DONE!

Here is the finished proposal. Of course I could have spent another week on the details but I am happy with the painting and it's due monday, so I have to be done now so it can dry in time for it's trip to Greensboro. I am nervous to present it but happy with what came out of it. I hope I get the opportunity to paint this mural! But even if I don't I have learned a lot from this painting and have enjoyed working on it. Here are some details from the painting. Keep in mind how tiny they are! ( the people.) It's hard to really refine the faces at that scale. But I wanted to keep them small since in the actual mural they are going to be 6 times bigger.



Here is the painting as I started working on it this morning (below) and as I finished at the end of my session today. I am enjoying the detail work. I focused a lot on the people today which was excruciating because they were so small. If I get the mural, it will be a lot easier to do the faces large scale. I reached my limit today with the faces and started working on birds. Both the birds and people need more work. I will be back at it tomorrow. Monday I present the painting to the committee. I know I will be ready.


On Thursday I was flinging paint. I have lots of details left but I am happy. The purple house in the front is dedicated to McGirt and Horton. The left is McGirt and the right is Horton. The big windows will have portraits of them. I put an oak tree next to McGirt's side of the house as a reference to his poem. I have someone holding a candle on Horton's side as a reference to his torch poem. I am going to include 3 librarians. The kids playing are a shout out to the Boys and Girls club in the neighborhood. One house has 2 old men on the porch and 2 dogs in the yard, something I saw while I was in the neighborhood. The red house on the bottom is the sunflower house- dedicated to the kids who made a sunflower quilt that hangs in the library. There are clotheslines and a bus stop. There will be cats birds and squirrels and maybe a bunny and a lot more people in the finished piece. I am excited about this painting!

More Inspiration



James Ephraim McGirt

Success is a light upon the farther shore,

That shines in dazzling splendor to the eye,

The waters leap, the surging billows roar,

And he who seeks the prize must leap and try.

A might host stand trembling on the brink,

With anxious eyes they yearn to reach the goal.

I see them leap, and ah! I see them sink-

As gazing on dread horror fills my soul.

Yet to despair I can but droop and die,

‘Tis better far to try the lashing deep.

I much prefer beneath the surge to lie,

Than death to find me on this bank asleep.


BORN LIKE THE PINES.
Born like the pines to sing,
The harp and song in m' breast,
Though far and near,
There's none to hear,
I'll sing as th' winds request.
To tell the trend of m' lay,
Is not for th' harp or me;
I'm only to know,
From the winds that blow,
What th' theme of m' song shall be.
Born like the pines to sing,
The harp and th' song in m' breast,
As th' winds sweep by,
I'll laugh or cry,
In th' winds I cannot rest.

THE SPIRIT OF THE OAK.
The spirit of the oak am I,
With head uplifted to the sky,
Though hail and storm beat in my face,
Through weal or woe I hold my place,
With head uplifted to the sky,
The spirit of the oak am I.
Birds I have sheltered many a year,
They hear the storm, desert in fear,
The strenuous eagle strives to stay,
But, ah! at last his heart gives way,
He stretches forth his feathered form,
And sails to heaven above the storm.
Devoid of every earthly friend,
I stand undaunted till the end,
With head uplifted to the sky—
The spirit of the oak am I.
And when the raging storm is o'er,
My feathered friends return once more,
And find me standing calm and free;
They chirp aloud and sing with glee,
With outstretched arm I bid them rest,
I hold no malice in my breast,
But welcome every passer-by —
The spirit of the oak am I.

MAN, A TORCH

by: George Moses Horton (c.1797-c.1883)

      LOWN up with painful care and hard to light,
      A glimmering torch blown in a moment out,
      Suspended by a web, an angler's bait,
      Floating at stake along the stream of chance,
      Snatch'd from its hook by the fish of poverty,
      A silent cavern is his last abode;
      The king's repository veil'd with gloom,
      The umbrage of a thousand oziers bowed,
      The couch of hallowed bones, the grave's asylum,
      The brave's retreat and end of ev'ry care.

Inspiration from the site

I love the color of these two houses together.
Thinking about including some clotheslines.
The recreation center's gazebo has an interesting roof.
Behind the roses is a yellow house- another great color combination.
This is a nursery school. More bright colors!


I want to reference some of the things I learned about the history of the neighborhood. Also the library was named for two poets so I need to read some of their works and see what that inspires. I am still figuring out how these images will translate themselves into my vision.

Mural Proposal



This is a big deal for me- I am now one of 3 finalists to do a mural. I applied with my portfolio several months ago and just got a call last week letting me know I was selected to present my proposal to the jury! I am working on a scale version of what I will be doing at the library if chosen.
Since the mural is going to be in a library in an African American part of town, the mural must be Afro- centric. I am using for my inspiration the memories of an African American neighborhood I know well in Jacksonville FL. It was the neighborhood I went to school in. The houses were older and the colors were vibrant. I am trying to capture the energy and the vibes from my memories.
Right now I just have some very basic colors but this painting will resemble some of my other cityscapes- with lots of trees, cats, dogs, people, squirrels and birds.
I am taking a trip tomorrow to the actual neighborhood the library is being built in to see if I can gain more inspiration. I am so excited about this project!
Wish me luck as I focus my energies on this!

