Don't forget to change your RSS feeds...I will slowly start posting exclusively to the other blog, but for now I will be updating either at both blogs or at least updating here to remind you to check the other one...




Day 10: I realized that these stick figures are actually really helping me see the angles of the body in a different way. I must concentrate on the figure as a whole and think more about the abstract shapes that it makes as one.  Who knew you could learn from from stick figures?!



Day 11: Actually day 11 only consisted of the two figures on the left and the head oval. I became very frustrated after the bottom figure and decided to call it a day before I went to work.



Day 12: I came up with a happy medium between the stick figures and the more detailed drawings. I was planning on just doing a few more gestures today (Saturday, Day 14) and calling it a week, but last night I had the over-whelming urge to draw some gestures so I did.



Day 13: Technically these were done on day 14, but I am grouping them sort of, by 10s and just calling those days. Again I figured I would just sit down and do 10 for today and that's it. I would confess my sins of playing Ninja Warrior on Facebook for an entire day. (Well technically I ended up sleeping 12 hours until 2 o'clock in the afternoon and only stayed up until about midnight, so not really an entire day and I blame my little brother. It's so his fault.)  However.....



Day 14:  I ended up modifying the stick figures so that I would hopefully have something that could be done quickly as well as help me get the proportions a bit more accurate. I believe I did 15 of these as well as flip back to Day 11 and fill in the page for a total of 50 gestures. By a nose on this one...

I will also say that Ninja Warrior was not my only pit fall.


The last two weeks have been a bit crazy. However, from the craziness came good. I was able to spend some fantastic time with my best friends and I think we all needed it no matter it came about by the tragic loss of another friend. Sometimes it takes a tragedy to make you drop everything that "needs" to be done in order to focus on your real priorities, such as loved ones.  Danielle will be missed greatly by her friends and family, luckily, for us she made the world a better place while she was with us and her memory will live on for a very long time. 

        

Week 2 I decided to change things up a bit, out of necessity and to try something different. I love Sharon’s style so I decided to take a small tip from her work. While Sharon does do the full figure, I wanted to work as fast as she does. I was very distracted this week with getting a new blog (thanks to Nick for helping me figure it out) and a few minor house hold issues that took a lot of time.  I also have been very curious about the differences between how illustrators work as opposed to fine artists.  The first 4 days I just concentrated on getting a line of action and trying to express the movement. I think doing fast, stick-figure drawings really helped me see a bit of the difference in the approach. I loved seeing the motion and the movement. It helped me get a sense of the slight weight adjustments the body makes.  By the 5th day I was bored with the stick-figures. They are very fun and I will most likely go back to them, maybe start to develope them a bit more as I get faster. To keep myself interested in the project though I went and bought another reference book by Mark Edward Smith. This is The Nude Figure: A Visual Reference for the Artist. I will try to add a link on the side bar.

I remember once in a class I was in where there was an illustrator w/ a bunch of fine artists, the question came up what’s the difference between the two and is there a difference? The disappointing point was that the illustrator wouldn’t participate. She would say we were wrong about something but not actually give her reasons.  I think that there are and there are not differences. It’s also a question that will  most likely never be answered or could be answered.  I also understand her frustration at having to defend her art for what was probably the millionth time, but I was more interested in hearing her discuss it than actually figuring out if illustration was the same as fine art.  Any thoughts?

I would also like to add that I am still working on my new blog. You can preview it here. 

        

A little while ago I loaded up a few of my original paintings to flickr. These are all paintings that I have available for sale.  Right now I do not currently have a place to showcase what I have available so I made this. I tried going the Etsy route, but for now Flickr seemed like a better option.

I am currently working on a new blog. I am not very happy with Quick Blogcast. It's an okay service, but it costs money and I can't customize it to fit my needs/look like my site.  I could customize my blogspot blog and it was free.  It just doesn't seem right. So with the encouragement of a friend (that would be Sharon....I know what you are thinking, no she is not my only friend...although I would be honored if she was) I am using WordPress. I like products with a cult following. 1. It usually means it's awesome, 2. There's a huge community of people to help out with questions and 3. I like to feel special...even though when millions of people use something it doesn't really make the late-comer (that would be me) very special. I'm conveniently ironic that way.

        

Premise:
Sharon over at ArtBySaw just finished a project she titled 50 Cars/50 Days. I know, her title creativity is genius. Anyway, she wanted to start something else and she came up with 30 Days/300 Figures. I believe she changed the title of it, but whatever. I jumped on the bandwagon and here we go....



