The past year has been hard on almost everyone in some way or another.
I actually think that I fared pretty well through the actual lockdown (well, the first one…. personally I’m not convinced that it isn’t going to happen again but that is off topic). Turns out that I am pretty good at isolating and keeping myself amused for extended periods of time.
In November we started with the “we are going to close everything down again when ______________happens”. Then those things happened. Then the rules got changed. Then there were new parameters. Then it was a different story. Then one of the shops had to close. Then we were allowed to reopen. There has been SO much back and forth with no real answers.
Supplies have gotten more and more difficult to obtain and more expensive when we can find them. How much inventory do you stock when you don’t know if you will be open next week? How do you schedule appointments or plan for anything when everything is up in the air.
Is a tattoo really that important right now?
Random clients started calling and being abusive that they couldn’t schedule an appointment in person or yell at us because they couldn’t get into the studio (because we were following the state guidelines for being open now). I started to cringe every time the phone rang. Actually being relieved when it was a robocall. (I do understand that these people were not necessarily angry with me personally…. just needed to be able to vent as they are going through their own stuff…. but day after day it did get old and started to be more and more difficult to brush off).
It started to weigh on me. A whole bunch of other things then piled on top of the stress that I was no longer coping with well.
Emotionally I fell apart. It happened at the same time that the world was preoccupied with some National Events. I didn’t feel like I could reach out to the people that would normally be my support network as they were otherwise occupied.
Then the lease came up for renewal on my space in Piano Works. The space I hopefully and expectantly moved into in the early part of 2020. A place to hang my art that I had to get out of Whitman Works when they closed. A space where I could not only show my work and participate in group events – but create in a community space with other artists. It was to be a bright beginning.
Alas, these plans (like so many others) were derailed by the arrival of covid. I could not in good conscious re-sign a lease on a place for another year that I had been in less than 5 times in the preceding year. I had to get everything out of the space and find a place to store it.
I freaked out more.
I didn’t want to look at this pile of art that I had put my heart and soul into. I didn’t want to watch my cats nibble on the corners of the art until they were no longer presentable. I wanted to do something but I didn’t know what.
I decided to start getting rid of it.
I briefly thought about burning all of it.
But I wasn’t quite that far gone as to think I would be happy about that later.
I started packing the work up. Putting notes on the back of them and leaving them out in public places. I didn’t tell anyone I was doing this at first. When I did tell someone they were very concerned. I told someone else. They were also concerned. There was a certain cathartic element to what I was doing, but I did have to admit that it was the artistic equivalent of cutting in some ways. I was being self destructive, but it was making me feel better. And unlike cutting I was so very very much hoping that someone else would get to be happy from what I was doing. I did promise that I would stop for the time being to examine my motives.
I had not heard from anyone that had found any of the art and I started to envision it having been thrown away or destroyed.
Then I got a note from Carrie.
She had found the Beatnik Kitty drawing.
She took the time to write me a really wonderful note. She appreciated the art.
Her note was so sweet and wonderful and exactly what I needed. I cried. I may be crying again writing about it now.
Thank you Carrie.
While I have stopped for the time being dropping the work off in the world until I better understand my motives…. You made things okay for me in a very dark time in a way that you will probably never really appreciate.
Thank you.
I am so glad that there are people like you in the world and I am so happy that one of my pieces found a home with you.
I continue to hope that there are other people out there that found the work and appreciated it but didn’t write notes. It’s okay because Carrie did.
Tomorrow is another day. Eventually covid will pass and the world will move on. Eventually the Sadness will be a memory again. But for today I have a reason to be grateful and a bit of my faith in humans has been restored.
I’ve been away from here. There is no way I can summarize. I would like to say that I will be back here regularly again… but honestly only time will tell.
I’ve been participating in Figure Drawing via Zoom.
Sunday January 10th, 2021 – Model’s name is Mia
Monday January 11th, 2021 – Model’s name is Mia
I consider this a step in the right direction and right now that has to be enough.
The chalk drawing that I did (at the end of the last entry) was very popular on the interwebs and a few people asked me to put it on a shirt. I re-drew it to have a cleaner version to put online and added it to RedBubble.
