green

i made these weeks before the 30 day challenge. honestly, i wanted to give myself some time to regroup before posting 2-3x a week again...so i posted dated this for a breather. ahhh!

threes

just playing around with composition. and drawing hair the exact same each time is much like trying to actually style you own hair the same each day: nearly impossible.

(i made these weeks before the 30 day challenge. honestly, i wanted to give myself some time to regroup before posting 2-3x a week again...so i posted dated this for a breather. ahhh!)

day 20

"i'm undaunted in my quest to amuse myself by constantly changing my hair." --Hillary Clinton*

i'm unhappy with this and i'm stumped with the collages for now. it's making these past few days pretty painful to sit down and do anything with it. i still want to figure it out, but i'm not there yet. maybe it's the wrong combination of materials**, not good enough collage fodder laying around, my drawing limitations...maybe it has to be an actual built object?

i have one more left to do and then change things up for the last week.

*this is made more funny to me because i was told i looked just like Chelsea Clinton today. mostly because i had my hair down and curly.

**even the strongest and highest quality of glue sticks can't adhere to chalk dust. duh, vanessa.

day 19

"Perception is created and twisted so quickly." --Louis C. K.

probably falls into the "don't care for it" pile. 

i did cut out a couple of hairs and quickly took these photos, which i think i like better.

day 18

"What would be left of our tragedies if an insect were to present us his?" --Emile M. Cioran

day 16

"There is no black-and-white situation. It's all part of life. Highs, lows, middles." --Van Morrison

i'll have to try something similar on bigger paper. and, graph paper is one of my favorite art supplies.

day 15

"Believe you can and you're halfway there." --Theodore Roosevelt

this week's focus is adding collage elements. only a slight change for today....trying this out "strategically." so what is it? a stylish, literary unicorn?

i also think i overdid the editing on this photo. it's not nearly that bright or blue in real life. i'm not that bright (or blue) in real life either.

by the way, this 30 day challenge is half way over! quick reflection on this: 

pros:

• it's been good to feel obligated to sit and finish at least 1 thing a day. 
• a few limitations really help me from becoming overwhelmed with options.
• get lots of small work done quickly.

cons:

• several aren't very good and they seem to be getting worse, so now i'll be happy if there will be 20 to be confident with.
• not sure anyone (including me) should care about this series. i don't really know what they are or what to do next. my inner critic is talking a little too loudly.
• it's not a good way to work if you're doing larger or more intricate stuff....i suppose that's a different challenge....
• i'm tending to get into a "well, i did my one for the day. guess i'm done!" mindset. this was NOT the intention. they were meant to be a warm up before working on other things.
• not being as experimental as i thought because i know they will be posted...so fear of failing is also seeping in. the result is they are getting stale. hopefully the collage ones will help make things interesting again.

day 14

"This is unexpected... like squirt from aggressive grapefruit." --Earl Derr Biggers

the painting underneath is so simple but i really enjoyed making it. the drippy point on the top most triangle fell directly into the still wet outline of the hollow triangle beneath it and just stayed there. it was really beautiful to watch. 

this past week i focused a little more on background & foreground, revealing/concealing. i'm looking forward to being able to changing it up a little more this upcoming week.

day 13

"Energy and persistence conquer all things." --Benjamin Franklin

i really didn't want to sit down and draw today...but here's for the sake of the 30 day challenge. i guess it's silly to think i'd like ALL 30 of these.

day 11

"Do the difficult things while they are easy and do the great things while they are small. A journey of a thousand miles must begin with a single step."--Lao Tzu

i started naming the files after people a few days ago. this is "Summer."

day 10

"We're involved in trillions of little acts just to keep going."--Morrie Schwartz

day 9

"Froth at the top, dregs at bottom, but the middle excellent."--Voltaire

having things disappear and reappear behind the paint is fun, but takes a lot more planning--which is less fun.

maybe i should mention that these are pretty small (8"x10"). yesterday i scanned in lots of small work. i'm pleased with how well the scanner translates the colors

day 8

“Toto, I have a feeling we're not in Kansas anymore.” ― L. Frank Baum

this week's goal is to play around more with negative space and foreground.

day 7

"Without struggle, there can be no progress." --Fredrick Douglass

yes, my struggle with this pretty terrible composition and overworked drawing is EXACTLY the same as the social and equality struggles Mr. Douglas was talking about!

this one is SO bad it hurts to have it even posted here.

it's only slightly better than the short, cropped version below. i gave it extensions because it was too awkward.

day 6

not quite finished..but close

day 5

"It is our attitude at the beginning of a difficult task which, more than anything else, will affect its successful outcome." --William James

this one wasn't very cooperative and i struggled for ideas. despite this, another thing i like about doing this series is that i really don't know what's going to happen with each one. the composition and colors are always a surprise. in fact, if i go in with a very concrete idea, then tend to be bad.

today the "idea" was neutral background with some straight edges and blue.

connecting routines

honestly, i'm not entirely sure conceptually where this is leading. but i'm attempting to put things together is a very basic way here....

i guess hair is a type of protector physically, you know...it covers your head! protection and shelter are frequently a theme in my previous work (use of tents, houses, shelters, umbrellas, nests and other closed in areas withing a bigger space...)

metaphorically speaking, hair is also a protector. even if i feel or look like crap, if i can get my hair to look good, i know i can seem more put together than i really am. it can disguise who we really are a little bit which is a type of protection. i suppose it can also reveal a little bit of who we are too...

washing hair, cutting, brushing...are all maintenance & routines and habits. THAT is the connection between tea and hair for me.

i did the following piece in the spring. it's not that great but it got me thinking about my art process again. so i respect it for what it is and is not.

"weakly tea"

tea is a small and happy routine i have. i began thinking of it as a way of documenting time and process. i built this piece on a whim. 7 hand-built "bags," 7 days of the week.

and, see the one with hair? there's always at least one day a week where my hair causes me more trouble than everything else in my getting-ready-to-go routine. little did i know that that tiny piece of collage would return to me.

day 4

"Discipline is the bridge between goals and accomplishment." --Jim Rohn

i held what i REALLY wanted to do* hostage until i did this.

here's a glimpse into how one of these grows. i'm not great with yellows and oranges. not sure why, but this isn't probably the best one to have tried this out with because it probably changes more dramatically when i use darker colors.

*practice embroidery!

day 3: looking fishier

"They always say time changes things, but you actually have to change them yourself." 
--Andy Warhol

i suppose i imagine most of these as underwater. this one in particular is pretty fishy.

lastly: unsure about orientation. i told myself one of my rules was to do them vertically for 30 days. now i wonder if i should do 1/2 horizontally? i used damaged paper (which you'll hear all about next week) and cut it down to a size that was the most economical. could have made them square but i didn't want to lose white space.

a satisfying process

the entire process of drawing these includes some of my favorite things:
--swirling around watercolor
--creating direction & composition
--using pastel pencils
--complex color palette & layering

it's pretty satisfying.

the watercolor has been informing which "hairstyle" i go for. most so far are entirely unplanned beyond that. they are becoming less and less human, which i like.

a word about my photographs: they're crap. but they are fast and get things done for me now. also, it probably makes my images safe from theft without a watermark.

i'm currently looking into methods to photograph work so they are a high enough quality to make prints from. getting things professional scanned and printed is insanely expensive. it's currently number 2 in biggest hurdles along this path. number one is actually doing the work!