Day 46 - Catching Up

Catch up day!

I will try to go in chronological order as best as I can; I don't have exact dates for many of these.

In February, two days after my last blog post, I was at my parent's house and drew some pictures with my little sister, who was six at the time. She drew the two on the left (a mountain and me) and I drew the two on the right (an alien flower and my sister with pink and blue hair and green skin). 

I'm pretty sure I must have done something between February 16th and the end of March, but I have no idea what it was. -_- If anything...

Easter is traditionally a big day for churches all over the world, and at Connections, the little church I've been attending for a little over a year, Jeremy (our pastor's right hand man) wanted to do something to give to visitors that would also show how creative our church is. So he bought a bunch of green coffee beans and roasted them himself, and asked me to create the labels.

May I introduce to you Jittery Jonah (regular) and Mellow Mary (decaf). Click on the photos to enlarge.





















And here's what they look like on the packages! They printed darker than I had anticipated so some detail in Jonah's scene was lost, but they still look pretty sweet.

Connections often does series of sermons that sometimes have videos or dramas to go with them. In April they asked me to be one of the people in charge of creating sets for the dramas, along with a pretty cool guy named Jeff. Jeff and I had about maybe four days between agreeing to do this and the next series! We had to get a concept for the set that worked with what was in the mind of Josh, the guy who had written the drama, draw it out, and paint it all! It was a big project and I ended up pulling an all-nighter the Saturday before and having to skip church in the morning to sleep before going to work at 12:30. It was kind of a bummer. But the set turned out awesome and I got to watch the video later and be there for the next three weeks of the series.
Unfortunately, this set got painted over for the next series before I got the chance to take good photos (makes me want to cry every time I think about it!) but luckily there are videos of all four weeks of the series that you can check out here.
Jeff painted all the beautiful bolts of fabric and one of the curtains. He also bought all the paint which was AMAZING!
I drew everything out then painted the dress form, sewing machine and everything on the table (sewing scissors and a pin cushion), the shelves holding the spools of thread, the rest of the curtains, and lastly filled in the carpet and the brown parts of the fabric shelves.

Here's the sketch I sent to Josh for approval before we started in on the big panels. We didn't end up having a mirror and a few other minor things were tweaked.

I started working in February (part of why I stopped blogging- less time) and we have to wear our ID badges every day. They gave us these ugly green lanyards, but with how much I love beautiful things I really wanted to have something pretty to wear my ID on that could function as a lanyard as well as part of my outfit... so sometime in April (I think) I made this beaded necklace. Unfortunately since then it has broken and I've just been using a necklace I got at Claire's to hold my ID.

My dear friend Ruthilyn has decided that what she wants to do with her life is help women get through the junk in their pasts to be able to find true intimacy with their husbands, as well as gaining some confidence in their own sexiness along the way. She's a Confidence and Intimacy Coach and has been networking through public workshops and other events. I helped her create the poster for her workshops.
It was fun to do something a bit more on the graphic design side. Working with her to find fonts that conveyed the mood she was looking for (and to find a font that fit her need as well as being free to download for commercial use) was a nice challenge. I also got to refresh some photoshop skills I'd learned back in 10th grade - using gradients and learning some tricks with brushes, as well as finding, downloading, and installing a lovely set of lace brushes. I'm no master at photoshop by any means but it pleased me to be able to figure out a few things.

I also was helping Ruthilyn brainstorm different names for her business and logos to go with them... neither of these were used but it felt good to have a reason to work on some sort of artsy thing (that should have been a clue - Jessica, DUH, get back to your blog!).

Next! My husband and I had a stretch where we were struggling a bit and I wanted something around the house to remind me to lean on God through it all... I started on this sign but sadly never finished. It quotes Matthew 19:26. I saw this technique on pinterest where you draw or write something with hot glue then paint over it and I really liked the look. I went through a lot of glue sticks! When I get around to finishing this I want to change the color from this bright teal to a cooler sea green color, and maybe sponge a cream color around the edges and on some of the words. Maybe.

In May my aunt commissioned me to paint a case for her new iPhone. I actually have an etsy shop selling hand painted iPhone cases and flash drives (and pretty much anything is a possibility for me to paint in this style). If you so desire, you can find my etsy shop here, and my facebook page here.  If you're wanting to see my best cases, the facebook page has a lot more on it at the moment (I sold quite a few cases and haven't made many new ones to replace them so unfortunately the shop is a bit bare).

Anyway - this is the case I painted for my aunt. This photo is not the completed case (wow Jessica, really representing yourself well!) because I forgot to take a final photo before I left the house to bring it to her. The last thing I did was to put a smaller yellow dot on top of every dot you see here, making the finished case look kind of like a galaxy of stars.

As a side note, under the case you can see my dining room table that I painted last winter before I started this blog. I'm thinking maybe one day I may do a post with all the projects I did before I started the blog. Good idea or no?

