Day 235 - 365/2014

Day Two Hundred Thirty-Five

Sheesh.  I have the weekend off -- two whole days/nights -- and I have made little to no progress on anything.  I think it has to do with forcing it instead of listening to/feeling it...whatever "it" is.  I also decided against posting the things I had half-thought I'd post yesterday.  

I'm not feeling defeated or depressed or anything...I just feel like I have been trying too hard today to accomplish something rather than just putting in some good work on existing things.  I have several collages that I would like to finish up but they are not ready to be finished yet...and I tried to push it.

Here are two examples of the "she-swings, she-misses" attempts.

This first one isn't exactly bad, it just feels "off".  In general I want it to be done, I like it mostly...but I feel that there is something it needs.  (It looks different in person.)

The giraffe-ish guy's companion "before"...

...and "after".  I only wanted the suggestion of a face...I want the viewer to fill it in for themselves.

Overall view.

Overall view in the honkingly heavy/huge frame that the painting was in when I bought it at the estate sale -- I kind of sort of like the silver/gold leaf-like finish...but there is SOMEthing missing.

Example number two...one more sampling of why this non-painter should not attempt to paint...LOL.  I think maybe I should stick to adding color to collages by adding various papers.  Tiny areas can be painted maybe, but not major parts...even holding my breath didn't work...ha ha ha.

"before"

One of the few paints I actually LIKE -- Lumiere Light Body Metallic Acrylics by Jacquard.

...and then I tried to mix up a color...

...which led to pulling it all back off again...except the Lumiere wants to mostly stay put.

Gah -- what an unholy mess!

I swear to you I am not beating myself up about this -- I simply know my limitations.  I should allow myself to paint (apply paint to) plaster cloth guys that require painting...but I really need to knock off the "oh, I will try again" stuff because while it does permit me to play/experiment/take up time, it also keeps me from actually doing any useful work on whatever it is I am subconsciously trying to avoid.

And I really just plain do not enjoy painting. 

Now.  I know how to start to fix things...and I am going to use the rest of tonight to listen.

365/2013 - Day 298

not feeling it today

I've been listening, but nothing is coming today.   I know I need to give my hand a rest from sewing.  There will be a lot going on tomorrow...maybe I just need an evening of not doing anything.  This is probably just the getting-ready-to-tense-up-a-bit thing. 

365/2013 - Day 257

sewing and then pushing things

Today I worked more on the small spikey guy.

I sewed the other green leg joint.

I sewed the right foot.

Before I could sew the left foot I had to fix the left leg's seam.

I sewed the left foot...hey -- they are pretty even...this is the back view.

Front view.

Standing up view.

He might keep these whiskers.

Then it was a lovely fall-ish day and I made some "make-it-up-as-you-go-along" soup.  It tastes pretty darn good...oh...I just remembered I forgot to add the black beans to it.  Maybe for tomorrow's version.

That was a decent amount of prep work and playing around -- I should have stopped at that point.  But I felt like I hadn't done "enough" for today, so I pushed it.  (Rarely a good idea.)

I hauled out the long horns guy and the baby snake guy.  I figured I could add paper to one or the other.  I found a big piece of wood patterned tissue paper and I wanted to use it.

Ready to go.

I tore up the wood patterned tissue paper.

I chose the baby snake guy.

I knew for a while now that I wanted to give this guy vertical stripes.  I tried to do that with the torn pieces of paper and also leave a band in between.

Not too bad.  I should have left it like this.

It almost looked a little snakey.

But no -- I had to push it.  I went into the studio to retrieve a bunch of bags of torn up papers in different colors that I had left over from collages.  They were not where I though they'd be but I found these instead.  Clean used tea bags (I can't remember who gave them to me...someone in the ATC group) and I also found the pale yellow/creamy colored paper and some thin white paper.

After about the third piece I knew I didn't want to use the tea bags for this...but I had started already and it would have been messier to pull them off than to finish putting on the rest of them.

Meh -- I didn't hate it but I didn't love it.

I let it all dry for a while then I went back over it with the creamy colored paper...taking my time and trying to cover not just the stripes/tea bags but also some of the side colors.

Usually I tell you that things look better in person than they do in the photos -- not today -- the photos look much better than the real thing...which isn't saying much -- ha ha ha.

Ah well...it will probably look different when it is dry.  And I am planning to paint him anyway...and/or paper him more.

It seems like when I willfully "push" my limit and try to achieve more in a day than I am "feeling" at the time, it all goes wrong.  I need to listen more closely when I hear myself saying "that's enough for today" -- even when it is still early in the evening.

365/2013 - Day 35

not quite there yet, but definitely getting closer

I have been avoiding getting back to work on the Atomic Fireball Happy Hour guy -- I needed to fill out his face in front of his ears and a bit by his jaw.  He also needed eyes.

Since I don't have any taxidermy eyes for him I looked around in the studio for something I could maybe build an eye with.  I grabbed some bottle caps of various shapes and sizes and then I remembered the little toy capsule that came in the chocolate eggs Sue and I got today.  The tops of the capsules were great!  But the cats had taken one of them and it took a while, but I found it!

I was trying to coax my Universal collaborators to join me but I wasn't feeling them so I at least started the prep work of cutting the plaster cloth triangles and getting the area ready and getting the hot water.  I also played around with the idea of using this wonderful striped cone that Ingrid Dijkers gave me from a project she did that she didn't need anymore.  I love it as a hat on this guy but it also makes the piece four and a half feet tall and -- for various reasons -- I don't think I can deal with the problems involved in transporting something that size right now.  I even tried making a mock up of a smaller version...nah...it is the stripey cone that makes it.  I will find the right project for it eventually.

I wanted to use more plastic bags, etc.  I tried wadding the pieces up again and taping them in place but nothing was working.  I couldn't get the sides anywhere close to even.  Then they arrived!  I/we took the wads off (my right) side of the head and I/we snatched up a wad, pulled off the tape and just balled the plastic up a little.  Using one hand the plastic was held in place while my other hand picked up a larger plaster cloth triangle and got it reeeeeally wet and just laid it on top of the wad and held my hand there for a few seconds...no smoothing, just holding it and feeling how it felt...then the plaster cloth was smoothed out and I picked up another piece and did the same thing in a slightly different spot to anchor the plastic wad.  With this handful I got more of a sense of the round feeling I was looking for.  Hmmm... 

Then we did the eyes differently than we've done them before.  I/we just held the capsule top in place and started laying and smoothing the tiny plaster cloth triangles...anchoring and smoothing as the cap was covered.  Normally I would sit and cover both caps and set them aside to dry a little, filling in the underside, too.  But I decided not to fight the urge to do it the other way and just gave into tonight's way of doing things.

I wasn't able to take any photos of the making of this side -- I was too busy listening -- but here is how it turned out.

Wow.  It still needs some work in spots -- but wow.

Here is the other side.

Again...there are still areas that need to be blended in.  I am really very pleased with the way this turned out tonight.  And it is fairly symmetrical again...yay!

This guy is truly a collaboration...I mean it.