The Rebirth of Venus

Remember this lonely little Venus that I started during my 100 days of art challenge?  On a solitary journey towards becoming, arriving to the wilderness?  Yeah, she's been sitting every since, waiting.... on me.

I am drawn to the famous painting, "The Birth of Venus" by Botticelli.  It depicts the goddess Venus, having emerged from the sea as a fully grown woman.  Arriving to the sea shore upon a shell, aligned with the myth to explain her birth.  On her left, the wind god carries his bride towards the threshold, blowing the shell amongst a shower of roses, gently caressing her hair and the incoming waves that seamlessly break over the shore.  As Venus is about to step onto dry land, a hand maiden waits patiently for the goddess to come closer, reaching out to cover her shy naked body with a cloak. Venus' contrapposto stance depicts grace as she carefully leans on one hip, modestly covering her private parts, slightly revealing her sexuality.
 

It's been said that this painting "illustrates the birth of love and spiritual beauty as a driving force of life.  Once she lands ashore, the goddess of love will don the earthly garb of mortal sin", an act that could lead to the creation of a new life or the possibilities of an everlasting one.  Once draped in earthly garments does she become a personification of the church which offers a spiritual transport back to the pure love of eternal salvation?  In this case the shell upon which this image of Venus stands could be seen as a symbolic pilgrimage.  "The sea brings forth Venus just as the Virgin gives birth to the ultimate symbol of love, Christ."  Is Botticelli's Venus meant to represent the idea of divine love?

Rather than choosing one of the many interpretations offered for Botticelli's depiction of the Birth or Arrival of Venus, I think it's better to view it from a variety of perspectives.  This layered mythological, political, and religious composition was intended to portray the goddess as the epitome of beauty arousing humans to physical love at first sight, then inspiring intellectual love upon second glance.  After further investigation, one might be inspired to lift the mind towards the Creator.  Lets get lifted.

When I became a mother, I experienced The Rebirth of Venus.  I have my own ideas of what that means as I add my own layers to the many layers of this great classic.  I'll explain more about my motives as it progresses and as she emerges, but can I just say....I am so addicted to illustration as fine art.  It makes all the spit rush to my mouth....soul stirring artful storytelling at its' finest.  Food for my soul.

"The Rebirth of Venus"

WIP

And just in case you were wondering, my Venus arrives on a cowrie shell and my hand maiden, and my God who controls my wind, just so happen to be trees....anything less would be uncivilized.    

RANTics: Keep Swimming

It's been two whole months since I've blogged.  Why must this task be so difficult?  I've been working up a storm but inching forward.  Why does the life of an artist have to be this way?  The process is soooooooo long and drawn out.  And nobody wants to pay you for your process, they just want the pretty end result.  But you can't afford to not get paid.  So you chase a check full time and chase your dream part time all while sacrificing your sanity because the ideas are flowing way faster than your hands can find the time to produce, you start to rationalize that maybe somehow you can get away with not sleeping until you die so that you can spend every waking hour trying to squeeze it all in........my heart hurts, cause I've got something to prove.   

Yes.  This is one of those posts.  One of the one's where after you've come to terms that nobody is really listening you decide, I'm gonna talk to myself, because I've got something to say that I need to hear......yep, that's exactly what I meant.

I've decided that my dreams are ghosts, and GHOSTS ARE REAL, they're haunting me, and I AIN'T SCARED OF NO GHOST!  I'm gonna catch that mickey fickey put it in a box and show it off to the world to prove my point!  I AM A DIABOLICAL GENIOUS! okay, maybe not but,  I AM A MESSENGER!  I AM AN ARTIST!  I AM A BAD, AS IN GOOD, MOTHER SHUT YOUR MOUTH!

This post will probably never be published.  Someone might think I'm drunk.  But I'm not, I just....have this dream.  That God gave me a story to tell through my art.  And it's a message that HAS to be heard, by me, and hopefully some other folks too.  So what the heck,  I'm gonna publish it. 

I hear Nemo telling me to "keep swimming".  I might be delirious, but I just might really be on to something too.

 

Keep Swimming (work in progress) oil on masonite 

Update: To Catch A Fire

Okay, so I had the baby boy, August 4th, 6lbs 13ozs!  Totally cute, keeping me up, spoiled rotten, brothers and sister love him, got my body back, slightly sleep deprived, but unpregnant, yey me!  I'll put up pictures at another time, because I'm here to talk about the progress that I've made on my bjd sculpt.

So I was totally bummed out because I'm seeing all these wonderful artists who are sculpting dolls and making progress and I haven't made any.  I keep researching and seeing all their beautiful dolls, getting so jealous I could hardly stand myself.  So two things in particular lit a fire under my butt and I have finally gotten back to work and decided that I'm not stopping until I have a doll.  I don't care how long it takes me, but every free moment I get, I am going to see this through!  I want this too bad not to bust my butt to get it.  So yes, I now have a high schooler, a middle schooler, an elementary schooler, a preschooler, and a newborn, but I'm going to somehow find the time to fulfill my dream of making this doll dag gone it!  I'm determined!