Surprisingly (yes, there is some cynicism there) people actually bought some. I was impressed. That doesn’t happen very often. For all of the people that say “you should make prints” or “you should put that on a shirt”, very few of them actually purchase said items after they are made. Maybe it was just that nice of a design. Maybe it was just that people felt sorry for me because I have no income now (or for the foreseeable future) but whatever it was I really appreciated it and it made me smile inside.
Took another go at Figure Drawing on the computer. This lovely lady is one of my favorite models from Steve’s and I am glad that I am able to keep in touch with her. I hope that when the world reopens that I will be able to paint/draw her from life again.
Another drawing prompt. “Snapchat Snapper”
Drawing prompt was something like “Dragonfly Warrior”. I think that perhaps this warrior is off duty.
Drawing Prompt “SeaShells”
Started another chalk drawing. It was brutal cold and really windy. This was as far as I could get before the cold got to me.
Another drawing prompt “Rabid Baby Ducks”. I am fully aware that these are more of a zombie sort of thing than a rabid sort of thing but I was not in the mood to render drool. Especially not foaming sort of drool.
another attempt at life drawing online
Drawing Prompt “Spring Cleaning”
Able to finish up the chalk bear.
Short online Figure Drawing session:
The first RedBubble Light Bulb arrived at the purchaser’s home (that I knew of anyhow).
Made another watercolor to use up the other half of the sheet of watercolor paper..
Then the reason that I had been practicing watercolor again. A painting that I have been wanting to make of my Aunt and Uncle’s dog (that I wanted to do for Christmas… at least Quarantine is helping me get caught up).
Helped a friend set up their zoom so that she can host her own figure drawing sessions. Did some quick drawings while we were trying out camera angles and lighting.
Another inspired by the prompt list. I had liked Spring Cleaning enough that I made a second drawing off of the same prompt.
Attended my first session of Dynamic Figure Drawing live online. Some hinks with working online, but this was an amazing model and I was super glad for the opportunity to draw her. Her Instagram is @legcrampsforcash
The timelapse video:
I had asked my sibling for suggestions on chalk drawing animals. They suggested a Badger “for HufflePuff”. The weather has NOT been good for chalking so I decided to draw the badger instead. Please do not report me. I think Disney owns that series now and it would not do me well to get anymore cease and desist orders. While the suggestion was made, I am not way representing this as a Hufflepuff badger…. only a well styled badger which happens to like the house colors. Think that is okay?
I had tried to sign up for an online Robert Liberace workshop. They got back to me (after I sent them money) and said that the workshop was full. My PayPal money got held in some sort of weird limbo. Then after the first class had happened they said that they got it figured out and I could still monitor the class. They would send me a video of the first class and I could draw along to that. Was able to draw the two short poses with him from the reference that he sent.
Then he spent the rest of the session working from another reference that I mistakenly thought he said that he hadn’t sent us. So I didn’t look for it. Instead I watched him work on the drawing. Then, wanting to do some figurative work I went and found a book that I had at the house with some vintage nudes and drew a fairy based on one of the photos.
then at some point after that I realized that he HAD sent us the reference that he worked from. Not wanting to be behind when we had our next class I drew that as well (in graphite).
It turned out that I did not need the drawing for the next class, but it was still good practice. I was able to follow directions and draw along with him during the next class.
That was as far as I made it during class. I was super grateful for having taken a workshop from David Kassan prior to this as I had learned some techniques with the charcoal pencils and this made working with the charcoal more tolerable. For the record, I still dislike working with charcoal. I mean, it looks great but I don’t like the feel at all. It is some sort of tactile thing. The pencils are better as I am at least not directly touching the charcoal, but I can guarantee it will never become my “go to” medium.
ick.
While the weather was still pretty bad and calling for rain at least every other day…. we did have one warm afternoon and I had to get out there and chalk something before the rain hit again.
You may also ask yourself what the difference it between the chalk and the charcoal and the answer is not much. I don’t like the chalk either. If things were normal now I would be wearing gloves when chalking and not touch the stuff… but I feel guilty wasting gloves when the world needs them for actual medical stuff and not so much for my weird hang ups.
