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I was reading Kathleen Dustin’s interview in Polymer Cafe yesterday and she made a comment about making art personal.

It made me wonder about my own. Is it personal? Usually I just think of something I want to make - an animal I want to sculpt, what I want it to look like, and then I make it… Is that personal? It doesn’t really sound like it when I put it that way.

But I think it is just the same. I almost always sculpt animals or something from nature. And I know EVERY artist is inspired by nature so while that may be my personal inspiration, it’s not very unique

But I’ve always loved animals. When I was a kid my family had a mini, hobby sort of farm. At one time or another we had ponies, horses, goats, sheep, pigs, chickens, geese… And there were swallows flitting in and out of the eaves in the barn, and deer and pheasants in the fields. I spent alot of time outside, making forts, exploring or just sitting in trees and thinking. I read alot too - one of my favorite books was by Jacques Cousteau and full of fascinating ocean life. The walls of my room didn’t need wallpaper - I had them covered in exotic animals and landscapes pulled from National Geographic.

So is my art personal? Yes, I think so. But I might be able to make it a bit more so by thinking about where it’s coming from. And maybe using some of those childhood memories and sculpting the ones that mean something to me. I’ve already sculpted the swallows… They’re beauty and freedom and effortless flight, and a touch of my childhood.

There are a number of different variations of the Taxas Caviar salsa recipe. If you like cilantro, you’ll like this. And don’t let the beans put you off… I almost never eat them but they’re great in this once they’re marinated in the salsa.

I make different variations but this latest one was:

Toss the following in a large bowl (this makes alot):

• 2 cans black-eyed peas (drained)
• 2 small cans Rotel tomatoes with mild chiles (drained)
• 1 large onion (chopped)
• 2 green peppers (chopped)
• 1/2 bottle zesty italian salad dressing (or substitute with your choice of oil and vinegar)
• 1 bunch of cilantro (chopped)
• tablespoon or so minced garlic
• 1/2 tsp coriander

Mix and refrigerate at least overnight. Serve with corn chip scoops.
WARNING - it’s addicting!

http://allrecipes.com/Recipe/Texas-Caviar-I/Detail.aspx

http://homecooking.about.com/od/vegetablerecipes/r/blv95.htm

Well, as usual, I’m not dead but there have been times I wished I was for the last few days… I’ve had the worst cold I’ve had in a really long time. Lately, I’ve been sleeping and reading and watching tv and that’s just about it. I haven’t touched my clay, and even took a couple days out of work.

But I did pick up a kid’s book on drawing anime and manga out of the library last week and I was having some fun with that. I started out by just tracing some of the drawings and exercises because it’s amazing how bad I am at drawing smooth lines. That got me started and I started getting a feel for how the drawings were done and did a couple of my own. I’m definitely not great at it but it was fun. A nice creative but not intense activity that I could do while my head was throbbing and my lungs were trying to cough themselves out my ears.

And I think I’m starting to feel better finally…

The more I read and the more I learn about being an “artist”, the more I realize there is no magic wand or mystical, inborn talent involved. (Yes, there are exceptions for child prodigies but I’m talking about the rest of us.)

I used to have a subconscious belief that people who could draw or paint were born with the knowledge and the vision. I knew it took practice to refine the talent, but I didn’t know it could also be learned. I didn’t know that it was legitimate to take a step by step approach (at least at first) without it being cheating. I didn’t know there were tricks and tips to “seeing” that help you to recreate what you see.

I’ve seen a couple things in books and videos, where at first I was shocked. “He traced the photograph onto his clay to start a relief?? I could do that!” For some reason, I thought you could just stare at something and make it look real, if you were a “real” artist. I never knew how much work it took to get to that point. And it gave me permission to try some shortcuts myself and decide which ones I liked.

The more I learn and the more I try, the more I realize that I still have a long way to go, but I also know I can get there.

I’ve never really tried to draw since the art classes we took in Junior High. But I dug out some pencils and gave it a try tonight. I was feeling a little too tired to tackle my frog sculpture. Which if you think about it is interesting - I was too tired to concentrate on sculpting but not too tired for something creative.

I think the difference is that I don’t expect to be good at drawing so there’s less pressure. As I’ve heard a couple places recently, I had “permission to suck” at drawing. But I do expect (or at least want) to be good at my sculpting so I end up putting more pressure on myself. I think I need to make myself a permission slip:

The bearer has permission to be imperfect, screw up and have fun making art.