Finished!


Here are two paintings I recently finished. I am finally done with my triptych. It's amazing how much longer it takes to finish a big painting while being a mom. I decided to name it The Morning After the Rainstorm.
The colors are bright and vibrant and alive. It gives me a feeling of renewal to look at it. I imagine walking through the garden or through the arboretum after a rain, and the smells of the plants and the dampness of the earth. I imagine the spirits that live there.

I also finally finished The Pollen Collecters.
Keith named this painting for me. I was at a loss for a title, as usual. It's the first painting he's ever named for me.
This is a painting of flying humanoids in buckets. They each have their own small flying bug that is trained to fly into the cup flowers and collect pollen for it's master. The background is encaustic and the rest was done with oils.

Triptych







So, Here is the painting I have been spending most of my time on as of late. It is coming along slowly. I enjoy working with encaustic over collage, deciding which part of the collage will show. Also scraping through the paint to find a previous layer- I always forget what's under there! So here is the painting as it is- and a few details. I am probably about 70% done.

Beginnings





I love working large. Since starting encaustics, I haven't had the space to do a really large piece because they need to be worked on flat. After some experimenting, I decided to do 3 large wood panels that will connect together to create one painting. A triptych of sorts.

The panel were bought months ago. Something about the size and the blankness was intimidating. I wasn't sure where to start. A lot of artists do preliminary sketches but I don't like to work this way. To me, painting and drawing are 2 totally separate things. I like to draw, and I feel like the drawings feed into the paintings in a conceptual way.

Keith suggested that I start abstract. This is something I have done often enough. I will start a painting in an intuitive way and let the shapes suggest images to me. Kind of like looking at clouds. I decided to start this painting with a collage.

I didn't worry a lot about getting the collage "perfect" because a lot of it will be painted over when I start the painting. I love this part of the process- anything is possible at this point. The more choices I make, the narrower the path gets. In choosing one image, I reject other possibilities. This is the part of the process that keeps me intrigued. The paintings I like the most are always the ones I am working on.

Destruction is part of the creative process part 2




This piece had also been sitting in my studio untouched. The encaustic background went really well and I was really happy about it. I imaged a water scene with tiny people and animals and twigs and such floating around. The problem arose when I got too detailed with it too quickly. A painting should have an in between "rough" stage where a larger brush is used. I went right into this one with my tiny "O.C.D." brush painting lots of details. The painting as a whole didn't "gel". So I scraped the oil parts off pretty easily with a razor (yay, encaustics!) and then covered the mess with some translucent green oil paints. This one also will need to marinate for a while, as I'm not sure what will happen with it. I am feeling a sense of relief to have a clean slate.

Destruction is part of the creative process.




There were 2 paintings sitting in my home studio that I hadn't touched in months. Today I drastically changed them.

This is the painting I was doing of my baby girl- Ingrid, and my fur children. I always paint my pets, so I had no problem with the animal parts of the painting. Painting (well, good painting anyway) is an emotional as well as an artistic and techincal process. I really wanted a painting of my beautiful child, and set out to paint one, even though I am not a portrait painter, and have never even painted an imaginary baby. Needless to say, my portrait of Ingrid did not live up to my expectation. How does someone paint something so precious to them, something so beautiful. Badly, in my case. Which is o.k. I realized the problem and decided to do something about it, to start with a clean slate. Not to mention, painting as sporatically as I have to now that I have this other MAJOR creative process going, I have to think differently. I don't have hours to obsess over getting everything right. It has meant I have to let some things go. I have to decide what is worth obsessing about.
So I have covered this piece with blues and greens, and still don't have a plan for it's future. I will let it marinate like it is for a while while I think it over.


Here is ANOTHER owl painting. I love owls- just can't help it. Anyway, a bunch of people have told me I should start using Etsy, and I may just do that. I would sell stuff like this on etsy, works on paper that are easy to ship and more budget/recession friendly.
When the Etsy thing gets going I will post that address here as well.


The painting of "all my children" has changed again. I'm sure this one is going to go through a couple more stages and may change more drastically. I have been working at home in fits and starts.

This is my new sketch book.  I did a collage on the cover, using words and images found in old National Geographics.  It is reminiscent of the collages that I used to do in college.  Not quite as intricate.  I plan to "kick it old school"  and do more of these.  The "found word" poems inspire images for my paintings.  

This is the painting I am working on for the show-at the Block gallery in Raleigh's municipal building on Hargett st.  I did the background in encaustic and then worked in oils.  I plan to do another layer with encaustic once the oil is dry.  It needs to dry soon because this piece is due on Jan. 20th!

Home studio

Here is where I am getting some work done currently.  Not as much as I'd like with all of the distractions of a new baby.  But when she's napping I steal  away to this room and paint.  I definitely feel a sense of urgency when I am working now.  Since I never know how much time I am going to get I tend to work in short spurts.  I enjoy my creative time more- I can't take it for granted.  I am also enjoying my time with Ingrid- I guess you could say I have the best of both worlds!