Surrender: Day Three

Surrender:  To relinquish possession or control of to another because of demand or compulsion.  To give up or give back.

This work has served as a reminder to let go.  I am not the one in control.  Given time, what's ornately on the inside, will find it's way out.  So that's why that little morphed figure showed up and wouldn't go away.  It's my spirit, struggling to break free.

 I didn't expect the feeling of relief that would come out of producing this drawing.  It started off one way and took a turn for the better.  I have so many images that I'd like to create jumbled up in my head all the time, that it gets constipated.  I hardly find the time, make the time, or take the time to get any of it out.  So it just builds and builds and I get more anxious and agitated by the second.  Committing to do this 100 days of art challenge will force me to release some of this stuff that's been bursting at the seams to get out, little by little.  I can only imagine what will come out of this journey.  Hopefully, it will be a sweet surrender.  I know one thing, I'm laying it all at the foot of the cross!  "I will lift up mine eyes unto the hills, from whence cometh my help." (Psalms 121:1)

  
It's funny how in the beginning I started out feeling stressed and inadequate and ended up feeling encouraged and renewed.  There are so many subtle nuances that showed up in this drawing unintentionally.  I'm disappointed when people feel the need to tell you what to look for in their art.  I'd rather find it myself.  Art has to be experienced individually by the viewer.  To me, a great illustration has you seeing something more every time you look at it.  So I won't point out all of the symbolism, I'll just say it's there for you to discover.  I hope it makes you feel something because I poured a lot of feeling into it.

I'm looking forward to the next project.  I'm gonna have to purge and see what comes out.  I hope to turn this sketchbook drawing into a beautiful painting someday, but for now...it is finished.  Amen.  Next!

Sacrifice: Day Two

Sacrifice:  Forfeiture of something highly valued for the sake of one considered to have a greater value or claim.

I often do these word studies that lead me to much needed revelations.   Lately I have been feeling a sense of frustration about the process of becoming a woman.  Motherhood is a huge responsibility and with five kids, I'm pulled in so many directions that I don't know which way is up or down.  It's a constant struggle.  I try to do right by my kids, say the right thing, make sure I don't mess them up for life, but the truth is, I never really know what I'm doing.  Sometimes I find myself thinking about where I would be and what I would be doing with my life if I didn't have this huge responsibility and there was just me to think of.  I have so many hopes and dreams and things that I want to do in this lifetime, but time keeps passing me by.  I wake up and before I know it, it's bedtime and the things I hoped to accomplish towards my personal goals just get sat on a shelf for tomorrow, then tomorrow never comes.  Now I'm looking at a shelf full of unfinished business and the only word that pops out in my head is "sacrifice".

That word birthed my latest drawing.  "Sacrifice" has been a reoccurring theme in my life.  I know it's kind of weird but lately I've had this image in my head that I can't shake.  Me hanging on the cross beside Jesus.  I know, it's dramatic, but more times than I'd like to mention, that's exactly how I feel, like I'm suffering, hanging on a cross.  So I've finally gotten the image that's in my head, out on paper.

Now, I did a little research about the two men that were crucified with Jesus and found a quite wonderful story behind them.  They were both criminals and the one guy to His left was mocking Jesus with the rest of the sinners.  Silly rabbit, up there hanging with his Savior and he had the nerve to join the crowd.  But the beauty in this story is found with the criminal who was hanging on the right side of Jesus.  He spoke up for Jesus and proclaimed that He shouldn't be there because He had done nothing wrong.  Then as an act of faith, he looked over at Jesus and said, "Remember me when You come into Your kingdom."  And Jesus said to him, "Truely, I say to you, today you will be with Me in Paradise."(Luke 23:43)

 
Now when I think of sacrifice, there is no greater sacrifice than Jesus giving His life so that I might live.  Jesus was a beautiful green tree growing and thriving in the prime of His life when He was cut down.  He knew what was going to happen to Him, but He did it anyway.  He carried the tree that the soldiers cut down for Him, hung on it, and died so that my tree could continue to grow, forever.  And when the women were weeping with sorrow, mourning His predicament as He carried his cross through the streets, He told them, "Do not weep for me, but weep for yourselves and your children.  For the days are surely coming when they will say, "Blessed are the barren, and the wombs that never bore, and the breasts that never nursed," for if they do this when the tree is green, what will happen when it is dry?"  (Luke 23:27-31) Now if Jesus had to suffer so terribly when He was innocent, what should my sacrifice be?  Did He really believe that my life was greater than His own?  Clearly the right man was chosen for that task, and clearly the right woman was chosen for this task.  We all have our own cross to bear.
 

So I weep for myself and my children because I am a good mother.  And I will suffer because suffering is my blessing.  And I will be the woman hanging on a green tree, to the right of Him, defending Him until my last breath so that one day, I can be with Him in Paradise.  Gotta keep my eye on the prize and don't look back!  Let the church say Amen!  

The Force: Day One

Nov. 1st was the start date of my 100 days of art challenge.  To explain, a few of my art buddies and I have decided to vow to create something every day for 100 days and blog about the journey.  I've decided to work on something for a week at most, then move on to something else after a week to keep it fresh.  I'm going to try to blog as often as possible, at least weekly.  My plan is to spend at least an hour everyday creating something.  And I am already discouraged because I didn't have a free moment to myself until 11 pm last night and even then it wasn't really a moment to myself because I was drawing in the dark holding the baby trying to put him to sleep at the same time.  Seems like when I make up my mind to do something that I know will be good for me , some unknown force gets in the way and messes it all up for me.  I wanted to give up since the baby and my support system didn't seem to comply with my desires to take a few moments out of my day to fulfill myself, but instead, I kept pressing on... with one hand.  After erasing over and over again, I came up with this half way sucky drawing of how I feel right about now.  It's not what's really in my head, I still have to find a way to get the real image out but "The Force" is present in this rendition, so it's fitting.

I was trying to capture a mother's sacrifice.  I'm going to keep working at it this week to see if I can get what's in my head onto the paper.  I need to hire a nude model because I also realized after erasing so much that the lines were indented into the page, that I suck at drawing what I love to draw most, the woman's figure.  That's really the foundation of all my art.  That little figure that looks like it's morphing out of her chest came from all my erasure marks.  I thought it was kind of cool so I penciled it back in.  I'm gonna do something with it, I don't know what.

So what was supposed to be a relieving moment became a painful realization as always, that I have a lot of work to do to become the artist that I want to be.  But I be darned if I let "The Force" stop me from trying!  I'm gonna fake it till I make it and pray that the next 99 days are not as miserable as the first one.

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!"