"Yeah this face thing...I don't get it" or "Conversations with Non-Arty Friends"

As I was going through and developing my art business plan, one of the goals I set was, of course, to share my art with everyone! And that includes all my NON-ARTY friends and believe me there are a bunch of you (including family members!) 

Conversation with a friend this morning....

R> What are you doing today?

T> Post office and then work on some faces

R> Yeah...your non-artist friend isn't getting the faces thingy.

T> LOL

R> Hey...I'm trying

T> (Realizing she's serious) A couple times a year a group gets together online and we draw 29 faces in 29 days. A while ago I set a personal goal of doing 100 faces over time. I collect images on pinterest and use them to draw from for this challenge.

R> I've just never seen it before. Kewl.

T> Its a completely different form of art than my usual these days and one I enjoy going back to. 

R> I just didn't want to be your stupid non-artist friend asking stupid questions and looking stupid to your artist friends.

After assuring her she could never do that, and that I know of no artists that would respond that way; perhaps a few gallery directors maybe but those are the ones who can't create doo-doo themselves (or something to that effect!) I told her most artists can't wait to talk about their work and love it when people ask questions. It's one of the things I am enjoying most about working in the gallery. Talking to non-artists about what they see, think and are experiencing looking at the art; even if the answer is "nothing."

(NOTE: Artists hope that's not the answer but even that is helpful) 

I went on to tell her I've been wanting to start a regular feature discussing art with non-artists and opening up dialog about my work and art in general. Now I don't mean highmakamaka "hoighty toighty" conversation about art people...SO not my style. I mean just like regular conversations...like this:

**You know you're kinda weird yeah?

** Why do you draw so many faces? 

**You have pages of eye balls? Why? Lips too?

**Why you gotta be so weird? 

**Does this mean something?

**Which way does it go?

**Uh...whats the bird for?

**How did you do that?

**You collect WHAT?!?!!! Oh! To draw it. I get it. Why you gotta be so weird?

**I don't get it but its colorful!

**NOTE: All based on actual conversations I have had and enjoyed! So with all that in mind, welcome to the first of what I hope will be MANY "Conversations with Non-Arty Friends". 

So...continuing from the conversation above...let me tell you about 29 faces and about what drawing faces does for me. I have always done faces...and yes I have sketch books filled with facial pieces and parts. I think most artists go through a period where they do this; especially if they attend art school. After a while you begin to know what you can do easily and where you struggle. (TEETH make me nuts!) If you enlarge these photos below you will see subtle changes in the teeth and lips. Eventually I said (out loud to a different friend) "I need to let this go. Its only on an index card!" 

(working via my kindle before bed)

The people participating in the challenge are all at various stages in their art pursuits; some are professionals and others have NEVER drawn anything in their lives. Some do pencil, others use ipads and everything in between. Some do large pieces, others like me this time, use very small work surfaces. One lady is using brown paper bags...her work is amazing! Some work is realistic and some is quite whimsical looking. Each person decides for themselves what it is they want to concentrate on; for many its the idea of doing something creative for 29 days in a row! This time I decided I didn't want my daily face to take up so much of my time and thought an index card was a good size. I could keep them with me and work on them easily no matter where I was. It has been a huge challenge for me to keep things in the right proportion and still have enough detail to make the face somewhat recognizable. There's not much space for correction and hiding mistakes. The texture of the cards is horrible compared to fine quality art paper. I normally work with a mechanical pencil with a .5mm lead, an HB and 2B drawing pencil. These are fine lines and the lead is hard. For the cards I've had to switch to doing a rough sketch lightly using the mechanical pencil and then working with 4B and 6B pencils (much softer lead) and from there using a smudge or blending tool for the shadows, etc. 

To see the work of others click here and then click on the names of whomever you would like to visit. Everyone posts using #29Faces or uses labels/categories so you should be able to see all their work at once. 

(Here you can see I've lightened her teeth up by erasing most of the details but I still don't like it)

 

(it's now Friday and I'm using my pc to make the photo as large as possible to see details I want to capture)

I just realized that THIS is 80/100 (as well as #6/29 for this turn) I am SO excited to know that!

(Now I've added a bit more detail to her teeth...again and decide to call it done!)

My 29faces 2013

My 29faces 2014 (ongoing as of this date)

On My Work Table

I mentioned on my Art of PerfectShun facebook page before that I wanted to work through Strathmore's Online Workshop #3 on watercolors mainly because watercolors are not my forte.
As of 29 August, Lesson #1 is up and she covers creating a color wheel for the painting, doing color washes and then creating your first painting with her. What a great teaching style Gay Kraeger has - very easy to follow along! I'm guessing Lesson 2 goes up tomorrow, Friday, 5 September.

Anyway, I wasn't quite sure WHY I needed to practice doing color washes, what I was looking for, or how many I should do. So after a little research I found this and thought it was extremely informative and helpful. Maybe you will too.

7 Watercolor Painting Techniques Every Artist Should Know
Oh...the answer is you are trying to produce an even layer of paint, while covering a broad a broad surface. NO lines of overlapping color. Cool. Got it.
Now to master it!

Pages of My Life - Sept 1 - 5

Started the week with a celebration of one of my finest creations ever! My beautiful middle daughter! She truly is a work of art in the very best sense of the phrase! She is a masterpiece!
My journal/planner/calendar began looking like this:

At that point I hadn't even secured the image from the nursery rhyme book because I didn't know how I wanted it to be composed. 

