There Is Something Wrong With Your Hearing

My family has been saying that a lot lately.

When my husband answered my question, "What protein should I give Megan this morning; she has a swim meet today?" He said, "Give her a grenade." 
Wait!...
What?

I think it was the pillow earmuffs that I use in the morning to quiet the getting-ready-for-work noise my husband makes.  Or maybe it was the make-a-cave-with-two-pillows technique I use sometimes (Yes, I can breathe.  That's what the cave opening is for. My husband thinks I need a snorkel).  Not being a morning person, that extra half-hour of shut-eye is priceless. 
After I emerged from my cozy, earmuff pillow cave, I did realize that I heard incorrectly and gathered that he had actually said, "Make her an egg."

My kids have been commenting about how poor my hearing is too, but they tend to converse with me while being several rooms away and mutter their words or while they have a mouthful of food or while my mind is on something else.  So, I think it's understandable that I'm not hearing them correctly.

It does, however, remind me of the time that I thought George Michaels words in one of his songs were, "Would you like me to introduce you?" When what is actually said is, "Would you like me to seduce you?" One can chalk that up as a common mistake.  Lots of people mess up words to songs.

My son just thinks I'm old.  Especially when I mention people like George Michaels, "Who?"

I can hear the kids just fine when they're fighting or drinking out of the milk carton or rifling through the pantry too close to dinnertime even when my mind is on something else.  I can even tell you who it is that's doing those things just by the way it sounds.

My hearing is positively bionic when it comes to some things. 
Really, my hearing is fine and always has been...except for that George Michaels song. 

I'm just trying my hardest to be good at everything I do every day as a wife, mom, and artist.



It's more likely that my hearing has gotten selective after raising kids for all these years.

Now, if they accused me of being forgetful or absent-minded.  They would be correct.





I can find my car in a parking lot and am really good at directions and know which way is North,
South, West, or East, but sometimes forget why I enter a room.

(Where can I get one of these?)

That GPS thing for busy moms would come in handy.  So would a cloning device.

My excuse for any memory loss, besides needing to eat more blueberries, is that I have way too much on my mind. 

After all, besides the wife and mother job, I'm trying to make an art business successful.

The latest doozie of memory loss was during my studio tour.  There were so many people at one point that I lost track of who I had already introduced myself to and re-introduced myself to the same lady three times.  The third time around she was laughing and said, "Well, hello, again.  Nice to meet you too." 

My response was, "Well, I'm triple blessed to meet you...again."

I'm not very good with names, but I am usually really good with faces (except for that lady I met three times.); however, if you come into my studio wearing transitional lenses, I probably won't recognize you when they turn from shades to glasses (Don't turn your back. Those things work really fast).  And if I introduce myself twice or three times to you, that could be why.

I guess this is as good of time as any to formally apologize, "To the lovely lady with the transitional lenses,  I sincerely apologize for thinking you were two different people.  I swear I'm not insane just a little distracted sometimes." ...
Speaking of ... I know there's something I'm suppose to be doing right now...

...Oh, shoot!  I forgot.  I'm suppose to pick up my daughter early today...

...time to switch back to my "raising kids" head.



More art stories:
Don't Ever Do This
Mission Impossible-Almost
A Lesson In Fashion Turns Into A Funny Tattoo Story
Curiosity And Other Artistic Traits
Demo Is A Four Letter Word

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Art Is Like Morality

I read this quote today and it inspired me to write a new blog post:

"Art, like morality, consists of drawing the line somewhere.” ~ G. K. Chesterton

Yes, you can take a piece of artwork too far.
This is something I always think about from the beginning of a painting to it's end.  Probably because I tend to push the line.

I was asked once how I painted, Peach Fuzz.

