Thoughtful Tuesday - I'm a Painter, but I Don't Paint Like That

I didn't paint much at all this weekend, and sometimes that will happen. To make up for no Studio Monday post (I was busy baking, cleaning and errands), I decided to create Thoughtful Tuesday where I simply blog about... thoughts... related to art. Yeah........ let's go with that. *excuses*

For the longest time, I struggled with my art to the point that I felt like an failure. I even remember one studio day in college, mentally freaking out, trying to decide what I should switch my major to if it wasn't too late. Part of this is my tendency to a perfectionist nature. When you say you want to be an artist as a kid, people like to say, "Oh, you'll be the next Picasso!" When you're older, people hear you're an artist, and think you should be John Singer Sargent. Likely, this is the culture I was surrounded by - the expectation you can paint realistically or you're just putting blobs on canvas. The truth is I wanted to paint like Vermeer or Van Gogh, but fell in love with O'Keefe and Kahlo. I try to paint realistically, I'd love to do a realistic portrait someday... but it's just not me. At the end of the day and the part of the point of this blog, is to be me. I paint what I paint, I do what I do.... and slowly, I get better and better at doing what I do. 

 

 

Studio Monday: Intro

"Every child is an artist. The problem is how to remain an artist once we grow up." - Pablo Picasso

Or to add, graduate from college with an art degree and not in an art related field. The solution to the problem is find time and space to make art especially if it helps to maintain sanity. This leads me to this blog/website.

Hi everyone - if you are reading this first blog entry, it's likely because you're a friend on social media or I told you, "HEY I HAVE A BLOG! WITH A REAL DOMAIN NAME!" - seriously, this is exciting for me. This site is still as work in progress as I find the best way to organize my artwork, which you may check out in the Paintings and Prints links. 

My goal with this site is to give myself an outlet in the corner of the internet to post my work and my thoughts about my work. That may sound a bit selfish (probably is), but more than one person has expressed interest in the stories/thoughts that go along with my work. Most may say, "let the art speak for itself." There is a point to that, but I also love to hear the stories of why something was created - where does the inspiration come from? So here it is - my Studio Monday blog, the day off when I try to get as much artwork done as possible. My goal is to post SOMETHING every Monday, even if it's not done that day. I hope this site will help to hold me accountable and help motivate me to keep doing what I love. 

So, for the first Studio Monday, here's a pic of what I worked on this past week: 

Apologies for the awful lighting - the bottom left piece was finished last week as an FYI.

I have several works in progress that I hope to finish by the end of the month/beginning of April. Once I get a few more done, I can move on to the multiple series of ideas I have that will hopefully become part of large bodies of work. That wraps up today's first Studio Monday post. NOTE: My eyes are hurting likely due to allergies so please excuse any typos or grammar errors. 

Today's motivation music brought to you by Metric, albums "Fantasies" and "Pagans in Vegas".