Coloured Pencil Leaves WIP 4

I didn't crop this image so you get some sense of the scale of the piece. Veins have been added to the back leaves and the upper leaf now has a stem. I have spent more time building up the background although it isn't easy to see in this photo. I still need to work on the colour on the inside of the front leave and I am going to change some of the veins in the greenish leaves. The next time you see it, it will be finished!

If you have been following my blog for a while, you might remember these images:

You see, I don't always do big, funky subjects. :-) I have finally put these pieces and a few others onto my website. I have also changed the gallery around a bit. I sorted art into subject sections. The nature section has only two paintings in it but once the leaves are done, it will go into that category. Lots of florals though! Please note, if you are looking for the new works, I interspersed them with the older images for the sake of presentation (depending on their height and dominant colours). So if you haven't been to my gallery before or haven't been in a long time, you can visit it by clicking here. If you are wondering why I don't have 'buy' buttons on my work it is because some pieces are sold, some originals are not for sale at this time and the rest are already framed with glass (not acrylic) and I don't usually ship such pieces.

I am off to put some yummy desserts onto plates - this afternoon is my cp party/open studio!

Coloured Pencil Leaves WIP 3

Leaves WIP # 3, 22" x 16"

Coloured Pencil on Colourfix Paper

Copyright Teresa Mallen

This is how it looks 24 hours later. As you can see, I started adding in some background colour. With so much olive green paper showing, I was concerned that it was affecting my colour and value choices. I am still building up colour, especially on the inside of the front leaf. I also will be adding veins to the back leaf. Adding the veins at this point will be more work to get to look right than if I had put them in at the beginning but I wanted to compare the two looks. At one point I was considering not having such pronounced veins and I was going to draw more stuff into the background. Given the busy 'in your face' nature of the front leaf at present, I don't think I will confuse things by adding to the drawing. Still, this is a work in process and of course things may change.

I would like to take a moment to thank Christine over at Creative Life Studio for the following blog award. I am supposed to pass this award on to five other bloggers that inspire me. I am afraid I am going to be a bit of a wet blanket here and not do this. Many of the artists that I would be nominating no longer participate in blog memes. As a substitute, I suggest that you check out the folks on my blogroll. I am sure that you will be inspired by their creativity and their commitment. Thank again Christine!

Coloured Pencil 'Leaves' WIP # 2

'Leaves' WIP, 22" x 16"

Coloured Pencil on Colourfix Paper

Copyright Teresa Mallen

Here is how it looks now. The green leaves are again showing blue in the photo, so please use your imagination. Definitely a work in progress! :-)

I was contacted by someone wondering if there was going to be a February newsletter. Yes there is one. I actually got it uploaded on February 1st! (I don't usually have it ready quite so early in the month). So if you missed it do check it out. In the latest issue I feature Heather Page and her wonderful art. To read it, click here. Please note that you can also get to my cp newsletters via the link on the sidebar of this blog. The March issue should be ready by the end of next week.

Okay, now back to the leaves...

Motivation Monday

So far we have looked at what motivation is and you have been busy defining what it is you want and why. Next I had you identify some of the things that block your motivation. The ouch post. :-) I ended last week's post acknowledging that while it is hard to face the truth about ourselves, it is also painful when we stay stuck.

This week I want you to focus on what you would gain if you were to say yes to your dreams and passions.

What does it feel like when you pursue your dream? Think back to times during which you pursued activities related to your passion. Perhaps you visited a special art exhibit at a gallery, perhaps you attended a workshop or maybe you spent some hours sketching or painting. How did this make you feel? (I suggest you write your thoughts down.) Did you feel energized, excited and more alive than you normally do? Did your life suddenly have a rightness about it, like what you were doing satisfied something deep inside of you? Were you left overflowing with creative ideas and enthusiasm for future projects? Really try to get in touch with the pleasure and joy that you experienced.

To really get a good sense of this, why not plan to spend some time this week pursuing your passion? Maybe you can't get to a workshop or a gallery but at least set aside a few hours to soak in your bliss - play with your art supplies, read some art magazines, go through your photo references and pick out something for your next piece, set up a still life and do a sketch, go to the library and get a few books out, grab a cup of your favourite beverage and read the books.

Think about this experience. How did it make you feel? Did you feel positive, alive, interested, hope filled, full of ideas and creative energy? Did you get so into your activity that you lost track of time?

Now I want you to compare this to how it feels when you live your life when you don't make time for your favourite activities. What does it feel like to not acknowledge your deepest dream? Again, write your feelings down. In comparison, do you feel less energetic, less alive and less hopeful? Maybe you feel bored, discouraged, apathetic, tired or drained. Are you starting to get a sense of what you lose when you allow other things to oppose your motivation? As we saw last week, we do get something from the things that block our actions towards our dreams. But at what price? This is the pain involved in staying stuck. Be honest with yourself and ask yourself if the status quo is worth losing out on a life filled with intensity, joy, hope, contentment, enthusiasm, happiness and energy. My goal here is to get you to realize that a life that doesn't include our deepest desires isn't such a great life after all.

