A Painted Leather Calendar

Right now I'm experimenting to see how I can use my phone to post to my blogs. I'm always looking for an easier way to do things.

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Drawing On Leather

It occurred to me that I haven't written in my blog for quite awhile. I really wanted to write more often. I thought I would write every time I was at work, but that plan didn't work out. I didn't make writing here enough of a priority. My priority was creating enough leather bags to get juried in to Spanish Village in leather. I have enough bags now to put in my application. The photo above shows a closeup of one of my bags. They're fun to do. I love drawing on the leather. It has such a nice, smooth finish without being slick.

So the next thing to do is to write at home, every evening. I have a telephone that creates its own private hotspot. So rather than trying to carry my computer around to take advantage of a hotspot around somewhere I have my own personal one. That's great. I love this new phone. More about it later. In fact, this is going to be a short post. I need to start getting more sleep.

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Drawing Bright Flowers

I can't resist a blank surface. It must have a drawing or painting on it.

Here's part of a painting I created on a leather bag. In order to sell art in Spanish Village, you have to submit five pieces to a committee of artists who are independent of the Village. If two of the three approve your work, you have permission to sell it.

I am making leather bags and drawing and painting on them with the hope that I will be approved to sell them. The deadline for submitting the application is the middle of August and the jurying, as we call it, takes place in September.

I love drawing and painting on leather. Medieval manuscripts were written and painted on it. I can see why. It has such a nice smooth surface, and nowadays there are such nice colors. This particular piece is made from a very pale mocha colored leather. It's an excellent off-white color for the paint. I also have pieces of leather that are pale pink, pale blue, and green. I'm looking forward to working with them.

All this leather started after watching a goth character on television. I decided to make some leather cuffs and chokers to increase my jewelry collection. Of course, I intended to make black pieces, but I bought some natural colored scraps to practice on.

But I can't resist a blank canvas. I've drawn on my jewelry, my tee-shirts, my sheets, my books. I have spent hours drawing. In fact, I could entertain myself on a desert island if I have enough paper and pencils.

I immediately began drawing and then painting on the leather. Then I decided I wanted to make bag for myself and things grew from there. Now there are people who want to buy my bags, and I have a place to display my drawings, someplace but in my sketchbooks which is where mot of them reside.

Look On the Bright Side

Last night I got together with a couple of friends and we painted the area around my worktable at Spanish Village. I love the bright colors. They make my work area look so cheerful and upbeat. Because the entrance to my studio is so hidden, I've decided to do various things to make it more eye catching.

I'd like to paint the whole world. Would we get tired if everything were bright colors? I know that colors are brighter in sunny parts of the world because the paler colors look washed out. But why does everyone's car, computer, phone, house, office building have to be such drab colors. I'd like a purple netbook, an apple green phone, a raspberry red car, and an electric blue television set. Oh, and by the way, I want a green worktable and the cabinet beside it. That will be great, almost like having a chartreuse office building.

Now I have lots more ideas for adding color to my area. I can paint back by my door and on the door. I can paint a great big piece of canvas to hang under the tree and some more pieces to hang on my table to make sort of a skirt. One of my friends suggested I paint my umbrella . You can't see it in this photo. It use to be a nice dark green, but now it's faded to pale green.

I'll paint flowers, big ones in magenta and fushia paint with long tropical looking leaves, vines, maybe a lizard here and there. To me, flowers are a symbol of the creative process, a new life in the making, a new beginning. That's what I'm aiming for with my studio: a new beginning. It's also an attempt on my part to take some control over my environment.

I know that there are many things I can't control, even ones I'd like to, but I'm finding that taking some control helps me not feel like a powerless victim. There are things I have to do, and even if I fail, I still know I've tried.

Don't Rule Out the Internet

This photo of me was taken by one of the artists in a studio nearby. I'm working on one of my current projects, painting on leather bags. I'm hoping I'm going to be able to get juried in so that I can sell my bags at Spanish Village. Two out of three judges have to approve the pieces.

Another artist passed this photo along to Bella, the Spanish Village dog, who also blogs. (See her posts at http://bellathedoginspanishvillageartcenter.blogspot.com/)

Nowadays everyone loves to blog. I do. I feel that I am sending my voice out into cyberspace and who knows who might "hear" it. I'd like to think I've touched someone.

About fifteen years ago, when contact on the internet wasn't so typical, I developed a friendship with a fellow poet who lived in Zimbabwe. I don't know if I influenced him, but he touched me profoundly. For one thing, he encouraged me to write a novel, something I had wanted to do for years. Someday I'll write another.