Day 1.
It's taking me a bit to get into the groove of gestures. I started out doing 5 minute gestures, but it seems a bit much. Maybe if I was doing watercolor because then I would need time for the painting to dry. As it is I am using a smallish notebook (one that I bought in Santa Fe, it's pretty) and I am using pencil. I am relearning everything my life drawing 101 teacher told us as I go.

I started a day late so this week I only have 4 days, but I am doing 12 gestures a day instead of 10. (10 gestures 5 days a week x 30 days = 300 figures)



Day 2
The first day I used an ebook, but I quickly became bored so I switched to the book that I have. I am continuing to loosen up.


Day 3
If a gesture is not going to go the way I want it I do erase it and start over. I know I should get rid of the eraser, but my sketchbook is so nice that I don't want really ugly sketches in it...just slightly ugly.


Day 4
I was really able to loosen up on the fourth day. I was always told that for gestures, because they are so fast, you need to get to the important part of the pose right away. On these two pages I was able to let myself leave a good chunk of the figure out in order to focus on the important parts and to do it much faster than the other 3 days.

If you want to join along leave a link to your site in the comments after your first post.

        

Tonight I spent the evening downtown (Chicago that is) looking at the most fantastic art.  Mat Barber Kennedy had an opening tonight and it was fantastic. The internet does not do his work justice. It is definitely a "see in person" kind of art, although his work looks good anywhere, it's just not the same. I would give a disclaimer about being slightly bias due to the fact he was my teacher and his class was THE reason I am now a watercolorist. (Spell check says that's not a word, I say, What does spell check know?) However, he's fabulous whether I say so or not. In 2008 he was the first person since 2000 or 2001 to win the annual Turner award. That's kind of a big deal. A link to his blog is at the left.  Can't say enough nice things.

After the opening the man of the house and I slipped off to the Art Institute to find the Pasini. I always talk about this painting and had not been able to get Joe to see it until tonight. We also stumbled onto the Caravaggio painting that is supposed to make it's debut tomorrow night to members only. Oops. It was a bit crowded for my taste and I couldn't stand back far enough to appreciate it, but I did get up close and check it out.  Now, I'm not saying Caravaggio is not worth a peek, but he was a little ruined for me.  Let me put it this way....which painting really gets the emotion and expression of the scene in the paintings Painting One or Painting Two ? WARNING: You may find the images disturbing. Caravaggio painted No. 2, a woman from around the same time period painted No. 1. She got the arterial spary down. (It's more than a little creepy if you stop and think about how she could have gotten the knowledge of arterial spray in that period) Almost nobody knows her name. More people know Caravaggio's name than hers and most people don't know Caravaggio's name. Artemsia Gentileschi (that's her name) is kind of a bad ass. She was raped as a teenager by the man to whom she was apprenticing. After the man decided not to marry her her father sued him. Not because he raped his daughter, but because he kept two of her paintings. While testifying she had to endure thumbscrews to prove she was telling the truth (yes the thumbscrews are exactly what you think they are). As an artist that is insane. If the wounds became infected she would most likely never be able to handle a brush again. Again, I'm not saying Caravaggio isn't good or that some of his other painting are not amazing, but I'm saying let's see him do them after thumbscrews....

        

By: Joel Comm

In the name of full disclosure I must say I knew virtually nothing about Twitter before I read this book. I knew that it was similar to the Facebook status and that everyone seemed to be on Twitter. I definitely did not see what the big deal was, and honestly, I still don't. However, that is most likely my own inability to adapt to yet another social network.  I do think it's cool that I can follow Barack Obama and that an amazing author can follow me (did I mention I geeked out over Alyson B. Stanfield following me on Twitter?! No? Well she is and I am geeking out.)

Now for the book review:

I did receive a few very good ideas from this book. I do feel that I know much more about the purpose of Twitter now, even if I am not amazed by it yet. According to Comm, and I am sure many other people, Twitter is one giant conversation. You can have a conversation with anyone and with millions of people. It's 24 hours and the party never stops. Twitter is a way to market yourself and to communicate with businesses that are marketing to you. Most importantly Twitter is for experts. Lots of experts twittering about what they do. People asking experts questions and experts linking to things. If you have enough experts following you then you too can be an expert. Or at least play one on Twitter.

Comm told me how to tweet, when to tweet, and what kind of tweets I should be tweeting.  One of the most helpful topics in Twitter Power is the Twitter applications.  These applications help you use Twitter to it's fullest potential as a marketing and communications tool.

