Artist On Ice

Last weekend, I took my friend and fellow artist Sarah to the skating rink for her ice skating lessons. She’s a jewelry artist who likes to dabble in all sorts of crafts and makes awesome cosplays. 

As a ice skater, Sarah’s only been at it for a few weeks, but she looks like a natural. Not only did she remain gracefully on her feet the entire lesson, she had the most wonderful smile on her face the whole time. Even when she was struggling with movements that her instructor was showing her, she faced it with laughter and determination. 

The rink was filled with equally determined six and seven year olds. I saw at least twenty kids fall hard on there knees, backs, and chests like newborn penguins. 

Yet, they all had something in common. When they got over the painful shock of hitting ice, they immediately climbed back to their feet and went at it again.

It was just the inspiration I needed to take up my daily sketchbook and painting habit once more. Not only did it give me a new and challenging subject to tackle and attempt to draw, but it left me with a few nuggets of wisdom.

1) Falling is just a part of learning and more fun in groups.

2) Children are studier than they look and exude optimism that’s inspiring in small doses. They also look like rainbow marshmallows when bundled with layers of winter clothing. 

3) A hot cup of coffee is just as effective as pair of gloves.

I’ll be uploading sketches from my trip to Disney World last week, as well as new ones that develop this week on both Instagram and Facebook. 

This blog updates once a month, so the next blog post will be in March.

Keep chasing your dreams.

Murder, Sarcasm, and Messes: A Day in the Life of an Artist

If I had a penny for every failed New Year's Resolution made in the universe, I'd be able to buy every art supply ever invented. I would spend hours just staring at all the supplies with the same reverence a four year old has for ice cream cones. Then, I'd pick up my least favorite supplies out and use those because the really good ones should only be touched by artistic geniuses with white gloves.  Why white gloves you ask? Because then there are no fingerprints when I murder them and use magic to transfer their skills to my brain the same way the phone store used to transfer your photos from your old cellphone to your new cellphone with the plug thingy. 

Too dark? Sometimes my imagination goes off on the rails. But that's why I make art.

Speaking of liking things, I like new beginnings, or more specifically, the rush of excitement that comes with new beginnings. You know when the world looks like it is dripping with the most brilliant sunlight and the possibilities beckon you forward in all their glorious potential. It's an infectious feeling and it makes you want to do something. Anything. Everything. 

When I'm in one of these frenzies I jump out of bed and rush towards my pencils, my paintbrushes, and sketchbook. 

I'm usually a bit caught up in my own head and therefore I forget several facts of reality. 

1) I am not an athletic person and jumping is an athletic move.
2) I am not an organized person and jumping is just asking for death in my studio/bedroom.
3) I have a hidden superhero persona named Ninja Spazz.

My flight into work is damped as my foot gets caught in the pile of laundry that I have left on the floor. In an attempt to save myself from imminent death, I reach my hands out to the desk that is careening closer and closer to my face.
 
But this desk is always covered in artfully stacked books and various art paraphernalia that defies the laws of gravity as long as no one breathes in its direction. I save my face from the broken nose, only to watch as everything hits the floor in a death metal rendition of Be Our Guest.  It's so epic, I ponder painting a still life of everything falling to the carpet. But then I'd need rope, nails and a ladder to get everything to hang in proper suspension while I draw it, so I scrap that idea for now. 

Then my knees aches from something hard that I landed on, so I move the pile of concert tee-shirts I landed in to find that I have cracked a lost colored pencil from a past project in half.  

Inspiration still fills me enough that I laugh instead of throwing the pencil across the room.

An hour later, I have a pencil, my sketchbook, and an ice pack. I have maneuvered all of the things that were on my desk into a pile on the floor. If I sit at a 45 degree angle I can wedge my desk chair under my desk into a sort of comfortable position. And now that my desk is empty, I have a pleasant space to draw on. It's like the universe is helping me.

I pull open my sketchbook with the ribbon and open it to page 120. Though it is identical to all the ones that came before it, right now it is the most magical piece of paper I have ever seen in my life. If Hogwarts was origami, it would be made solely of this page. 

Now I am ready to draw the most epic, the most glorious, the most holy drawing that mankind has ever seen. 

One of two things can happen when I get to this moment. 

The first being I wither in the pressure of having to make a decision. Robert Frost may have picked the path less traveled but I stared at those two goddamn paths for hours until I spiraled into a philosophical debate with myself about how worthless life is if one cannot take all the paths that have ever and will ever exist. Then I'm googling time machines, clones, and cute puppies until I find somewhere along the way I have walked into the living room and eaten half a bag of potato chips with no recollection of how I got there. 

Another downside to this path, is that it comes at an expensive price.  When I'm trapped in this mode, I prepare for the day I will actually choose a path the same way one prepares for the zombie apocalypse, such as buying things on sale in questionable bulk amounts. I have about 5 times more blank sketchbooks, and blank canvases than I have actual finished pieces of art. If your a math person, just count all the art I have ever made on my Facebook page and multiply. 

The second possible outcome of the blank page of my sketchbook is that there is actually a meeting of pencil to paper. The graphite floats across the page like an eloquent ice skater. Ideas are thrown out on the page, erased and then thrown across the page again until every last drop of inspiration is gone. And then I look down on what I've drawn and think, "What in all the earth is that hideous thing? This pencil would be a better used for clawing my eyes out." And then I close the sketchbook maybe for a day--more likely a week--until inspiration knocks again.

Neither of these are great tactics for improving art skills, or creating a sustainable career as an artist. I'm working on it, but most definitely not with a new year's resolution because those always fail. 

Instead, I'm using a New Year's Slogan. (Yes, that's a thing now and totally different.)

Try Again.

What does that mean? It means I'll be trying to make a bunch of art that'll will be messy and strange and most importantly all of over the internet. It's not going to be a masterpiece. It might even just be frustrated scribbles in the side of a notebook and it will most definitely be filled with failues and missed goals. But I'm going to keep chiseling away at it. 

Whose ready to make some big messes with me? 

Here are a few of my most recent painting sketches: