Next time you’re found with your chin on the ground…

Usually I start with a title and then roll from there. Today I’m going to just start rolling and see what kind of title will sum it up.

I get all kinds of emails with covid-19 jokes and memes and sometimes just sayings. So today I just wanted to pick a couple that resonated with me or maybe I just thought they were funny or appropriate. I’m going to share them with you here.

The purple one I just think is funny…

But the one on the left I think can speak to our lives and even our artwork. If things don’t come out right the first time it makes no sense to beat yourself up over it. Just remind yourself about that Ant….

“Pick yourself up, dust yourself off, and start all over again!…” Maybe I’m confusing two songs and maybe they were meant to go together…

“next time you’re found with your chin on the ground there’s a lot to be learned so look around. Just what makes that little old ant think he’ll move that rubber tree plant? anyone knows an ant can’t move a rubber tree plant!

But he’s got high hopes, he’s got high hopes, he’s got high apple pie in the sky hopes. So anytime you’re getting low instead of letting go just remember that ant…”

Okay so the other one was a Nat King Cole song… “Pick yourself up take a deep breath dust yourself off and start all over again nothing’s impossible I have found for one my chin is on the ground I’m pick myself up dust myself off and start all over again.”

They both seem to have the same message and I think we sometimes need to remember that when we’re creating art.

Hopefully you’ll remember one of these songs next time you’re feeling down.

Art vs Artist

Today I learned about Art vs Artist. It is an annual initiative, or a challenge, where an artist displays a picture of them self surrounded by 8 pictures of their work. (and they use the hashtag #artvsartist2020 so it can be found on Instagram or Facebook) This can be very enlightening to an artist or to their followers. I can either choose 8 of my favorite pieces, or, I could choose 8 pieces representing 8 different mediums (I realize media is the correct plural term for medium, but I’m a rebel, and I like saying Mediums) I work with. I think I will choose BOTH! Obviously one at a time…

First, here is a collection of me and the various mediums I ‘play with’. From top left corner and moving clockwise, Acrylic (whimsical), Acrylic on Canvas (4’x6′), Mixed Media Flower vase, Alcohol ink seascape on ceramic tile, Watercolor giraffes, Alcohol ink flower on ceramic tile, Alcohol ink ornaments, Earring with mini art under glass.  This was a lot harder of a task than I imagined. I also did not include acrylic ink in this but I was not willing to give any of these up for that spot.

#artvsartist2020

Next comes one with (some of) My Favorite Things. ALSO a difficult task! Wow…

#artvsartist2020

I did not get to include any of my abstracts… maybe I should do one with just abstracts. Maybe I’ll do that for my Patreon patrons!  Hmmm  Ok… Top left, Miss Ooh LaLa in acrylic, my Mixed Media flower vase with paint skins, Freddy who is a character out of one of my larger bird abstracts, the Beach tile which I had many I loved, Bubbles done with alcohol ink, the AI flower, and then an AI Red & Black painting on 16″ x 20″ canvas board and Mary & Joseph traveling to Bethlehem on a 4′ x 6′ unfinished canvas will always hold a special place in my heart.

I will save the others for another post I think my fingernails have grown too long during this Stay-at-home period making it difficult to type!!

Later!

Ruth

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Duck, duck, goose

Another week has come to a close and as has become our Friday tradition we chose a restaurant and picked up curbside, this week from Rizzi’s Italian restaurant in Peoria. We found a picnic table at a nearby park spread out real dishes real silverware cloth napkins and had a dinner time picnic.

Not quite ready to retreat to the homestead we sought out places to go and sit and relax. One such place is the Illinois River. While Rick meanders about snapping pictures of things that interest him I relaxed in the car sore from weed whacking this afternoon… but pleasantly surprised by a couple visiting ducks nearby.

One of them is just sure that his reflection in a bumper is another duck. LOL it is quite comical.

Tomorrow we are expecting rain…oh boy.

 

Trouble in Inspira-dise

Well it isn’t all paradise when you need inspiration. I havent felt really inspired in about 2 weeks… maybe more. Today I finally went back to the layering (intuitive) process to see if it could jog my outcome.  And it Did! Let me show you how this went… there are 3 pictures below. The 1st one is where I started … putting some line work on the canvas just to make it Non-blank. We all know a blank canvas just stares back at you, relentlessly! Then I started adding some color. Turquoise is my goto color these days and a little bit of magenta… Ok… Now it’s definitely not blank.

But I sure didn’t like it… but then you’re not supposed to. The purpose had been met, so now I start covering up things I don’t want to keep… usually I use white paint, but today I used gesso… except that it was thinned out and the black wasn’t entirely dry so it came out grey.  I decided to really wait for it to dry.  THEN I added RED… a drizzle at first which then turned into PINK as it mixed (a bit) with some of the wet gesso… OK so I didn’t wait for it to Thoroughly dry. I’m a bit impatient, what can I say!  So we then have these lovely PINK & Red sweeping strokes with heads on the borders?… Hmmm I’n not sure where this came from but it’s getting somewhere… just QUITE different from the 1st picture, eh?

Ok, so now we start with some of my favorite shapes… Circles. And circles leads me to thinking about wheels, bicycle wheels… and OFF WE GO!

It’s a scary place, peeking inside my mind… it’s even more scarier for me to share it with you. But if you stick around you might witness some more works in the making.

Thanks for sticking it out to the end… See ya real soon!

Ruth

Art Journaling

 I am a non-journaling art journalist.. if that makes any sense… I have never been one to write down my thoughts, not even in a diary as a pre-teen. I don’t think I ever wanted to write them down! So I find it daunting to explain an art journal to people when I don’t journal myself…Some people THINK it’s all about Journaling.

I suppose blogging is like journaling  (that might be why I am inconsistent with that as well). I am a teacher (computer teacher for years) and an entrepreneur so I find myself coming at this from a different angle, I cannot help it… I think about “what can I teach in my class”…”what will people enjoy learning? or doing? ”  I have made 7 different TYPES of art journals, filling NONE of them fully. Just trying to show people that there are MANY different ways (and reasons) for making an art journal.

You might make an art journal to keep a record of a particular event (anniversary, wedding, graduation), a trip, a vacation (honeymoon) OR it might serve to be a place to collect ideas! House remodeling, backyard landscaping, beauty makeovers, or a place to try out New art supplies, new art methods from a workshop you took. There are MANY reasons to create an art journal and you notice I didn’t mention JOURNALING in any of that… what and If you choose to write in one is entirely up to you. ONE recommendation though, based on a journal I just saw of someone else’s…. Date your pages (or at least the beginning and ending of the book). They can be fun to look back on, but more fun if you know When you are looking at it from!

I have a class starting this coming Wednesday (May 6) providing enough people sign up! and we will MAKE the art journal in the 1st class… plus create 2 pages. Then each Wednesday I’ll show you another idea or technique you can use in it. 3 weeks total. Check it out on the Registration page of my website:

www.BrushWithManyColors.com/Registration.htm