101

I'm going back to school.

I'm turning 35 in two days.

I'm not sure yet how quickly I'll be able to do it, but I'm going to complete a BFA in painting... and I get to do it for free!

I saw my husband's name in the course catalog when I picked out my classes. (I'm not taking his class, though I secretly kind of want to: he's teaching one on MONSTERS.)

I went to the orientation for transfer students, and the Fashions of the Youth -- my god. The '80's are back.

I had to submit a portfolio for review, in order to waive the basics like Drawing 101, and to qualify for the BFA program. I had lots of work left over from figure-drawing classes of years past, and of course lots of my own personal work, and of course all of my portraits too. I enrolled in a design class, because I've never taken design, and I want to dork out on font styles and learn how to do, you know, hi-tek stuff on the computer. And I was absolutely certain I would not have to take Drawing 101.

But the professors who reviewed my work gave me credit for the design class. And credit for the figure-drawing class. And not for Drawing 101.

At first I felt righteously indignant, like, Do you know who I am? I am an Accomplished Artiste, and I shall not stoop down to your two-point perspectives and still lifes with plastic bottles painted gray! I voiced my indignation on Facebook, and got some responses from friends that really surprised me. One said, Don't Take It Personally, and the other said, I Think Everyone Should Take Drawing 101 Again and Again Forever.

And then I remembered something my high school physics teacher wrote in my senior yearbook: "Can you calculate the altitude of that attitude?"

So I promptly got over myself. I realized that school is only going to enrich me if I allow it to, and also that I have a lot to bring to a Drawing 101 class. And I also googled the professor, who is himself an accomplished artist and whose work is amazing, and suddenly it didn't seem so bad to be hunkered in a basement studio with a motley bunch of 18-year-old Art Education majors.

Stay tuned for some value studies of apples, people!

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Michigan

Back in the spring I hatched this harebrained idea that my dad & step-mom would drive to Providence in early July, and the kids and I would ride back to Michigan with them and spend a few glorious weeks there. I knew Jason would not want to be gone that long, and I knew I would not be satisfied with anything less... so he joined us mid-way into our vacation, and we all rode back to the east coast together.

I have a lot of harebrained ideas, but most of them never come to fruition. This one, I'm happy to say, worked perfectly. And it also featured lots of glittery water and naked children:

Long hot days at the beach, discovering Uncle Matt's REAL bow and arrow at the cabin, lazy naps on nana, real live sink baths, outdoor concerts, hanging out with both my siblings, fireflies, sleeping in late, seeing my kids and their grandparents so in love with each other...  I want to go back and do it again because I'm not sure I enjoyed it enough while we were actually doing it.

I'm not mentioning the sporadic crabbiness or how hard it was to operate without Jason for 10 days, or Isla's total pre-nap-meltdown-pee-on-the-floor incident at the store, because despite all those things this vacation was Perfect.

I also surprised myself by truly missing Providence. It was good to realize that I've made friends here, settled in to a nice rhythm. I guess the only thing to do is find out who to petition to remove all those pesky states between here and there that make these visits few and far between.

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blue skies

I painted this one, my friend's daughter, back in March.

My palette is so confusing right now with 37 different hues including 14 varieties of purple that I wanted to look back on simpler times. Simpler brushwork.

I feel like I'm tripping over my own efforts to "get better," when really, the first portraits I did are the ones I like the most. The ones where I wasn't trying so hard.

How do you try not to try so hard?  Riddle me that.

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how I complicate

The more I do this, the stranger it becomes.

I mix colors, then I push them around on a surface in the shape of a human face. The exact shape of which means something impossibly important to someone. I have my own fastidiousness about getting the curve of the lip just right, or the space between the eyelid and the brow, and loosely, and painterly, and without muddying, but also because I know that if I don't get it right, it'll feel like just an imitation of a face -- that face, that one you adore with your whole heart.

It's gotten kind of heavy.

I started out with maybe four or five colors on my palette, and it took me an afternoon to create a portrait from start to finish. Now there are approximately 18 colors, arranged in minutely varying gradations, and it takes more than three full days to finish. I've complicated things, and I can't uncomplicate them. I've always been better at trees than forests.

But just look at these gorgeous trees! Saplings, really:

What a peculiar trick it is to translate light touching on shapes into daubs of color, arranged just so. So that you recognize her, her mood, her weight, her next gesture.

I would like to think I am getting better with each new portrait... but right now it's hard to tell. I do this to myself a lot: I charge into a project, I fantasize about its proportions, I drive myself toward these challenges, and then I stop abruptly short of going over the cliff with wild abandon. YIKES, I think. Don't want to go down there, with all of that unknown stuff.

I'm terrified of making mistakes.

Therefore, painting portraits of people's lovely children is the most convolutedly perfect thing I could be doing.

I will learn to make mistakes and not see them as mistakes. I will learn to make mistakes and keep going. I will learn FROM my mistakes.

I will learn to simplify.

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sibs

Here are the older siblings of the darling baby boy I painted a few weeks ago...

 Big sister:

And big brother:

I thought doing two siblings was hard.... three was a whole new challenge. I went back and forth choosing the images to use, because I wanted them to look good together without being too similar. Composition, coloring, expression... I feel like I'm just guessing and learning as I go. That kind of sums up my whole career as an artist, actually.

This is how it goes: fumble fumble fumble fumble... A HA! Fumble fumble... fumble. Fumble, fumble FUMBLE. Fumble fumble, fummmmble fuuuhh-huhhhhmble fumble fumble...
A HAAAHHHH!

But lucky for me I get to fumble with super cute kids as subjects.

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sensing a theme

I've had the same colors on my paint palette for ages. When I organized images for my website, it was like I had turned every single canvas to the same sand-and-cerulean channel. I guess I had been aiming for consistency, but it kind of made me panic.

I've started some new pieces that radically and deliberately diverge from my comfortable creamy ochres and sage-y blue-greens, but then I noticed that combination showing up in my recent fabric purchases:

And on my bed:

And a little pen holder I re-painted:

And a bag I sewed:

I just can't help it. I love it so much I want to LIVE IN IT. And clearly, I do.

As if that wasn't enough, I started a painting based on the first fabric, that sweet deco floral design, because it's a smallish, odd-shaped remnant that I couldn't decide what to do with, and really couldn't bear to do anything with, lest I waste it, the horror.

So, back to the painting palette I went, and the colors fairly mixed themselves:

After this, it's fluorescent pink, promise.

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time lapse

Meanwhile, the portraits continue.

This is the youngest one to date, at 6 months old. What a little dumpling!

I attempted to create a time-lapse movie while I was painting, which was a little laborious and the quality is not that great, but here it is anyway:

I think I spend about 75% of the time terrified of painting and wanting to run away. I have to tell myself over and over just to bring the brush to the surface and keep going. Eventually the piece starts to come together and I find some confidence in placing the paint just so, but MAN. The first hour I'm like a pre-schooler hopped up on sugar and can't sit still... Maybe I'll check the mail! Maybe I'll make a phone call! My fingernails need cutting! The books need alphabetizing!

Most of the work happens on the palette mixing colors, and then in my head as I wrestle with self-doubt. Too bad there's no time-lapse image of that.

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