The Unicorn made it about 2 hours before it started to rain.
Another online Figure Drawing session. Maybe the Yards? not sure.
Another drawing prompt. “Bunny in Disguise”
The weather remains gross. Too cold to do much outside and I haven’t been feeling well physically. Decided to try and make a really small chalk drawing so there would be something out there for the kids to find.
Drawing prompt “Fluffy Cloud Kittens”
Now I know I have lost track of the figure drawing sessions. This one was the Yards. The previous one must have been when the model did her own zoom one on Monday. Not like it matters. I don’t even know if anyone reads these besides me and Gretchen.
Hi Gretchen! Love you ❤
Drawing prompt: “Bass playing bass”. Like we needed more confirmation that English is an awful language to try and keep track of. One of those is pronounce bass and one is pronounced base.
Time for the Liberace class again. So went back into the full figure before class to make sure that I was as finished with it as I wanted to be.
and then what we worked on in class:
While working at home, I am under constant cat supervision.
I actually really like this drawing. Its not an exact likeness…. but there is something about it that I really like. Since we haven’t needed to have the drawings more finished for the subsequent classes I don’t know if I will go back into it or not. I have no idea what I would do with it either way, but it is nice to be pleased with a piece every now and again.
I don’t know how to explain it but this one makes me feel like a “real” artist. I know that doesn’t make sense… but there it is. Maybe I should frame it.
Don’t take it too seriously. I also feel like an artist when I put on a super way too big shirt. I think that is because when I was in kindergarten we used to put someone’s dad’s button up white work shirts on backwards to paint. If I could find shirts that were big enough to do that I would still wear one like that at home when I was painting. Some remnant of the small self’s self confidence sneaks back in when I have on a really big shirt and I feel like I can do anything.
I like it.
The shirt and the drawing.
So feeling inspired by working in black and grey (and white) but still despising charcoal…. I decided to make some work on grey paper with more friendly media. The reference photo was taken by my sister Sarah. Trillium are my favorite flowers. I have some of these red ones in my back yard…. but it was easier to use Sarah’s photo.
I had started to get into (yet another) funk and didn’t want to make anything. I saw some photos posted on Facebook by a photographer named Rebecca Brooks. I wanted to paint one of the tree sparrow photos (her work is amazing. I tried to include a link but it doesn’t appear that she has a web presence off of facebook. If you are on facebook, I suggest you look her up.)
So I wrote to her to ask if I could use one of her photos as the basis for a painting and while waiting to hear from her I started a drawing.
After getting the go ahead. I made a painting the next day.
And then finished the drawing that night.
Monday night and Figure Drawing with Mia:
And then as a extra special bonus…. Mia modeled for Dynamic Figure Drawing on Tuesday and I got to draw her again 🙂
In working on my chalk drawings outside I receive a lot of positive feedback from neighbors and people going by. But one of the things that I have heard is people saying that they would never be able to draw that well. It makes me sad. I think that they are trying to compliment me, but I don’t want what I do to ever intimidate someone else into thinking that their work isn’t good enough or that they shouldn’t pursue it. I was trying to figure out how to demonstrate that when it occurred to me that I could take kids drawings and re-draw them big. Starting with some kids that I know and then opening it up for submissions from the neighbors so that some of the kids around here could come by and see their drawings big.
So here is my first collaborative effort based on a drawing that my Granddaughter Neala made.
While I was making the mermaid I explained what I was doing and why to a little person that came by. I offered to let them draw something for me to work from. The small person was very shy but their mom said that it would most likely be a robot.
It got me thinking that I haven’t drawn a robot in a long time.
Ended out my second month in Quarantine with another session online with Robert Liberace.
I did NOT like the paper that I chose for this one at all. I was disappointed as the reference photo was stunning. I felt like I was fighting the media too much to really get into the drawing. I did work on it beyond class time, but ultimately stopped at this point.
Made in through my second month in Quarantine.