So anyway I rather enjoyed drawing. I tried out the different types of pencils, played around a bit. Tried to make a quick drawing of my cat but she wouldn’t hold still… Made my own version of a drawing from a book (I’m not advocating copying but this was a throwaway just to figure out some line use). And I had fun.

I figure the more I draw, the more I’ll learn to see and that will help with my sculpting too.

So what do you do when you’re too tired to clay and everything’s turning to mush on you?

I’m going to be teaching a 4 hour workshop on sculpting tree frogs for my guild in March. So.. I’m working on a couple frog sculptures as class examples. I have some cute ones and wanted something a little more realistic to show some variation.

The first step was to make a base. I chose a nice chunk of shale (layered black rock) that I picked up on the beach as the main support. Then I used some marbled green scrap and alot of texturing to make “moss” growing on the rock. A skewer and some floral wire provided a nice armature for two tropical leaves and I now had a plant growing on my rock.

I baked the clay directly on the rock so it would conform in shape, than added a bit of detail with some acrylic washes and drybrushing on the moss. A little alcohol based ink added a sheen and some depth to the leaves. It all looked great. (I’ll try to post pics at some point)

Then I started on the frog… And it just wasn’t working. The little guy looked cute but he didn’t have the right expression, and he didn’t fit the leaf base - he was both too big and not quite the right style. About that point I realized I was tired, frustrated and I’d gone too long without eating. SO I went off to get a snack and then I watched tv for a couple hours.

I ended up making a new vertical leaf stalk the next day that matched the existing frog and it looks pretty good. Not quite what I was going for but I like it. And I still have the original base to make a smaller frog for…

I’m not sure if there’s a moral to this story, but I’m going to make sure I take a break next time BEFORE I’ve gone past the crash point. And if I’m too tired for intense concentration, I’ll work on something less demanding - like sanding. I hate sanding, but that’s another story!

I am still alive.. I’ve just been busy with work and too tired to touch the computer when I got home.

I picked up some of the new Studio by Sculpey clay this weekend. I haven’t done much with it yet but it looks interesting. Someone (sorry I don’t remember which blog) did a review recently and compared it to a combination between Premo and Ultra Light and I agree.

It’s softer than Premo and not as sticky with that cool sort of suede feel that Ultra Light has. But it’s not as marshmallowy as the Ultralight. I’m not sure how it would be for sculpting but I think it should work well for making pulls from molds, extruding etc. The colors are really nice for using straight from the package, much more complex and subtle colors but I’m not sure you’d have your whole palette for mixing. I really like the denim and the butter cream and the teal and…

I did try making a quick gingko leaf to try out the leaf cutter and veiner and I used it for some destructive testing. It was a #3 thickness on the Atlas pasta machine and then veins were impressed so parts of the leaf were really thin. You definitely don’t have to worry about brittleness - I threw it down as hard as I could on the floor with no problems. It’s tough and flexible - we bent it almost completely back on itself before it broke on one of the veins. I was able to tear the clay easier than breaking it by bending but I don’t think that’s much of a problem. It’s the flexing and bending that usually do you in.

Should be fun to play with anyway.

I happened across a blog by Christine Kane (I don’t remember where the link was originally) and started reading a few posts. This post on choosing a theme word was really interesting to me.

I had been thinking of setting some goals for this year - not resolutions, but just targets for where I want to be. The problem is there are so many things I want to change and get done that it starts to be overwhelming. This was a different way of looking at it - choose one word to keep in mind and act on. She has a long list of words to inspire you such as change, growth, freedom, etc.

The one that resonated with me was Delight. Instead of drudging through cleaning and organizing the house, losing weight etc, I can do it with Delight and with Delight as my goal. Because really, I delight in a fresh clean work surface in the Studio which I can fill with my latest inspirations. I delight in a nice, fresh, crisp, healthy salad and fun types of exercise. If there’s a project I’m working on that doesn’t fill me with delight or if I can’t delight in my mental image of the final result, maybe I should be making something else.

Something to think about… Find a way to take delight in all you do, or do something else.

Have you seen the pledge to buy handmade this season? It’s been popping up on alot of blogs lately and it’s nice to see.

Here it is, all put together. There are a few things I’ll probably change for next time but overall, I’m really happy with it. And it turns like butter! (If butter actually turned of course.)

I really can’t capture the look of the images since they’re constantly changing and the dichroic glass changes color as the angle of the light plays across it. But here’s my best attempt: