days 4, 5, 6 and 7

I think I am going to change all of these to ink. They will just look better. The theme is Things Found Under Car Seats.

AEDM days two and three

Sketchbook sketches. Pencil.

November, the goddess of creative chaos

November has become a being feared and revered. She is a bitch goddess, relentless, demanding and often leaves me in a state of awe and gratitude. As I embark on my second Art Every Day Month (AEDM) and my fourth National Novel Writing Month (NaNoWriMo), I beg of you to be patient with my unanswered emails, my confusing and surreal tweets, my angry status updates. For AEDM this year, I'm finishing my Sketckbook project, or rather starting it. I'm not painting this year, or rebinding. Just a sketch a day that might be inked, or might stay pencil. My theme is "Thing Found Under Car Seats." It is purposely light. I am making it surreal, hopefully funny. But first few pages are the straight man jokes. Here are the cover and first page.

10.21.10

I had a really scary night last night. After dinner, my one eye went all strange and distorted. My vision twisted, and I had a massive headache on the other side of my head. It was pulsating and I was afraid. I held my babies and told them I loved them, because I am apparently THAT dramatic. I was convinced I was having some kind of stroke-like situation. My nurse husband calmed me as best he could, took my vitals, and checked me for all the symptoms of stroke/aneurysm. When we determined that I was not having a stroke, after the eye thing cleared up, and was replaced by a massive, debilitating headache, I went to bed. I was in bed by 6:30p with all the lights out listening to meditation CDs, since I could do nothing else. I did paint, sadly. I mean, my painting was very sad. Not that it was sad that I got to paint before the crazy migraine thing. I did the next spread, which was envisioned as a four elements and a radioactive symbols to the words, "Your half life was your full life. And you never seem to break down in me." To go along the theme of the periodic table of elements. Yeah, the painting sucks, and I am blaming my massive pre-migraine addled brain for its horridness. I am going to gesso the whole damn thing and start over. I have no idea what I am doing. If you have any superduper ideas of how you illustrate "Your half life is your full life, and you never seem to breakdown in me," please feel free to leave a detailed comment (I am actually on my knees begging the internetz for inspiration on that one).

So, I skipped to showing you that one. The spread I worked on today was mostly blank, except for the words, "I did it again. I made your death about me." I had no idea how to illustrate that. So, I decided to really make it about me. Lots of different markers of the word "Me" and variations on uses of the word "me". This was a fun one, and a hard illustration. Me in a hospital gown staring at my stillborn daughter. Hopefully, the juxtaposition works.

Sketchbook Project X:

I did it again. I made your death about me.

10.19.10

Sketchbook Spread VIII:

But I want you to drench only me, Daughter. I hate the sea.

Sketchbook spread IX:

In the Periodic Table of Elements that makes up my life now, you are the first element. The most basic parts of nature (regret and grief) are contained in U + I.
O + U + I in its most basic form are the weight of all sadness (and love).

10.18.10

Sketchbook Spread V:

And those other explanations I came up with about how you were taken away because I don't deserve happiness really were big fat lies that I have been hearing for a very long time.

Spread VI:

I have a cramped heart and a stiff soul from sitting in meditation with this grief.

Spread VII:
I once read that the soul is like a raindrop and when you achieve enlightenment, you fall into the ocean. Still you, yes, but part of something powerful and inseparable from everything.

10.13.10

Sketchbook Spread:

Maybe you really are a Buddha. Just like she said. Maybe this was your last life.

Still trying to decide if I am inking this sketchbook or leaving it all watercolor without ink. mmmm.

10.07.10

Sketchbook project Spread three:
Maybe you lived your heartbreakingly short life exactly as it was supposed to be lived.

Bea decided to co-opt my practice binding project, and use it as her sketch book. I asked her if this was a picture of trees in the grass with the sky, and she said, "No. Just lines and dots and squiggles that are brown and blue and green." Sometimes a cigar is just a cigar.

10.06.10

I have actually been working on the Sketchbook Project sketchbook for the past few weeks most intensely. My theme is, "I'm sorry I forgot you." I have sketched everything but the last two pages. A few months, I wrote a poem based on the theme and began thumbnailing the page layouts. I rebound the book with watercolor paper, then bound a little wee watercolor book to practice with layout and painting. Now, I am finally working on the full piece. I finished mostly sketching it out (except the last two pages, which are mindbogglingly unconducive to illustration.) Anyway, I finally painted the first two sketches. I cannot believe that my lettering still ended up being not straight. I measured, lined, and wrote a sketch under the painting, and still managed to get it all whopperjawed.

Spread one:


 I made your death about me.

My mistakes. 
My karma.
My deflated belly.
My anger.
My dead daughter.
My goddamned fucking grief.

Spread two:

Perhaps the five buck fortuneteller was right.










Aren't you excited to see how it will end?

Here are the original sketches. I was going to insert a fake notebook paper like a little high school poem with doodles on the side, but it didn't seem right. I decided on drawing myself as the only person in the universe, because grief feels so fucking isolating, and having a little person saying, "Are you aiming at me, universe?"

I changed the word psychic to fortune teller, because it seems more mystical and odd.

09.11.10

It's been a while, and actually, I'd like to say that I have been ubercreative and productive, but actually, I have felt a bit disconnected from art and writing lately. I think the tempo of my life has picked up a bit with the month of September rolling in, and me taking a hand at homeschooling my daughter for this year. I feel a bit disconnected, like I come into my studio and write or paint, then immediately leave it again and back to mothering. I don't know how to describe it really. I have a lot of heavy stuff on the brain about my own limitations and ego-constraints, and how many steps I have taken backwards and away from meditation and Buddhism and all that. Not that this is what this blog is about, nor are any of these things excuses, but I have felt slightly, I don't know, weird and in a funk.

Still, I do have stuff to share with you. I made a little mock up Sketchbook for the sketchbook project to test my ideas for painting spreads, before I actually sketch and paint them in the official rebound Sketchbook. Here is the first spread I worked on, which is actually not the first spread in the book.

I also began experimenting a bit more with that weird watercolor paper and utilizing the characteristic of the watercolor sitting on top of the paper, so I really made wet, watery watercolor, and hung it, so that it looks like a window in a storm. I fell in love with the effect it created and still wondering what I am doing with this background. I might hand-letter a spread for the Sketchbook project, because I wanted that effect and no idea how I was going to get it.

Some other things I have worked on lately. I have been using my own moleskin watercolor sketch book, which I have had for a while for thumbnail paintings. But recently, I discovered, or rediscovered, a little art store in the next town over. She was having a sale and I ended up buying our babysitter an off to university gift of a moleskin watercolor sketchbook and a highend watercolor travel pan. A few weeks later and bought a cheaper one for me, so I began painting some sketches to see how the quality matched up to tubes. These aren't great, but I loved playing with the pan, especially loved going to a cafe during naptime and painting.

Dragonflies Bookmark. 1.75"x 6". Watercolor.

Happy Trees. Watercolor Sketchbook.

Mama sketch. Watercolor.