I am doing mostly okay. I miss hugs. I now know a lot more about touch deprivation than I would like. If it weren’t for the kitties I would have totally lost it. But fortunately warm purring kitties can make everything okay. Carbs help too. Lots of tasty comfort food happening. Even got into banana splits which haven’t been a thing in my life for at least 20 years. Not sure why I decided I had a hankering for them but they have replaced cheese fries for the time being. Also I did put in an order for a gluten free carrot cake because why not?
Clients keep asking us when we are going to be able to open up again. At this writing I have no idea. Rumor has us at phase 4, but even if that is true no one has a time line for when that might be.
Like all of us, we just have to wait and see what tomorrow holds.
I hope that you and your loved ones are well.
Much love to you and maybe an uncomfortably long hug when we get to see each other in the real world.
Like a lot of us my life is currently on hold. I am staying home and going out once a week for groceries. I imagined this would make me super productive. It has not. I haven’t felt too terribly inspired. So I returned to my drawing prompt list again to get inspiration from other people and to get me going again.
A small watercolor study of my Aunt & Uncle’s dog. There is a bigger version coming.
This is a very large painting (48″x54″) that I made for a friend of mine. It’s a recycled canvas. I am excited about the idea of going bigger with future work.
This little bunny has been recurring in my sketchbook for quite a while. Finally got a chance to start giving them some paint.
One of my friends referred to it as the “self comforting bunny” and since I have no other working title – that will do for now. (work in progress)…
Off of the drawing prompt list…. “Generations”
I want to say that the prompt for this one was Meadow Owl or Owl Meadow or something like that…
More drawing prompts…
Worked a little bit more on this one:
MissUniverse had gotten damaged at some point. I have never tried to repair this kind of scratch, but figured … what have a got to lose?
There was something about this portrait that was bugging me so I fixed that. Of course now that I am looking at it again I see something else that I could tweak. This process really could go on forever with very painting if I let it.
Worked on Smudge a little bit. Keep going back and forth with this one. The original photo is so blurry. I put details in, I take them out, I put details in, I take them out…. repeat.
Couple More Drawing Prompts:
Got out the chalk to play in the driveway and seriously overestimated the temperature!
Painted the risers on the stairs with entirely too much help. This cat got a bath. He was unhappy enough about that to bite me. Fortunately not enough to require medical attention. I really don’t want to have to head to Urgent Care for anything right now.
The prompt for this was “Wolf Dancing in the Rain”. Obviously I went way off track.
Drawing Prompt Crow Brothers:
Some drawings that I did for a fundraiser for an animal shelter.
Rochester Art Center did an online figure drawing session. First time drawing “from life” online. It was actually way more difficult than I thought that it was going to be. Maybe next time I will try mirroring it on to the computer so that the image is larger. Anyhow, I was very grateful for the opportunity.
more work on this bunny…
Painted a door for a friend’s basement. More step by step photos and commentary here: Jubie’s Basement Door
After the door was finished I started another chalk drawing on my driveway. While it was still cold out it was much warmer than when I made the heart. More photos and info on another post here: Sidewalk Chalking in Quarantine
Drawing Prompt “Bunny Goddess”:
I made myself some masks for when I go out in the ‘Real World’ for errands.
I liked the hippopotamus drawing enough to upload it to RedBubble. If you are interested it is here HIPPO
Oddly enough my prompt for Easter was Bunny Day Dreams. Just where it happened to come up in the list. Although, the odds are always decent since I draw a lot of rabbits in my work anyhow and people frequently suggest them for the prompts.
Prompt for this one was “Purrfectly Oily” from a fellow cat lady… but I wanted oily to not be negative so I went with an otter. Otters need to have just the right amount of oil and with all of those amazing whiskers I think we can make them honorary cats.
Weird string of words. Chalk Driveway Fairy? Fairy drawn on driveway with chalk? Usually the order that words should go in is intuitive. This one is not.
Anyhow.
I drew a chalk fairy in the driveway. I wanted it to be distorted so that it would look “correct” when viewed from the sidewalk at the end of the driveway. It is a bit hard to understand the proportions in these photos but the top of her head is 26-1/2 feet from the sidewalk. If you look closely in some of the photos you can see chalk and other points of reference.
