http://www.rennatatropeano.com/growingunique/2012/01/03/pleasant-surprise/

Art enables us to find ourselves and lose ourselves at the same time.
Thomas Merton

I have always loved the wonderfully intricate repeating patterns of William Morris, but have always thought them fairly impossible to create.  However while playing with doodles for the Sketch book challenge doodle theme, I filled a page with flowers and leaves and vines and them colored in parts of it.

When I finished I was quite happy with it. It was fun, whimsical and a relaxing way to spend part of an afternoon.  It struck me then that it reminded me of those elaborate patterns that I love. I decided to try to make it into a repeating pattern.  Computer software makes this fairly easy.

I just made a selection, then mirrored the selection both horizontally and vertically. A bit of  cleaning it up and then I had a repeating pattern.

It is funny that something I have tried to do for years while thinking it was difficult should happen so easily when I was just playing around.  The truth is that it has taken me all of those years to get to this point. The doodle is the result of hundreds of similar doodles. It has classic elements that have been pulled from that style that I love.  The color palate is also very typical of that style. It is a delightful blend of learning, practice and just letting go and creating.

It has been an interesting week. I have been amazed at what all was accomplished in the space of a week.

Yesterday I finished felting this hat. It is supposed to have a nice pillbox shape with a scalloped edge. In reality it has much more of a bubble effect.

I know that it still needs to have a stiffener added, to help it hold its shape, I use have not gotten to that step.

Peeking out from underneath is my first attempt at a hat stand. What I can say about it is that it works. I will need to play around with the design to get it to work the way I want it to work.

I had a clever plan to start with a stack of my photos and sketch, and then watercolor sketch and then possibly paint my favorites over the weekend. Spending the week without power made me decide to bunt. I do want to get back to that, but this hat was midway through the felting process when the power went. I wanted to finish it before I went off to the New England Fiber Festival .

I had a great time, and even found a pattern that I thought I might try knitting lace. I talked myself out of it, because I decided that it should be knit in oranges and fall colors. I like them, but they are not the best choices on me. But I did decide that I should look for a similar pattern, with only a lace edge to get me started.

We still do not have power. This is the fourth evening.  I was hoping to be able to sketch and then watercolor sketch a series of photos I chose for this month
I may have to rethink this, but I am giving it a shot.

Originally published

http://www.rennatatropeano.com/growingunique/?p=155

As I mentioned yesterday, I have been thinking a lot about goals and how to achieve them. As I start to prepare for Nanowrimo, I am taking stock of other goals that I have for October, November and December.   The fourth Quarter of the year.

It is a very busy time of the year. A time to prepare for Halloween, Thanksgiving, Christmas and New Years.  Yet smack dab in the middle of all that, I choose each year to participate in a pair of creative challenges, Nanowrimo, and Art Every Day Month.  I also have managed to blog every day during those challenges, even though I do not participate in the official blog every day challenge.

So October is a month of planning, and making socks.  November is a lot of doing, with December close on its heels getting ready for Christmas.

Then comes January when most people are setting resolutions. I tend to do my basic long term business planning in January. I take out my business plan and review it and update it.  That is generally it. This year I wanted to figure out how to carry that November momentum into January without having burnout from overload.

As I was lining up my plans, it occurred to me how odd it was to be doing some of my most detailed planning in the fourth quarter.

Why am I not spending some time in January planning for January, February and March?  The Same would be true of April and July for the other quarters.  I just put an appointment in the calendar to make that quarterly review in January. I think this will help me focus on my goals and put the more detailed planning into those months.  The more detailed and focused a goal, the easier it is to reach.

The hardest part about learning to draw is learning to see.   Even though I used the lines of the towel to help me,  My own learned perceptions still came into play. I drew the plate bigger and rounder than it is.

On the other hand, I drew the open part of the cup as much more of an ellipse.

In this image I have used a graphics program to layer the two images together. I find that this can be helpful in helping me “see” what is off.

This comparison also shows the difference in color. Yes, I am drawing a white teacup, but only a few highlight spots are actually white.

Most of the photograph is in the mid tones, neither dark nor light. What I have drawing is mostly darks and highlights.

Usually when I point things like this out, the first words I hear are “Don’t be so critical, your art work looks great.”

