YOU Killed it, now reBirth it!

#22 Over and Over Again
7.5" x 7.5" multi media
© V.N.Ross

I discussed killing it in a previous post, "Who Killed It", concerning your creativity. This doesn't just apply to visual artists. Ever wonder if Paula Deen got in such a funk that she went out for a Sonic burger days in a row? Feed the kids Mac 'n Cheese every night (not too bad, I might say :). Tim the Tool Guy avoiding his workshop for days, until the sawdust on the floor was full of little mice? What about a writer who reads every best seller he can get his hands on, but can't put two words of his own together to make sense?

Best Deluxe Lobo Easel

Here are some tips:

1. Leave expectations at the door. I don't care which of your galleries (I wish) are demanding the same old landscape/still life/nude. If you are bored, it will begin to show. Yeah, I know. gotta keep the money flowing in. So, find another hour a day just for you...cut down on social media, exist on sandwiches instead of four-course meals for awhile, turn cellphone and email OFF. You can find an hour a day, surely. ps: dust in the living room never killed anyone. If some jokester writes you a message in it, answer his a** right below and walk off! (yeah, happened to me)
2. Try a new medium. If you are known for watercolors, get yourself a starter set of pastels. I'll be glad to recommend some that won't break the bank. And as with other mediums, you can create masterpieces with a limited palette...you don't need (?) 4,000 sticks in every imaginable hue, shade and hardness. I'm just saying...for a beginner.
3. Reorganize/declutter/rearrange your painting space. Last time I moved my studio, when we downsized living space, I pre-organized all supplies in the 15qt. Sterilite containers with the attached flip lids. Easy to move around when full, easy to stack, and the lids don't come off, get lost, get stepped on. 
   1. If you've been painting on the kitchen table and having to move your gear to eat, FIND ANOTHER SPOT! Take over the 'formal' living or dining room. How many times do you axully use them? wouldn't that valuable space be more productive as a studio where you could work in odd minutes without having to unpack/pack back? I had a friend who did just that. The first room off her foyer had no function, except for another room to sit in. Didn't link to any other rooms, so it was a dead end. She put tarps on the carpet, moved out all the furniture, and set up folding work tables in an "L" shape. Art lamps clamped on the back edge of these tables, and she could have 3-4 separate work stations with storage underneath.
   2. Bribe yourself with a major purchase...like a floor easel. You can get a good one from Best (made in USA, they won't fall apart like the imports) for $200 or so. I recommend the Best Lobo Deluxe Easel...sturdy, convertible to a flat configuration for watercolor/collage, or vertical for oil, pastel. Storage shelf under. Easy to adjust, and USA made in American Oak! I did this for me several years ago when a closed business and all its leftover stuff ended up in our walk-out basement. Told myself if I would just fill one large trash can a week (Randy agreed to get it up for pickup), I could have the space for a studio AND my reward was a David Sorg easel. Best bribe I've ever had!
   3. Previously in two larger houses, I had art gear in several spots. Theoretically (in Wicki's mind anyway) I could paint in several different locations. Problem turned out that whatever I needed was someplace else. Gear from classes/workshops/en plain air got dumped at the back door or in the trunk of my car. In our smaller space, I have one 10x14' room all to me. Everything is in bins, and labelled. Small bins are on metal bookshelf on wheels, large ones in closet. On the mid-shelf of closet are stacks of boards for oil, another for pastel, and another for watercolor blocks. I have two work stations set up...my big easel by the north light window for pastels. My studio assortment sits on top of a flat file holding large paper. My oil taboret (Jack Richeson) is set up for oil. I can find anything I want and move less than one box to get to it. Love my cozy space
4. Change your pattern. If you paint fast, go slow...and visey versy. As slow as you can. If you paint alla prima (all at once), paint a grisaille (monotone underpainting). Change your genre...known for landscapes? Do some still Life. Study anatomy. Study birds. Study Color. Put this new information into your painting. 
5. Plan a retreat. I mentioned Mélanger avec Amour in a previous post, Zen Zone, where Kippy Hammond writes about the value of a retreat. No excuses...trade kids with a neighbor for the night...take a trip...send the family away for two days...just gift yourself some time. 
6. Go to your art bookshelf and randomly choose a book. Clear a space to read and practice what is in it. Do the demonstrations! Try to grasp what the author is saying. Apply the parts that resonate with you to your creative work. Dogear the corners, splash paint on it, USE it.
7. Take a workshop. Not if you are the local workshop junkie...you should stay AWAY from workshops and absorb what you've taken in. However, if you do a workshop, prepare! Gather the supplies. If the tutor has a specific pigment/brush/paper GET IT AHEAD OF TIME. there is no humanly possible way to learn what is being taught if you substitute whatever you have on hand. Give yourself a break and a chance to succeed. I once organized a 3 day workshop with Leslie B. DeMille. He was adamant about NO STUDENT GRADE PAINTS, and had a reasonable list of 18 Rembrandt pastels. Wouldn't you know that several students showed up with THEIR way of doing things. Mr. Les about had kittens when he was at an easel to help a student and couldn't get a particular mixture. Then he saw the Winton Oil tube and never went back to that easel. 

