29 Faces - Face 21

Well, it's the 29th day of March, and I'm only at Face 21.  Doesn't look like I'm going to make it - oh well.  Face 21 took me what seemed like hours - there are so many layers of paint on this face, and I have no idea where they went, she still looks pretty flat to me.  I'll get it, though.  I feel like I'm getting closer to the secret.  When Misty lays down her dark colors, and then blends them in with her whites, she gets depth.  I get white.

It'll come, though.

Practice.

And what happened to little clay face?  She's at the little clay face triage -

So, I've got her legs on, as you can see.  And, I made her a skirt.  But, I'm not happy with the skirt - it's really lopside, and delicate.  I think I'm going to papier mache a new one.  And, she needs to be grunged up.  I've got some beer bottle caps that are going to make their way on to her, and she may get some rusty hardware from the basement, but I'm not sure.  She's slowly coming together though.  I thought she would be able to stand up on those corks, but that's not to be.  She may get a base.  She may join the other dolls on the wall.  Which would defeat the purpose of a hoop skirt, I guess.

Something to think about.

29 Faces - Expressive Figure Sketches (with faces, of course - 18, 19 and 20)

More Open Studio homework - expressive figure drawing.  These were done with charcoal, pretty quickly - I just tried to go with the flow, not for perfect.

Both were inspired by photos I saw on Pinterest.

And now, back to paperclay - here's my face - painted -

I may go back in and slim down that crazy eyeliner.  Or not, I don't know.  She's not supposed to look real.  I'm not sure what I'm doing about her hair - I didn't really give her much of a head to attach any hair, but she is a knob, after all.  I'm thinking she may get some kind of a hat - a found object kind of hat.  We'll see.  The project got a bit derailed today because I cleaned all of the windows in the sun room - a two hour, messy messy job, and I just didn't feel like constructing her afterwards.

Maybe tomorrow.

29 Faces - 16 & 17

Not quite caught up, but I'm working on it!

The office closed early - yeah! - due to a busted air conditioner - boo! Rumor has it that it's going to take between 4-6 weeks to get the thing up and running again - double boo! Triple ugh! I'm actually glad I'm going to the prison Tuesday.

Anyway, Lemon and I spent some quality time in the ol' backyard, and I did some sketching -

This is with my new Inktense pencils - I thought I bought black and white, but I bought sepia and white. Oops. I'm definitely going to go back and get the black.

And this one is charcoal and a white Conte crayon and white pan pastel -

She's a bit googly eyed, but I like her.

29 Faces - Face 15

Drawing along with Misty

Misty kept going, but it's 11:00 p.m., and I'm pooped.

There's always another face tomorrow.

Sold!

Finally, sigh.

We actually closed on Friday, and I knew it was coming, obviously, but I didn't want to jinx it by posting about it.  Luckily, the guy who bought it bought it for his daughter, and he paid cash (nice present, eh?), so it closed pretty quickly.  So, a huge burden has been lifted, but we're not quite out of the financial woods completely - once our refinance is done, and we get to ditch that dreaded PMI, we'll be good.  So, I'm still being frugal - but not quite so frugal.  I did buy myself a present - more on that in a minute.

So obviously I was happy ecstatic that the old place sold, but I was also a bit sentimental - I did buy the place when I was 28, and I went through many phases of my life there.  Knitty D turned 40 over the weekend, so of course, in my head, I made her birthday all about me, and started musing about the passing of time.  I've never had a problem with age in terms of number - 40, 41, 42, whatever.  The bottom line is my 40's are easier than my 20's or 30's ever were.  On the other hand, I do struggle with the effects of aging - the line that gets deeper between my eye and the bridge of my nose, the dark spots that are attacking my face after years of sun abuse, the fact that I can't just drop 10 lbs just by giving up beer (which I had given up during the frugal period - and yes, we did buy a case of Heineken over the weekend),  that I've started to repeat myself (like my mother), and my memory is becoming far from perfect when it used to be nearly photgraphic. 

So, what did I buy myself? A gym membership?  Heavy duty moisturizer?  Sunscreen?

Of couse not - I bought myself a new art class!

I love Misty Mawn.  I love her work, her website, her book, Unfurling, that I page through as religiously as if it were my bible.  And, when she posted in December that she would be starting a class in January, and I looked at the pricetag, I gulped, and sadly shook my head - not now, later.  And, since January, I've occasionally googled the class, to read blogs from people who are taking it, and to of course stir the jealousy pot.  And for every art supply I haven't bought, for every class I didn't sign up for, I knew that this class would be my reward at the end of the tunnel.

And so far, it hasn't disappointed.  Usually, when I sign up for an online class that's either already started, or all of the content goes up all at once, I scroll through the weeks, get a preview of what's coming, sometimes watch things out of order.  But not this class - I started scrolling . . . and scrolling - and I can't find the bottom of it, the last lesson, the end of the content. I  know it's there somewhere, but last night, it was just one endless scroll on the iPad.  And, because I really want to get all I can out of this class, I stopped trying to get to the bottom, and I have resolved not to a. skip ahead, b. try to do most of the homework, and c. not skip the writing assignments.  I have a confession to make - I never do the writing assignments.  And it's not because I'm lazy, and it's not solely because I want to skip ahead to the art stuff.  It's because I'm a writing snob, and most of the time, I think the writing exercises are hokey.  Writing prompts in journaling classes, or art classes tend to fall into three categories - 1. art as healing, 2. topical or 3. poetry.  I'm all for art as therapy, but not when the class is not proctored by a therapist.  I think that's dangerous.  And the topical prompts - make a list, use this theme, blah blah blah, that's not my style.  And three - poetry.  This is a tough one for me because I have a great respect for poets - poetry is hard.  To convey that perfect image requires the perfect words - poetry is very complicated word play.  To turn the ordinary - say a Red Wheelbarrow - into the extraordinary requires a gift, a talent.  So, I'm not a big fan of "found poetry" or picking words out of your journaling, writing lines in what looks like a verse, and naming it poetry.  Creating line breaks, to me, does not create a poem, it creates prose with line breaks, not always, but for the most part. 

But, again, I'm going to toss my preconceived snobby judgments aside, let my writing take me whereever it may, and just trust in the assigments.  Write, make poetry - if you say it's poetry, it is, so be it.  

I'll let you know how it goes.