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Happy Temperatures in the Positives, everyone! There’s uhhhhh… a lotta blue and brown this month, now that I look at it all together like this. I guess it’s a bit of a theme.
This is the first year I’ve tried to do some #PleinAirpril, a monthly challenge where artists do some painting from life every day, which I definitely did not do, but I did some days! I actually really wanted to do it in acrylics at first, but that dream quickly died because first it was too cold to paint outside with my paints, and then it got too busy to take my paints outside, and then I was too busy to take my iPad outside at all and ended up just drawing from photos lol. But I had fun regardless! Even if the subject matter was… less than inspiring for most of this lousy slushy drab garbage spring month.
But that’s kind of the fun part of the challenge, right? I feel like the folks that live in the mountains or by the ocean or somewhere that looks gorgeous all the time kind of miss out on the exercise of trying to make the mundane beautiful, or at least eye-catching.
I also just love breaking down what I see and trying to make sense of it on the page, while still maintaining a sense of personal style and flair. I hope to be good enough at it one day to teach some workshops or something. Maybe I’ll practice with some Twitch streams soon-ish….?
Also!
I wanted to share this commission I finished last month because it sounds so sensational when I tell people about it, haha.
Back in November 2019 a local attorney contacted me and asked me if I would attend a murder trial he was… in? at? lawyering for? My word-brain is shot, but you get what I’m saying. Anyway, I DID go! And it was very, very boring! But I got some sketches over the course of a couple of hours of the jury, the lawyers, the judge, etc. (which I have shared on my Patreon) since obviously cameras are not allowed.
And then I wallowed in shame for the next 5 years because that’s how long it took me to get it done. First, the pandemic sapped all will to live, then I got pregnant, which sapped all will to live, had a baby, which… anyway, all attempts to work on it between 2020-2023 just fell apart and didn’t look right. I think I restarted it three or four times in different styles and with different methods, and I was starting to think my skill levels were not up to par and I’d bitten off more than I could chew and that I might as well just give up on being a professional artist, but in the end I was able to make it work in my own style. My (endlessly kind and patient) client loved it, asked for copies to send to the rest of the team and the judge, and I’m so glad I we got it done!!
I usually work super quickly so it’s so rare that I really fight with a piece, and never for that long, but victories taste so sweet when they come after a struggle. At the very least, I don’t feel weighed down with years of shame looming over me.
Okay that’s the month! Big Gulps, huh? See you later!
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