When at first you don't succeed....

I sculpt, then I smoosh, then I sculpt and smoosh it again.  For two days I've been working on the same piece.  The clay has been behaving oddly, I'm finding colour on my hands (panic!) that I can't figure out the source and have re-sculpted the mouth over and over and over again.  At one point, the face looked more like a skull in a Nazi officer cap.  Then it looked like a bug, followed by someone whose lips puffed up due to some horrific allergic reaction.  I've pulled out my "How to sculpt a face" book, watched a few videos on line (thank goodness for the pause button), and looked at other work just to try to get the basics right.  I am not attempting realistic, just recognizable. 

The face is finally finished.  My problem now is that this piece is looking just too much like a previous work.  It didn't start out that way, but is certainly headed down that path.  Deadlines are not always good for art.

This go round I have enjoyed working more than I did even a week ago.  Turning off the phone, television and shutting down Facebook helped.  Playing the Gregorian Monks was very relaxing, though may be a contributing factor in terms of the macabre appearance.  Hmmm, not sure why one should follow the other.  While this work is a little dark in terms of mood, it feels comfortable.  After I get the oven cleaned (homemade pizza is messy) and can fire the clay, I can move on to the next step.  We'll see how it comes out.

Earthling or Alien?

I'm working on a new piece, laughing at myself as I ponder whether this one looks more like an Earthling or alien.  Sculpting is hard!  The practice causes me to lose all sense of time.  It's been a long while since that's happened.  Concentrating on the work and silencing the inner critic is still a challenge, but I'm certainly doing better than a few weeks ago.

I've worked with Sculpey clay for a number of years and don't know if this extra squishy batch is squishy because of the colour, or what.  It's a mash up of four separate packages of the same colour and feels odd.  Every time I sculpt one part of the face, another looks like the melting Wicked Witch of the West.  I've got to work on sculpting without smooshing.  How can I wrangle those out of control fingers?

Back to the grindstone.

Progress at last!

I set aside the piece with which I was struggling as advised by my valued teacher/supporter.  What a smart suggestion!  After cursing a lot at my printer and snarking at Photoshop, I worked on a different project for a while.  Glancing at the unfinished bits today, I picked them up and started tweaking and, hurray for me, got an idea and ran with it.  Progress!  Tomorrow I'll make the support stand, but the primary piece is finished.

My sister called me tonight and we talked about art for a while.  She's amazing.  We make very different art and have very different styles.  Her style - make what you love, love what you make, and to heck with what anyone else thinks.   She is happily prolific in her creativity.  Her work has been selling at a consignment shop in northern Minnesota where she lives.  I listened to her tell me about having had to drop the prices on some of her work but just flat out refusing on others (the ones that sold!), as well as sharing about taking up more merchandise yesterday.  Not once did she ever express reluctance to share her artwork, nor worry about whether or not anyone would like or buy it.  Oh, and she works in whatever tiny little corner she can find in her home, without the benefit of a well-stocked studio like me.

From what gene pool did I spring?  I've been such a prat.

This is the body I finished today:

Have I blabbed on about the second piece?  I want to focus on past generations, people to whom I owe my life, quite literally.  These are the beautiful and soulful eyes of previous generations of my family - my mother, my grandparents, my great grandparents and other members of the family that passed away decades ago.  They should be more than simply unidentified faces in photos tucked in a box in the closet or under the bed.  This will be an interesting project.  I have played with gradient backgrounds (the printed fabric isn't as much blue as faintly bluish shades of gray) and layers.  If nothing else, I do like the fabric.

More play time tomorrow...

Breakthrough!

After feeling incredible pressure to be creative on a time schedule and sharing my thoughts (not often enough) with my cyber support team, I feel like I've had a breakthrough.  I stopped looking at my library of "how to" books and just started working on images to use in my project.  I don't know why, but I had an epiphany about the next step this afternoon and am ready to crank!  I'm going to use a new technique (OK, I got the idea from one of my books on paper cloth, but I haven't looked at it for months).  I'm actually looking forward to the next few days.

What a relief.

My Inner Critic is Yelling

Oh double ugh!  I look at what I do and wonder about why I do it, and think and think and criticize and think some more.  I have to take ownership of squashing the fun of being creative.  Next, I have to figure out how to knock it off.  I should remember to play, whether it's playing with paint or clay or the sewing machine.  Maybe I can find a good old fashioned coloring book.  That takes the pressure off.

Being a Mom Stinks Sometimes

When my daughter was still home with us, she and her little brother used to tease me about being like that mom from the TV show, "Malcolm in the Middle."  They'd sit in the back of the car singing the theme song under their breath and laughing.  I am definitely not that bad, but I do have a creative mothering streak.  For example, I find the air horn to be the most wonderful device for stopping a child from sassing, talking back or arguing with me with little more effort than a little press of the finger.

My charming teenage son has a very short and reasonable list of daily chores.  The list has been the same for years now, so imagine my lack of sympathy or understanding when he tells me that he didn't do one or more because he "forgot."  This week he "forgot" to take out the trash when it had shrimp shells in it.  I told him while I was making dinner, again while we were eating dinner, and yet again when he was clearing the table that the trash needed to go out so that the house didn't smell like a neglected fishy funeral home in the morning.  He fussed about possible encounters with the skunk, at which point I reminded him that we have "Skunk Off" should the need arise. 

The next morning I took the little beast to school, came home and stopped in the kitchen.  I noticed a distinct eaux de old shrimp debris.  He didn't take out the trash.  Now I was mad, particularly given that this was a repeat offense.  So I did the only thing any ticked off mom would do.  I took the trash can down the hall, into his room and shut the door.  It was a particularly lovely and warm day here, so it got pretty good and ripe by the time he got home from school.

Now he was mad.  That was OK with me.  I pointed out that since he didn't mind the stench, I was happy to confine it to his little area of the house.  After much fussing and spouting, the trash was taken out, the fan was whipped out and a LOT of air freshener was used down the hall.  I don't think he'll "forget" the trash again.

I pointed out that he should keep in mind the challenges the cats will have accessing their litter box under his bedroom sofa if he "forgets" that task as well.  It could get messy.

Mom wins!

Distractions, Distractions!

A few weeks ago I joined Weight Watchers.  Thank heavens, my husband joined with me.  After years of struggling with my weight and making excuses, I've had greater success in sticking with it just by virtue of the fact that he's doing it with me, not asking, "Can you have pizza on Weight Watchers?" in the second week.  The problem is that my art is suffering.  I'm so absorbed and distracted by this decades-long battle that I'm having a hard time fitting everything in to my daily routine.  I got a friendly poke from my beloved cyber buddy today to remind me that I can't let the art go by the wayside.

A few days ago, I started to sketch out some ideas, mentally and on paper, for the next figurative piece.  I thought about internal structure and decided to head to Home Depot for some materials.  It was quite amusing that with all of the times that I've been there and could actually have used help finding something, the one time I go for "art materials" is when I have someone asking me every two aisles if they can help me find something.  One guy heard me talking to an offerer-of-help when I was having a tough time finding a particular wire and he took me to exactly what I needed.  It was on the very end of the very last aisle I'd checked and in an area I would have avoided entirely, so thank heavens for eavesdroppers!

Tomorrow I get out the wire cutters, clay and crank up the iTunes.  Thanks, Debbie, for the teeny poke/reminder.  You help me more than you know.  I need to focus on what makes me happiest, and I've been losing sight of that lately.