This is what I'm doing at the start of 2014. A fundraising campaign with Hatchfund.org called Over and Over Again: Repetition with Variations. This blog is part of the project. Since the end of one year and the beginning is a rebirth time for me anyway, painting is slow, and I felt I could commit to the daily marketing/promotion of the project. It ends on February 18, my Sarah's birthday. She would have been 27 on her birthday in 2014. Please go over and follow/share/donate. With your help and a successful campaign, we'll be able to start a scholarship fund in her name.

PS: If you are reading this through email as a newsletter, click here to read in the actual blog and see Comment area which is at the bottom of the post. Click on "Comment", then scroll down to see the box. Let me know if this doesn't work...OK?

xxoo

Romeo and Hatchfund

Who Killed It?

"You killed it" can mean: 

Literal:

1. You killed something (it), for example: "That spider is dead because you killed it." 

2. Someone did something that ruined the joke. You wouldn't say "you killed it" to someone who just told a bad joke, you would say it to someone who took a good joke too far and made it not funny.

Illiteral (sic, Wicki):

1. Someone did something exceptionally well, along the same lines as "you nailed it." For example, if someone won a ribbon on a painting you could say, "You killed that competition."

2. When someone does something or wears something that is too sensational to describe.

3. When someone says or does something to destroy the current flow of rich interaction. source: Internet

So, Who Killed It? Your creativity, your drive to explore and play? To discover a new stroke, color mixture, composition for your toolbox? If you're a writer, every sentence is a labor of un-love (sic, Wicki)?

Too Much Information? (guilty) You've read every new book and article on every medium under the sun and have a desire to do them all? You've taken workshops that have turned everything you were comfortable with upside down and now you can't do anything? 

Distractions? Allowing daily chores to come first? Kida/Pets/Neighbors in your space? Computer: Social Media/Marketing/Art Related avoidance tactics? Too much TV as you sit all cuddled up in your chair with favorite hairy kids snuggled in your lap? (guilty)

Jack of All Trades, Master of None? (guilty) One of my early teachers/mentors, Kippy Hammond, once told me this sage advice: Landscape, Still Life, Figurative–Oil, Pastel, Watercolor–Impressionistic, Realistic, Abstract. Pick ONE from each group. My smart mouth answer back was "How will I know what I really want to do if I haven't tried it and at least gained some competence with it?" Newsflash 8 years later: she was right to a certain degree.

"Pinning the Hat" Pierre-August Renoir, 1898
Steiglitz/Fisk/Crystal Bridges Collection

Mentor trained you too well? hmmmm. that's a hard one. Your eye has been trained to spot every out-of-drawing error, misplaced warm/cool color, compositional issues to the point you talk yourself out of trying. Ever have the audacity of claiming a Renoir was out-of-drawing? I did. Guess we all have to do our share of trial and error, and here's proof.

PS: If you are reading this through email as a newsletter, click here to read in the actual blog and see Comment area which is at the bottom of the post. Click on "Comment", then scroll down to see the box. Let me know if this doesn't work...OK?

xxoo

xxoo

What am I Doing?

#5 Over and Over Again
7.5" x 7.5" Pastel
© V.N.Ross

let me rephrase that. WHAT the h*** am I DOING!

TeeHee, RB Wicki won. But, WHAT the h*** am I DOING! Karen Margulis and Deborah Secor and Marla Baggetta have already done this, written the book, and have the shirt. I had to get clear that I was doing this for ME, not for anyone or anything else. I wanted a platform where some elements were pre-determined so I could do some impulse painting. 

Wanna paint with four very dark colors? Not my typical urge, but if I want to, I can! High Key (all light colors) or Low Key (all dark colors). Underpaint with watercolor? mineral spirits? water? fixative? What about modeling paste...gesso...matte medium...paper making fiber...crackle...gold leaf...gold webbing spray...collage...NOW Wicki has come up with something different. Mixed Media. Whatever tool I have in my magic tool chest is legal.

Ok, I've rationalized how I can make this idea my own. Now. Typical artist mentality...sure don't want to waste good pastel boards or gesso boards for playing! So, having enough watercolor paper in inventory to satisfy this part of the world, that will work! SIZE? Of course, what will a full sheet of paper break down to in squares (my shape of the moment)...no waste. Easy to fold in half/thirds/half. 7.5" is the magic number so they will stay small and not cost an arm and leg to frame.

For several weeks I'd find me looking for the perfect simple compositional shapes...ones that wouldn't confine me too much...and that would not be restricted to one genre like landscape. THAT solved. Tape first three to board. Now what? 

Go back and read and look at what the others did. Back to the easel. Sit. Stare. LB Victoria is fighting to maintain control. Wicki gives in a bit, and creates some fairly typical landscapes in the first three. 