I think you can't help but love the internet. Well, I know there are lots of people who don't for one reason or another, but think about it. I can sit here at my worktable outside my studio with my netbook, which I take home and charge up at night and pack in my purse next morning, and I'm in contact with the whole world. I can write in my blogs; I can answer my email and write some of my own; I can look at photos to help me with my latest art project. I'm connected to the whole world.

I could sit here all day using the computer, but one thing I don't do is bring my power cord with me. That way I'm forced to put it away after awhile, but personally I think that's good. As much as I love the computer, there's a time to turn it off and get to work on my artwork.

Gunnie and Me

Look at this cute dog. I love dogs. Well, actually I think most people do. But actually most of my friends have cats. This dog, Gunnie, belongs to a friend who comes to visit us at Spanish Village. Gunnie jumped up, put his paws in my lap and licked my neck and then my entire face. I felt so good, so loved. Animals have a way of doing that, besides just lowering your blood pressure.

I have my own dog at home. I'd like to bring him to work, but we have a rule about not bringing them. I guess it's for the best. That way we can enjoy the dogs who come through the Village with their owners. There are some people whom I recognize just by their dogs, that is to say, if I saw them without their dogs, I probably wouldn't recognize them at all. Is that bad? All I look at is their animals.

I think most people have cats because they love them, but also because they're very easy to take care of. My very special friend has a cat who brings her toys and puts them on his bed when he mentions to her that she hasn't done so for awhile. She takes his socks and runs up and down the hall at night, growling at the mirror on her way by, but she's very lovable and friendly. She always knows when he doesn't feel well, and she acts accordingly.

I remember stories about animals. I have a friend whose cat would lie stretched out in the bottom of the porcelain bathtub when the weather was really hot. My parents' dog jumps up on the bed and leans against my father when there's an earthquake. My own dog doesn't seem to be bothered by earthquakes, but he doesn't like fireworks and other loud noises. He puts his front paws on the bed and buries his head under my arm. Since we live near the baseball stadium and Sea World, we hear them every night in the summer. Sometimes I turn the volume up on the television and that helps.

One of these days I'd like to draw some animals. One of the artists here at the Village uses a childlike style to paint the most wonderful dogs who are so happy and cheerful looking but also frequently are making social commentaries.

A Real Old Fashioned Cold

I seem to have a cold. I've had so few in my life, or at least in the last twenty or thirty years, that I hardly know what they're like or what to expect. I certainly don't love them.

I thought I would be fine, that I could just go on about my life even with a cold, but that doesn't seem to be the case. On Tuesday and Wednesday, I was all set to work at the Village, but I just couldn't. I didn't feel up to it.

I've noticed that in the past when I wasn't feeling well, I had no motivation to work on my artwork. All I want to do is sit and do nothing. When I'm well, there are very few things that will stop my working. I have a friend who calls me compulsive. Maybe I am but I think that's one of the ways you improve as an artist, or at any occupation, by continually working all the time. You improve your skills when you keep working. As an artist, it hardly matters what medium you chose, just chose one and get busy.

Above is part of a drawing from a sketchbook. I feel kind of like this drawing right now. But I'll be better soon and back at work.

Trees Need More Love

Here's a photo of some trees I created in a little book I made. I love trees; lots of people do. Someday I'll do a series on urban trees. They grow in the cities, frequently under adverse conditions, sometimes virtually ignored, but still courageously growing. I'd say they deserve a tribute.

Besides the obvious attributes trees provide such as shelter, fuel, and fruit and nuts, a big tree gives a sense of security. Two golden rain trees and a palm tree grow right in the doorway of my studio. I'm very attached to them, even though they're only six feet from the door and cut down on access to the studio. But if the Parks and Recreation Department came by and said they were going to cut the trees down, I'd be heartbroken. I count on them. They watch over our little corner of the Village.

Life changes and it seems there's little anyone can count on for sure, except certain aspects of nature. This morning I was travel south along the freeway and as I came over little rise, I looked out at San Diego Harbor. Amazingly, there was a tall ship in full sail. It was not the Star of India, that belongs to the San Diego Maritime Museum, but a different one with red crosses on each sail.

So you could argue that things haven't changed that much in a couple of hundred years anyway if we still have tall ships in our harbor. That's true, but I glance forward and then back at the ship. There was a car going by me in the slow lane. It was a man shaving with a cordless razor as he drove along. Yes, things do change no matter how much they may seem to stay the same.

One thing I did learn about trees is that they don't live forever, even ones that live and grow in the best of conditions. But in an ever changing world, for heavens sake, let them grow as long as they will. Don't cut them down. Please.

