Makeup and Hot Glue Guns

Anyone like lichens?  This is what I've been drawing in the sketchbook lately.

Sketchbook, lichens, Krystal Booth, 2013

After years of drawing pads, sketchbooks, and journals, I have found my favorite one - Crescent RendR No Show Thru Paper Sketchbooks.  The one I'm working out of now is the hardcover 8.5x11" version.  In terms of my excitement about this sketchbook, it can be summed up by the audience member (Amy Poehler) at 2:39 of this Oprah's Favorite Things skit on SNL.

I watched a couple of Ryan Trecartin's videos online this morning and I was certainly entertained, horrified, and completely disoriented at times.  It was as if I was watching my brain's understanding of what went on in my early twenties or what a condensed bad acid trip would be like if there were endless amounts of makeup and hot glue guns.  Trecartin made my morning coffee time seem like an experiment of the mind.  Would my brain explode if I actually made it to the thirty minute mark?  Will I go insane and never come back?

In the end, it just made me want to go play with him and his friends with costumes and wigs overflowing.

If you want to be confused, overwhelmed, annoyed, and entertained, watch these:
http://vimeo.com/trecartin/roamie-view-history-enhancement
http://youtu.be/Z5nclmEYkqk

Snail Mail

Good Morning from the Pacific Northwest! 

I found this little fellow on the tree outside on a tree outside our window...peeping Tom perhaps?

 

 

I've been busy working, sketching, reading, and researching.  The library has been very popular with us lately as the books pile up and I want to read them all simultaneously.  I hope all has been well with you and thank you for visiting.  I'll be posting more regularly again as I push towards the 100 Works goal and there may be another project in the works that would appreciate your input!  More on that in a little while...

 

Love to all!

 

100 Works

The painting felt like a cruel teacher from the early 1900s that hovered over my back with a ruler ready to snap my knuckles the minute I made an incorrect mark. 

Of course, it wasn't the painting.  It was me, and I was being much more vicious by strangling the work.  If it squirmed, I tightened my grasp.  The paint strokes and forms were lifeless with no intensity whatsoever.  I was working too tight for the composition and it was stunting the entire process.

I had to let go. 

Now the painting is almost finished.  It has been a good teacher no matter how it turns out. 

I have a goal that I would like to make public on this blog.  I am aiming to create 100 works this year.  It was arrived at a couple of days ago, and it will be a good exercise.  By having a more prolific studio practice with a measurable goal, my skills will have no choice but to improve.  It will also help me overcome the tendancy of tightening up so much on the canvas or drawing that the joy is lost.  I will not have the time to be overly critical - my inner critic will be hushed a bit, so that more rapid progress can be made.

Too some this may be a foolish goal with such a focus on quantity.  Maybe it is, but my curiousities are too strong.  Can I do it?  What kind of work will be created within those 100 works?  What kind of evolutions will occur?  Will I have a crazy meltdown and create stick figures by the end of the year? Haha!

Well, let's see, shall we?  I'll keep you updated on the progress.  Maybe I can find some sort of tracker application to put on here.  If any of you know of one that would work, please let me know.

Thank you for reading and for your support!  Love to all!
 

Balancing Time Spent

http://youtu.be/aYnlpaWWH4E

I simply cannot get enough of Levni Yilmaz's Tales of Mere Existence today!  My facebook friend, Cathrine, posted one today and then I was hooked.  Thank you, Cathrine!

Though, I must confess, I have probably spent too much time viewing the films on his youtube channel.  My goal of cleaning the apartment today is quickly losing time, but at least I am finding myself motivated to do more of my artwork.

Of course, I'm telling myself that I have to accomplish some cleaning first before indulging in some art time.  Will there be enough hours in the day today?

So many days are planned like this.  I feel as though I need to earn the right to spend some time creating and I think that's faulty thinking.  I plan the day with all of the stuff that I don't want to do, but need to do first, and only after all of that is accomplished can I be rewarded with what I really want to do.  This is most of the time a lose-lose scenario for motivation.  If I do happen to do all of my household chores, by the time I get to have fun I lose all motivation for it.  I'm too tired and would rather just read or watch tv.  Then I feel a type of anxiety that I wasted the day because I didn't create anything.

Adversely, sometimes I make these grandiose lists and they just sit there, as do I.  I think of things to do instead of doing anything on the list.  I'll spend too much time on the computer, or looking up cleaning/interior design shows to inspire me, or playing with our cats, or exercising or a combination of all of these plus more, and then get nothing else accomplished for the day.  Nothing on the list gets done, and again, my artistic motivation is not acted upon, ending in anxiety that I wasted the day.

This is how I functioned for several days out of the past year.  I either did what I needed to do and was left with little motivation/energy for the end of the day to enjoy creating, or it was spent without making the day count for much of anything.  This year has not been too bad so far, but I'm scared of this happening again.  Now that I see this pattern, perhaps I can stop this phenomenon through a careful plan of attack.  What plan of attack have you taken that works for you?  How do you balance your time successfully?

Did Picasso do dishes?  When did Rauschenberg do his laundry? 

A Continuation of "If You Looked Over My Shoulder" Post

If you looked over my shoulder, you would see that I can create some pretty ugly things.  In the quest for improvement, it seems that it is inevitable.  I finally decided that the two images didn't work together - the layer study and the charcoal drawing.  There was something to it that was attractive to me, but I'm not sure if they really did anything for one another except muddy the golden ratio type of design of the charcoal drawing, and then add confusion to visual space.  I tried.

So moving on...this is what I have been working on lately.  I've been trying out a different strategy for incorporating layers with drawing.

This one has been exciting to make so far, and will have a narrative when it's done.

Olive helping me...whether I liked it or not.  She was allowed to lay there before I had drawn the center leaf, but it was brief.  She began batting at my pencil.



Also not done yet - it's for a Talenthouse/Secret 7 opportunity to create an artwork

based upon a song by Florence and the Machine- "Only If For A Night".  It's an awesome opportunity to create work for one of my favorite musical artists!  What's not to love about that?!  The submissions are due 9 days from now, and this work needs much work before then. 

(Check out http://www.talenthouse.com/creative if you are interested in this or other opportunities - very fun site that I had no idea existed until three days ago!)

Will these be ugly?  Who knows.  Maybe.  At the very least, they will bring me that much closer to creating something that is beautiful, and I'll hopefully learn from them.  I'll be posting about the 2011 Vision Board Review in the next few days and creating a new one for 2012.  Cheers to a new year for all of us!  Happy New Year to you and your family!