I told the person, in my usual animated way, "I painted it in watercolor until I ruined it and painted it in pastel until I fixed it."
Well, it wasn't as easy as my answer implies.  I had every intention of making it a beautifully transparent watercolor created solely with watercolor paint, but I pushed the line a little too far and the colors went flat.  No recovery possible; at least not with  watercolor paints.
I'm one who likes to experiment and the art doesn't always come out well, but without experimenting I would not have discovered how great watercolor and pastel work together. Most times, with the right amount of skills, a mistake is fixable somehow, someway. Even still there is a line. A line that if crossed will send the artwork to its grave.
 I don't throw away many pieces. The ones that can be saved someday, when I've gained more know how, go into what I call "my sin pile". Those that don't make it to the sin pile go into purgatory, for a short time, to be determined if they can be painted over or saved. I don't like throwing away artwork.
Okay, I admit, it's partly because I think about what the painting materials cost me.  This painting was savable. Not only that, but Peach Fuzz ended up winning first place (because of the technique, reflections and composition) in a Peninsula Art league (PAL) show. 

Here's another one that started out as an urban painting from a bird's eye view. You can still see the four way stop and the cross walks. I painted this horse, Painted By The Wind, over top of it and not only won a magazine cover award and a cash prize, but it also is in a book that is coming out in July,
Splash 15, Creative Solutions (pg. 59 not shown on link).

I've also sold the original and several prints of this image. It was the first horse I had ever painted.
Seriously.
It was also the most fun painting I've ever painted. I had nothing to lose because it was already destined for purgatory.
This painting set off a whole series of horse paintings. The second and third of the series; which were also painted over a ruined urban background, are shown below. I tried that darned urban background three times. Finally, the fourth one came out, but it isn't finished yet (see last picture).

See if you can find the urban scene under painting in Painted By The Wind.

You can see the urban four-way stop and the crosswalks from a bird-eye-view in

A Cool Morning Breeze too.

 

Andalusian Stallion is the third of the series.

Here are the photographs that I took from the Seattle Conference Center.  The first image is the reference photo I used for the first three attempts.
The second image is the one I used for the last image; which is my painted version.  

This is the urban landscape (work in progress) that I was trying to paint and was finally able to get it the way I wanted it.  My problem in the other attempts was not getting the four-way stop square.
For my fourth attempt, I decided to stick to two street corners from a bird's-eye-view instead of four.  All I have to do now is paint in the people and cars.

In conclusion:  Yes, there is a line that should not be crossed for each and every piece of artwork, but there is a lot of forgiveness while in progress.  Besides, it's only paper.  No doom and gloom if you don't push the line beyond it's limits.

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Demo Is A Four Letter Word

It disguises itself by hiding in other words: Demolition, demon, demonstrative, demote, demobilization, democracy, democrat, demographic...there are about 140 different words that come to mind that start with those four letters. Not many of them are very positive or exciting. Most are negative.  Some are scary.  Why do we artist do demos when they make us so nervous? Well, at least it's nerve racking to me.

My first public demo was coming up quickly. It was to be on the second Saturday of December at Poulsbo's Bluewater Artworks Gallery and Framing on there regularly scheduled art walk. There was going to be another artist there, a band and refreshments too. It all sounded like it was going to be eventful and fun.

Making up my mind on what to demonstrate wasn't happening and now it was the day of the demo...Oils take too long to dry. I need a blow dryer and an extension cord if I do watercolors.  Am I going to need a table or will they have one for me? I could demo pastels, but I really need to somehow do something that shows change quickly. Do I need to do something that shows my versatility?...These were just a few of the thoughts that ran through my mind. I was a bundle of nerves and wished I hadn't signed up for it, but kept giving myself pep talks anyway. What if it flops and I make a fool of myself? No, no, no, just stay positive. It'll be fine.  Just relax and have fun.

My little pep talks didn't help much. I decided to bring everything.

My tool kit is an artist tackle box that used to be my EMT box when I worked for an ambulance company many moons ago.  Now it has been re-purposed for storing my portable art stuff and it's kind of cumbersome to carry.  Especially when I'm trying to carry other things at the same time.  After getting that all organized with paints, pastels, and brushes; I filled my portfolio with different types of paper and different sized boards. Collected my easel, butcher tray and my blow dryer; than, noted to myself that I needed to remember my watercolor brushes and paints because they didn't fit inside my tackle box.
After being satisfied that I had everything I could ever need it was time to load the car. While loading the car, I wished I could just make up my mind.  Choose a media and pack just that; keep it simple, but my nerves wouldn't let me be decisive.

