So I got suckered into purchasing the Lucy Tool, the "updated camera lucida used by artists like Vermeer" I always wanted to try one of those, mostly because it has no electricity involved, so I figured it was in my wheelhouse. I've used gridding and projectors throughout my life and they are various degrees of pains in the ass, but still useful. This Lucy is easy enough to set up and figure out but only for young eyes, mine couldn't deal with it within two minutes and I had to go lie down and cover them up to rest. So, frustrated, I took the pic I had taken of my niece on a phone camera and just let my husband the computer whisperer set it up with a computer projector and got it onto a 16x20 canvas and painted it in. I like the results, would probably like it better in oils but don't have the patience. Too bad about the Lucy, but I'm going to keep it and maybe someday amaze children. The optics are really pretty cool.
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At the age of five my faith in authority, human and divine, went south. I remember the day, even the exact hour in blinding clarity. I was a credulous child, as I imagine most are, soaking up information and challenging very little besides the obvious - it was clear that liver was not a delicious food, no matter how often I was told it was. Mostly I believed easily. I was a bit suspicious of God who presented as a little too all knowing and nosy with regards to private thoughts but I liked the other Bible folk a lot- Jesus was the hands down favorite since he was into kids and had a compelling story that had animals - donkeys and sheep - I loved animals. Also we got stuff for his birthday. I was jealous of Noah and his zooful of animals, I was a pet nut and I already knew that if you had two of some type of creature you were likely to end up with even more. Didn't much care for boats, but of course the alternative was drowning- I tried not to think about that. For my money though, Moses was the most interesting, the super hero. Water from rocks! Snakes from a staff! Frogs from the sky! And the big one, parting the sea, which I always pictured as a clean cut so you had an ocean sized aquarium on either side of you. It doesn't get much cooler than that. Not to mention we were both adopted, and I knew how special that was.
On this particular day Moses was on my mind. I had just got out of Sunday school and was standing with my mother while she visited with a friend. I'm sure I looked the perfect angel with big blue eyes, blonde curls, crisp Sunday clothes and shiny shoes... but I was deep in thought with important matters. We had been learning about Moses and how brave he was in the face of great danger from Pharoah, really challenging the big man even though he could have been killed. He wasn't afraid, God was on his side and it all came out just the way God told him it would. We should all be brave, like Moses. I wanted to be brave like Moses but didn't see a clear path. My life was not filled with that sort of opportunity. I just stared at the ground. And my mother's feet. And her opened toed Sunday pumps. And I knew. I took a deep breath and launched myself at her closest foot, smashed my heel into her toe and really ground it in. I absolutely expected that the adults would fall back in awe at my display of bravery, and perhaps point it out to every one else. I was sure God would be proud. God, in fact, utterly failed to weigh in on my behalf. I assume I got spanked, but don't really remember that. What I remember like it was ten minutes ago instead of many decades is that I knew I had been misled, not to say lied to, and that I was humiliated beyond words. How could I have got it so wrong? I declined to explain myself then, and in fact kept it to myself for at least ten years, nursing the monstrous injustice of it all. I finally revealed it to a friend, who of course burst into laughter and caused me to reevaluate. From that initial moment on however, I didn't buy every idea handed to me, and I entirely gave up on biblical role models. Today's exercise is changing the lighting on Oak Man, that I first worked with two days ago, an image from Brian Froud's The Faerie Oracle. I drew it in pencil, heightened the contrast in Photoshop, printed several on cardstock and watercolor it. I made a relief sculpture of the image and lighted it from different directions, and today watercolored one of the prints using these shadows. I had to use white acrylic to change some of the highlights since the original drawing was shaded from a different direction, but that was not too much of a challenge. This was fun! maybe I'll make some of my own original sculpts and light them and try a drawing... I always find sculpture much easier than making up stuff with pencils. I really don't understand how some people can do that so easily.
Calligraphy was the first art I made money with, back before airbrushing. It was just names on certificates, before a computer would do that nicely, another handmade thing that has gone away. It was tedious as hell, and painting names on t-shirts with rainbows or a palm tree in the background felt - and was - much more rewarding, but it was still calligraphy. In seventh grade I had an art teacher who had actually studied calligraphy in college and used it in her curriculum, and it was so easy. Funny to watch fellow students work at trying to hold a dip pen, as if that wasn't the most natural thing in the world. Many years later, following directions from "Many Lives Many Masters" from Brian Weiss, I tried self hypnosis past life regression and got, among other things, sitting in a small room copying manuscripts (my neck hurt abominably). I am drawn to illuminated manuscripts but highly critical (sloppy job, that...) and appreciate the good stuff. I've been wanting to do it again, but the only thing that is appealing to me is Rumi quotes and I'm wondering if, like a lot of other art I'm drawn to, if this isn't that sneaky little higher voice wanting me to touch the mind of the master and get on another page, and if I have to write over and over "wherever you are and whatever you do, be in love." until I get it, so be it. Some students are more stubborn than others and you just have to put them at the chalkboard writing sentences. All day.
Saturday, September 7 2019 I had a one person show at Jefferson Arts Gallery in Monticello, Florida. It will be my last show, and was, in effect, my yearbook. It was one year worth of everything I wanted to do for many years but was too wrapped up with commissions to get around to. It was an exploration to see if anything could hold my interest for more than a couple of paintings. Nothing could. Once on the walls it was easy to see why painting has always been a frustration to me - I'm just not a painter, I'm a draftsman who occasionally colors the drawings. That's why there are rarely landscapes, and no successful ones... I can't see that stuff. I literally cannot see the forest for the trees. Now I have a room full of paintings to deal with, so they are a storage problem. I don't expect much to sell, they are like diary pages. I understand the emotional content, specific to me, of every single one - but that doesn't make them appealing in general. I am glad I did this. The hungry inspiration birds have been fed, the bag is empty, time to leave the beach with a light heart.
I've already ordered fresh new calligraphy supplies, going back to a very old love, illuminated poetry. The first one I will be working on is a quote from Rumi: "Wherever you are, and whatever you do, be in love." ( with orchids.) |
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