Happy Memorial Day

These flowers bloom on a pair of plants that grow outside my studio. The plants are currently not flowering. I took this photo several years ago. I always thought these flowers were rather weird, the way they hang down from droopy leaved bromeliads. They remind me of a pink flower I saw on a banana plant when we were in St. Thomas. They do affect my own artwork. I see similar ones in my own work.

Happy Memorial Day. I worked all day except when I took a little time to go visit my special friend. He's among those we can thank for keeping this country safe for many years. We owe them all a special thank, although a simple thanks seems hardly adequate.

Memorial Day is a serious, important holiday, but it also marks the beginning of summer. Here in Southern California that's not true exactly, at least where the weather is concerned. Sometimes it's cooler on Memorial Day and early June than it is in May. Today was warm enough to sit out in shirt sleeves.

Summer is a time for flowers even though in San Diego there are always flowers blooming somewhere. It does seem like a good season to draw them. I'm amazed at how I can think flowers and they appear out of the tip of my pen. That's all it takes: think flowers, and you get flowers. You sort of feel them into being.

Here in Spanish Village, I see the tourist and the local people taking photos of them. They take photos of the succulents, too, and the artists. We part of the scenery, some of us as unusual as the succulents, I suppose. And fortunately lots of us look just like every other plant.

An Even Older Flower

Here's a painting of a flower I created about six years ago. I'm not even sure where it is now, probably rolled up and standing in some corner at home. It's about five feet wide by eight feet high. It's too big to hang just any old place. I would add more detail to it now if I were working on it.

A large piece of art has a presence that a smaller piece may not have. It depends. I think a piece has to have impact from a distance, but it should be interesting close up as well. I want a person to see my work from across a room and be intrigued enough to come closer. And then it should be interesting enough to view even with your nose up against it.

Interesting. Argueably a flower painted as an exact replia of life isn't as interesting as one with some unusual quirks or a rather distorted shape. When a painted flower is unusual, it takes on its own personality. Its personality is more noticeable than the type of flower. It becomes an individual, not just a face in the crowd.

Isn't that what we all want, to be an individual flower, not just another face in the garden? And we are. Creating art has shown me that. If you ask a group of artists to paint the same subject, like a still life, each one will be different. Even a group of artists making jewelry will create unique pieces; each person has their own "signature." Everyone has something different to say.

Have your say.

Some Things I Love

Flowers. That's a good place to start. Everyone loves them. This particular rose is one that my very special friend grew and gave to me. Even though it is long gone, I have the photo to remember it by.

Most artists probably painted or otherwise created flowers at least once in their lives. In fact we all fall back on nature. What else are you going to paint? Soup cans? Of course there are people and animals, but I would say they are nature, part of the natural world. I've thought about painting buildings, but I usually wind up back at flowers.

Here at Spanish Village there are lots of flowers, mostly the ones that grow up from the succulents that rim the patio. Most of their flowers are small and sedate. But the succulents and their flowers are wonderful for artists, all of them unusual shapes.

I know they influence my work. I can paint green shapes and purple shapes that are suggestive of flowers and they will be instantly recognizable. A botanist would look down his nose at them, but they're more interesting, sort of abstract, but not exactly.

And of course flowers represent sex. Oh, should I say procreation? The plant with the brightest, sexiest flower survives. Darwin thought so. He collected and drew hundreds of plants. I too find them sexy, erotic, sensuous, symbols of love and its attendant sex. As humans and as artists, we look to nature for answers to our own questions. How do other creatures deal with life?

Resurrecting Old Habits Takes Time

I see that it was several months ago that I vowed to begin writing again. Several things changed in my life just about the time I wrote that first post. Now I'm back on track, sort of. I'm still facing challenges in my personal life, but I will work through them.

Writing has always been a good way of working through issues. And, for me, writing in a blog is a good way to look at the positive side of life. I don't want my blog to be full of negativity.

When I opened this blog yesterday, for the first time in several months, my first thought was that I don't like the name. But the more I thought about it, the more I decided it fits my purpose. I intend to use this blog as a continuation of Broom Closet Designs, to talk about my business, but I am more than just my business. There are two separate entities here even though they are entwined. It's like a partnership of two separate entities working together to create a new entity.

This blog will be a partnership between me and my business, but it will include some of the other aspects of my life, of life in general. After all, art is an expression of life. I think we tend to forget that at times.

About Starting Again

Several days ago, a close friend reminded me of how satisfying it is to create and maintain a blog. I agree. So, I'm going to begin again. Doing so makes better sense than continuing on with any of my previous blogs which I haven't written in for so long. It's a different world now. I'm a different person. Now I have a new blog. Thank you my friend for suggesting this new plan.