08.08.10

Remember a few days ago when I showed that huge painting in the dining room? Well, today was family day. No computers. No blackberries. No phone calls. Just unadulterated family time. It is an experiment. We went for a hike. Collected things for our family altar. Read books. Played games. Which to be honest, we found it slightly challenging at times. What to do? We usually have activities, then spend some alone time, or individual times with the kids, then family time again. it is bloody hot here, so outside activities were slightly limited. After our hike, we realized that the mosquitos were awful on top of the God-awful humidity. So we wanted inside projects. I suggested we do a family painting and we just paint over the whole painting and create something together, but Sam loved the colors of the original and the "You are my Sunshine." Sam was so timid when we started. He didn't want to do anything, so he took red and began painting on top of the red. First he started with a circle, then some designs in it. I kept yelling at them, "YOu can't mess this up. Just go for it. It is a family project. Paint, splash. Do anything. Cut out pictures and paste them to the canvas." I finally got them to really play with the paint. Sam made this cool design that looks Native American, he used some black, which he hated, so I gave him a brayer and told him to roll the design, and it came out looking like spray paint. I pasted small prayer flags to the piece, to show that I wanted our family to have wishes whispered on the wind, and I used an old linoleum block design of the Buddha and stamped Gold Buddhas all over it them rolled them out. Beatrice used white and red and yellow and just painted on top of everything. You can see her pinkish contribution on the top middle of the canvas. Sam also painted little stick figures of our family in the corner, with Lucy by his leg, which broke my heart a little. All in all, it was a great day.  

I have been really re-inspired with my jizos from Janis' gift this past week. The top jizo is a commission. The canvas didn't work for the mama either (The one from last week), so I thought I would go a different route. It still needs the beautiful poem she wants written on it. I am slightly nervous about the writing, which can always make or break these jizo paintings. I also somehow managed to squeeze two more watercolor jizos into my afternoon while no one was looking.

Mizuko jizo and twins. 22" x30" Watercolor.



























Close up of jizo. Watercolor.

Jizo with lotus. 7"x10". Watercolor

Meditating jizo. 4"x6". Watercolor.

08.05.10

There is little that I like more than inspiration with my morning coffee. I will just preface this by saying I had to leave my house at 9am and still, the watercolors beckoned me with their hypnotic siren song. I blame my friend Janis. My beautiful, wise, amazing friend Janis who sent this incredible book to me. Here is the story behind it, which is charming in and of itself:

As you may know, I am de-cluttering. I found a catalog I bought when I was in Japan, I visited an exhibition at a temple and liked what I saw from the artist (also a monk) and bought it. I thought you may enjoy it. I've translated the titles (on post-it's) as much of what I can- Japanese having borrowed some characters from the Chinese. That was my first trip to Japan and it had a special place in my heart. I went because I was broken hearted, and did not want to have to say goodbye to a boy I really liked, but was not ready for a relationship then, even though he very much liked me too.  I found great solace in Japan, esp in the bamboo groves and the temple. Still, I cannot hold on to everything, and when I looked over the catalog it made me think of you, and decided to send it to you.

I received it yesterday, and it is enchanting. I know nothing of kanji, but I love calligraphy, and mostly it is calligraphy scrolls. I instantly thought of ten things to do with these pieces, and then ten more when I put it down.

Of course, this morning when I was drinking my coffee and trying to get out of the house by 9am, I somehow thought that it might be a good time to paint a card or two based on this little page I found in the monk catalogue.

Yep. those are two jizos flanking a Guan Yin. As most of you know, mizuko jizo has become very important to me in my grief, and painting them are like little meditations. So, I used this inspiration for some gesture watercolors, and well, they took over my desk.

Each has a different gesture or expression. I am in love.

08.04.10 Talking about ATCs.

I have been wanting to do this for a while, but today, I received an email from Ines with so much excitement for Artist Trading Cards (ATCs). I love them too. I wish I had more time to create more of them, and explore more detailed smaller works. We did an ATC trade a few months ago, which was really awesome. I love exchanging work. Anyway, I just had been leaning my ATCs against various things on my desk, or hanging them with a magnet on my metal filing cabinets. I wanted to show y'all what I am doing with my beautiful ATCs, received and made.

