Workshop with Virgil Stephens

I just had the perfect opportunity to take a drawing class with Virgil Stephens who is a well-known New Mexico artist who does fine drawings and oil paintings. His wife is his perfect companion and team-member and they both put on a efficient and enjoyable workshop in Ruidoso. He is looking for more students if you are interested.

We all did the same drawing (mine to the left)of this model's photograph who also happens to be his daughter. Virgil was extremely helpful in pushing us past our limitations and towards more perfection in our drawing. I had never had much practice with charcoal and now I feel much more confident.

I am the one on the far left.

It was fascinating to see everyone's creations and even new artist produce a portrait of which they were very proud.

It was a great reminder to me how very important drawing can be to great art.

Virgil does the best horses. This is a large oil painting and representation of his excellent drawing and painting skills.

There is snow covering the farm and it is cold and stark outside my windows. I love looking back at the fire in my living room while I paint and feeling the warmth and security within my cozy home.

This large painting represents the color and edginess I need to add to my setting.

When it comes to my art, I feel like I'm unlocking something within.... Like I'm getting closer and closer to where I want to be. I feel like I've been down a long hallway and I've tried so many doors, and even stepped into the rooms and experimented with so many ideas. But now, I feel like I'm entering spaces that feel more like where I'm suppose to be. I still don't know where I'll end up, but at least I feel I'm heading in the right direction.

It is like the wood-fire in my living room. Except it warms and excites my very soul.

Even in this winter season, and a season of life that may be colder and harsher, I hope you are finding some warmth within as well.

Exuberance

I think I will name her "Exuberance" in honor of the New Year 2010. She's a little white-headed, with more white roots showing everyday and she only has wings because she likes to soar with the wild birds rather than the angels. And even though she's middle-age and slightly chubbier than depicted, she still has dancing toes and a wiggle in her hips.

She's well aware that the new year could hold mishaps and sadness, but she will keep her heart open and pink metallic polish on her toes and a secret passion in her soul and learn to shake her booty like Beyonce.

And she will spread love like a little farting fairy laying it on as thick as grape lipgloss until it shines so bright it looks like liquid sun shine.

She's an odd chick but she will know her by the the joy that sticks to her bones like watermelon bubblegum.

Don't try to stop her or she will kiss you like a slobbering toothless baby and you will have to grin and bear it.

(fluid acrylics, shiva oil sticks, and black gesso)

Just be good.

I went to church today.

I finally felt inspired to paint again. It felt good to get the art journal out and a couple of tubes of paint.

I had just gotten out of the habit. Like going to church.

But it's what inspired me. I felt contemplative and sensitive to everything around me. The music was beautiful and the babies, sweeter. The stain glass shown more brilliantly and my little town showed up in their finest to celebrate and worship something beyond ourselves and our stuff.

I was raised to be good- to be good to myself, other people, animals and the environment. I'm one of those people that have to work at being good. Sweet Farmer was born that way and it comes more natural. But me, I have a natural naughtiness that takes some work to overcome. I get out of the habit.

The Man above reminds me of who I am and who I want to be. He's very real to me. Not like a good-luck charm or a spiritual Santa. He was a real man whose feelings, thoughts and realities were recorded by real men. I believe in his reality of the world. I believe that he gave us a glimpse of who God is and how much he wants to be re-united with us and how much he wants us to have great lives until we all get together again.

I'm glad I have a Center (besides me). A Person to go to that grounds me (besides Sweet Farmer). A place that speaks of community and rising above the mundane.

Today reminded me to be good.

Favorite Things

I've been so remiss in posting lately. I feel like a person who is not returning letters to dear friends as I have continued to visit your blogs quickly between all my happenings. I've missed our connection here. I thought I would share some of my favorite things at Christmas time.






Sweet Farmer loves, loves a decorated home so I fussy everything up for him and me because we have time to sit cozy around the wood stove and admire this pretty place he built with his own hands and I decorate with lots of love.




My penguin family is one of my favorite things so I placed them in a winter wonderland atop my entertainment center.
This is fantastically intricate cross-stitch my Mom made for us in 2003. I'll never forget the day that Sweet Farmer realized that each of those tiny little x's represent stitches that were made by my mother's tragically beautiful arthritic hands and crippled fingers.











This village of Santas were all hand-carved by my very talented father. He's done so many and I gathered them up like treasures when he first started when nobody cared so much about them. Now, everyone is scrabbling to get the next one he carves. I'll probably never see another one now that they're wildly popular and so many grandkids, but I'm so happy to have this collection.



This is Gus, my oldest grandson, preparing for his part in the live nativity. He took it as seriously as this expression illustrates.

And this is Cash who says, "DEAR SANTA, I WAS FRAMED".

Just a few of my favorite things!!

MAGIC CARPET RIDE

Today was a good art day for me. I woke up with nowhere I had to go, no chore I had to do (but bottle feed 2 little kittens), and no lunch to cook for Sweet Farmer! I've learned to cherish days like this and so, of course, I got my paints out. I painted this from a boring old photo of my tom-cat. YOU CAN'T IMAGINE HOW MUCH FUN I'VE HAD! I had my music going, bubble gum to chew and fat little kittens running around my feet. And I just took off -on that magic carpet ride of absolute abandon. WHAT A RIDE!

