Music To My Hands...

Okay... so if you've been reading my blog lately, you know that I've kind of been a little obsessed about painting faces in my art. I'm trying to figure out my own style and in the process have pushed the boundaries a bit on how to go about actually painting. Why not, right?

I've been doing a lot of odd things lately to try and get out of my comfort zone, and this project was no exception. I took an old painting I wasn't very fond of and just painted right over top of it! That was a first for me. But with each exercise, I'm learning to let go more and more.

Recently, I tried painting an entire piece with just my left hand. So this time I thought I'd paint a girl using just my fingers. Good old fashioned finger painting. I figured (or should I say... fingered) that it would be pretty low pressure with low expectations... like kindergarten! That sounds like fun. It actually gave her face a lot of depth, dimension and texture. Yay!

I dressed her in purple, allowing the background to show through a bit. Not sure why, but I was building up layers slowly (still using my fingers only!) and liked it at this point. I wanted to add something, and this torn music sheet title fit in perfectly with the stripes in the background. Plus she looked a little sad, so I thought the title was perfect. Learning not to question everything to death... I just pasted it down!

The scene needed a little something more and so I added a cardboard house.

Now that the left side was taken care of... the right side looked a little bare. I had these lovely peels of cardboard left over from the house — having torn them off to expose the corrugated texture beneath — and so I decided to turn them into a tree.

Okay... so the left and right were taken care of... but now the top seemed a little empty. So I added a little folk artsy crow. And last minute, I decided to utilize some of the extra music paper and give him a song to sing. Love it when those unintended ideas just pop up based on the materials I'm using. Good times.

When I stepped back and looked at my finger painting as a finished piece... I was in awe over how primitive it looked. It wasn't exactly my intention to make it go in that direction... but all that tap, tap, tapping of my fingertips... and smearing lines of paint with my hands made it so.

I really did feel like a kindergartener and getting my hands all messy with paint... not caring if one color got on another... and just going with the flow... was a spectacular lesson in letting go.

So... there goes my everything.

Patch It Up...

Not too long ago, I got Lilla Rogers' book I Just Like To Make Things. In it, she had a few creativity exercises, and I fell in love with this patchwork looking one! She had us pick several of our favorite colors and then fill in the squares with them. I was so ecstatic with the results, I wanted to use the idea in a real painting.

So I divided a 16"x20" wood panel into 4"x4" squares and went to town. I wanted to keep the colors a bit more muted, so that whatever (or whoever) I painted over top would stand out.

I used the same techniques from my last painting... only this time I used my dominant hand (Spoiler Alert! I actually liked the left handed one better!) But the very dry brush strokes and multiple layers still came through and I love all the scritchy-scratchy detail that produces.

I decided to make her dress black so that it would pop over the pastel background. It worked!

And I ended up giving her a black mouse-eared hat just to balance things out. Of course once I made the hat, it felt like too much black.... and so I emblazoned it with my own little pink mouseketeer logo to create some visual distraction.

Typically when I think I'm done, I'll prop my painting up on the living room couch — opposite where I sit to watch TV. I'll glance over at it every once in awhile to see what I like and what I don't. So after staring at it for hours, I went back and added some shadows, and lightened some areas too. It was still a little scary as the Recovering Perfectionist in me didn't want to mess it up.

But the longer I stared at it, the more I saw things I wanted to change. So if it's a choice between leaving it as is (and not being happy), or trying something else to improve it (even if I don't like it)... why not just continue to improve it? And even though she's done... I still see things I'm going to change... and I'm not scared to do it!

Talk about patching things up!

I Love Painting... No Bull!

I've been painting a lot of backgrounds lately, being inspired by the process and just really getting into the details and having fun. Suddenly, between the pasted papers, oil pastels and brush strokes there emerged a face of sorts! And... no bull... I knew just what I was going to make of it!

Combining recent discoveries from workshops by both Mindy Lacefield and Jesse Reno — as well as my own tried and true techniques — I created this primitive yet whimsical pretty pink bovine piece.

I really enjoyed getting into the details and puzzling out how to make the painting work as a whole. I was loving the battle of chaotic elements inside and outside the figure and used different techniques to balance them out. I brought the face together with a light wash of pink. I added red to some of the feathers, but kept some of the imagery in others...

I'm very fond of that seredipitous peek-a-boo stuff! And I love all the texture that was created from the many layers beneath. Rubbing out the oil pastel outline really helps emphasize that.

