My folks flew home yesterday after being in town for a few days so my dad could attend a conference. Since my mom is retired now, she gets to come with him on some of his business trips & his meetings in Vancouver were the perfect opportunity for us all to have a visit. My sister and her boys came up from Seattle too. It was a little hectic for my brain that’s used to long hours of solitude where I can sit and paint, not listen to 9 conversations all happening at the same time, but it was good. I mean really…just look at that kid! How could you resist doing *anything* he asks? He bats those long lashes of his and I’m putty in his sticky, cootie-encrusted hands. Yes, of course you can have another piggyback ride! I’ll just make a quick phone call to my chiropractor first, OK?

Being caught up in a whirlwind of family time, the boy’s hockey games and managing to squeeze in a little painting has left little time for blogging, and I have to admit I felt guilty leaving you with such a negative Nellie post. It’s not that I think my blog (or any blog, for that matter) should be all hearts and flowers. Though I do prefer reading people who are inspiring and happy and motivated, it starts to feel a tad unrealistic when that’s the only face ever presented to the world. Sure, this is a business and you should be professional, but you should also be human. We all have bad days and I think sharing some of that stuff – fears, insecurities, stress – gives your readers a chance to connect with you as a real (and imperfect) person.That being said, let’s not confuse sharing some of our less than shiny happy moments with dumping a pile of dirty laundry in each post, leaving the general public to sort through your unmentionables.

I wanted to come back and say that even though I’d had a crappy day, it ended in the loveliest of ways; I got an email from someone who had been following my work here and was inspired to start her own shop. It had been something she’d thought about doing for a long time, but had never quite gotten up the courage. I was so thrilled to see someone else dipping her toe in the waters of becoming a “real” (ie. paid) artist and to think I had even the slightest effect in encouraging her to go for it? Let’s just say I was doing a happy dance around my office.

The funny thing is…I always seem to have time to sit down and write a negative blog post because afterwards? I always feel better! Writing is incredibly cathartic for me and writing here feels like I’m chatting with an old friend. So when I’m feeling a little down, it’s a lot easier to shuffle BLOG POST to the top of my To Do List.

When things are sunny and I’m happily working away, I still want to share, of course, especially when I have good news or a new painting, but it’s just one of those things I’d *like* to do. There isn’t a huge insistent need the way there is when things aren’t going so smoothly. No wonder I see so many blogs (and LiveJournals…holy cats!) that seem…well, depressing. That person isn’t necessarily depressed 24/7; there’s a good chance that blog is NOT a representative sample of what his or her life is really like.

For me, I hope that the way I write truly is an honest representation of what I’m like in real life. I hope that when I meet someone who’s read my blog for a while, they feel like they know me already and they’re just putting a real world face to the words. I’m probably a bit more socially awkward IRL. I’m sure I stumble over my words more when I don’t have the luxury of a backspace key, but I think (I hope) that what you read is what you get. And some days you may get a cranky kgb. (Give her some chocolate. That always works.)

Girls Have Cooties
12X 12, acrylic on canvas

prints available in my Etsy shop

I finally added a boy to my series of creepy girls and I think he’s become my favorite. He’s not particularly happy to be hanging with the girls though. Mom’s always on his case to be nicer to his sister, but that’s only because mom never sees the stuff she does!

I rarely paint boys, but after falling in love with this little guy, I think you’re going to see more and more popping up in my work. I think the last boy I painted was in “I’ll Always Make Room For You”:

Speaking of boys, J and I had a lovely cuddlefest with the puppies last night and fell asleep listening to his xmas present, the new David Gilmour CD Live in Gdansk. I bought him the 2 CD/2 DVD set from Amazon (half the price of what Best Buy had it listed at) and if you’re a fan of Pink Floyd or any beautiful melodic music really, get it. He performs with the Baltic Philharmonic Symphony Orchestra in this apocalyptic looking shipyard, which seems rather bizarre, but fits perfectly with such soulful music. Here’s a YouTube clip of “High Hopes”:

Bandits
8 X 10, acrylic on canvas

prints available in my Etsy shop

Yesterday was one of those days when a furry partner in crime would’ve come in handy. Since I don’t have a raccoon of my very own, I settled for the next best thing – a cuddle fest with the white dog. She’s soft and warm and is pretty tolerant of me when I feel the need to pull her close to my belly like a hot water bottle. The pug? He’s a sweetheart, but wriggly. Would rather lay on my feet than cuddle right against me. Plus there’s the snoring.

I feel sort of guilty for feeling blue when I’m crafting this incredible life for myself, creating art and taking classes and doing what I love. I should be thrilled. I *am* thrilled. Most days I am.

The problem weighing me down yesterday and still lingering in the corners of my brain today is simple fear. Like everybody else, I’ve got bills to pay and with the near constant fear-mongering in the media about the recession, it’s easy to start doubting if this is the right time to be self-employed. I’ve got credit card debt that feels impossible to chip away at. I really need to get my car fixed. I don’t even want to think about doing my taxes. Though my work is selling and I’m slowly building relationships with some wonderful clients, I’m not exactly raking in the big bucks.

And that’s when it’s really tempting to start looking at your work as straight product rather than art. What’s selling? What brings in the most money? What if I painted giant abstract crap that matched people’s couches?

I’m not a highbrow artist by any stretch of the imagination, but I do sketch and paint and plain ol’ create from the heart. I like painting girls and silly creatures because they make me smile (even especially the creepy ones). I paint with the colors that I’m drawn to, not what some focus group says is popular.