I ask you, isn't it time you said yes to living the life of your dreams?

Have a great week. Feel free to write a comment. What dream chasing things are you going to do this week? Next Monday, we will start looking for ways to keep inspired.

Coloured Pencil Leaves WIP...

Here is what my new piece looks like now...the picture below is to give you an idea of the size of the image. I think once it is cropped similar to the image above, it will be 22" x 16".

The colours are a bit off in the photos, the light green leaves are looking too much like light blue here. Despite my talk in the last post about how I wanted to control the process more in this piece, I don't feel too much in control at this point! I am not clear on where this is heading but I think that is a good thing. Maybe I should put my classical music back on and stop all the dancing around I've been doing! :-) I wonder what it will look like the next time I post? Ah, the adventure of it all...



Thanks goes out to Vic who passed this blog award on to me. If you wish to read my list of seven things I love, you can read them at the end of this post.

New Coloured Pencil WIP...

Ah, making decisions and planning. This what I have been doing for several days. I was ready to start a new work and I had in mind that I would do a snowy image. I had several photos that were inspiring me. The one above is an example of what I was looking at. After scanning the photos (they were taken years ago with a film camera) and playing with them on the computer I found that I just wasn't moved to go any further.

What to do now? I got out my boxes of pictures and my CDs of digital images and I spent hours looking at the photos. At the same time, I was pondering the issue of colour. I mulled over concepts like temperature, intensity, hue and value. I refreshed my art history knowledge by going over the stylistic changes during the periods of Fauvism, Expressionism, Modernism and so on. I found that this reviewing of photos and reviewing art history was taking not just hours but days.

What evolved from this thinking and exploring was a desire to try to control the process more in my next work. Having just finished my funky chard piece, I was keen to work on another large image, again on a sanded coloured paper. When I worked on that piece, the colours in the chard just happened. For the most part I just flowed along with the direction the work seemed to be going in and I am happy with the way it turned out. But, for a change of pace, I started to think, what if I controlled the process this time?

I found myself interested in doing a botanical piece, specifically leaves and I went back over all of my photos, seeking an image that struck me as doable. That is where the next photo comes in.

Notice the yummy leaves on this wildflower? So what if I isolated these leaves? What if I played with them by rotating, flipping and reversing them? Here is a version that I ended up with that I really like.

Voila, a new reference image was born! Next, I became excited to apply some of my recent thoughts on colour. I had been thinking of doing a piece in which I eliminated (or at least downplayed) the light source - one of the stylistic outcomes of Modernism. Maybe, this piece was the one. And how about restricting my palette and controlling the colour but with a twist, this time not being at all true to the colours represented in the actual subject?

See where all those hours of pondering started to lead me? I love it!! Okay, so here is where I am at now...I have my subject. I have stared at it and stared at it. My imagination started to see the leaves as similar to leaves in ponds (think water lilies)...from here, I started to think of these leaves as being from some sort of underwater world. Using this concept, what colour would I make the leaves? I got out my pencils and played with combinations. Here is what I have come up with so far: the outside of leaves are to be a sort of light greenish blue, the inside of the leaves a coral colour, the background dark teal. Keeping in mind my desire to eliminate a light source, (which sort of goes with an underwater world idea) I will be ignoring the shadows indicated in the photo.

Please note that I am not attempting to have this look like it is an underwater picture. I am not going for realism here. The leaves should look like leaf shapes and the rest of the piece will be an abstraction from reality - like the Swiss Chard Mosaic piece.

So finally, after days of planning, I have a drawing started as well as some initial colouring done. As you can see from the photo, I am using green paper (sort of an olive green), and it is a sanded surface. Colourfix is the paper's brand name. Right now the image is approximately 22" x 16". I still have to decide what to draw into the negative space in the background.

As you can also see, I am using my laptop again (perched on my drafting table) for this piece. It allows me to zoom into the scanned image so that I can see it better.

My challenge in this piece will be to not draw the colours that I see before me. I have experimented on the coloured paper with my pencils to determine how I will create the coral shades and the teal etc. These pencils now make up my restricted palette.

The chard and now this piece seem to require more energetic music than I normally listen to. I have raided my husband's CD collection and the rock and roll is definitely doing the trick. I even ventured into some pop this afternoon and worked standing (so I could dance about while I worked). A very fun day in the studio, I must confess! :-)

And if all this wasn't enough to get excited about, today President Obama was in Ottawa. Needless to say, folks here are delighted and pleased as punch - not to mentioned honoured.

