Day 30: Slowly but Surely

Since the last time I posted, I have to admit that I have not been sticking to my 100 days.  There has been some art making, but it's been sporadic and I haven't been as productive as I was at first, which sucks because I was on a roll.  But life happens and it just so happens that life has been kicking my tush here lately.  Between the stress of my job teaching a comics class to 6th graders who have no interest in learning anything (much less how to draw) and the never ending schedule of hauling my kids around to their many activities (lacrosse, basketball, and dance), I've been too pooped to post and keep my 100 days of art challenge schedule.  I've had a bit of negative energy looming around me also and it's taken me out of my element so I took a brief hiatus to handle my business, now I'm back picking up where I left off! 

The next episode of Fly Girlz has been drawn, I just need to do final sketches and paint it which will take some time because I'm slow and working on numerous projects at once, but please stay posted for updates on that front. 

I've been spending a lot of time working on my doll and I am pleased to report I have reached a milestone in my progress!  I made a knee joint and I have strung her together to see how it looks!

It's really important to me that she can bend this way so I'm trying to make a successful double joint.  This one needs some tweaking but it's getting there. 

Now she may look a little funny with one leg, but it's a lot better than looking at her in pieces on my desk!  She would have two legs but symmetry is hard to draw and even harder to sculpt!!!!  I ended up making the other leg too short so I had to patch it up.  It's drying, but I couldn't wait for all of that, I wanted to see her put together.  I have had this elastic for over a year waiting to get to this stage, I couldn't wait any longer.  So here she is in all of her glory!!!!

I love how she fits in my hand!

Now Destiny and Nadia got so excited that I got this far that they have joined in to help me finish her.  Destiny has pulled out her sewing machine and is trying to fashion her some clothes because she is not happy with the naked pictures!  LOL!  And Nadia is online doing research to try to help me figure out the joints.  She's uploading pictures, helping Destiny measure, and reassuring the new girl that standing and walking will be much easier once her creator finishes her other leg!

Enjoy Destiny and Nadia introducing their new friend to the world, while I go work on the rest of her limbs! 

Nadia:  "She's only got one leg to stand on!"

Destiny:  "She needs some clothes!"

Nadia:  "Don't worry, you'll be fine.  Now let me get your measurements."

Nadia:  "Let's get to work!"

Destiny:  "I can't wait until she's finished!"

 Nadia:  "These pics don't do her justice."

 Destiny:  "She just needs a little flavor."

 Destiny:  "Could you hand me some thread?"

Nadia:  "Can't go wrong with pink!"

 Destiny:  "I like this fabric best."

 Destiny:  "She is gonna love it..."

 Nadia:  "Leave it to us."

Destiny:  "Before you know it, she'll be as fly as we are!"

 

Day 29: The FLY GIRLZ saga begins!

I am so proud of myself.  I finally did it.  I scratched something off my list of things I want to do.  The web comic was on the list and all I needed was to complete the first installment to get motivated to keep it going.  It took forever to paint it in photoshop, I'm learning and would much rather paint by hand, but I did it.  I'm still not happy with the presentation, I have something else in mind but right now this will do.  I'm happy with my first little episode.  It captures the true spirit of a fly girl!  I know that it will grow over time.  I'm looking forward to seeing what it becomes.

Fly Girlz is for mature audiences.  It's my little outlet to let it all hang loose and make lite of my crazy life as a wife, mother, artist, and friend.  Excuse the potty mouth from time to time and I might even occasionally throw in a bottle of wine here and there, lol, but that's how I do!  So without further ado, I'd like to introduce you to FLY GIRLZ!  Keep clicking on the FLY GIRLZ link until you get to the full version of the comic.  Go check it out and hollah at your girl! 

Days 15-28: Layers of Work In Progress

Okay, I promise that I have been working everyday still on this 100 days of art project.  I'm really sorry that I haven't posted in a minute, but the numerous projects that I have been working on just haven't gotten to a point where I want to put them out there yet.