This book will tell you whether or not it's important to have a custom background (it is), how to find out who your biggest followers are, and how to find out if you are being talked about.

I like that this book has a 30 day plan, but I wish it was at the front of the book. I could have been implementing the plan while reading the rest of the book and I think that would have kept my interest up.  I say check that out first and get to work.

I skimmed at least one full chapter of the book because some of it wasn't as useful to a one person business, but I was still able to glean a bit from those parts and apply it to my situation. 

I found Twitter Power to be a bit dry and very repetitive. Even with all the technical speak, which probably isn't as much as I thought, it was still a pretty fast read and like I said in the beginning I learned some good tips. Plus a little repetition never hurt anyone, I hear it takes a person hearing something three times before they know it. I'm pretty sure I will be referring back to this book and the notes I took in the future.

Comm donates 10 percent of his proceeds of the "book to WaterIsLive.com, a nonprofit organization working to provide clean drinking water to a portion of the one-half billlion of the world's population who are deprived of our most basic need." (Comm, dedication page)

I am still confused about Twitter and all that goes with it, but I think that will only subside with practice. I do recommend this book for anyone who is interested in using Twitter to get in touch with their clients and/or discuss their field of business with other people who are interested. Twitter is the networking tool and that is pretty exciting.

If you have read the book or read the book, let me know what you think. I'd love to hear some of the ideas that this book inspired.

Note: There will now be a link to the right for all the books on the book review list. (Just one of the many ideas I learned about from Twitter Power) If you are interested in the book and use the link on the left I earn 4%. I do not get paid to review the books. I solely review books that I read for my business. My reviews are exactly what I think of the book and what I would tell any one asking my personal opinion about said books. I am just trying to pass on any useful information and get a discussion going about that information.

        

Last weekend was so much fun.

I shared a booth with Cheryl Roberts. We quickly found out that we both probably had enough work to fill a booth by ourselves. The weather was perfect and the music was great. I can not wait until next year.  The traveling was tiring, but getting to see my family both during and away from the festival, gave me enough energy to keep going.

I didn't sell any original painting, but I am less disappointed than I thought I would be. I considered lowering my prices the second day, but I could not bring myself to do it.  Painting is my profession and I have a degree. It's not a hobby. I do not think my prices were too high for my paintings, just the location. A lot of people haggled or said they couldn't afford something that was $100.  That's also why I brought prints and postcards.  If someone loves a painting enough, but they can't afford it, I want them to be able to enjoy it anyway. It's also why I offer all of my paintings on any of the products at my cafe press shop.

I handed out all of the business cards that I brought and I received 17 new names for my mailing list.  I also had a lot of great feed back from other artists that came to enjoy the festival. Of course there were some people that balked at the price or made a snide comment here and there, but it was pretty rare and much less than the positive feed back.

Cheryl does a lot of abstract work. I thought we complimented each other pretty well and we didn't have to worry about competing with each other's sales because we were so different.
.
I can not wait to do the festival again next year. I am thinking about adding two or three more during the summer.


I am currently cataloging all my paintings and I am about to add new images to my American Frame shop. I think before the night is over I will be updating the images on my business cards as well.

        

Step 3:
Now the slow boring part starts. Just layering and molding the body. It's in the ugly stage of course, but that is to be expected.

Step 4:

I toned down the white of the paper on her torso in this step. More layering, more molding. Trying to fix the face a bit. I went too dark and let the lines dry hard. It's all a part of the process though. Give and take, fixing the missteps and the push and pull of watercolor.

        

Step 1:
I draw out the important parts of the figure. I lay out what I consider to be the essential parts of the painting. These elements are what I use to express the feelings and mood that I want the finished piece to represent. In this painting I am concentrating on the torso and the turn of the face. The combination of a front facing torso and a face turned to the side shows vulnerability as well as an openness.
Next I map out the highlights and shadows at this point. Not only do the lines remind me later where I want these to be, but the act of doing it gives me a feeling for the shape of the body, the curves and angles. Thirdly it helps me match proportion as close as I can. Anything to help with that is a must for me.
Then I set the drawing aside to work on another painting or a different aspect of the the business. When I come back I will make adjustments to the drawing and lay down the first wash.

Step 2:
I'm still not happy w/ certain aspects. I think I will need to lay out the face again. I also trimmed down the left (your left) arm and shaved her down a few more places. So here is my first layer. I am leaving the background white and like I said focusing on the torso and the turn of the face. Now is the slow process of layering. Laying down the color over and over again to build up my darks and to mold the form. I want this painting to be loose, flowing, and expressionistic.