was kind of a pain, but it's done now. I started out with the background. I wanted to try out a technique that looked a lot different in my mind but once I had it, I needed something for a subject. I, of course, went to my fall-back, birds. These are cranes. I've had a fascination with cranes for a few years. I always heard they mated for life. That's why you see them so often depicted in art in pairs. And then I read somewhere they don't necessarily pair for life. I don't want to believe that though. So here are my two lovebirds. Symbols of new our life together and a forever love.

And here is the sketch for the cranes which pretty much says what I just said.

And here are a few sketches from the last month or so. There aren't many that's for sure.

These last few sketches are of animals from John's sister Mary's farm in San Saba. Sweet goats and an incredible goat herding donkey named Rosebud

I know it's upside down. I actually had the sketchbook turned upside down when I drew it. It's in there now though. We just have to embrace it.