You know I've been working on a web comic and that I'm painting digitally for the first time.  Hate the process!  I am not a computer person.  It takes too long, so I really have to work in short bursts.  It's looking good but it's still not finished, and I don't want to show it until it's done.  So stay tuned for that and know that this has taken up several of my days so far.

I created a really hot logo to go with the web comic, and I hope to digitally paint that, but it's still waiting in line behind the actual web comic.  I don't want to show it till it's painted, so it will debut with the web comic.

When I get tired of sitting in front of the computer pointing and clicking a paintbrush, I am working on an actual oil painting.  I love to paint, by hand!  It's very therapeutic.  So to relieve myself from the pixel blues, I started a painting that's been in my head for a while.  It's inspired by one of my favorite classic paintings.  I didn't sketch it out first.  I was so frustrated with the whole digital thing that I just broke out the materials and went for it.  I'm making it up as I go.  I already know the name of it and the meaning behind it but that's a secret to be revealed later.  The woman in center my look familiar and is a clue to the classic that is inspiring this "rebirth".

I'm still in the beginning stages.  I've only toned the masonite board and drawn a rough outline of the basic elements.  I'm a slow painter.  I have to let the canvas speak to me with each brush stroke.  Right now, this painting is whispering.

No matter what I'm working on, I'm always dreaming of making ball jointed dolls.  My art buddy, Lauren Brevner uses paper clay to make her sculptures, so I thought I'd give it a try to see what all the fuss is about.  You should definitely check out her blog, she's doing this 100 days of art thing with me and she is so talented.  Her blog is awesome and she's running a blog contest right now so if you subscribe and comment you could win one of her awesome sculptures!  You can see it here.  You have until Dec. 1st to enter! 

I'm really feeling the paper clay.  I'm using Premier clay by La Doll.   It's really squishy and takes some getting use to but it's fairly easy to work with.  I love that I don't have to bake it, and that it sands so easily.  I've found the trick is getting the basic structure down, then adding details once it's dried.  It takes some time to dry so it helps to work on parts in stages so you can keep it moving.  It also helps to have other projects to fall back on because it can get a bit monotonous.  The details are so time consuming, it takes weeks for me to notice my progress.  Which is another reason I haven't posted.  Just like painting, it involves layers and layers of work, so progress is slow.  I'd like to take more progress pics but when I'm working with clay, I get so caught up in the process that I forget to take pics along the way.  Here are a couple WIP pics.

This week, I'm focusing on the limbs.  I'm so proud that I have hands for the first time.  I avoided making hands like the plague, but I finally bit the bullet and went for it.  I still have a lot of work to do.  Endless hours to put in, but this is a good sharing point.  So, I've been bouncing back and forth from these three projects over the past 2 weeks.  I wish I had more to show you but sometimes it's like that, and that's the way it is.  Later homies!      

Day 14: Fly Girlz Webcomic

So I've been wanting to create a web comic strip for a while now.  It's been on my "to do" list.  I was racking my brain trying to figure out exactly what I wanted it to be and while talking to my ace boom Jennifer on my birthday, she reminded me of a sketch I did of us a while back.  We are the "ride or die" kind of friends which I think is captured so well in this sketch.

I absolutely love this drawing.  It's us up and down and it's got so much sass!  We always refer to ourselves as Thelma & Louise.  I love that movie.  So I sketched this out for our personal pleasure to cheer us up once when we were pissed off.  It always makes me feel better to imagine us against the world, driving off that cliff, and surviving somehow.  So when she reminded me about it on my birthday, I dug the old sketches up and realized that I had the makings of a really great comic.

I prettied it up and it's exactly what I want my web comic to be.  Honest, empowering, and just plain out hilarious!

Fly Girlz is for mature audiences.  It features beautiful, talented, fly ass divas who juggle family, careers, friendship, and life's hurdles.  Once I add color, I will have a space designated for the comic on my website, and you will get to indulge in the adventures of the flyest girlz you've ever met!

