class work with vintage photo, and sketches to date

a new-to-me artist has a style I love and has recently opened a class called Vintage Hearts.  her name is ce duff, and she layers her canvasses with paper and different mediums to create lively portraits, but she utilizes her family's vintage photographs as her reference photos, so she winds up with lovely heirlooms.

as soon as I saw she had a class, I had to jump on the early bird price.  I watched the series of videos for the first lesson and was immediately inspired to find a photo I loved out of my meager stash of old family photos.


I found this one of my dad, sister, grandmother and I at ocean city, MD, and knew I wanted to crop the iconic image of grandma in her scarf to protect her hairdo.

when cropping, it became a blurry mess with no real detail for me to follow but I wanted to depict this sweet moment between grandmother and grandchild.

I created my background and sketched my subjects as well as I could with the information I was given 

and then I hit a little wall of weekend plans and a health hiccup.  but I've been still sketching, so theres that!  you saw my first sketch of the afghan girl, here are the rest so far;

this was a loose single-line sketch, barely looking at the page

so, there has been artistic movement, and for that I am extremely grateful!  I cant wait to get back to the painting of my grandmother, hopefully I can get the paint to work it's magic so I feel it represents her a bit better.

until later,
Jenny

slight progress

I have not done any creative work for about 4 months now, but I can feel some lifting in the creative mood at times!  a couple of days ago I found myself on unsplash.com looking at copyright free images to hopefully bring the muse out from hiding.  that was the moment it seemed I might be trying to feel the urge to create.  it was a little step, but for me it made me tear up.

I've been dreading picking up the pencil and paintbrush again.  thinking that I might have lost the talent I have acquired in the last few years.  that I would have to struggle to gain any ground again.  I became more depressed thinking that I might not get it back.  it might have been a fluke that I had been able to paint something that resembled what I was going for.  I had been circling the drain for too long, and I couldn't find my way out of danger.

going online to even look at reference photos was a minute of celebration for my creative urges!  I couldn't say I was back, but I was tip-toeing my way there.

and, today, the urge struck!  I got out my journal and pencil and sketched out 'the afghan girl', which is a favorite subject of mine.  this was a quick, loose sketch, with my hand at the end of the pencil to make it even more loose.  my sweetie even noticed the new pencil hold.  and it worked!  it was a fun way to put feeling into the paper.

it's not perfect.  thats not what I was after.  I needed to play with it, to not care about the outcome but to feel the creative juices flowing in me again.  to see where I stood.

did I lose anything while in my artistic deep freeze?  I lost 4 months of flow.  I lost some self esteem in the moment.  but talent?  no, I didn't lose my talent.  it's still there.  I dont have to worry.

I might not get out the brushes and canvas tomorrow, but I am yet another step toward that jumping in point.  I put my toe in, and it felt good!

we'll see how this season goes.  September is when I normally go downhill, only to come back up when spring lengthens the daylight again.  this year, what is usually a short depression in June/July turned into this huge dark scary storm.  I'm hoping that this years SAD depression will be slight, but I'm still roughing it.  it's still scary at times.  the depression and anxiety get to be this living breathing being that sits beside me on the couch with my pup.

today I beat it!

( this post is not perfect, either.  I'm being loose with my writing, too, I guess.  I'm getting it out of my head, and thats good, so I'll leave it be.  'done, not perfect'.)

until later,
Jenny