On Memorial day every year all of my aunts and uncles and cousins who live here (my dad's side) go to the different cemeteries where we have family. My grandpa tells us stories of each person who died before we were born, and if we knew them we tell stories we remember about them. For some reason it's always been one of my favorite traditions. Some years ago none of our flowers had bloomed by Memorial Day, so we painted flowers and hearts on small rocks and left those on each grave site... and we now do that every year, adding to our tradition. Occasionally they are still there when we go back the next year, which is always great to see.

The two rocks I am holding I made specifically for my Grandma Michelle, who died when I was twelve. She was so amazing; I really loved her a lot and often wish she was still here.

In December of last year I went crazy making snowflakes and putting them ALL over the house. My best ones I put up on our front windows for some decoration rather than hassling with lights etc. The trouble is that our windows still look like this in July, where it was 108 degrees earlier this week.

I didn't want to take them down until I had something spring-timey (now summery) to replace them with. I started making some paper flowers to put up there, but... never finished. Anyone else noticing a trend? So sadly my windows still look like Christmas while my poor poppies and daisies sit waiting for some purple and yellow companions. My husband teases me that I might as well leave the snowflakes up until it's winter again.

Sometime in June I had the fabulous idea that someday (within the next five years) I want to buy a used school bus and convert it into a traveling home! It has since been an idea that I am fairly obsessed with. I had even started drawing out plans, trying to fit everything we need into a 8'x40' (320 square foot) space. We currently live in a house that is somewhere around 1,100 square feet so... it will be interesting. But I have seen blogs about families of five and even families of nine living in house buses so... with just two of us it should be totally doable! ...Right?







For the last four or five weeks I have been participating in a weekly class based on the book The Life Model: Living from the Heart Jesus Gave You, which has been pretty great. For the second week of the class we were asked to bring a photo of something that brings us joy. I am ridiculously forgetful so I left for work that morning without a photo (plus I don't really have many photos anyway), sooo... during my down time between stuff at work I drew a picture of some of the things that bring me joy: all of my sisters and my mom, Mitch, wildflowers, music/podcasts (ipod), my house bus dream, paint and paintbrushes, and a big comfy chair with a book!

The series Connections is doing right now is all about marriage. There isn't a drama, but they wanted a nice little set in the background anyway. This one was SO much faster and easier than the last one. It only took me eight or nine hours by myself this time instead of 35+ hours with Jeff helping me.
I don't have a photo yet (I really need a camera) but there is a video for it! (Here.) Be warned, this was a talk about marriage, and they do talk about sex a bit.

Lastly, Today! A couple weeks ago I had kind of an emotional breakdown centered around having no clue who the heck I am. Mitch (husband) said, "You know how I turn my painful stuff into songs? You should be doing that with art," and I told him if I painted my feelings right now it would end up being a big paper covered in black scribbles, because I feel like a big mass of black scribbles right now. But then as we talked an idea formed in my head of how I could express how I was feeling without making a mess of black scribbles, and I have been slowly working on that for the last week or so. It's by no means a masterpiece but it's something. I'm making art and I'm figuring out how I feel while doing it.
I'm just going to show you a sketch I did before starting instead of how far I am at this moment, because with some art that is more personal to me I don't really like to show anyone until it is finished.

So, there we go, all caught up. Now I just need to start working on something everyday and keep blogging about it!

I REFUSE TO FAIL.

Day 187... or Not.

This post should be Day 187... but instead it is still only Day 46.

I have missed 142 days of keeping my goal to work on art every day and blog about it.

I did that thing I always did with journals growing up: I missed one day. That one day made it easy to justify missing another day, then I'd missed a week, then it was too overwhelming to catch up on everything I'd missed, then I just got depressed every time I thought about my failure, which made it even more impossible to start again.

But.

I am starting again.

I really want this blog to be a part of me, not just something lurking in my head making me depressed every time I think about it. I am choosing not to fail.

I have been struggling a lot lately with issues surrounding the question "Who the heck am I?" and I think a starting point is to get back into art. If I make a conscious decision to make art a part of me then I am just a little bit closer to figuring out who the heck I am, right?

So, first things first. I have done some artsy stuff  in the last 142 days, so I think I'm going to do one big post with all of those, then dive right back into my art every day and hopefully stick with it this time.

Here we go! I'm excited to be here again!

Day Thirty Six

After a for-the-most-part great day, I hadn't made or worked on anything artsy... funny (not really) how feeling good makes me not get any art done because I'm actually being productive and social, and feeling bad makes me not create anything because I have zero motivation and I tend to wallow and/or become apathetic. Great.

So after my good day I just had some nice alone time listening to a podcast I'm addicted to called Snap Judgement and coloring. Whoo! Gotta love it.

