The Joys of Paper

It's been over a week since I last posted.

I didn't paint that much this past week and a half and it's really affecting me. I had to take my art history test on Tuesday so that took up like 5 hours of my day that I wanted to spend painting. Plus, this weekend I am working A LOT, so I won't really get the chance to do much until Monday. I can't wait until Monday - No school and no work until 6, then on Tuesday I don't have school OR work! I am really going to punch out some paintings then.

I have to work on my Pegasus picture more. The "honeymoon" stage was short-lived and I have very quickly become tired of the piece, as all my other paintings. BUT, I need to keep working on it. Hopefully if it's any good I will submit it for the scholarship application that is due next friday.

I also need to be working on a new painting for BFA. My crit is this week and I basically don't have any new stuff :( I was sorta waiting on my Fabriano paper...that came in the mail today! I was so freaking excited, it is beautiful paper and I can't wait to destroy it >:)

Along with Pegasus and new BFA work, I want to do some more small masonite paintings. I really like the flow the first 20 gave me and feel like I need to do some more of those. I also need new work to submit to the OTHER art major scholarship. AH. so much to do. I am working a ton the next couple weeks and then I am going to Mexico the 2nd week in March, things are just piling up. Plus I am so incredibly poor. You know you are an artist when you are willing to spend $130 on good watercolor paper, but will skimp on a meal or two!

I may not have any big new work to show for next Thursday, but I have been doing some small "sketches" in my sketchbook that I have been obsessing over. I want to do the small paintings kind of like these that are in my book.

Painting away...

Today was a pretty good painting day. I like how my figure turned out even though we practically painted in the dark! It was pretty fun though to see what it looked like when the lights came on.

This is my "battle" painting so far. I like where it's going and it is really starting to speak through to me in a narrative way. We have 2 weeks until our final crit on this piece. I think I want to add objects being dropped from the sky onto the city below.

I really want to come up with a ridiculous name for this piece. I think it calls for it. I am thinking Pegasus' Battle in the Sky, Over Easy. Or something like that....

On Fire

Last night I won the Provost’s choice Award for my piece “Hanging By A Thread,” and my “Untitled Abstraction Series.” I am surprised that I even won an award, not to mention two! I was really happy and it gave me some confidence about where my art is going. The provost of the Weber State chose my work to display in his office for an entire year! In addition, I was given $100 for each piece. I am going to use that as spending money in Italy. It was nice to have some of my family there to see all the hard work I do. Some of my favorite professors came up and talked to me throughout the night, reassuring me that Graduate school is where I need to be and MFA is what I am meant to get. I need to start looking at different schools and programs to decide where I want to go. I don’t want to wait more than a year after my undergrad to start an MFA program.

I bought my plane ticket to Venice -- $1400 well spent. It is getting closer and closer, I can’t believe I am finally going. I have been thinking about this trip for so long.

Aside from the reception and Italy, the studio has been good to me. On Thursday we had crit in Seminar and I presented what I have been working on. Most everyone really liked the direction that I’m taking which made me feel good and excited to keep working this coming week. Angelika and K told me I was “on fire” during the crit, and at the moment that’s a little how I feel in my art mind. Life is going nicely and I think Grandpop is watching over me. I feel like my time in the studio is helping me to remember him and mourn him at the same time. I think he is trying to help me as well; he always cared about my schooling and was always telling me how important college was…he couldn’t wait for my graduation. It’s exciting for me to be doing well in art and know that somehow I am making my grandpa proud.

Back to the crit: It was discussed that people can really start to see the thought connections going on in my work and a lot of people responded really well to the collaging going on in my current piece. It has been fun to just be free with the paint and the materials and follow my impulses. I don’t really figure out the narrative or the story until I am well invested in the painting. I react to the phenomena of a form and react, and react. What comes out is a mystery, and I think that people responded well to it during the crit. Some even thought I might need some psychotherapy because of the crap that comes out of my head!!

Nobody said it was easy

My beloved egg

Thoughts on my seminar painting:


I am sitting in the studio right now and I flipped my paper 90 degrees to the right and saw something completely different from this piece. It gave me a refreshing view of what I was actually dealing with. With my work, there is no plan. I don't know what I am getting myself into when I touch my brush to the paint. It just happens. I'm not editing what comes out. I think and I do. I guess that goes along with my theme I am doing...automatic painting/un-edited subconscious and so forth. But it's more than that. I look at an image I created from nowhere and it makes me think of another image or possibly even a word. When I turned my paper over I immediately saw a battleground. I can't explain how or why it happens. I become obsessed with certain objects or images that I put into the picture and surround myself around it. I took a detail picture of something I did that reminds me of an egg. I have become obsessed with my egg. So much that I almost named my painting after it. When I turned my paper around and saw the battlefield I also started seeing more things....pegasus, landscapes, hot air balloon dropping bombs onto a crowded city. Then I started to feel as if my little city I created was barricading itself from the thing in the sky to protect my egg. Pegasus' egg! Don't ask me what it means. I have no idea. I don't even know why Pegasus came to my head. Maybe deep in my subconscious I am trying to protect something, something as fragile as an egg. Maybe it is beautiful like pegasus and fragile at the same time. Or perhaps I have deep seeded thoughts about the war overseas and all the uproar in Egypt. That has been on my mind lately, so perhaps theres a connection; but I honestly don't know. I just needed to get this out and record it, I felt like it was too important to my discovering of my own artwork not to put it down in history. Even if it makes absolutely no sense at all. There's a little taste of what goes on in my head. 

The city below

Pegasus in the sky??? What the...!

As for other important news:

I am being nominated for the Lindquist Scholarship for Creative and Artistic Endeavors!!

Matt told me yesterday during Painting class and I am so excited. I can't believe that he chose to nominate me!? Nothing cool like this ever happens to me. I will have to apply this month for it and it would be amazing if I won.