Break Free

Painting from figure session today

Today was a breakthrough painting day for me. In figure I finally got over my mental block of trying to depict the human figure. It was actually fun to paint. It's just weird because last week I was almost in tears because I was so frustrated, and today it was bliss. Ok, maybe not bliss. I'm probably manic-depressive when it comes to painting; either its a really great day or its a really terrible day. The camera doesn't really do the color justice, it looks better in person. I looked at the very first painting I did for this class just 3 weeks ago and compared it to today's piece and it is seriously leaps and bounds of a difference.

This is the combined image project that I started yesterday. The colors look really weird in this but It's starting out kind of fun. It's weird because I don't plan the abstract forms that I have been making and then I'm trying to re-create some of them in this piece. Oh well, I know that it won't come out exactly like my originals. That would be impossible.

Eventually I want to get pictures of all the 20 paintings that I did the last 3 weeks and post them.

For the next project after this big combined one, we are supposed to be thinking of an artist that inspires us that we want to "copy" in a sense. I was thinking about choosing Maria Lassnig. We also have to choose something that isn't represented visually in it's original form and create that in our painting. This can be a piece of literature or music. I was thinking of taking something from the Hunger Games book because when I read it I always get such vivid images in my head that I think would be fun to explore in a painting.

Today I was briefly talking to Matt about grad schools and we were kind of just talking about this and that. He said something to the nature that we have to always be working through our art and going through the motions of creating. When something brilliant DOES happen, we will already be partaking in our normal activity. Then we were talking about how some artists feel like that they have to completely immerse themselves in their art and can't be involved in anything else. They can't be married or have kids or have a job that doesn't relate to art. Sometimes I feel a little bit like this is true for me. I mean I still have a life, I still work and hang out with friends but there are times where I feel like I'm trying to choose between art and something else. In high school it was always between art and swimming. I chose swimming over art during that time in my life but still my art was important to me. Right now though in my life, I feel pretty balanced, but I would like to dedicate more time to art.