So stay tuned and here's a sneak peek of the first installment!

Day 13: Paper Doll

My 1st paper doll!

                          

Day 12: My Born Day

I'm a fall baby and my favorite thing about the fall is the beautiful fall trees.  Fall will be gone soon, so I spent my birthday trying to capture my favorite thing about fall, before it's gone.  Enjoy the pictures I took on my nature walk!

Day 11: Daj'zha's Birthday

Today was 11/11/11.  We won't live to see that moment again, but my babygirl can say that she celebrated her birthday on this day!  Didn't have too much time to do art because we were too busy ice skating and celebrating.  I got to be eight again!

We had a blast.  I love experiencing life through her eyes.  She has such a great imagination.  For Halloween she was a spider fairy.  Something we pieced together.  Look at this face.  (Makeup by Mommy)

There is one drawing that I have in my sketchbook that I drew from a picture of me when I was eight years old, and my daughter is the spitting image of me.

My daughter is my greatest inspiration.  Seeing her everyday is really like experiencing Daj'zha Vu.

Day 10: Introducing Israel

Since I'm on a character study tip, I thought I'd go ahead and introduce the main character in my book, Israel.  She is so special to me.  This drawing is my favorite of her so far.

This is a major scene in the book. 

I love drawing in my sketchbook.  It's where I get some of my best drawings...

This little girl is "The Chosen One".  She's gonna save the world some day...

Day 9: Kali

My favorite Hindu goddess is Kali.  She's known to be the goddess of death, but she doesn't go around killing people, she brings death of the ego.  She helps us overcome the I-am-the-body idea by reinforcing the awareness that the body is a temporary condition.  It is our attachment to the body that gives rise to the ego.  Kali removes the ego and liberates the soul from the cycle of birth and death.

My fear of death seems to follow me everywhere that I go.  That's how Kali became a character in my book.  I recently stumbled across my first attempt at drawing her.  She's so beautiful in my imagination.  Naked without inhibition.  Skin so dark black that it's blue.  Hair so ferosciously wild that it has a life of it's own.  These characteristics stood out most in my head.  I started to wonder what she would look like as a teenager and came up with this drawing back in the day.

In my story, she has to have wings so I remodeled and updated her a bit using my handy dandy watersoluble crayons.  I thought since her hair is so wild and long, and has a life of it's own, it can actually form into wings!

I gave her a veil, because I figured her to be self conscious about her non traditional beauty.  She was probably an awkward teenager who didn't start off knowing what she came to know as a full grown woman about the body.  So she's modestly trying to cover up her private parts, instead of letting it all hang out.  As a young girl, she's in the process of becoming, she's not fully aware of her power and purpose yet.  So she is probably as awkward and shy as the rest of us!  At least in my mind, she is. 

She's going to make a beautiful ball jointed doll when I get around to making her.  I can't wait!  She'll be covered in jewelry from head to toe, as you can see with her awesome foot bracelets.

She has a lot to learn about herself, but an awful lot to teach.  I love this girl!  I can't wait to write her story and turn her into a doll.

She's gonna show me how to keep my third eye OPEN!

Day 8: The Three Tree

I'm drained, and I feel like I'm back where I started energy wise, so for the next few days I'm lolly gagging on the 100 days of art project.  I'm going to revisit some old sketches and play around a bit, just to get my juices stirring again.  So here's an old sketch I call The Three Tree.  I used my Neocolors successfully here.  They are much better for sketching.

I'm a colorist, I love vibrant color combinations.  With the sepia ink on top, I just want to lick this picture it's so yummy with color!

This is a character study for my book.  Not quite in full character mode, but these ladies are wearing these colors well.  You'll find out more about them later.  For now, just enjoy the view!

Still not feeling completely out of my funk, but at least I don't want to melt my watersoluble crayons anymore. 

Day 7: SmART rock!