All in all, this piece has already involved quite a bit of thought and planning. I have loved every minute of it and I look forward to seeing how it all impacts the final work. So what about you, do you do a fair bit of planning or does your work just happen?

Finally, my blog headline says: add beauty to your life. Well my husband added much beauty to my week as he gave me several bunches of tulips for Valentine's Day. They are all over the house and of course I had to take several photos. I am very blessed.

Motivation Monday

If knowledge is power and truth sets us free, then I suggest that by looking at ourselves honestly we can gain insights that will enable us to achieve the things we want to.

Last week, the focus was on looking at what we want and asking why we want it. The goal was to create a strong enough why, the reason for action, which again, is really all motivation is. Acknowledging that motivation often becomes more complicated, I want to start looking at the many ways that our motivation can get blocked, leaving us stuck and not moving towards our goals.

Let's keep it simple - if you cannot get yourself motivated enough to do the things you need to do, in order to have the life you want there must be reasons why and I suggest that it is simply because there is something in it for you if you don't take action. Truth does set us free, but the truth about ourselves can be painful to acknowledge. Let's look at this more carefully...

First of all, in order to have what we want, we have to give up something. Here is where we get stuck. We have to give up something we have attached value to and we end up have opposing desires! So what could some of the things be that we might have to give up? Well, it could be a very long list but here are some examples:

- free time. In order to accomplish what we want to, we may have to give up some of our free time. Given that many people feel they have too little of this as it is, the thought of losing more is painful. The result? Our motivation starts to dissipate.

- time allocated to other things. We may not be required to give up free time, but time we spend doing something we like or something we feel we need to do.

- safety. Going for our dreams will require us to take risks and if we value safety and security, we will have a strong opposing desire.

- money. Achieving our dreams may require us to invest money on tools, supplies, education, marketing materials such as business cards and a website. We value money and if we are afraid to invest it in something that may not pay off, we end up stuck.

- your self image. Perhaps you are afraid that you will fail and you would rather not have to deal with this. Instead, you protect yourself - you don't move forward but then again, you won't look foolish either.

- self pity. Ouch. Yes we can become so addicted to our 'poor me' image and so comfortable with our excuses that we don't really want to step out to experience ourselves as strong and capable.

- passivity. If you are a person that doesn't feel comfortable taking responsibility and being in charge of things then taking charge of your life and being responsible for making your dreams come true isn't something that you will relish doing. It can be easy to drift into a passive life where decisions are made by others and we just go with the flow. Perhaps staying passive means you choose not to make decisions that might upset certain people in your life. Not everyone will stand up and cheer when you decide to claim your life and avoiding this unpleasantness keeps many people blocked.

- being an expert. Perhaps you are comfortable right where you are because you are good at what you currently do. You have invested time and energy in being able to do certain things very well. In order to step out into something new, you will have to go through a time when you are a newbie. If we are not comfortable being a beginner, you will hesitate to move forward. If you compare yourself to others, people who do what you want to do and who do it well, you can become discouraged and defeated before you even get a chance at achieving mastery.

- your current knowledge level. This is linked to the previous one. In order to grow we need to learn and many people strongly resist learning new things. To give up your current knowledge level and to acquire new knowledge, you will have to commit to learning new skills and techniques. Many people feel uncomfortable when they have to learn new things and this could become a significant block to moving forward.

- your current level of effort. To achieve our dreams requires effort and honestly, most of us are just not too keen on working really hard. Perhaps you feel you work hard already at your day job, raising your kids, managing a home. You know that you will have to work even harder if you decide to go after your desires and maybe the idea of this is so unpleasant you find you can't get motivated to do what you need to do.

Do any of these apply to you and your current situation in life? I suggest you take some time this week to really ask yourself some difficult questions. Look at your list of desires. What have you identified as something you really would like to have in your life? Now ask yourself, what might be in it for you if you didn't go for it...write your thought down if it helps. I'm writing a blog post, not a book, so obviously there are things that might be blocking you that are not on the short list above. Try to identify what your particular blocks might be. And don't get discouraged! Just because you have allowed certain things to stop you from moving forward in the past, you can change.

Next week I will start giving you some ideas on how you can break free from these blocks...remember, this isn't rocket science, all you probably need is a few lightbulb moments. Once truth is exposed we can start getting a handle on how to create a new truth for ourselves! So please, I repeat, don't get discouraged. Recognizing all the things we have placed value on, that have been blocking us from having the life we want, can be an overwhelming revelation. Allow me to encourage you - yes this is painful but then so is staying stuck and freedom is just around the corner. Once you know what your blocks are, you can start create strategies to overcome them. See you next week!