After our visiting family left, I had a chance to do a bit more work in my studio! While I love my time in there, and treasure the ability to work on creating art at my leisure, nothing is more important than people. Especially those we love and hold dear to our hearts. That love and joy should be reflected in our art and creativity.

So here we are at the end of the week and you can see I stayed with they same style as last week of lettering and then filling in the outside spaces. I ended up with a HUGE space in the lower right hand corner and decided to fill in with 29faces because that is the project I have been working on this week and will continue with the rest of the month. 

 

Can you see I stapled a piece of ribbon with days of the week on the bottom? Its a leftover from a scrapbook project. 

Did you art journal this week? Tell me so I can see it! If not, why not? Need help with it...just ask me! 

29faces

In the past I have posted my faces on a daily basis but this year I am opting to share them here on my blog once a week (Weds). I am creating them and posting them in the facebook group on a daily basis though! I thought it would be easier to see them in a group but let me know what you think...I can easily switch things. Daily post or weekly in a group? You decide!

1/29 My cousin's little guy celebrating his first birthday Hawaiian style! His name even means "happiness!"

2/29 I decided to work on index cards this year and the size is really challenging me along with the texture of the cards. Not too happy yet.

3 & 4/29 ACK! I was in a hurry and the lighting was bad and then I was frustrated so just let it go as is. Sometimes its okay that its just an exercise!

5/29 Thought it might be interesting to show you the difference in size that I'm working in. I have a pinterest board to save up faces I love and want to draw (Titled "Draw This Face")  and I'm able to enlarge them on my screen to see details better. 

See the little index card on the clipboard? Yeah. Frustrating! But this challenge is all about GROWING as an artist. I ended up pulling out my tortillon (blending stump) to do shadows. That works much better on this size. 

Should I be critical and tell you I can now see that I blended her nose too curvy? Nope! Its about the art of perfectSHUN, right? Moving on!

29 Faces Starts Today!

LINKS: 

Facebook Page: https://www.facebook.com/groups/29faces/

Blog: http://29faces.blogspot.com/

Creator's (Ayala Art) site: http://ilove2paint.blogspot.com/

Its been awhile since I worked exclusively on faces but its time again for 29 faces! I have a few BIG things on my art to do list this month but am setting my goal to include participating in the challenge. I think this year I will be posting them in groups versus separately so watch for some faces later this week.

Art Quote of the Week

Week of September 1-5


BONUS because its her birthday

and it was the most precious curl her mama ever saw! Happy Birthday Boo-boo!

Pages of My Life - August 25-29

Here's how we started out...

Gelli plate background...excess paint from another project smeared on with an old gift card, some paint cleaned off a brush. 

You can see the "hide your sources" quote from Einstein on the left.

Our daughter and son-in-law got to stay a couple extra days (YAY!) (I LOVE that they work for the airline industry!) and we still have my "hanai" sister and niece with us. This term is commonly used to mean someone who has become a part of your family and can indicate "adoption" with or without legal papers. To learn more about this concept though you should read this article. 

Here's the midweek look...Albert's quote has evolved a bit and some doodles have appeared. For now anyway....

And here is where we ended up! 

Its a (somewhat) direct theft of Miriam Schulman's art journaling prompts! And I thank her for it! Miriam teaches this use of negative space and color blocking idea in her art journaling class that I just took earlier this month.  

DID YOU ART JOURNAL THIS WEEK? SHARE YOUR LINK SO WE CAN ALL SEE IT!

Island Life

I know many people dream of visiting the Hawaiian islands and many of you probably already have. My husband was born and raised here and we are blessed to be able to live here once again. My art is inspired by the beauty that surrounds us and I enjoy being able to escape from my studio into this special place called Big Island or Hawaii Island. It is the largest of the major islands. Recently we spent a glorious day down in Waipio Valley. The floor of the valley is accessible only by 4 wheel drive or a long hike. We opted for the 4 wheel drive! In the valley, mountain streams feed into the ocean; waterfalls occur after heavy mountain rains, and mist reaches down to kiss the green cliffs. There is a herd of gentle but wild horses that meander nearby...close enough for photos but always be careful. They are WILD animals. We gave them plenty of space and respect and were able to enjoy them for quite a long time as we ate our lunch nearby in the warm Hawaiian rain. 

And yes...we know...LUCKY we live Hawaii!

Art Quote of the Week

Week of August 25-29

Another spark of genius from Albert...


Truly...what a gifted mind to know that life is about love and creativity as well as pure genius.

Pages of My Life Aug 18 - 22

This week began with my Einstein quote and a background made a while ago using my gelli plate again. I like that you can use such a small amount of paint with the gelli and get a nice finish on the pages. It makes it much smoother to write  and doodle over the top of the acrylic paint.

I have a very exciting and fun week planned as we have special visitors coming to the island this week. Our relationship started out with her being my airman while stationed in Japan but over the years she has become "my little sister". She's bringing my 7 year old niece with her and I plan to spoil her fully! In addition to them. our eldest daughter and son-in-law are arriving a few hours difference. I am SO happy they have flight benefits and can visit pretty often. 

I truly have NO IDEA how much arting I am actually going to get to do while they are here but thought I would use this opportunity to begin posting about our travels around the island. I know many have been here and probably even more hope to make it here some day. Now you might be asking what does that have to do with art and creativity? PLENTY! Journeys can give you ideas, clear out your brain, inspire you and make you see things differently than before. So, occasionally I will share a glimpse of "Island Life" with you. I promise not to overwhelm you with tons of photos...just something you can savor and enjoy! I hope you look forward to it.

In the mean time,, this is how my journal spread ended up this week. Still plenty of empty space to fill up if I choose to.