The body was a little trickier. I wanted it to be pink, not just because the face was... but because it was also a nice contrast to the blues and teals of the background. But the pink looked really dull and plain. I had taken a soft shade of blue to re-paint some of the flower elements inside the bull and it gave me an idea... to fill the body with scribbles, doodles and graffiti of the same shade! I now love this technique and will definitely use it again!

The elements outside the bull were the perfect contrast and so I didn't mess with them very much. Adding a slight dark shadow around the animal was all it needed to stand out against these delicious, obnoxiously bright swirls of color!

Alternating shapes on the painting — like these squares here —really helped balance out the overall piece. I definitely have a tendency to go on and on and on with a single shape and try to break out of that habit whenever I can.

I am overly ecstatic with this piece and wish I could make another one just like it! But my process is so organic, I don't know if it would ever come out the way I intended. I guess I'll just have to play around and see if that ain't no bull!

Shop Update: Rag Dolls R' Us

Just dropping by to let you know that my motley crew of misfit ragdolls are now available in my Etsy Shop! Lots of different styles to choose from, and a whole range of characters from the awkward to the kooky, to the yummy and delicious variety — like these 3-tiered cakes!

Some are the bestest of friends!

Some are just full of themselves. Ugh... too much ice cream in my belleh!

Some give me a headache... or should I say toothache?

... and some are a little crabby! But they're all so lovable and they would be happy to find a new home. Check them out in the new Modern Vintage Rag Doll section of my Etsy Shop!

Letting Go...

I recently got the opportunity to attend a two-day painting workshop with Jesse Reno at my all-time favorite Virginia retreat... Art & Soul. I absolutely love his primitive style and his methods of painting intrigued me to no end! Painting with your hands, graffiti-style markings, and layers upon layers of acrylics, shapes and symbols was something I wanted to explore for my art.

Jesse himself is his own canvas, covered in marks and images that tell his own story and remind him of what is important in his life. He openly shared many of those stories with us, and showed how sometimes disparate events seem to come full circle. He's come along very far on his own journey of quiet, reserved artist to the extremely deep, acutely aware master he is today. It was an honor being part of this storytelling process.

After creating a few samples of backgrounds for our art, Jesse picked up a couple of the students samples (anonymously) to critique them for the class. Of course he picked mine up first and inside I was secretly blushing with excitement! However, he actually wanted to show the class what not to do! My piece had too many same-sized areas of paint and pattern, and was mostly all mid-tones. A few years ago I would have turned bright red, flushed with embarrassment, and felt like nothing I ever do is right. But this day, I was excited and thought to myself... Oooooh! What can I do to fix this? That's a huge step for me. Making mistakes has been the bane of my existence. Could this be a whole new Michelle?

After spending quite some time reworking our initial efforts, we switched gears and did some drawing exercises on plain white paper. This was so we could get an idea of what we were creating without a busy background to distract us. It's funny, but this is still one of my favorite pieces. I haven't gone any further with it. But I think I like the contrast of the white and how the faces stand out.

The next day it was the big leap. drawing on the backgrounds we created. One of my pieces started out like this, but it changed... alot! Jesse taught us how to step back and look at the things we like and the things we don't like. He showed us how we could change up the boring areas and higlight the interesting areas.

So then turned into this. But by this time I had gotten to the point where I wasn't afraid to change things. (Just take a picture first, and) Move on! I liked my little deer cat thing in the bottom left corner, but he just didn't make sense there. The eye to the right was looking like a fish, so I changed it up again.

...and so my piece finally made it to this after I returned home. I feel like it's okay, but it's not as "me" as it could be. At one point I had walked around the classroom looking at everyone else's art and getting a little jealous. Many were doing Jesse's techniques, but in their own style. So I stepped back and realized that because I'm a "recovering perfectionist", it takes me time to execute new ways of doing things. And that I was mimicking his style so that I could learn what I needed to and then I could apply it to my own style later on.

In fact, this piece I did awhile back — having been inspired by Jesse's paintings — is more me than anything I created in the workshop. But now I have the tools, as well as the perspective, to be able to look at what I don't like... and fix it. And I'll remember the most important advice from his class... sometimes you just need to make a move. It doesn't always matter what you do... just do something and the next step will reveal itself.

I'm thrilled that I got to take this class. It was an amazing experience at just the right time in my life. I'm looking forward to how my art will evolve because of it! Hurrah!