That was as far as I made it the first day due to the cold.
Even with some un-forecasted rain overnight she held up pretty well.
The rest of this is personal stuff that has very little to do with art if you want to stop reading now.
I have for a while now been envious of the enthusiasm of small children. I love to see a kid with anything proudly proclaiming “I did a good job on this!”. For a while now I have been watching that and wondering what happened to me that I never felt like that kid. I couldn’t remember a time in my life when I had that kind of confidence in what I had done. I think it had become one of my detrimental “all statements”. I’m never that proud of myself for my accomplishments.
When I find negative all statements in my life I try to ferret them out, disprove them and rid myself of them.
I realized that there are lots of times at work when I will be really happy with a tattoo that I have finished and I will call to the other artists “come look at what I made”. I found other instances where I was proud of myself even if I didn’t say anything to anyone (“I ran 5k this morning without stopping on a day when I didn’t even want to get out of bed.”). I found that sometime there were drawings that I thought “I am really happy with the way that one came out.” and so on and so forth.
I was pretty pleased with this chalk drawing. I could see flaws in it, but it was much larger than the other ones that I have done and a good deal of the distortion is in her face. I hadn’t realized how difficult an obstacle that was going to be and while I didn’t think it was perfect – I was pretty pleased with all that I had overcome to make it happen.
I decided to celebrate that feeling of accomplishment and post her online. I posted her on my instagram, my personal facebook and a town facebook page. I got a lot of really positive feedback and one of my friends posted her in a closed group that I am not in (with my permission) and she got several thousand likes and a bunch of reposts. It was gratifying.
Then there was Kevin. On the town facebook page a guy named Kevin decided that I was of dubious moral character because I had signed my instagram name on the drawing instead of “doing something nice without being selfish about it”. A bunch of people came to my defense and when they did Kevin had to up his game by attacking me and my business for totally random things to “prove” what an asshole I am. I had to stop following the thread.
I’m not going to lie. My feelings were hurt.
The internet is like that.
I have to remember that there are always going to be angry people on the internet. I have to try to not take it personally. And most importantly I have to protect the little girl inside of me who really wants to be proud of the things that she has done. I want to nurture and protect her so that she comes out more often.
Why bring all of this up? Because I am working on being honest about my fears and who I am as a person. Because I want people to know that there are real live humans with feelings at the other end of internet troll attacks. But mostly because I want to again thank all of the wonderful supportive humans that I have in my life. Both in the real and the virtual world. You keep me going. You help me protect that little girl inside of me. You are helping me survive quarantine.
Thank you and much love to all of you.
Protect your Small Self. Do something fun with them that makes your heart sing. Don’t let the Kevins get to you.
Here is what she looked like two days later after a hard rain overnight. I am planning for the next one now. Haven’t decided what it should be….
I have been spending way more time online in Quarantine. Facebook, email, Instagram… whatever. It’s been a time killer. It has helped me feel connected. It has been a lot of things that it wasn’t (or wasn’t as much) before all of this happened.
My friend Jubie posted a photo of his basement door. Said that he wanted to do something interesting with it. I think he may have tagged me but I’m not sure. Anyhow, this was the photo.
I was inspired! I reached out to Jubie and he brought the door over to me a couple hours later. Little bit of sanding and I was ready to go!
started out with acrylic for the first layer of underpaintingwas going too slowly for my taste so I started playing with spraypaint. I did use a respirator and cleared out of the room for a few hours afterwards. Still stinky.Once the spray paint was dry I started going over that with oil paint. I have a “super black” paint that I bought as part of a kickstarter and hadn’t used. Thought the background behind him was a good place to try it out. It took a couple of coats and I don’t think I got as solid of coverage as I wanted (my impatience, not the product) but it definitely cut down on the glare and I like the effect.I think at this point I called it finished. Explained to Jubie that it was oil and it could either stay at my house for a few days to dry to the touch or he could pick it up and be careful about how he handled it. Better photo in natural light.
Overall a super fun project and a good exercise in working quickly and larger. Looking forward to what other big projects I can make.
