Are you an intuitive painter?

 Studio day... I'm mucking about thinking to myself that I have no idea what I am doing. But... I always work that way, and then I was quite cheery about making tangled messes. 

I wanted to make a set of portraits of my friends, and I know what the first three are going to be: Monty, Ginger with Simon, and Oscar the mitten kitten.

I'm not sure about putting "in process" paintings on this blog, but who cares? After all it's my blog and I can do what I want! Hooray!

 Now this was fun, slopping diluted red and white ink around...

Oregon Artist Alliance is having a 6x6 show. If you want to participate you can pick up panels for two dollars each. They are due Feb. 15th, the work will be hung and artist identification will only be on the back. All paintings will be 30 dollars. (Fundraiser)

Last night Ging and I went to a great show at The Voyeur. They don't have a web page, but are located on Blair and 5th. The artist Drew Bardana is very young and did these great drawings on book pages. I'm going to go to a class he is teaching on Feb. 9th... it's just a couple hours and sounds very fun. Call me and we can go together.

ok... enough news for now, cleanup time (why do I hate washing brushes?)

Make it work, or be done with it!

Been working on this one for a while... I think it's almost there, but not quite.

At the close of Day 2

 I am slightly in love with her, big, lumpy-headed person.

and him? not sure...

I was in the flow today... after G. gave me another one of her good pep talks. 

I'm seeing that I'm getting somewhere week to week now.

and you?

Inspiration

I woke up this morning thinking about inspiration. We were watching Project Runway last night. The contestants had to go out and take photos in NYC and pick one of their photos to inspire a dress.

So why did that little clip of Rosemary inspire me so?

1. I loved all the posed and stylized moves. 

2. I liked the fact that she showed the undersides of her arms, not usually seen in our culture. Especially normal sized underarms.

3. I loved the way her dress followed her body curves.

4. I loved that she did not smile. 

If I really think about why I can put all of that into a painting.

Got to get back to studio day.

love, Janice

Rosemary

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(you'll have to turn up the volume on your computer to hear this)
I have had two movie star crushes in my life, Vivian Vance and Rosemary Clooney. Vivian when I was younger and Rosemary starting in my early twenties. This is a clip from "White Christmas" (just ignore Bing Crosby). Check out that dress and those curves. Oh Rosemary, I miss you.

Challenging

 Saturday and Sunday were my studio days this week. Taking this time is not easy, not the art part, but the feelings part. Much of the time I felt like I did the first few days of my residency last year. As in, "what am I doing here?" "me, artist?". The kind of strangeness where you look over your shoulder and anticipate someone telling you to stop and get back to regular life. I had all these shoulds, "the house needs cleaning", you are not being a good girlfriend", "the dogs need a walk", "oh, this would be much easier if my studio were not in the house" and on and on. I had a hard time focusing and concentrating, but when I look around I did do a lot...

Front cover of my "junk" sketchbook

So... I had this idea. I have had this idea for a while, and it's been pressing at me. First I made a "junk" sketchbook out of discarded paper from work, magazine cover (Thanks Toby), staples and tape. I love these type of sketchbooks because you can totally mess in them and not care.

Back to the idea... I wanted to make an adventure of sketching. I started at the library with my sketchbook, a pen and one of those twirly/spinner things from a board game. I gave myself 2 hours to walk in the direction the spinner pointed and then sketch for 10. It was a mixed bag. I wouldn't do the spinner thing again, I would choose a more interesting route and map it out first and just stop and draw what interested me most. The weather was warm and WET!! It drizzled on me and poured. The sketchbook is still all wet. 

No matter my insecurities and "shoulds" this is the hard part of taking these days... they end. 

They end and then I don't get them for a week. This is negative I know, but true.

Happy Monday, Alice are you there?

Painting over stuff...

Found the above paintings at the Waldport antique/junk market. They are made on illustration board and actually have pretty good frames. 

There are some beautiful colors and lines.

Figuring out what to paint over and what to leave. Don't know yet what they will become.

For those of you who worry I might be destroying vintage classics these had significant condition problems. Water damage and fading.

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What I've done so far... This is fun.