Being critical is how we learn.  The important thing to avoid is being a critic of my own work.  Each thing I said about has an easy and specific fix.

It is all too easy to look at problems with our own art work and become a critic.  ”I suck at drawing. I can’t draw teacups.”  Those are the thoughts to avoid, as there is not a specifc fix for either.

They are just negative and completely without merit.  By focusing on what you can do to improve, it allows you to see what needs fixing and usually how to fix it.

There is not a quick and easy answer, the only way to improve the way we see things and get them down on paper is practice. Different Instructors will suggest different ways, but there is not a right way and a wrong way. It is a matter of what works for you.

Originally posted  http://www.rennatatropeano.com/growingunique/?p=133

This weekend I attended an art show where I looked at a number of pieces and felt that I should have entered the show.

I didn’t because I felt that my work just was not good enough to enter this particular show.  While looking at the show I found myself measuring each piece of art against my own work.  I was thinking how similar or dissimilar each piece was in terms of style, skill level, subject matter, color choices and technique. My favorites were the ones that were of a higher skill level in a similar style with similar color choices.  The subject matter and technique seemed to be the areas that I was more willing to be open to something new. Not completely open because subject matter also fell into the the area of which I was most critical.

It was the ones of a different color pallet and subject matter that made me look at them and think, I should have entered.  I felt that my skill level was on par or better than a few of the artists, but I would know better than to paint ________ in ___________ color.

The truly ironic thing is guess which paintings won. The painting of the _____ and the one with the odd colors.

While the image I choose is grey, it is not because I am feeling down. It is because it is one that I was thinking of doing for a different contest, one that had to be done in shades of black white and grey.

I am feeling very optimistic, and encouraged as I review my works in progress as I feel more confidant in sending them out into the world. WIP Review, the plane is nearing completion,  and I have pulled out the pencils and watercolors to work with those media for a bit.   I have not put the acrylic away yet, as I want to create some fall paintings, and I may even go ahead with my monochromatic painting.

The kids are back in school and suddenly I have an hour of time that I did not have before.  My oldest daughter has her license and can drive the carpool giving me this gift of time. 

The other thing that has me off rhythm is that in this last month I had more vacation days than I did normal days.  It started with a week off to take the above mentioned daughter to flight camp, and then later in the month on a trip to visit family.  That vacation was extended due to hurricane Irene arriving the same time as our original flight.  Then there was labor day weekend, thus my Monday check in on works in progress is now on Tuesday and not at all what I intended. 

The plane is still underway, as is a lot of website development.  I am working on a series of fall scarves, trying a couple of new methods. The new writing project is starting slow, but coming together better than previous works.  The last on the list of underway is two new themed competition pieces.  It was my intent to have pictures of these various projects, and I may add them later.

New blog post, cross posted from http://www.rennatatropeano.com/growingunique

Things here on the blog have been a little bit spotty.  It is my intention that as we get back into that school routine that I get back into the swing of posting on a regular basis.  The last couple of weeks have been exciting for me. I was stranded due to hurricane Irene in Colorado. As you can see in today’s photo, that if you have to be stranded, Colorado is certainly a nice place to be.

I was reviewing my posts and discovered that a number of the designing your internet home posts were never published to the blog due to technical reasons.  I am going to be revising them a little based on my most recent research and will be trying to post one of those a week.  I am going to be playing around with the format, and try and develop a pattern of topics.  The categories that I have been thinking about are Business of Art, Work in Progress,  Review or Interview, How to, and Thoughts.

The new category of review or interview came out of my visiting several galleries and meeting some working artists over the summer.  Looking back on this, I decided that there was a lot to be learned from these visits, both good and bad.  Reviewing can be a tricky thing, as most artists have fragile egos that are easily shattered. I decided that good reviews will be accompanied by links and information.  When the lesson that I took away from a situation is “what not to do”, I am going to leave off the who, and where.

Time to head off to work.  As always, I would love to hear your thoughts and comments on the new ideas.

Painting a weaving draft around the curve a of a plane is harder than I thought it would be.

The idea was to have various weaving drafts scattered across the plane with shuttles, bobbins and other weaving accessories scattered about as well.  I am not quite sure about this, as the engines seem like they would lend themselves to being turned into shuttles and the engines the bobbins.

For more information on the planes, http://www.chicopeema.gov/news.php?news=365