First off, I found ATC size matted frames at Michael's for some ridiculously small amount of money, like less than four bucks. I have this very strange space between two windows and had intended on hanging some ATCs there, but haven't quite gotten around to it. So, for now they are on my sideboard.

For the rest of them, I found this incredible ATC journal on Etsy. It was very reasonably priced. So, I bought it. And here is what I got so far from trades, the ripple project and my own creations. You may recognize some of these from posting on here or my blog.

















I taped a small envelope on the inside of the front cover to house the ATCs I meant to trade, am still working on, or in this case, the ones I donated on ripple, but no one bid on them. So sad. (Not the least bit surprised, but still sad.)

I also tape them on top, so that I can lift them and see the information of who it is made.  And in my ATC searches, I found a very cool ATC information stamp, which I am now using for the back of the cards.

08.02.10

Purple Heart. 8"x8". Watercolor.

Finally got the correct dimensions and kept it simple this time. It is just the purple heart with her name in the background and some of the same words as the last piece. I am happy with the way it turned out. I had grand ideas of using a linoleum cut block to press a buddha image over this, and layer some colors, but in the end, I just kept it simple. I also was a dumb ass yesterday and published my everyday post at 365. Ugh. I hate when I do that. If all my blogs didn't have the same name, that might help. Maybe they should be still life. stiller life, and stillest life.

I hear my husband blaring Sweet Home Alabama in his workshop, so I suppose that means he is no longer watching the children. Lynyrd Skynyrd is sign that Mama's work is never done. I feel creative today, so this might not be the last you hear from me.

08.01.10

Little Bea. 2.5"x3.5". Watercolor.

A wee artist trading card for my beekeeping friend who I love. Just wanted her to have a little something in the middle of the summer.

Meditating Banshee. 9"x12". Watercolor and ink.

I began this piece as a traveling journal sketch, playing with perspective and flow. I didn't like the movement of the figure eight, but I love the prayers and poem flowing around her. And the names of all my children which comes from her. One of the poems reads, "I prayed for each of you like whispers on the wind."

Travel Journal II. 8"x 9.5". Mixed Media.

I actually began this piece thinking it would not be mixed media at all, but as I began layering colors. i thought to layer images that were important in my grief journey--calaveras, myself painted as a calavera, jizos, ladybugs, moons and solstice images, mexican lottery cards, then bits of paper, silver paint. I also didn't intend for the flowing of energy from the arms to be an upside down heart, but when it began revealing its shape, I went with it. The writing around the edge reads, "This may not always look like love from the outside, but turn my days upside down and it is always a heart with all of you right in the center. Even when I have no intention of talking about you, my words tied together, turn upside down and become a huge love knot to you and your sister and brother. always there is love."
Of course, I drew the page limits for the travel journal, and began painting, and it is too big, so I have to do another paintings for the journal. Phooey.

Travel Journal Sketch. 8.5"x 11". Ink.

This was the original sketch.

You are my Sunshine. 24"x48". Acrylic and Mixed Media.

I bought this two foot by four foot canvas at the craft store for my huge dining room wall. I had no idea what I was going to do with it, but I wanted it to be bright and bold and not much else. I was going to work on something with Beezus, but ended up just taking the brush and rollers and some gold paint and going to town. The top right corner says, "You are my sunshine." It is a song we sing to each other often in our house. Here is the painting in context of our larger kitchen/dining room experience. We knocked down the wall and redid our entire kitchen a few years ago. Actually, we started the renovation the weekend after I found out I was pregnant with Lucia. I remember being afraid of the dust. We just wanted it done for her. That was 2008, I suppose. I am not sure why I am telling that story just that the art was the last thing we thought about and now it is hung.

07.30.10

It is mind-bedazzling to me that 30 days has transpired since I last posted here. I have been doing a ton of work. I guess that is part of the stupid reason. I am so dang busy.

