Art Backlog 2011 Part 2

All of these images are available for fullview in my gallery.

Long Overdue Art Post I

It's been a while since I've put up any art, so there's a bit of a back log...




These are all my original works.

Golden Advice

Firstly, the situation at hand:
"Time to confront your demons.

Hell is our own creation. We cannot move forward in our lives without facing that which torments us. The more we understand and face our fears, the less power they have over us. Fear of failure may be preventing you from reaching your full potential. Look back at all that you have weathered in the past to see that you have the strength to survive if things go wrong. This may help you to realise[sic] that it is worth taking risks in order to do what you think is right. This is a card of temptation and perhaps addiction. Depending upon where it appears in a spread, it could indicate a need for the subject to question their own motives. Are they following a path deliberately that could be destructive?"

The Devil:

The path to resolution:
"Horses will only follow the reigns if they want to.

Leadership of a team. Pragmatism, collaboration and compromise. A victory obtained by working with others, not against them. It is time to analyse[sic] the causes of problems you encounter, and change what you can about yourself in order to overcome them. Changing one's own behaviour[sic] is more likely to succeed than trying to change the behaviour[sic] of others."

I think this so appropriate, and helpful. When applied to the situation I'm in(or more like coming out of), it rather reminds me of The Metamorphoses, considering how it was preceded by this:
The catalyzing action:
"Do what is right.

Fairness, justice and equal opportunity. Fate may aim to give all what they deserve, but sometimes she needs a helping hand, and the strong should help the weak."

Justice:

The Golden Tarot by Kat Black

Thank you, thank you for all the messages, the encouragement, the little indicators. Thank you for every sign that now is a time to improve my life and my action. By putting an image of the most indecent human nature in front of me, you made me understand that when it comes to living a moral life, what goes around comes around. And not just because we hope people get just desserts, "karma" is less about getting what's coming to you and almost entirely about maintaining, pruning, and upkeeping your moral heart.
I was already aware of this concept, yes. From Mengzi I had learned that we all have the seeds of virtue and vice within us, and that is those seeds that we nurture that determine our nature.
However, this recent experience made the dangers of failing to constantly check moral vigilance frighteningly clear. Life will always find a way to scare the pants off you by showing you a person, object, or situation that gives you a mirror to what lies in store if you follow your own worst inclinations.
While what I saw was immeasurably far off from where I could even imagine finding myself, it taught me an important lesson about always acting in a manner in which you can endure past the worst possible interpretations of your own behavior. We must not allow ourselves to lower our standards in the company we keep, for in order to tolerate them we learn to tolerate their values, and if we don't see eye to eye on issues so basic as kindness, honesty, and esteem, we can only hurt ourselves by back sliding. The more we let them shroud our instinct, the more our introspective mirror becomes shrouded, the more we gaze in the bitter glass, the more we are tempted by the whispers of subtle guile.
The more we nurture the seeds of deception and of denial, the more they grow to obscure the best of what we are. Please, to all those still putting up with the double talk, the entanglement, cut back the brambles before it becomes impossible. But it is never impossible.
Never have anything in your life that you don't want to know the truth about. It may sound preachy or redundant, but wait until you have the fear of a remorseless heart before you, ready to harm and tear asunder all that you take for granted, then the message is terribly cold and imminent.
The best way to avoid the situation The Devil card presents is to follow the message of The Justice card, with the confidence and initiative of the The Chariot card.

Vulnerable Maidens and Vengeful Mothers

"Persephone"
Persephone was the original little girl to fall down into Wonderland. Hades is played by Ralph Fiennes for a reason, by the way. Because he gives us all Stockholm Syndrome.

"The Ghost"
I had a dream about the Ghost of an angry Mother in a house that was haunted with her rage. The walls shook and howled.

Within the twilight chamber spreads apace
The shadow of white Death, and at the door
Invisible Corruption waits to trace
His extreme way to her dim dwelling-place;
The eternal Hunger sits, but pity and awe
Soothe her pale rage, nor dares she to deface
So fair a prey, till darkness, and the law
Of change, shall o’er his sleep the mortal curtain draw.
Adonais by Percy Bysshe Shelley

This-way-and-that...

Life has been good lately! This "status cloud" which was generated out of my Facebook status updates seem to confirm it.
I feel as if I've made a lot of progress toward living that feeling I wrote about in my last entry. I had a wonderful day off the other day; huevos rancheros for brunch, time spent with friends, including a beautiful walk through the Mountainview Cemetery. It was a very nice day out, even though Spring still has another month to show up!These three pictures are all from the Cemetery's website. I brought my camera with me, but lately I am trying to spend more time experiencing instead of documenting. Perhaps next time I will take more pictures, maybe when more trees are flowering.






