Hopefully I'll start being original soon. I really need to start doing some more research on artists/art I love. Since I got a job instead of going to school this semester I sort of promised myself that I'd continue educating myself by doing research on my own, but look how that's gone so far... yeah, it hasn't. Come on Jessica.

Day Ten, Some Changes, and a Rant

So... I'm realizing that I may have set a goal that is a little unrealistic. I think I'm going to change my rules a bit so that I'm still being challenged but so this blog doesn't end up being my whole life. So from now on instead of having to complete an entire project every single day, I just want to do a significant amount of work on a project every day. That way I can work on larger projects and not always end up with dinky last minute sharpie things.


I spent a few hours on a drawing, but didn't finish it because I am sloooooooow. I had absolutely no idea what to do today and finally just did a still life - when forced to do them in art classes the suck, but I've always like drawing shoes.

It was nice to just let my brain go numb while shading and listening to podcasts, especially after a crappy day.

EDIT: I had a few people contact me saying that they were disappointed with this change to my rules, claiming that the previous goal of a finished project every single day was "completely attainable" (I don't see them trying it!) and even giving me lists of ideas and links to sites with kiddy craft ideas. This rather provoked me...

I have this to say to anyone who disagrees with my rule change (this is what I told them):

I don't think you understand what I am trying to do here with this blog. I am not trying to make a blog full of ideas for kids craft projects; there are already a ton of those. What I am trying to do is to create a mechanism that forces me to continue being creative and making art. ART. I want to be an artist. Not a crafty mom, not a writer (I got a lot of suggestions that were all writing focused). Art almost always takes a long time to make. If I'm constantly stressing about getting something semi-artistic done by midnight, I'm never going to work on bigger pieces, I will always just make little cutesy things and that is NOT what I am going for here. Yes I will do some crafty stuff too because I love crafts, but I also want to make large paintings and drawings, and maybe sculptures if I get some clay. 
(Reading over this, it occurs to me that this sounds extremely snobbish, but it's not intended to be- I just have different goals, and crafts, though I love them, are not a big part of those goals).

Everything takes me a long time. I worked on that shoe sketch for three hours and wasn't even halfway done. I'M SLOW. I'm a perfectionist. For me to not constantly be disappointed in the things I make (which would end up with me abandoning the blog altogether), I need to have a lot of time to work on them. And with me getting a job soon I won't have all day to work on art projects anymore.

I am working towards my goals more than I ever have. To me it's obvious that this decision is the best one for me. I'm not going to do what other people want me to do just because they think it would be cool. Those are not my goals. I am following my goals, and I am following them even more effectively than I was before, because I changed my rules for the blog.

Day Four

 Sigh. Another last minute day. The sad part is that I started something I was excited about, but by 11:30 pm I knew it was NOT going to get finished. Great.

Edit: I just remembered that I also started a different project this morning but left it to go out and ended up being gone all day. Point is, today has been a day of double disappointment, art-wise.  Non-art-wise, it was rather a good day! (Yes, I did just use the dreaded -wise. Twice! Take that, sophomore English class! Take that, The Lively Art of Writing! You know, that book has haunted me? But only the -wise. I only ever remember the -wise bit of that book. So weird. Alright, end of tangent).

Since I had my dictionary out already, I just pulled out my trusty black Sharpie and got to work on something before the day was over (ok so I still technically finished this after midnight, but I'm counting it).

I happened to already be on the page that said "introverted" on it, and for me that word recalls my somewhat pathetic, awkward, and lonely years between, maybe... fourth grade and tenth grade (after that I was still pretty awkward and a bit lonely, but not quite so pathetic. Oddly, I think I've regressed and I'm back to all three), so I began drawing a depressed looking silhouette. I then realized that for a lot of people, introversion is not depressing, but perfectly fine and even something to be proud of, so I decided to flip to the "depression" page and up the melodrama. Aaaw yeah. (Click on the photo for an enlarged image where you can read the words).
Actually, looking at this now, I think it would be better if I black out the entire opposite page as well, so the darkness seems even more enveloping. Meh, too lazy. It's late and I'm off to bed.

Post Script: I would like to add this for any of those who are tempted to lecture me: yes I do occasionally destroy books in the name of art. Only one of them has been a book I actually took off a shelf, decided it would never again be read, and designated as an art book. All others have been bought at thrift stores with the express intent of using them for art, and they were sad, lonely, introverted books like dictionaries or medical tomes that likely would have languished there for ages before making their way to a dumpster, etc. So in effect, I am saving books when I turn them into art!
Trust me, I have thought about this decision. I dearly love books; they were my closest friends throughout those years I mentioned earlier. And I mean, books make gorgeous art! Sometime I'll do a post about book artists that are amazing. I find that seeing books as art just increases my awe towards them.

Hooray books!