One thing I bought while restocking the paper bins in my art studio was an actual moleskin watercolor journal, which is so friggin awesome. I am in love with it and want to figure out a way to carry my watercolors around with me all the time. I had something like ten commission paintings in the last three weeks, and it was a good way for me to play with the design ideas for them, and make small paintings before embarking on the larger one.

My lovely friend ShantiMama asked me to paint a picture for her doula, and this was an early draft. We ended up painting one with cool colors because of her calming spirit in the birth room. We also tried out an experiment, which I think worked which was to cut a frame in a 5"x7" watercolor card and tape the piece to it, so it can be a card, and then be framed or displayed later. This doula is a babylost mama too, so I represented her baby with a star pendant. The baby delivered is named Violet, which is what she is holding in her hands, and the vines with red flowers represent all the babies delivered and guiding her spirit as a birth companion. She is meditation because she is intentional in her loving support of these women.


 I also was asked to paint some jizo cards for another babylost mama's support people in delivery. I love them.

She also asked for a meditating mama and a large piece. She originally said 20"x30", but I didn't have anything in my studio that big and gave her an option of trying a watercolor canvas I picked up (16"x20"). Here is the little sketch I have in my moleskin for the piece. Then I started it and ugh, painting on canvas with watercolor blows. It really is not a good thing. The watercolors just sit there, they are unsaturated and washed out. I have something I sent to her for approval, but I am really thinking about buying a huge piece of paper and redoing the whole dang thing.

None of it works and I am embarrassed at the painting on this one. I also have no idea why I am sharing it here, but I am. Mainly because of the canvas not absorbing the water readily, even though it is supposed to be prepped for watercolor. She wants a gorgeous poem on it as well, and I haven't even gotten to that point. Still, I think it is good to learn these things by practice, rather than just dismissing them handily. I love canvas and don't work with it often because I mostly work in watercolor these days.

Well, I also have some more pieces to share. I made this for my Mami while we were sitting by the kiddie pool drinking wine. She needed a bookmark, so I made one with my family and my sister's family with a flag that says, "We love abuelita."

I ended up laminating this and making a little tassle for it out of sock yarn.

I am starting to plan for Christmas and what to work up for the Etsy site. Any suggestions on things you might want? I am thinking of bookmarks. Many bookmarks.

07.01.10

Anatomical Heart. Watercolor. 

I had this idea for a painting/mixed media thing. I had painted something using the e.e.cummings poem i carry your heart. But I wanted to use an anatomical heart, antique it after watercoloring it, then hiding it behind kite paper and pinning it to a canvas, so it looks like it was dissected out of a body and covered, inside one of the veins, I was going to hide a little drawn cartoon-y heart. I wanted to cut the lines of the poem out and use them in the paint of the underneath canvas. I found some medical books of my husbands and began sketching and painting. This is the first anatomical heart I did. You will see the second later. This just was not good enough for what I wanted and too detailed to be interesting in a graphic way. TOO LITERAL. I did this earlier in the week.

Trying again, I made quicker sketch and used marker to color it in so it would be very graphic. Then I gessoed some foam core board that I had laying around and painted it with a combo of black, grey and blues, with red in there. It looked awful. Ditched that idea without putting the poem into the paint.

This morning, I let my daughter paint on my grey background and she did some cool bright colors on there. And I pinned my heart onto it.

Anatomical Heart. 17"x20". Acrylic and marker.


Not exactly what I was going for in the beginning, but I love doing art with my daughter and it was fun for her to pin it in there and do a piece together. Plus, it is pretty big for a three year old.

From art journal. Audrey and Bea Swim. Watercolor.

I carry your heart. ATC. Mixed media.





I love the last stanza of this poem. And so I cut it out and mixed my mod podge with gold paint and stuck in atop an anatomical drawing of a heart made by da Vinci. (Hell might as well steal from da Vinci, if you are stealing art.) This was in response to Kara's call for small. I had already done part of this painting larger, and thought of how it might look small. I love this one the best, perhaps because I drew nothing in it and I am full of self-critical words right now.