Inspired

To paint.

It doesn’t take much for me to want to have a go at everything.

Give me a day at an art festival and I come home elated, and depressed at the same time.

No time to do it alllll.

Now I have to paint, make a mosaic – but first fire up some pottery to make it with, and make more quilts. All that, and the jewelry still needs me, and I have a strange hankering to get to some flea markets quick, because I just know there is a new adventure waiting for me there.

I lost my Corel when I dropped my old laptop and, of course, couldn’t find the c.d. to upload on this new one, or move over the one I have from there to here. So last night, in a fit of abandon, I bought a new one. Not the free, little, you can play but you can’t know all my secrets, Corel that I had before, but the real, yes I’m going to cost you some (read loads of) money, but you know you want me, one.

Oh well.

To practice on it I’ve made me a sketch which I’m now going to go out to the studio with and attempt to relay in acrylics and perhaps oil pastels, depending on how bad the acrylics decide to mess up. For sure the oil pastels will follow quickly in the acrylic’s footsteps and everything will end up in the bin.

So.

Prepare yourselves for moaning and groaning and the same ol’, sorry for myself giving up painting again, scenario.

You’ve got to know it’s coming ….

Don’t ask me what’s going on here, but it looks as though the San Andreas fault has bust its sides and squidged up those poor houses again.

And I thought I had troubles.

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Baby steps.

Today I am going to work on this,

and this,

I’m going to try to keep with the acrylics on the first one. The bottom one, because I’ve already started over the acrylics with oil pastel, I’ll finish with the pastels.

If I can follow through (always my problem) with the acrylics I think I will prefer the top painting to the bottom one. The oil pastels seem less spontaneous to me although I love the richness of the colours. (You can’t tell here as the photograph is bad).

I applied to the art festival I do each year. This time I applied to take some paintings as well as my jewelry. I’m just not sure though. I’m always saying that maybe next year I’ll be ready. Ready to display my jewelry in a more professional manner. Ready to sell my jewelry as a proper business. Ready to make a real effort at painting, etc., etc. But next year is always the same as this year. This is why I’ve applied for painting also.

I don’t think my paintings are very good. I’d like to work on them to a point where I feel comfortable trying to sell them but confidence always gets in the way of me even trying (hence the worry wart). This blog has helped me though. I am putting them out there, warts and all (no offense to my wart) and it’s becoming easier to get over myself.

Now, finally, I have sent off some photo’s to the art festival people – even though I have none finished.

(Where’s that darn worry wart when you need him!).

Baby steps people :)

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I have issues, Wally has issues, we all have issues.

I did paint yesterday – after all that moaning.

I also made a decision.

  (I’m having commitment issues as I type. Decision is a pretty decisive word).

The other day I saw an article on Etsy about a quilt maker who decided to make a quilt a day. You can find her shop here. In the announcement on the front page of her shop you can read about her project. I thought it was interesting. Like a journal.

Anyhoo, I’ve been feeling pretty down about my wanting to paint and yet having all these confidence issues having a little war in my head, so, I thought I might snatch her idea and just get on with it.

I bought some small 8 x 10 boards a few weeks ago which seem perfect for the job, so yesterday I just painted. The idea wasn’t to go anywhere but to just let it be.

This is the first acrylic run,

and here I have begun to work the oil pastels in.

(Now I’ve posted them, I don’t like them. Man I was doing so well …)

Again, the problem I always have is, I like the spontaneity of the first one, but, I just don’t like the way the acrylics look. Conversely I love the richness of the oil pastels, but, now it’s boring and too trite.

See, thinking too much. The project was just to let it be.

O.K. so ignoring all that, (as N is apt to say, I am going to choose not to let it bother me), I went out yesterday and bought a couple more boards before I could get to second guessing myself and although I am not going to paint one a day as the quilt lady is, I am going to see what happens as I go along. I am going to start one, and finish one before I go on to the next. That should start to sort out my finishing issues, and then, I am going to list them on Etsy and sell them, that should help with my confidence issues. I thought $50 each, that should help me not be so precious with them, but they take me a long while so I don’t know. (See, getting precious already).

The money will go to charity so there’s another little commitment to help me take it seriously.

Now, here’s the rub. When tomorrow comes, will I have changed my mind – again?

Stay tuned …

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Here’s a pic of Spencer and Wally snuggling.

I often catch them like this. Wally’s the instigator. Do you think he has issues also?

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