Category: Art

Hey, Who Used my Creative Checkbook?

Gregory Waiting (c)2010 Dora Sislian Themelis Pen and Ink
I’m still moving along in the latest Artist’s Way coursework with the book, Walking in This World, by Julia Cameron, albeit very slowly.  Some days I read the next chapter, do some tasks, and other days I forget about it altogether.  I blew off the morning pages Sunday morning, not because I didn’t feel like writing, but because I went to church for Palm Sunday with my family. By the time I realized I didn’t write my pages it was late afternoon and time to plan dinner.  Too many people were around (my husband and my son!) for me to sit in my favorite spot without having them ask me what I’m doing, what’s it about.  “Just go mind your own business” doesn’t work and having to defend myself gives me stress.
Today I wrote the pages.  Afterwards I read chapter 5, Discovering a Sense of Personal Territory: Caretaking vs Sexuality.  It’s not what you’re thinking, ok.  It’s about the feeling you can’t stay away from creativity, the excitement, adventure and even the dangerous quality of wanting to create, and doing it again and again.  Well, it’s an interesting point.  You get the idea.  If we, as artists, are asked to “mother” our friends/family/colleages we become desensualized, neutered, and feel used.  Our relationships with others can either make or break our relationship with our art.  We need that good mirror for our art to flourish. 
As I read on there was alot of putting ourselves first talk.  Being ‘selfish enough’ is being ‘self protective’, as in saying no to invitations and situations that don’t serve us.  Now things were starting to click about here.  I came to a paragraph entitled Energy Debts, and read “any relationship that risks your artist’s identity is not self-loving”.
Bingo!
Recently I connected with a “Crazymaker” who, for years, I allowed to effectively keep me from my art.  I won’t go into why I made the connection, but I did.  Rather than have all kinds of bad things said about me behind my back I casually connected.  Probably won’t stop talk from happening, but whatever.
While always praising my creative ability to no end, they may have been jealous of it, and distracted me from it.  I let it happen thinking we were good friends, having fun, helping each other through things, but when it comes down to it I wasn’t painting or making time for me and my art while they were around. 
I realize now that I was not spending my time wisely, didn’t have a good mirror in this relationship, and was not authentic to myself.  Yeah, this person liked to prop me up and tell me how good an artist I was, but it wasn’t real, it was control. I started to say NO and they were put off by it. 
Slowly, quietly, I began to step back.  Did I really need to hear from them 5 times in a day or each time I logged on to the computer?  No.  Did I need to get swept up in their drama?  No.  Was it worth it losing my time to run around with them doing everything but painting?  No.  They were using me for their own agenda and when I woke up from that fog I began to set boundaries.  And I’m a bad person now?  I don’t think so.
Things with a Crazymaker will never get set to rest, just pushed to the side where it belongs, not in my general vicinity or else the whirlwind of that drama-filled stuff will try to take over again.  Why “give someone without scruples, your creative checkbook so they can run willy-nilly spending it all?”  I’m not buying that cheap stuff any longer.  When you wear Manolo’s, there’s no going back to PayLess, get it?  Ain’t happening.
I deserve better than that which I allowed myself to endure for the sake of pseudo friendship.  Done, so done.

The Virtual pARTy Painting

Belletor in Winter, Watercolor (c)2010 The Artist
I came across a fellow blogger/etsy/artist’s post a couple of weeks ago about something called the “virtual pARTy” while meandering around the etsy forums where we meet and talk about art and techniques.  Artist Kathleen Roeth, aka tapestry316, paints horses and she commented about this art party thing one day.  Well, I’m not an animal person much less a horse person, nor am I that interested in painting them, but the idea of joining in on this idea seemed like a good departure from the bagpipe work.   In fact, I was so tired of the bagpipe I had put it aside and started throwing paint on the paper with no particular plan just to get away from it.  After I saw this horse posting I jumped at the chance to paint something new and out of my comfort zone.
The way the virtual pARTy works is a photo is presented during a set time and the artist has 24 hours to start and complete the work in the medium of their choice.  When it’s done you upload the painting to the blog.  When the week is over the blog owners put up the entries for viewing. 
The result of my work is ok.  I wasn’t really interested in the outcome.  It felt good to clear my head and look at a different scene with new colors.  I played with color mixing, different brushes and the strokes they make.  I had never tried to paint snow and tried to keep my white spaces white.  Now that I have great info on paper quality from you helpful readers, I can see how better paper could make the difference in a work.  Obviously, I’m going to have to go shopping for paper before I start the next piece. 
All in all, I’m glad I found the virtual pARTy and decided to go for it.  Why not?  It’s all good.