The idea of rendering the Seven Deadly Sins as Animals has been kicking around in my brain for quite a while.
Finally got around to putting pencil to paper a little while ago and just realized that I never posted them here.
So here you go:
Sloth:
Gluttony:
Pride:
Greed:
Envy:
Lust:
Wrath:
Of course now that I have finished those, I would like to also make the Seven Virtues… but as always I have SO many projects in my head that only time will tell which ones actually manage to get created.
Turns out that (like a lot of us) I currently find myself with a LOT of time on my hands. We shall all have to see what comes of that.
Second session today. Will be our last one for a little while. Things are getting crazy and people are cancelling all sorts of things. There were only four of us painting today.
I am hoping that people stay as safe as possible and that things go much smoother than the predictions.
I was talking with one of the guys at Figure Drawing on Monday and he asked me how I thought I was doing. I told him that I didn’t know. I rarely do.
It goes one of two ways.
One. The critical part of my brain is constantly telling me how bad I am at everything.
Two. I get absorbed in what I am doing and the rest of my brain is busy comparing, observing, rendering and what not and drowns out anything that the critical part has to say.
I tried to explain this to him a little bit. He looked a bit confused.
I summarized.
“Most of my brain doesn’t like me very much.”
I wish this wasn’t true (and yes, I know what they say about wish in one hand…). I am in therapy. I am working on it (and me). I look at the little people in my life (and some big people) who will bring me something that they have made and tell me “I did a really good job on this” or “I am really pleased with this one”.
Some day I want to be that kid.
Mean time I will continue to practice and try to keep the rest of me occupied enough that the critical part either shuts up or gets drowned out by the rest of us moving forward.
Progress not perfection. Always moving forward.
Video of drawing progress:
I hope your demons stay at bay and you are able to remember that you are deserving of love.
Don’t believe your brain. It may be out to get you.
Last Thursday I didn’t go to the Group without a name at the Hungerford.
Instead I went to tour the production facility of Golden Paints. That should be a separate blog post for that but I was so totally overwhelmed by everything that I neglected to take photos and/or properly document what I saw. If you have ANY interest at all in any of the Golden products I highly recommend going and checking it out for yourself.
I did buy myself some new goodies from Golden while I was there. One of the things that I picked up were a few different textured gessoes. (Is that the plural of gesso?)
So today having only one session to paint the model I opted to try out one of the new gessoed boards. Overall I was very pleased with the texture and found that it greatly improved my experience with the board. I will need to do a second coat next time as the areas where I didn’t fully cover the board were still slippery. There was one section in her cheek that I kept wiping off the paint every time I tried to layer on it. That was a bit frustrating – but it’s all a learning process and overall I was pleased with today’s efforts.
People often ask me how long these take. Normally I can only guess. We are there from 1pm – 5pm but the models take breaks and it sometimes takes us a while to settle in.
today I can say for sure that each of the above paintings represents 15 minutes of painting. The model today was sitting for 15 minute stretches.
The painting below is the same progress as the last one above just photographed in the hallway instead of on the easel (better light).
This one is 8″x10″ again because I only had the one day to work on it I went smaller than the 11″x14″ that I normally use.
When I am home and I can figure out what the name of the gesso product is I will add it here as well.
My brain is continuing to get better and other than the occasional bout of self pity I seem to be doing fairly well.
Saturday is our first open house at the new space in Piano Works. I was worried that I wasn’t going to be able to attend but as it turns out I was able to move my appointments around and now I can participate.
Looking forward to meeting everyone and setting up my space more.
I am a female tattoo artist and shop owner. I believe in love and creation above fear and destruction. I am a passionate person and respect and admire that in others regardless of where their passion lies.
But at the end of the day, all I want to do is add a little beauty to the world and try to be a blessing in the lives of those around me.
No matter who you are or how you have arrived you are welcome here.
There is no rhyme or reason to the things that I post here - but they are here to share. I believe that all things happen for a reason and while things may not always go the way that I want them to... they do go the way that they are supposed to go.
I hope that rather you are here once or often that you find what you are looking for and that in all things you will find the love that you deserve.
Just TeeJay's Blog 