This is a picture Poet took of me at the Marin Headlands, the only photo I have finished from that set. He's a procrastinator, it may be a while before we see the rest ^__^


Next:
New art....



I am extremely happy with this piece. It's colored pencil, acrylic gold paint, and liquid gold leaf on "Scarlet Letter" paper. It's St. Cecilia. St. Cecilia is my namesaint, Sheila being the anglicized version of Cecilia/Celia .
Saint Celicia was the patron saint of music, she converted her pagan husband to Christianity and revealed to him an angel who crowned them in garlands of roses and lilies. They were both martyred; first the Romans attempted to suffocate her in the baths, but it didn't kill her. Next, they attempted to decapitate her, but her head remained partially attached. It was said she lived for three days before perishing.
Next up, new things:
I love my new boots, I found them on sale, best of all! Just when the world is ready to get rid of all their winter items, I lie in wait, ready to snatch them up!


Another new item, this one constructed by Your's Truly:


I made it using supplies from Michael's, and one of Poet's wisdom teeth.
It took me a very long time to drill through the tooth because I was worried about cracking it, but in the end it worked beautifully!

A Backlog of Art Part IV

My most recent works!


Again....all sepia, rose tones, and gold, haha! I drew on inspiration from classic illustration, fairytales and mythology, and the antiquarian aesthetic.
At this point, you might begin to notice a repeating theme of dual symbols.
A snake and a peacock, here.

Here, two octopi.

Here, two birds.



Although at the time, the deep significance of such things were only just beginning to become apparent to me, in hindsight it's a clear reflection of a split occurring in my life.































I was moving from one experience to another, one life to another, settling into the realization that there was somewhere else I needed to be, and I found myself caught between two influences.




Now, I feel as though I'm in the right place, with the right person. Life still has so many kinks to work out, but there's nothing that beats that feeling of being on the right path, of making progress toward where you want to be.
I eventually found my way.















This is my most recent piece:
Pencil and gold acrylic paint on vellum tracing paper, layered over burnt butcher paper for texture, with pressed flowers and leaves.






















I'm very happy with how it turned out, although I couldn't show it digitally in a way that does it justice. For instance, I don't have a photo-editing program at my disposal at the moment. But at least you can see the gold!

A Backlog of Art Part II

Late 2007 to 2008:
I had a definite aquarium phase (can't say I'm out of it, even now!), and a love of negative space.

One of the most valuable things I think I've learned about making my art thus far is the idea that less can be more.















I was so technical, starting out. I had such a Western perspective.



Think of it in terms of what you might see in a Western comic book vs. an Eastern manga: In many Western comics, especially good ones, there's a tendency to have many lines drawn in that show facial expression, muscle tone, etc., while in manga there's a lot of implied fullness and 3-dimensionality without actually filling in planes with excessive lines.








After playing around with both styles I tired to reach a happy medium between the two artistic perspectives.
I also gained an appreciation for pop surrealism and artists like Camille Rose-Garcia.

A Backlog of Art Part I

I'd like to update with some of my art, to give an idea of the sort of thing I like to create!
Let's begin with 2006-2007:
These are the years I really came out of my shell and began to grasp my own style.


This was one of the first I was really happy with, it's never been terribly popular but it holds a lot of personal significance.




Where most of my friends at the time lacked technical skill but had fantastic style and creativity, I had grasp of detail and rendering but I didn't know how to just let an image flow from my hands. I was painfully slow at producing pieces and had a tendency to come up with very contrived themes.



So I'm starting at a point when these limitations really began to right themselves and I truly began to feel happy with what I was producing.

This one in the left was my first really successful piece with any watchers. I still love it dearly, and it's my most consistently used concept to date.





Trying out new styles, textures,
and color combinations....
This is the time when I picked
up my favorite technique: mixed
media. My most often used combinations:
-pen and marker
-water color and pencil
-all of the above!
I usually use bristol or heavy water color paper.
All of the pieces featured here were also produced after a difficult break up, the first hard one of my adult life. I was engaged and my fiance left me.




Ever feel overwhelmed?
This one is the last one of that era of my life. Expressing your experiences through art is sometimes the one thing that can excise the negativity you're going through, and let you move on.
The hardest pain is the kind you can't express the words to explain, and when there's nothing else, there's always art.
Getting better at art allowed me the eloquence I needed to take the next step in life.