Eat a live frog first thing in the morning…
1. Impressionist/Realistic Painting: Started this portrait with free-hand drawing with a brush from a photo. Two days in I used a method I had seen a great portrait painter use: traced the photo onto tracing paper, enlarged to the same size as my painting, transferred enlarged tracing onto a clear plastic overlay, gently laid it over the painting to check major inaccuracies. I was thrilled to discover that aside from raising the shoulder and sliding the top of the ear to the right a bit…I had been amazingly accurate with my eye/hand co-ordination. The face’s profile was an exact match! It’s got to be the practice of drawing every day from life!!! Yay!
2. Social Media: Today I will be drawing-from-life my 70th sketch in a row. I am amazed that I have been that consistent. Sometimes the drawing gets done by the stroke of midnight, but it gets done. I have posted each day’s drawing on Instagram and also shared it with my Facebook timeline. Was told about a #inktober project artists were posting to and joined in. Since I was already doing my sketches in ink I fit right in and have met some new artist friends. Finding thematic and interesting things to draw every day has become a game that requires some thinking. My dear husband has gotten into the swing of things…doesn’t object to my disappearing into the studio or out into the wilderness for a while to draw and even will remind me on occasion: “Have you done your sketch for the day?”
3. Concept Painting: Have decided to begin painting characters in the stories I am writing. These paintings fit in the concept/stylized compartment of my art life. I am looking at self-publishing some of my stories. Therefore, art needs to be produced! I love these little characters and it is delightful to explore what they will look like and how they will act in visualization as well as in words. This is a fairy-princess named Siz.
4. Story: It is amazing what you can accomplish, a little bit at a time. This past week, because I am eating that “live frog” first thing, I have made some real progress on two stories: “A Little Sad Love Story” and “Nightmare Roundup”. At this rate I may actually join the ranks of writers, storytellers, and children’s books aficionados within my lifetime!
What!!? “Eat a live frog first thing in the morning and nothing worse will happen to you the rest of the day.” My favorite “bard”, Mark Twain said those words. Why would doing art that I choose to do be like eating a live frog (YEEESH!)? It’s the: getting into the studio, focusing, figuring out the next move, avoiding distractions by starting earlier, etc. that falls into the category of eating a live frog. (Again, YEEESH!) On a Sunday night I declared that I would get up at 7am the next morning, do morning rituals, and be at the work of art by 8am. Sabotaged myself by staying up really late and fell asleep without setting an alarm. At 6:59am Monday morning I spontaneously woke up. Had one minute to decide whether or not to eat that frog. Ate it! Was at work by 8:07am. The preceeding or following is what happened this last week.
My 5 x 5 Project
There are now FIVE weeks to “show time”. The last FIVE paintings that I sold left room for five NEW paintings to take their place for the four artist storytelling art show at Dixie College’s Sears Gallery in June. FIVE paintings x FIVE weeks = a new adventure in painting. I pulled FIVE ideas out of the idea pile and began last week to prepare them for painting. First I planned each new painting in a small drawing in my sketchbook. Secondly, I transferred the image to the painting surface. I did this by either by tracing an enlarged blueprint of my small drawing onto the paint surface or using a grid to redraw my design to size. Last night I began the painting. Yee-Haw! Of course, the quality of the painting will be the determining fac
tor as to whether it makes it into the show, but, the next 
FIVE weeks wi
ll be an “artist’s ride”!
Getting a book proposal ready to send off to the publishing world.
The war against fear and lethargy continues! Spent the week putting final touches on a book proposal to send out into the publishing world. The title of the book is “Nightmare Roundup”. I’ve written the story and created small size preliminary color drawings to go along with the story. These drawings are just “roughs” to show what a finished piece of art could look like. They also show the action of the story since this is going to be a picture book. Synopsis: There’s only one tough little girl that stands between us and our nightmares. It’s one of her chores. But it’s not just scary monsters she has to face-she has to face her Ma! Then there were some hours spent on the internet looking up publishers and their submission guidelines. I started with 13 publishers I listed from Caldecott winning children’s books that I have in my home library. Only 5 of them might even look at a book proposal that hasn’t come through an agent. Those 5 will only let you know if they have received your submission if they are interested in your book. And that could take months. So, when I send my stuff off into the publishing netherworld I will let it “fly my pretty” and start the next book idea right away. I will need at least 3 fleshed out story proposals to approach an agent with. Patience, patience, patience . . .
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