feels like forever

it's been a while since I've been attempting any artwork.  the holiday crazies were here- that could possibly be referring to my son and grandtwins from California, as well as the gift buying and wrapping that goes with the season.  I was also furiously resting my weakened body, delegating tasks, and letting go of a lot of my own expectations of the holiday.

seeing the grandtwins helped the mood!

I continue to be pretty exhausted and am looking forward to a lyme appointment in a couple of weeks.  hoping to get me back on track with my treatments and my emotional stability.  the feeling of going stagnant and even going backwards is very much present with me, and it's hard to get myself off the couch to do anything.  my sweetie only wants me to be happy (and healthy), and is excited if the only thing constructive I do is art related.

I was thrilled when sweetie gifted me with two classes this year!  I started the year off thinking I wouldn't be able to do the "lets face it" year long course this year.  this course has been a main part of my looking forward to a new week in the past years, and I knew this year would be even harder to look forward to without the weekly classes lovingly brought together by kara bullock < her facebook page.  not only was I signed up for "lets face it 2020" (which has 50 weeks of lessons from 26 artists!), but I was signed up for "fluid figures" (10 classes with 14 hours of invaluable instruction!) with Emma Petitt, a wonderful artist whose flowing style I highly admire.  both these courses have lifetime access with tons of downloadable content and facebook groups for guidance with the artists.

I started doing the first of Emmas 10 classes over the weekend and then crashed.  the first class was sketching in a short time frame of 30 seconds up to 2 minutes, gesso-ing after each loose sketch.   I finished the class up today with a 2 minute painting

I've also decided to fill a small sketchbook with hands, starting with the ASL alphabet.

I even got my stumpy little thumb, hehehe

we're 3 classes in since the beginning of lets face it, and I've only been able to do an attempt at week 2 with Angela Kennedy;

I had to stop before getting to the rest of the details

I was excited to learn to get more detail into the eyes during sketches

I'm very excited to work on the fluid figures class, as I dont think I have it in me to keep painting as tightly as I was with so much detail.  I dont need to get into realism to bring my voice into the world.

slow and steady I guess.  thats about as fast as I go these days!

until later,

Jenny

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

art challenge day 6

i am seeing improvement in my quick sketches and i'm happy about that.  i'm finding it both difficult and liberating to be doing these timed sketches.  i'm not afforded time to erase any lines, just letting the finished product be as it is and not giving (too much) judgement.  they are totally being an abstract study of the human body at this point, and that's what i must see them as.  each day i start out my one minute sketch as a newbie for the day.  i know it will be good for my art, i can see my progression already, but it's very difficult to let go of perfection.

todays work, day 6;

i will have an update soon about new merchandise in my society6 shop.  we scanned some new canvasses today and sweet hubby has been working to get them re-sized for the various items and uploaded to the store.  we are now waiting for the photos to reliably show up on site.  for now, i'm giggling at the photos of my artwork on tote bags, clocks, notecards, and a shower curtain!

until later,
jenny

new art challenge!

in order for me to try and get back on track i have decided to do another 30 day challenge.  this time i will be using the live models at croquis cafe and doing one session a day.  their sessions are a good 20 minutes or so long, with different length poses for you to draw from, in real time.  the models come into frame, get into a pose and hold the pose for one minute and go into another pose.  today was my first official day of sketching this way, and have 5 one minute sketches, 4 two minute sketches and 1 five minute sketch under my belt!

just a few examples of day 1;

for some reason i like the two minute sketches better than the five minute ones.  i am loose with it, get the idea across, and don't have to get into detail as much.  with the five minute sketch i am able to go back and fiddle with things and that creates messiness to me.

it will be interesting to see any noticeable difference in my ability between today and day 30.  i won't be bothering to update every day, unless i'm really happy with a pose i did or something, but i will post the last days sketches to compare.

until later,
jenny