Now What...? Stay tuned...

PS: If you are reading this through email as a newsletter, click here to read in the actual blog and see Comment area which is at the bottom of the post. Click on "Comment", then scroll down to see the box. Let me know if this doesn't work...OK?

xxoo

Three down. Ninety-Seven to go. Can I do this? Can I ignore the nay-sayers who mean well, but ask me "what are you DOING this for?"  As I mentioned in the first post, Vicki's 100 Repetition with Variations #1, I tried to talk me out of this. Victoria told Wicki (LB told RB in ZenZone post) to STOP bugging her about this crazeee idea. To just go paint if that makes her happy, but DON'T start another project. 

ZenZone

I am always coining words and phrases...Malapropism.

mal·a·prop·ism

 noun \ˈma-lə-ˌprä-ˌpi-zəm\

: an amusing error that occurs when a person mistakenly uses a word that sounds like another word but that has a very different meaning http://www.merriam-webster.com

I really have to be careful because some of these creep into my everyday language and I risk appearing illiterate. I've mastered the art of switching a few letters that give an entire new meaning...some unprintable, as: Ken'T'uky 'F'ried Chicken. That is one I have to pause and think about the right version before saying in public. Another is 'M'agni'F'y: Fagnimy glass. I think that one is attributable to nephew Josh when he was just learning to talk, but I get credit for adding it to my repertoire! 

One of my supporters on the Hatchfund project, Kippy Hammond, mentioned that she liked the phrase "ZenZone". I might as well claim authorship, because it just popped out as I was talking/writing.

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"Mélanger avec Amour"

available for download or print at Lulu.com

Speaking of Kippy, I had the pleasure of co-authoring a book with her "Mélanger aver Amour". It started out as a cooking/translation of her chef, Marc Bost's recipes for Kippy's artist's retreat La Bonne Etoile (under the good star). But, as almost always happens, it morphed into an absolutely charming treatise on the psyche of the artists' brain...how to overcome blocks, how to plan retreats for yourself, lots of inspirational stories from other artists, AND the recipes. This project impacted me so much that "Stir With Love" became my mantra...and I try to slow down and enjoy whatever it is I am doing at the time. Particularly comes in handy when I am exasperated over some task or other when I'd rather be doing something else. I try to re-visit the book every year or more...as a reminder. It is available for download or print from Lulu.com at the link above.

ZenZone. Described as a loss of time and awareness while doing a creative activity. Right Brain/Left Brain switch so the analytical Left Brain doesn't discourage the Right Brain creative endeavor. I can operate in either the Right Side (creative) or Left Side (analytical). This creates problems...I can't do both at the same time which means that for the Right to enjoy a creative process, I have to shut the Left one down. I sometimes call my Left Brain "Victoria". She is critical, argumentative, and encourages "wait and think about it, research it", or "what do you think you are doing", etc.. She is the one who controls my insane drive to "know how to do a technique before I try it". I actually (Axully) have a ring binder full of print-outs (in plastic sleeves, of course) of a site Handprint.com that explores the chemistry of pigments. Yea, Victoria! This before she ever learned which end of a brush to use. 

There are tools used by some artists to make the Brains switch control. One is to listen to audio books. Your Left brain focuses on the words being said, and your Right brain can play. Another is to listen to music through headphones. Same result as the spoken word. Have a routine you do every time you go into your studio. Do a silly dance, wave your arms around, read a positive quote out loud that you have posted on your wall. Make a quiet experience of squeezing out paint. Even organizing your studio is an effective way to "get in your ZenZone". Artists have many tricks.

AND, when you experience it…it is glorious! Time seems to float, and after a successful session you're hardly aware of decisions that were made to create that perfect brush stroke, that masterful color mix, that hazy atmosphere in the landscape you just painted. 

For people using art as a means of healing from some life crisis or other, the ZenZone is essential. Two minutes can bring two minutes of peace. Feels so good you want more. Then five, then ten...when you can build up to two hours...WOW! Better than a good night's sleep.

ZenZone helped me survive my life crisis. After twelve years, my ZenZone shuts "Victoria" up so "Wicki" the Right Brain can play. 

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#13 Over and Over

7.5" x 7.5" mixed media

© V.N.Ross

Over and Over Again: Repetition with Variations is a classic ZenZone tool. By repeating some elements, i.e. the size and compositional shapes, releases the pressure to come up with an original idea every time I sit down at the easel. 

The goal for me is to investigate Victoria/Wicki and learn how to play without criticism...without a purpose other than to just show up and put color on a piece of paper in a skilled manner. 

I'd appreciate your visit to the project and follow/share/donate. This is a relatively new manner for artists to justify their existence, and the dollars do add up!

PS: If you are reading this through email as a newsletter, click here to read in the actual blog and see Comment area which is at the bottom of the post. Click on "Comment", then scroll down to see the box. Let me know if this doesn't work...OK?

xxoo