There comes a point in time when I have put things off for so long that I become terrified. I get so nervous and stuck in my head, assuming that I have lost the progress I have made as a self taught artist. This often means that I decide to not do anything at all. Today I made the decision to fight that feeling. It has been about 7 1/2 months since I created anything. Today I scrolled through my ideas boards like I so often do, and looked at all of the things I had collected in a moment of inspiration and then left to the side to scared to attempt anything. Today, I decided I needed to at least try something, if for no other reason than to silence the voices in my head saying that I was no longer capable or that I had regressed in my abilities. I am already very self-conscious that I am a self taught artist, and honestly I feel like a fraud even saying the word "artist". I am well aware that I have had no formal training and I have so many extraordinarily talented friends that it can be intimidating to create and share my art. I also know that the only way I can improve my skills and achieve what I have envisioned with my art is to keep creating, reading books, and trying new things. After looking through my inspiration boards I decided to try an animal I haven't attempted yet. Rabbits, and I mean, come on, how cute are rabbits?! With the ears and the big round eyes it's like they were begging to be painted. The relief for me was that their shape is pretty straight forward if I drew a profile of one. I am still struggling with straight on views of any animal, the dimensions and depth are still something that I am working on. Profile is a way for me to focus on one side and slowly build up my abilities in depth, shadows and highlights. I also don't have to worry about if both eyes are straight :). Once I had the basic outline of shapes done I started to add texture with pencil first, this helped me to look at where the shadows and highlights were on that cute little face. I then added colour with my fabulous watercolour pencils and water paintbrushes. This is just my initial sketch/painting that helps me to sort out my ideas before I put the whole thing onto a larger canvas. I feel more free to play and make mistakes in my journal than I do if I just started directly on a canvas. I feel the pressure to not make mistakes on a relatively expensive canvas, where as in my sketchbook I am better able to let go and just play. A canvas always feels so final and therefore I feel the need to create perfection. Usually, the next step of my projects freaks me out! Transferring my sketch to a canvas. Normal I sit staring at the canvas wondering how on earth I am going to recreate what I just sketched onto a canvas. I had just gotten it the way I liked it in my sketch book and now I need to redraw the whole thing! terrifying. Enter transfer paper. I don't know why I didn't think about this earlier, but I discovered the technique in one of the art books I have and decided to give it a try. Despite the graphite getting all over my hands, it worked like a charm. The pressure has been taken off and my sketch looks exactly like I wanted it to and a bonus is that I can use my sketch over and over again on different types of canvas. Now to figure out how to enlarge my sketches, but that is another day. This time I am just dabbling so I am using a cheap canvas. This way I can play around and figure out things on a canvas, again, without the fear or panic of ruining a more expensive canvas. My hope is that I will eventually transfer this onto a wooden canvas. Lately I have been loving the wood canvas because each one is different because of the grain of wood which is super fun to work with and show off. It has been so long since I have put paint brush to canvas that I admit I had to overcome a bit of nerves when I started, however, before I knew it I was lost in the painting. It was incredibly therapeutic to blend colours as I watched this little face come to life in front of me. There is always a moment of panic around the middle of my painting when I think things are not going the way I wanted. Today was no different as the colours weren't cooperating as I anticipated however, it turned out to work in my favour as I began to add the texture of the fur the the little critter.
Over the last year I have realized how much I enjoy a black background and a colourful animal to pop off of it. I began be creating the back ground, this allows me to put the texture over top of the background. I then created the base colours and blocked them in where I wanted. I added the texture of the fur by mixing a pre-made pink with the purples and blues and using an angle brush in short strokes to create the illusion of fluffy fur. I then continued to layer with the angle brush using a variety of values and colours to add depth, shadows, and highlights. The only thing I have let to do is to add the cute little whiskers! Overall, I am really happy with how this little guy came out, I know there are things to work on, but for getting my brush back on the canvas I would say this was a success! Still thinking about what to call this little guy, if you have some suggestions let me know!
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Today is my 31st birthday. Today I have been reflecting on the journey my life has taken me on, all of the places I have seen and things I have strived to accomplish. Today I also look forward to what is to come, especially as I feel the little kicks and rolls of a growing human in my ever expanding belly. What do I want my children to see in me? What do I want to teach them through my actions? I want them to see joy, to see passion for making the world a better place, whatever that may look like. I want them to see a confident woman who is determined and not afraid to take risks and embraces them and the inevitable failures that will come with the risks I take. I want to teach them determination, courage, and creativity.
This means that, although I have been on incredible journeys, today marks the beginning of a brand new one. The impossible journey to become the mother, wife, artist, human being that I have always strived to be. What is different about this journey is that I am expecting failure, and epic ones at that. I am expecting that I will let people down including myself, but I am expecting that those failures will make me stronger and will continue to mould me. See, the one thing in my past journeys that I refused to embrace was failure. I didn't try things if I thought I would fail or if I thought I couldn't be perfect at it which only led to heartache that I wasn't who I wanted to be. I thought failure was the end, I didn't see how necessary it was to strengthen my skills. I cannot grow without failing every once in a while. Today was the first step in this journey creatively. I tried a new project that I had found in an art book that a friend gave me. I looked at the project and thought, "yeah, I can totally do that" and then waited a month and a half to try. When I began the project a week ago I was still pretty confident that I could complete the project and that it would look exactly like the pictures in the book. Only, as I began I realized pretty quick that it was going sideways from my expectations. This was NOT going to turn out at all! Now, normally I would be frustrated and walk away defeated. Today, I giggled at how it turned out, acknowledged it was not what I thought it would look like, put it to the side and moved onto somethings else. I went back to some basics of sketching eyes, since I knew that was something I was achieving some success in. It boosted my confidence, but what I was most struck by was how empowered I felt to keep creating even after failing. Normally, I would stop creating for weeks, even months after feeling like I failed at a project. I am hoping that this new outlook will cross over into all areas of my life and help to embolden me not only as a self taught artist, but as a wife, friend, and soon, mother. My hope is that I will be able to use this blog as a way to document my growth along with my failures and frustrations and something to look back on for encouragement when I feel like giving up. Those of you who are out there and choose to read and follow my journey welcome, but know this is a place for me to practice some much needed self care. If someone gains something from my journey all the better! Be bold and courageous! |