Prompt Drawings and other things that happened my First Month in Quarantine.

•April 15, 2020 • 3 Comments

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

Drawing Prompt “Chilly Chinchilla”

Also made it to RedBubble – Chilly Chinchilla

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.

and also made it to RedBubble – Otter in the Parlor

So today marks one month since I closed down the shops and stepped away from my life. Made this in the driveway today.

All in all it has been a remarkably interesting month for all of us.

I hope that I will be able to continue to make art and share it with the world however I can.

Beyond that we all have to just take it one day at a time and try to put our best foot forward each day.

Remember no matter how you are coping – you are still coping. Hang in there.

Posted in Art, Chalking, drawing, rochester, rochester, ny, TeeJay
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Driveway Chalk Fairy

•April 14, 2020 • 5 Comments

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….

Posted in Art, Chalking, drawing, ny, rochester, ny, TeeJay
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Jubie’s Basement Door

•April 13, 2020 • 3 Comments

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 underpainting
was 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.

Posted in Art, Oil painting, painting, rochester, ny, TeeJay, You Can't Make This Shit Up
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The Seven Deadly Sins

•April 10, 2020 • 1 Comment

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.

Posted in Art, drawing, TeeJay
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Painting from Life at the Art Group without a name. March 5th & 12th

•March 12, 2020 • Leave a Comment

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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.

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I am hoping that people stay as safe as possible and that things go much smoother than the predictions.

 

Posted in Art, Figure Drawing, ny, Oil painting, painting, rochester, ny, TeeJay
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Figure Drawing March 2nd, 2020

•March 3, 2020 • 4 Comments

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.

 

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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.

Posted in Art, Digital Drawing, drawing, Figure Drawing, ny, rochester, rochester, ny, TeeJay
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Single Session Painting February 27th, 2020

•February 27, 2020 • 2 Comments

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.

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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.

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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.

Posted in Art, Figure Drawing, ny, Oil painting, painting, rochester, rochester, ny, TeeJay
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Figure Drawing February 17th, 2020

•February 18, 2020 • 1 Comment

Well, we all made it through Valentine’s Day. Hope that you are relatively un-scathed as well. My friends and neighbors made it pretty awesome for me. I got flowers and chocolate dipped strawberries and my neighbor brushed off my car for me in the morning. Hung out with a lovely human and watched a great movie.

It was a best case scenario in so many ways. I am truly fortunate.

So back to figure drawing at Steve’s on Monday. Great model, nice crowd and I am relatively happy with the drawings. I actually really like the long pose one and am about ready to start asking people to sit for these outside of the Steve’s studio. I have a private place at the house and at my new studio – just need to get my lighting set up a little more portable and I will be ready to go.

More on that another day. For now here are Monday’s drawings.

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Time lapse video:

Thank you again for your ongoing support and visiting my corner of the internet. Very much appreciated.

Posted in Art, Digital Drawing, drawing, Figure Drawing, ny, rochester, rochester, ny, Sketchbook, TeeJay
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Painting February 6th & 13th at the Hungerford Art Group Without a Name

•February 13, 2020 • 2 Comments

Jessamyn is a great model. Super professional and strikes a pose without any (visible) effort on her part. I admire the models so much. I don’t think I could do it. Even with a brace for my head I think I would still wind up in a completely different position.

Once again in life we have to remember that all of us have different strengths and weaknesses.

My life is settling into some sort of version of normalcy I think or as close to it gets. I feel much more peace than I would have expected and am looking forward to some new adventures.

Painting seemed a little easier this week as well.

First week’s progress:

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Some times I don’t feel like I do a whole lot on the second session until after I look at the finished photos. Really I think I mostly just polished this one.

Drew let me try some new brushes that he is using and they were really nice. Of course it also counterpointed how wretched the brushes that I am carting around are currently. I have nice brushes. I just hoard them like a reclusive forest witch trying to protect her magic. Maybe the magic is in the brushes and I can only get it out if I actually use them? Maybe I need to start actually using the nice things that I buy for myself?

Anyhow, here was the progress on the second session.

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Crazy how much the light source changes the color.

Overall I am pretty pleased with this one as a painting. I would have liked to capture her likeness a little bit better. I’ve enjoyed being able to paint so much lately.

Off to poke through my brush stash and see what I have to play with.

 

Posted in Art, Figure Drawing, ny, Oil painting, painting, rochester, rochester, ny, TeeJay
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Figure Drawing February 10th, 2020

•February 12, 2020 • 2 Comments

I was (as usual) at Steve’s on Monday night.

I really do love it there. It’s filled with my kind of people. I was talking with my therapist earlier in the day. I have an over-protective “Protector Part” I tend to know at all times who is around me, where the exits are, have full awareness of anything my brain my interpret as a threat. Restaurants and bars can be mentally exhausting. It occurred to me that I don’t do that AT ALL when I am at Steve’s. Sunday I got there kind of late for the group event and I sat at the first empty drawing horse that I found. It was right near the door (with my back to it). I hadn’t even thought about it until Monday discussing my “security” thoughts.

That was a really nice realization and made me appreciate him and the studio even more.

Yes, I know I have issues. That’s why I have a therapist 🙂

anyhow…. here are the drawings that I made yesterday.

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And the time lapse:

 

No. Mia did not spontaneously transform into a rabbit for one of the poses. Sometimes I catch myself getting frustrated with my drawings. There are a variety of things that I do to get past that. This time it was drawing Mia as a rabbit. It may be the kind of thing I would do again. You never know.

Posted in Art, Digital Drawing, drawing, Figure Drawing, ny, rochester, rochester, ny, TeeJay
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