I arrived with plenty of time to spare for setting up my station.  The car was running low on gas, but there was no time to fill it before the demo.  First thing I did after arriving was deposit my purse in a drawer in the back of the store. No way did I want to lose that. As I was setting up, I notice that they had a table ready for me. It was smaller than I wanted it to be, but that was okay.

My easel is a fold up, compact kind and it hadn't been used in a while so it took some figuring out to get it to stand properly. That was about the time that the band started playing. They sounded great, but were really loud and my station was only a few feet from them,  "How on earth am I going to do a demo and speak to people with the music being so loud?"  That was about the time that my sign came to me. It had my name and the word, watercolor underneath.  Finally, a decisive moment, "Cool, I'll do watercolor...wait, where's my paints and brushes?" A visual of my brushes and bucket of paint came to me, "Ugh!"  It was still sitting on the counter in my house. Great!

Shifting gears wasn't too hard, but all that time setting up my easel was wasted as I didn't need it now.  It will have to be a demo with pastels because oils are definitely out of the question.

The time arrived to start the demo and the music began. Maybe I won't have to say anything. I was demoing drawing by erasing with pastels and a kneaded eraser. A fascinating process.
Several puzzled people who had read the sign asked me if I was doing watercolor. As charmingly as I could muster, I raised my voice so it could be heard over the music, "No, I forgot my paints, so it will be pastels today."

It's a good thing I interact well with people. 

Things were going pretty well. I even felt myself relax a bit until, I pulled up a photo to work from on my Acer tablet. 
A man approached and said, "I have a question. Can you do this without using a photo?" I was astonished that someone would ask me that and in such a I'm-going-to-stump-this-artist kind of way. I'm pretty sure a wrinkle between my eyebrows appeared as I said, "Yes, but why should I?"

Okay, yes, I admit, that wasn't very professional of me.
I did take the time to explain that I needed a reference in this case to start with, but once I got going I would ditch the photo.  He seemed satisfied with my explanation.  In the meantime, a few people left. Dang it! Was it because I was using a photo? Was it because of what the guy said? Was it because of my answer to him?  Was it because I contradicted my sign and did pastels instead of watercolors? Maybe they just left because they had to leave.

That man did stump me after all and made me feel all nervous again. Doesn't he realize that this is my first public demo ever?

I did think of a lot of things I could have said after the fact like: That is why Picasso's work is so abstract. He didn't use photos.

I wish I would have said something witty on the spot or showed him the drawings I had on display that were done without a photo reference instead of what I actually said. The best answer I could have given was what my husband said, "You should have just told him: 'Yes, but there is a lot of distractions right now with the music and people'."

I should have brought my husband.

From that point on it went pretty well. I met a few great people, passed out cards, talked about my work over the sound of music...bending towards each other at times to be able to hear each other speak...and had a few people add themselves to my e-mail list. All in all it was a pretty great experience and people seemed to love my work. Now, it was over and I needed to pack up all my stuff and take it all back to my car. I think it took me an hour to do so. Definitely only bringing one thing next time.

Everything was finally packed into the car. Other than being tired, I felt great. 

Relieved that I made it through the night no worse for the wear, I got in my car and drove onto the freeway, "That wasn't so bad.  It was actually kind of fun."  Then, I remembered that I needed to get gas. Then, I remembered that I left my purse in the drawer in the back of the store. Then, I remembered that my phone was in my purse.  I started to panic, "What if everyone is gone? What am I going to do?"

The freeway exits were miles apart and I had just passed one. At the next exit, I turned around praying that someone would be at the gallery and that I would make it to a gas station.

Thankfully, someone was still there and I was able to get my purse. Now all there was to do was get my gas tank filled...and get a burger.  I don't normally eat fast food, but if there was ever a time to eat a nice fattening, juicy burger this was it.  I'll have to say, it was one of the best burgers I've ever had.

That whole experience was absolutely exhausting, but I learned a lot about what not to do. Now, if I ever do another demo, it will be done differently and demo will not be a negative, four letter word anymore. It will be a well-planned demonstration. A demonstration to watch and remember in a positive way...I hope.

More Stories:
A Lesson In Fashion Turns Into A Funny Tattoo Story
Mission Impossible-Almost
What If I Do This?