Done and Ready for What’s Next

The Bagpipe 11×14 Watercolor ©2010 Dora Sislian Themelis
I’m finally finished with this painting of my son and his bagpipe.  I can’t do another thing to it or it will be a mess.  Thanks to a suggestion from a lovely commenter, the paper might need to be rougher or stronger if I’m going to rework areas or use a lot of water.  I learned a few things about my materials and myself, how I paint, what I like to paint, and maybe how to fight with resistance.  It’s a process.
Resistance was beating me with this painting.  I will look at this in the future and remember how hard it was to go to the studio to work on it with all the action.  Boy did I want to just skip it and move on to something else!  I weakened and found myself working on an area, giving up the resistance battle.  I guess that’s how it is.  One day you’re playing, having fun and the next it’s a chore to paint.  Something clicked and whatever it was helped me get back.  Was it the reading material, the doodling tasks, the morning pages, or was it just my head being ready to try again?
John’s Laouto 11×14 Watercolor
©2001 Dora Sislian Themelis
As I have said in past posts, I was primarily an oil painter.  I think I used watercolors the way they should be used in this work I painted quite a few years ago. This was done after the miserable watercolor class I took.  Can you see the difference? 

The other thing about these two paintings is that the bagpipe was painted using a photograph of the scene and this was painted from life in one sitting.  I think the life painting has a freer, more spontaneous watery quality.  When I started using watercolors, I had just ended a bout with resistance.  Since I was new at it, I had motivation in my corner and kept painting. 

The bagpipe work is dramatic because of the lighting and paint application, but maybe a bit too detailed for my comfort.  


As I move on it may be time to get the oil paints out and revisit painting on canvas.  I’ve been using watercolors as if they were oil paints by applying them the same as I would the oils.  Maybe it’s not a great idea.  Maybe it’s just how I work.  I’m not so sure.

Watercolor paints are just so easy to get out, use and clean up afterward that they’re very inviting.  The transparency of the medium is what artists like, but did I work with them the way they’re meant to be?  Does it matter?  Comments, questions, criticisms?

Anyway, that’s my own critique.  Thanks for listening to me rant.  I’m done and I’m moving on. 

The Din of the Light Bulb Moment

In reading the latest of The Artist’s Way books, Walking in This World by Julia Cameron, I had a light bulb moment.  Yes, that weird feeling when suddenly things seem very clear.  I could feel a “pop” go off in my head.  I looked up and around me with a start.  You know the feeling when things seem to come together and make perfect sense?  That sometimes happens slowly, like a gradual awakening, the fog slowly lifting and you say to yourself, “Yeah, I see. I get it.”  No, that’s not what happened to me.  I had a rush, boom, clang, got hit on the head moment.  Ouch!

Before you think I lost my mind, I should explain.  As I’ve been stuck in resistance lately and I had put off the latest Artist’s Way course book, I decided it was time to re-direct, take a U-turn and pick up where I left off.  I’ve been very good about writing the morning pages, not so good at keeping up with artist’s dates, but here and there doing small things to stay in the loop: looking at old work, fussing with that bagpipe work, knitting on socks, ordering yarn.  Yesterday I picked up the course book and started reading again.

Chapter 3 is about discovering a sense of adventure to gain a greater feeling of freedom and open mindedness. One of the tasks was called Draw Yourself to Scale.  Interesting, I thought.  The task involves sketching.  Nice and easy, right?  To paraphrase: “Sketch each moment and enter adventure..The coffee mug, the doctor’s office..Don’t need to sketch well.  The adventure of life rushes past us in a blur.  Velocity is the culprit.  Velocity and pressure.  A sketchbook freezes time and is a form of meditation to focus on every moment.”  And here I was thinking I had to sketch myself.

CLICK!  The light bulb over my head popped really loud!

A couple of months ago I bought a teeny sketchpad and filled my old rapidograph with ink.  I don’t like to carry a large handbag for the weight of it, but okay, the one I have right now can fit a few things.  So there’s the sketchbook and pen, handy and ready.  When I had some time, and no knitting with me, I’d pop out my things and doodle.  Most of the time I forgot I had them with me in my bag.

POP!  Light bulb!  I have doodled waiting at the doctor’s office!  CLICK!  I drew a little girl in my teeny book after allergy shots in the waiting room!  SNAP!  I pulled out the little book last week at a coffee salon and sketched the live musicians while my company sipped their coffee!  I’m in the loop after all!  Where I thought I was out of the game, I really wasn’t.  Maybe I was coasting along the whole time?  If I hadn’t read this chapter I may have continued thinking I was still in resistance mode.  Talk about synchronicity!  Things were just falling into place of their own accord.  Could it be I just wasn’t really paying attention to myself?

Boy, that was some light bulb.

Today is the Ides of March, I’ll Paint Tomorrow

“A soothsayer bids you beware the Ides of March” ~ Brutus to Caesar, Act I, Scene II from Julius Caesar by William Shakespeare

We arsty types always enjoyed acknowledging the fact that today, March 15th, is the Ides of March.  Thoroughly enjoyed pointing it out.  I don’t know why, but anyone I knew who was an artist made a big thing about the Ides.  So there it is, I’m continuing the tradition.  I used to tell this to my sons every year, very cryptically, “Beware the Ides of March.”  They’d look at me as if I had two heads.  Was it me?  I don’t know.

That said, let’s get on with it.

This weekend was horrible, crazy, scary weather.  Saturday saw a nor’easter that seems to be historic now that it’s over.  Sunday wasn’t great either with rain, thunder, lightening and flooding in areas.  I burrowed in my cave, so to speak.  I spent Sunday photographing some new jewelry I made, a couple of older paintings, and dug up my color charts.  Looking through my work gave me ideas and motivation.  It’s good to dig out old stuff every now and then. 

