Painting My Background.

Thursday

“I will be an artist or nothing!” ~Eugene O’Neill

"Girls Playing" by me

Yay for updates!

I installed my work at Discovery Museum yesterday.  Pictures of the finished gallery will be here soon!  I'm excited to showcase a lot of my newer works, and the natural light there is amazing.  Reception some time in the next few months!

I've also been busy working on a bunch of "inchies" - I need enough to sell as pins for the Beechwood Arts Immersion Salon, as well as place cards for the wedding!

And here's something fun - if you check out my website amyoes.com, keep refreshing the home page...and again...and again...

(I have no idea how to take a screen-shot...so I just photographed the screen!)

Remind you of anything?

(Hint/giveaway - the art keeps changing!  woohoo!)

And many more updates to come!  I am now also a regular contributor for Live Love Health - so I've been writing a few articles a week that I'll link to on my site as well!

In the Studio...

I've been painting a lot of backgrounds today.  I love the feeling of moving around a big glob of paint on a fresh linen canvas and having no idea what to expect.  Sometimes I feel like creating very miniature details, like my tree expressions...and sometimes I just want to throw some colors around on an empty space.

Painting is just a great exercise for learning how to live.  Or at least, it's a lesson I need to learn myself day after day.  To have the courage to just start from somewhere - anywhere, to not judge it, and to just keep going - even if you don't like how it is turning out.  

Sometimes you have an image in mind, and you start with that idea.  And sometimes you even stay with that initial idea for a bit.  

But when the paint smears, or you blotch something up, or your sleeves get on the paint and smear the nice clean line you just painted - it's a little frustrating.  But then you just learn to go with it.  

And with a bit of patience, and the determination to eventually see it to completion, you'll get there.

And then sometimes, you start off painting, and you're on a roll, you feel the adrenaline of creativity jolting through you like a fluid wash of watercolors, and then - HALT - painter's block.  You have no clue what comes next.  

Or you keep painting and painting, determined to rectify the deviant path your paintbrush took, and the more you prod away at it, the worse the painting feels to you.

Then, it takes the greatest discipline in the would to step away and come back another day.  

That's why I love painting backgrounds.  It leaves you open to infinite options.  You've set your standards low - it will be "just a background."  

And it something happens to emerge from that background - some kind of figure comes to light within the paint - then so be it.  If not, it's just a background, it's okay.  

And then, if you mess it up, just paint over it again, shmear it up some more, and then it's just a background again.  When it dries overnight, you can always come back to it with a fresh, re-inspired head!

And that's a metaphor if I ever did see one.  :)

I played around with a ton of backgrounds today - I'll show you those later this week.  I love starting a bunch of backgrounds at once - getting the mess all over with in one shot, and then coming back one at a time and finishing each off when the time feels right.

This was a little canvas background I forgot I had painted!  So I added a cute little bird and called it a day :)

Before I go...

So I've got to rehearse some original monologues for the Beechwood Arts Immersion Salon....and then a wedding dress fitting :)  So I'm off.

But speaking of weddings - Young Couple Aged 70 Years With Make-Up To See If They’d Still Love Each Other

And this was just a completely inspirational and beautiful story about a beautiful young woman: 

Meet Maddy, an 18-year-old with Down syndrome who wants to be a model

And, I love this art from Derrick Lin - check this out:

He writes, "I Turn Work Frustrations Into Mini Magic In My Office"

We've all been there...

Anyways, anyone can make some art.  It just starts with some background.  And it's art to make something out of whatever murky beginnings your background starts off as.

Case and point - started this.  Don't know what the heck it is...YET.

So today - what will your background be?  Just start.

“Art is literacy of the heart” ~Elliot Eisner