So I mentioned that there were two things that inspired me to just do it.  First, I stumbled across this doll artist who has made the cutest little brown girl!  Her name is Lidia Snul and her sweet little Kroby made me want to finish my own brown girl so badly!  She is so unique and amazing.  Then, my girl LB put up a foot sculpting tutorial on her blog which is also totally awesome.  Lauren does an amazing job describing her methods and makes feet that look so yummy you just wanna lick the computer screen!

So after watching that "fifty leven" times, it was on and poppin!  I sculpted my feet, which kind of look like chunky troll feet to me prior to sanding, but I'm hoping once I sand them down, they'll look more humanly.  I was totally avoiding feet until Lauren made this tutorial so I'm just proud that I attempted to make the little suckers!  They are cute in their own little troll like chunky way.

Before baking

After baking

Oh yeah, and you've never seen the working sketch that I'm basing the sculpt off of, here she goes:

I also decided once matching up what I had with the sketch, that the face needed more work.  Well, everything needs more work.  So I added to the top of her head, gave her more of an eyelid and added some of that fatty meat above the eyelid.  I also added more meat to her nose and her lips.

Before baking

After baking

So there you have it.  She's coming along.  I am so happy.  Sleepy, but happy.  Now I'm working on the legs, which I've cut in half and added the hip joint.  I need to refine that and make a peanut joint, which will take some time because I have no idea what I'm doing.  I bought some really fine sandpaper and I'm ready to smooth her out so she looks prettier and so she can "show me what's she's workin wit"!  So stay tuned and wish me luck, because as you can see, I've got a lot on my plate . . .

 

I get tired just looking at the picture, lol!

To all my fellow artists, thanks for the inspiration, keep on keeping on so I can stay motivated to do the same!  Peeeeeeaaaaaacccccceeee!

BJD in progress: Part 1-Very Rough Draft

So I mentioned that I love ball jointed dolls and that it's my lifelong dream to create my own dolls based off the characters in the graphic novel that I'm in the process of writing.  Well, shout out to Lauren Brevner, my new "brainstorming buddy", who has inspired me to have at it again.  You should totally check out her blog, she's amazingly talented and in the process of creating an epic ball jointed doll as we speak.  Her progress has inspired me to "Just Do It!"

I started this laborious, time consuming, and at times downright daunting journey back in October when I decided to create a ball jointed doll based on the main character in my book.  I sculpted five heads out of Living Doll Sculpey and only one came close to looking similar to my main character "Israel".  I used this clay because I heard it was good for making dolls, but mainly because it comes in my complexion, Terracotta Brown.  Let's face it, when you're looking for ball jointed dolls, ethnic ones especially, are hard to come by.  In fact, there are few beautiful dolls period that represent girls of color.  Since my main character is loosely based on me, I wanted her features to be loosely based on me at her age, and I'm a proud terracotta brown!  I always grew up wishing there were more dolls that looked like me, with hair and features like mine.  Maybe I would have thought I was more beautiful back then, instead of comparing myself to the dolls that I played with who looked nothing like me.  So now, it is really important for me to expose my daughter and other little girls to more variety and diversity in the story book characters and the dolls that they grow up with.

Back to the heads, which ended up turning into eight heads, then I threw one away because she was just that ugly . . . and then there were seven.  But this one head still remained the best out of seven.  here's Israel, the chosen one, or should I say, the chosen head, in her rough stage.

Now I don't have any idea what I'm doing, I'm just feeling my way through all of this.  I'm reading books here and there and looking at tutorials but I'm clueless when it comes to bjd sculpting.  It's not really something you can learn by reading or watching, you can only learn it by doing it, experimenting, failing miserably, and pressing forward.  I'm all for experimentation, but I'd rather take a master class!  Hence the reason why I neglected her little head for months.  But that hasn't kept me from adoring all of the wonderful artists I have come across in my research, who are attempting and pushing through the pain of figuring it out.  I'm constantly looking at their photos, saying "I wish I could do that someday!"  Then came Lauren.  When I saw what she was working on, I finally buckled down and said, "I have to do this, NOW!"  All it took was a little motivation and a lot of inspiration.

I am now pleased to report that I have more than a little rough head.  I now have a rough torso, two rough arms, and two rough legs!  Holla at your boy!!!!!!!  Here are the pics of my progress.  She needs sanding, and I still need to sculpt feet, hands, and the (dun dun dun: scary music) dreaded ball joints that I have no idea whatsoever how to make.  But I'm determined to figure it out!  Enjoy the flicks and let me know what you think.  Then say a few prayers, cross your fingers and toes, send me good cyberspace vibes,

and just maybe . . .  maybe I might end up with a real working ball jointed doll . . . eventually.  

Keep hope alive!

"See ya next time, maybe then I'll have hands!"