Okay, this one sucked the art making life out of me.  I don't know why, I just did not enjoy this as much as I thought I would.  Maybe because I attempted to use these Neocolor Watersoluble crayons that I have, because I have yet to use them on a major project.

Well, I found out that they aren't for major projects!  At least not alone.  They make for a good top coat or a good bottom coat, but you're gonna have to use several coats regardless if watercolor is involved!  Bummer!  Yeah, so what!  I was being lazy, trying to find the easy way out of watercolor and I got hit in the head with a SmART rock.  That happens occasionally.  There is no easy way out of watercolor.  Layers on top of layers is the only way out!  LOL!  And since I wasn't feeling this drawing from the beginning, seeing as how I was looking like a distant cousin and all, what you see is what you get.  One layer of watersoluble crayons and I'm moving on to the next one.

I'll revisit Ingenue later.  When I feel like it.  Now is just not the time.  She totally took me out of my zone.  She looks better than the 1st painting, but she's still got a long way to go.  Oh well, next!  Gotta love the smART rocks!

Day 6: Ingenue

I've been digging through a lot of my old art from when I first started art school.  Although it's painful to look at, because I had no clue what I was doing, I am inspired by the fresh ideas and creativity that I had as a budding young artist.  I would try so hard to turn these huge detailed drawings into paintings,  I wanted to be a painter so bad.  But nobody teaches you how to paint in school, you get the basics then you're thrown to the wolves.  So I tried it, failed miserably, and then hid the results from myself and everyone.  I messed up plenty of great drawings trying to paint them.  It got to the point where I would have to redo every drawing that I did.  I finally got a technique down, but I never revisited some of those beginning drawings that I am revisiting now.

So during this 100 days of art challenge I am going to revive some of my old pieces and try to make them into the masterpieces that I'd hope they'd be back then.

One piece in particular was this self portrait that I drew in drawing class.  It was inspired by a magazine spread dedicated to Frida Kahlo.  I am really inspired by fashion photography.  In this particular issue, the models were dressed and posed as Frida during her hay days .  There was one picture that I fell in love with where a very young Frida was standing at an easel, smoking a cigarette, and painting.  Her outfit and jewelry looked like she was going out on the town as always, but she was in her zone.  I love Frida.  I love everything about her, but most of all her spirit.  This woman was so feminine and fly even when she was in the middle of creating.  I saw that picture and I wanted to be like her, so I drew myself in the same pose without the cigarette.  I wish I would have kept the cigarette, because it was so gangsta.  She was just holding it in her mouth, painting away, looking all sexy and artsy!  But I took it out because it was hard enough to draw me to look like me, much less me smoking a cigarette, lol!  Needless to say, the hardest thing for me about drawing people is making them look like themselves.  I always draw them to look like distant cousins unintentionally.  So this was the me that I wanted to be when I first started art school.

As you can see, my watercolor painting skills sucked back then!  And she looks like my distant cousin of course, but I still love this drawing.  So much that I redid it and I hope to make it a really great painting now that I have better painting skills.  Not much has changed about me since then.  I still want to be fly, still want to be a painter, and still want to be both simultaneously some how.  I look so young and innocent.  Untainted by reality.  Fresh and hopeful!  LOL!  So I had to name the piece, Ingenue.

As you can see, I changed the eyes.  In the first picture she was looking down because my eye drawing skills weren't that great!  Ha ha!  So, I've graduated and now I'm looking at the viewer with "knowing" eyes.  Like, "I know something you don't know!"  Hee hee.

I still don't look like myself.  I'm going to do a updated version of the same pose, sort of like a then and now series.  I'm going to work more on this one this week, and maybe get up to nerve to paint it!  Yes, I still hesitate when deciding to paint a drawing because I don't want to mess it up!  Having flash backs still to this day!  Hoping I can do Frida, the queen of self portraits, some justice.  I may just screw it up again, but it'll just get better every time I try at least.  Maybe next time I'll add an eye squint and the cigarette!  That would be so hot!