Coming Full Circle?

 You know how life leads you on a merry chase only to come full circle? Well, that's happened to me. I've come to realize that I can deal with my arthritis by using pencils that are jumbo, made for old folks and kids. So, I'm back to a favorite medium, watercolor pencils and graphite.  I have jumbo versions of nothe from Faber Castell and Ticonderoga. My fingers always hurt but using these pencils to draw and color makes it easier for me. My fingers tire less. 

I can't wait to draw my next project. 

 

And so it begins

As we age, our techniques change. Our media change. Maybe our vision, arthritis or other physical disabilities, even hearing loss will change our work; our product that we call art. I'll be 75 in a couple of weeks and as one who has spent most of her life doing representational art and running away from the possibility of success I have arrived at the corner of Who cares! and What!? I'm not chasing the dream of being a reknowned artist anymore. It just doesn't matter. All I want is to be able to be a full time creator for humorous art. Just a touch of humor that others can see is great. And I'm back to my roots. Cartooning. I began my drawing by coping Clairol portraits and comic book art and it's imprinted on me I guess. Gone are the days of realistic drawings and paintings. Well, except when I teach painting classes at the library. It's part of the job.

 I started with the Fool from the Tarot and I've decided to hone my skills of old age using the Tarot as my inspiration. I've envisioned the art; how to preceed. I'm just waiting for the watercolor ink to arrive on Thursday so on Friday I can continue. And I'm really going off track with my interpretation of the cards. Well, at leas the next one.

Here's my Lightning Struck Tower. Look closely. It's a computer tower in the clouds. No dogs barking but a bird flying around it and two men being ejected from the tower. When I get the ink, I'll drop color and do more drawing with pens building on the shapes left by the drying ink.

I will always be a wanna be scientist. A left over from the 50s and 60s and scifi movies that were really about the communist threat. I was a kid. I didn't know. I love experimenting and I am going to experiment my way into a new technique.

Starting Over

 Hello to all my visitors. I'm going through a creative change. A dark night of the soul. Its time for a fresh start. I've started a new YouTube channel, Drawn From Life. And this blog is a place for me to, oh, I don't know, babble on about the utter nonsense that is my life; creativity; new ideas and old ideas wanting to be resurrected. All previous posts have been retired. I may reread them and see if any should be republished but there's no rush. I'm still trying to figure things out. Is that all vague enough?

Starting with my new channel, Drawn from Life, I have a new video about the drawing of the Fool as in the Tarot. I'm not a tarot reader. I dabble. I read for myself. I'm rarely right. But it's a way to focus. I need to focus. I'm easily distracted, like the crow seeing the shiny objects. I must have it. 

The thing about my new channel is that there are no reference photos used. Its about original drawing. No tracing, no measuring, no graphing. It's all about just being there and letting my hand do it's thing while my mind watches. I'm working on defining my drawing style which I really have when I'm not. 

Oh, heres the first image and the second since I chose to color the picture but without letting anyone watch. It is so much easier to draw withoiut an audience and sometimes I do that but, I want to share so I record. Please ignore all of my punctuation mistakes. Thank you.

Better with the color, right?

The Fool is representative of me right now setting out on a new artistic road. New blog, new channel, new drawing direction. I don't know what I'm doing or where I'm going or where I'll wind up but that's the fun; that's the journey.

Thousands of people have visited this blog while I was sharing art but rarely did anyone ever comment and no one ever follows. Just as well. You could follow me off a creative cliff like the lemmings. Do any of you suspect that I'm older than dirt and I'm still trying to find my artist's way?

Dark Night of the Artistic Soul

 Every so often I share some personal aspect of my relationship with art and creativity; questioning my direction; why am doing what I'm doing. This morning it's why do I bother? The past year and a half, almost has been difficult for me. I've been working and working to relearn many media. Right now I'm working on watercolor with not much success yet. I've been looking back at my videos and decided most of them were mediocre. Not the videos. The art. I've always thought of myself as a good artist, Not great. Not very good. But good. Right now I just don't know why I'm wasting my time and oh so much money to create what no one want to pay for. Oh many folks are happy to take my paintings and drawings for free, but few, a special few actually believe in me and I am so grateful. I take my commisstions seriously, actually stopping and restarting two and three times until its as good as I can make it. 

I've been doing some work on money. My relationship with money and my familial relationship and memes about money. I heard them all and they dwell within the recesses of my mind. And those memes about starving  artists and needing a day job are the worst. That one comes from society.

Well. I'm still working to master  watercolor. But this time I'm working on landscapes wet on wet. It's all about pigment flowing in water creating images. It's about letting the water determine the image. And, it's my intention to continue sharing my progress with watercolor on YouTube so stay tuned. Watercolor is the only medium I didn't study in college. 

And oh the epiphany! It doesn't matter if I achieve major recognition as an artist. It matters that I continue to teach art at the library and on YouTube. And any other venue that presents itself to me. 

So, stay tuned. I have a video out now on watercolor, mentioned in my last post and one coming up on loose watercolor of a jelly fish using a bit of ink. 

I will continue to improve my first love, drawing, by working on portraits but they won't be taped. Maybe later, but not now. I somehow just feel I need to keep those to myself.

Way back in the day, when I had finished my first year of college, money was an issue so I opted to leave college and gonto trade school and become a lab tech. While I still drew, from that time on, art took a backseat. The medical work didn't last. And well, my employment history is vast. Often I wonder what path I would have taken with my art if I had stayed in college the first time instead of waiting 12 years to return. Oh well. 

Thanks for reading.