I had put the bagpipe painting on my easel to look at it whenever I came into the studio.  I like to do that with works in progress.  It gives me a feel for where I need to go with a piece.  The light in the studio may be out for good now, but I ignored it, turned on my desk light and did a little work on the painting. 

Each work teaches you something new.  With this painting I learned that the style I’m used to working with in oils may not be the right way to work in watercolors or I need a more durable surface.  Painting as with oils, I kept adding to certain areas with color.  Maybe it’s the paint, but I think the paper is wearing on those areas and making little balls of something.  Maybe watercolor is not meant for much reworking?  Am I using too much water?  The paper is Lanaquarelle 140lb cold press and usually fine to work with, but would Arches paper do the same thing?  Answers come with doing so I’m just going to keep working.

Overall, I’m painting, and I like the mood of this piece.  Maybe I should have worked this in oils?  It’s possible I will paint it again.  I have another photograph with a different position I could try in the future.  The chiarasciuro, darks and lights, is what I really like and it may be worth another go in another medium.  For now this just needs a little tweaking for me to say I’m done.

Not touching this painting today, though.  It’s the Ides of March and important things are better left until another day.

Friday Photos

(c)1996 Dora Sislian Themelis
Hillside at Agriolivadi Beach, Patmos Island, Greece
on location
(c)1996 Dora Sislian Themelis
Agriolivadi Beach, Patmos Island, Greece
on location
(c)1996 Dora Sislian Themelis
Hillside church Santorini, Greece
from photographs
(c)1996 Dora Sislian Themelis
Hillside church at Santorini, Greece  close-up
In the frenzy of travel, I sometimes remember to bring drawing materials for the times I see a scene and want to capture it as art, rather than as a photograph.  Those times are few.  Many years ago I did bring pen and sketchbook on our visit to family in Greece.  Luckily, I packed these items for our beach day and drew some pretty scenery from life, which I prefer over photos. 
The blue sky, azure beaches and non-stop sun was therapy for body, mind and soul.  When can I return?

How do You Spell "R-E-S-I-S-T-A-N-C-E" ?

Doodling at the allergists office today

“Resistance’s goal is not to wound or disable.  Resistance aims to kill…Resistance means business.  When we fight it, we are in a war to the death.”  ~Steven Pressfield, The War of Art

A reader left a great comment on this blog after yesterday’s post and it had me thinking all day.  Go ahead to yesterday and read the comment.  I’ll wait. 

In his book The War of Art, Steven Pressfield writes that resistance is insidious.  It keeps us from doing our work by telling us anything it can think of.  It, and I’m assuming that’s the scratchy voice in the head, will lie, seduce, bully, cajole, deceive, reason like a lawyer, or hold a gun to your head like a robber.  Resistance will double-cross you as soon as you turn around.  And, he says, if you believe any of it you deserve everything you get because resistance is full of crap.  I had better buckle up.

So, my question to you dear readers is this:  “How do you fight resistance?  What form does it take, and what measures do you use to battle it and win?”  I’m very interested the things different people do to work through all the junk and push the resistance aside. 

Please feel free to leave your comments.  I could read all the books in the world and still have trouble with resistance.  Maybe what works for you could spark an idea for me.
I’m looking forward to it, bring it on.

15 Minute Studio Time Really Works

The fifteen minutes in the studio thing is working really well for me.  Yesterday I had a day where I did alot of running around.  I didn’t think I would go to the studio to do anything.  I’m annoyed at the light in the room because it’s fooling with me.  One day it will very nicely go on and be lit the whole time I’m there, the next it will light up for me then rudely turn itself off as if to tell me to get lost.  The day I decide to call  the electrician it’s on all day long.  I think it likes to play games with me.  It’s getting old.

Anyway, when I finally came home in the afternoon I didn’t feel like painting.  I checked email, the blog, my facebook page, the etsy shop, opened snail mail, decided on dinner, everything but go to the studio.  After I threw all these road blocks in my way, I decided to sit at the desk and look at this bagpipe painting for only 15 minutes.  If I could just look at it maybe I would have thoughts about where I want to go the next time I paint.

So I took my inner child artist brat to the studio and sat at the desk like an adult.  Light bulbs were flashing in my mind, how would this look, maybe that color there, how can I make the light pop.  Low and behold, I was painting.  It’s a blur when I filled the pans with water and dipped the brush to apply paint.  When I looked up at the clock, two hours had passed by and if I didn’t get moving there’d be no dinner that night!

I had just enough time to step back and look at my work, photograph it too.  The first one is where I left it to dry on my desk.  I’m not used to painting on a desk as I always painted oils on an easel.  It’s a little weird to me, but if you paint watercolor upright the drips are unmanageable, unless you really want drips.  The second photo is the work on my easel after it dried some.  It’s on the easel so when I go into the room I can see it better.  When I see my work I’m surprised how it looks hour to hour, day to day.  Is that weird?

Well, today is another day.  Let’s see how it goes.