Then I played with what I played with.

I love to add words to my paintings.

Sweet Farmer hates it when I add words to my paintings.

Cropping can be so dramatic!

I asked Sweet Farmer while I was giving him a morning neck rub- "Where would you be today if you could be anywhere you wanted to be?"

He said, "Right here."

whuuu baby- I totally agree. It was so nice to take a ride and stay right here.

Searching for Sophistication

I've been doing what I love to do on the side:looking at art magazines, looking at art books, watching art videos, until I get my work done and I can paint myself.

This is a new watercolor. I'm still trying to paint without drawing, without a composition in mind, and letting the paint and the process take me along.

But I'm a little discouraged with my art these days. I know I must keep working it out. I wish I had a good mentor besides my own self-exploration.

For instance, why I do I like this version better (digitally altered)? The composition and design elements are much more interesting to me. Am I crazy? The other seems so elemental.

How do I get from there to here? I won't be satisfied until I can paint with a brush dynamic and sophisticated images. But how do you gain sophisticated images when you have an elemental artist's mind? That's my dilemma. Well, back to the art magazines, books, videos, classes, etc. And I'll take any suggestions.

One of those days when I just let the mind paint with no expectation. Today I used watercolor, inks and charcoals.
I always wonder when I finish what was the mind wondering, or rather, what was it expressing? I'm sure the white tree stands for aging or wisdom, possibly? Everything else is up for grabs. It reminds me of those kinetic images you see on the inside of your eye-lids when you close your eyes. I love those images. If you've never paid attention to them -you should, it's like your own little art gallery or built in kaleidoscope.

I got see Thing One and Thing Two, otherwise known as my grandsons, this weekend. They have gotten to a goofy, silly stage where they crack themselves up all the time. Of course, they crack me up too- and I take pictures. I'm not sure anyone else gets our sense of humor.

We did get a chance to go to the San Angelo Art Museum which had an indoor exhibit on YARD ART of all things, and then the curator gave us directions to see one of the actual yards that was featured. It was a fantastical altar-ish, Mayan-ish, Day of the DEADish, garish, but whimsical structure which captured the artist's soul, an aging Mexican vaquero with very black (possibly Grecian dyed) hair and a dark mustache. Thing One saw for the first time that art can be expressed by more than paper and paint. So we drove around and looked for other yard "art" after that and I could tell that he got it. Thing Two just slept.

Sweet And Pretty

This is my beautiful Joli. She turned 30 today and I am very nostalgic, have been for days actually. Someone asked me if her turning 30 made me feel old. I haven't really felt old as much as I've felt amazed.

You see Joli came nine months after I lost a little boy who only lived 8 days. I hoped for the best, but prepared for the worst. She weighed 9 pounds and was perfectly healthy, and I truly understood the miracle of a healthy birth even though I was just 20.

Joli means sweet and pretty in French. I thought that would label her the chic and beautiful creature I saw before me. But she wasn't into chic. She was an authentic country girl who loved to wear strange, unusual outfits, talk and sing and create joyful drama with wild abandon through every day. She amazed me then.

But she amazes now. She works a high-powered corporate job with a hard hat on most days. She an excellent mother to my 2 grandsons. She's a good wife. An incredible friend - she has a host of loyal and committed friendships. And she has been a good, good daughter -all that I could ever ask for . She makes me very proud to be her mother. She is delightful. And Chic.

I'm amazed that I'm her mother- that's all there is to it. I was too young, married to the wrong man, uneducated at the time, struggling to hold my own head above water and yet, somehow, God made up all the difference and gifted me. When your young, you live half scared that you will get the important stuff all wrong. Joli is my proof that love covers a multitude of sins.

Digressing

My art may be digressing a bit I'll admit, but I think I missed or skipped over a crucial period of just pure playfulness. This month of scary, daring stuff has been good for me.

After I struggled over the church painting, a good blogger friend, who must have recognized that I was agonizing too much over my art (actually many of my friends saw that in me and suggested I let go)suggested I read, "Life, Paint and Passion". Thank you so much Anetka for taking me there. It has been a great reminder that the process is as important, or more so, than the product.
If you didn't care what anyone thought about what you wrote, painted, dreamed- what would you dare to do? We were taught very early to live in our square bland boxes of no imagination. Many can no longer respond to the gift of creating. It's like it went to sleep or was buried deep in the recesses of doing it "right" and doing it "this certain way" by "certain rules". This month for me is about taking back the joy of simply putting words to paper, paint to canvas and let that white void be a playground of wild abandon. I've got to dare myself and scare myself, and climb out of my box, and question everything. There is NO ONE to impress, if you really think about it.

Thank goodness I've reached the age of digression.

P. S. Linda at Vulture Peak Muse gave me a beautiful award that honors our sister-hood in this blogging community. She knows I don't like chain-letter type awards - but this one is special because I truly do feel that the people I've met through blogging have been a very special group of ladies that have encouraged me and thrilled me with their endeavors and everyday lives.

Thank you to all those "regulars" that add their sweet comments and enrich my life by small little affirmations. Thank you for taking the time to stop at my front blogging porch to smell my flowers and wish me well.