It’s not that I even dislike painting abstracts; it can be fun and freeing and is A LOT harder than it looks. For the record, I also think it’s fine for people to want a pretty piece of art to hang over their couch. Who couldn’t use a safe haven to just relax and look at your favorite colors without being called on to think and analyze and critique some over-hyped artist’s message? I totally get it. But it’s hard not to feel a sting of sour grapes when you see the art category of eBay dominated by the same boring abstracts banged out every single day on ENORMOUS canvases by (supposedly) the same artist. In oils, no less, which take weeks to dry. I may be the slowest painter of all time, but something just doesn’t add up there.

As I look at other avenues like eBay to get my work out there, I’m forced to start thinking about how I define myself as an artist:

What is the market for your work?
Ummm…

Who are your customers?
Uh…*I* like my art, so my customers are probably people like me. Right? No? Why are you looking at me like that?

Perfectly reasonable questions for a business, to be sure, but I’ve got no answers. I create because that’s who I am. If I didn’t need the money, I’d post each new painting on my blog and give ‘em away. It’s hard to think of my paintings as widgets to be marketed. Even harder is trying to not take it personally when those widgets aren’t moving.

At the end of the day, I just need to hang on to why I paint in the first place – because it makes me happy. The only time my ADD brain quiets down and shuts out all the racket is when I’m painting. I pull the brush across the canvas, I dab a tiny bit more crimson red on the bristles and slide it across again. I’m only thinking about that line or that shadow or that stroke. I feel a quiet peace that I don’t get anywhere else.

Except maybe when I’m cuddling the white dog.

Olives
8 X 8, acrylic on canvas
$55

This painting of two olives is my 3rd daily painting and if I were being honest, it’d be called Motherf#cking Olives. This deceptively simple painting took me close to 8 hours to complete & I must have repainted the background a dozen times. I wanted to practice the concept we worked on in my last painting class – using a complimentary color as an underpainting to get the subject color to really pop. So, I started off with a bright orangey-red background, then painted over it with whites & grey to lighten it a bit. But, since I was just trying to bang out a daily painting before delving into other work, I didn’t wait until the red was completely dry. So it went pink. A really awful shade of pastel pink. More black, more glaze, more white, a little green, a little yellow…tada! Wipe the whole thing down because now the paint is getting impasto thick. Start again. Gargh!!!

I persevered and ultimately I do like the way it turned out. There’s still a bit of the orange in the background & the olives themselves look great. The painting is quite dark, definitely darker than anything I’ve done before. I went back and forth on that quite a bit too. Is it too dark? Should I add another coat of glaze to lighten it up? (yes, 2 coats)

There is so much glaze on the olives that they glisten & shine wetly, juicily in person. In the scanner, however, shine is what one who’s just spent 7 and a half hours painting two tiny olives might call a motherf#cker. The grain of the canvas positively sparkles when lit by the scanner’s bright blue light and it makes the resulting image appear to have a ton of highlights actually painted on with white paint. I tried to tone down the contrast as best I could, but…yeah. Motherf#cking olives.

The Problem with Daily Paintings

All of this has got me thinking just what exactly is the point of my daily paintings experiment. As a business model, it’s not a bad one. Paint something new each day, something small that doesn’t take a lot of time, scan it, list it for sale and then work on the marketing side of being an artist (which is, sadly, more important than real talent when it comes to paying the bills). Develop a decent following of folks who would love to own original art, but can’t afford insane gallery prices, and one could earn a decent living without ever having to charge more than $150 or $200. There are several artists on eBay doing just that.

The problem for me is – I don’t particularly WANT to paint tiny still lifes. I like painting my girls. I love to create characters, coming up with their personalities and life stories in my head. Even if that work never sells, that’s what I enjoy painting the most.

I don’t dislike painting still life exactly; I have a list of cool subjects that I would really like to paint and would also really like to display in my own home. My old Poloroid camera, for example, or my typewriter. But those paintings will have a fair bit of detail and will take several hours to complete. If I paint subjects like that every day, I won’t ever have time to paint anything else.

And that’s the real problem. My idea of daily paintings was more to make sure I paint every day, to practice painting subjects I don’t usually paint, and to (hopefully) make a bit of money. Since I have no attachment to the still lifes, I can price them low. There’s no sense of loss like with paintings I’m attached to.

With all this in mind, on Friday morning I woke up bright-eyed and bushy-tailed and I set out to do a quick daily painting since I hadn’t had time to do one the day before. (I’d been working on a homework painting for class, so I did paint, but nothing worth scanning & showing.) I had tons of other work I needed to get done too: I have to recreate my Snow White painting for a client. I’m working on something new for Valentine’s Day. Plus I have another idea for a girl with a beehive ‘do that may end up at a local salon. Oh, and I have more homework. So. Busy day! Lots to do. What would be a good subject for a quick and dirty daily painting? Hmmmm.

After looking around my kitchen, poking around the fridge (we really need to go grocery shopping, btw), it came to me – olives! How hard could that be?

*sigh*

Baseball
8 X 8, acrylic on canvas
$250

prints available in my Etsy shop

One for the boys! I tend to paint girlie things (even the new creepy girls are still *girls*), so I figured painting something a little more masculine would be a good exercise for my daily painting project. I’m really happy with the way it turned out and discovered an interesting side benefit of the daily paintings – it forces you to really examine every day objects.

I played baseball (softball) for a few years when I was a kid and though I wasn’t very good (soccer was more my sport), I definitely grew up in a baseball house. My sisters were quite competitive. My dad played, then coached, then umpired. Even before I played I remember being in charge of my dad’s gear and was thrilled to get my very own uniform that said “Bat Girl” on the back. Awesome!

When I got down to painting the details of the baseball, I started to notice things in the stitching I’d never paid attention to before. The shadows each puncture hole makes are quite dramatic and the stitches are quite a bit more raised than I would’ve thought if I’d been painting just from memory. Small details, but it does have me wondering what else I’m missing, what else I tune out when my eyes are confronted with the everyday clutter. We shall see!