The 1920's. That's What's Up...

I have always been fascinated with the 1920's, probably because my grandmother (the Lillie part of Lillie+Julie) was born in 1912. The clothes seemed to be more luxurious and artisitc then.  It seems as though there was even a sort of body language that demanded regard. I never get tired of looking at ads from this time period. Today, as I was preparing to draw, I ran across this wonderful, inspiring ad. Lately my interest has been in synthesising this era with a modern, clean, contemporary feel.

The Morning Pages...

I keep running across the book The Artist's Way.  A few months ago I began reading it and watching related videos on youtube. One of the tools the author suggests, is what she refers to as "The Morning Pages". In a nutshell, you write in long hand for 3 pages first thing every morning. The content of your writing is up to you. It doesn't have to be well written or even grammatically correct. That's not the point. The point is to purge all of the mental noise and clutter inside your head. Apparently this chaos can block your creativity.

When I first did this, reluctantly I might add, I was amazed at the results. What started out as a rant about how dumb this whole exercise was, ended with some serious purging of some things that had been deeply troubling to me. I ddn't  know how it happened. I thought it was a fluke. I tried it the next day, same thing. Next day, same thing. It's actually quite a painful excercise, but I am beginning to see it's a necessity if I want to get beyond where I am now....which is stuck, making loops around.

My father was diagnosed with cancer in February and I stopped doing this because life got too hectic. If ever there was a time I needed to do this exercise however, it would have definitely been through this period. So, I have decided it is time to start this back up. I dread it, but I also can't wait to see what unfolds. For the first time in a while, I feel a tiny twinge of excitement again, about what could be ahead. We'll see.

A Sketch a Day...

Okay, well here's the first thing you should know. I am a very PROLIFIC artist. I create and I create and I create. The only problem with that (and I attribute this problem to A.D.D. or perhanps the "artistic gene") is that I am always changing my "style" in some way or another.  I think people generally see my work as a certain "look", but like most artists, I always think my work could be better. And the thing is, it could be better. EVERYTHING could be. One of my biggest challenges comes in learning to love imperfection in my own work. 

For example, the piece below I did today, in a response to a new challenge I have given myself. I want to create a new piece every day. The above drawing was done on watercolor paper with a sharpie. I then took the black and white (or in this case, red and white, because I could only find a red sharpie) drawing and photographed it with my phone camera. It inherently gives it a bit of a grungy, grainy look that I love. Next, I uploaded the picture into photoshop and added color, darkened up outlines, played with the exposure, etc... The result is what you see above. Lately, I am all about synthesizing hand drawn with digital work. I like the look.

Hopefully,  for a while you will be see lots of drawings of this nature and a progression of some sort into some congruent "style" for lack of a better word. 

Thanks for looking...

TTFN