Outside Art

This morning, I got up, shook off my sleep, and gathered materials for an interesting excision. I wasn't entirely sure what I'd need for this art experience. I do a lot of art and I'm usually relatively sure what I'll use during any given project but this was a first for me. Well (if not over) equipped, I set out for Wildwood park. I found some thick hiking boots from the trunk of my car*, laced them up, and hauled my needed equipment with me away from the parking lot. I walked till I found the perfect spot (also known as the distance I could carry the heavy easel in my right hand before I set it down and said "I don't care what the hell is in front of me, it's gonna be art!") and set everything up!

The easel I have is very old and rather rickety. It also doesn't have an instructions manual (this made for a fun three hours of aggravated splinters and uneven legs the night before as I tried to convince the damn thing to stand!). However, with only a few moments of muffled cursing, I was able to get it upright. Thus standing, I actually took a look at what was in front of me: an absurd amount of leaves.

"Great!" I thought. "I know how to draw a leaf!"

Yes, dear. But do you know how to draw 23,472,774 leaves?

I did a very light and general sketch of the landscape before me (which, like I said before, was mostly of the leafy nature) and then set down my pencil and picked up my brush. I do quite a bit of painting but never in my life have I attempted water color. I do have a rather shining memory from my youth of sitting on the back steps of my house hovered over a Cinderella "water color" book. I watched in amazement as I dipped my brush into water and as I spread it across the page, Cinderella's dress magically turned blue. In the back of my mind somewhere, the phrase "It can't be that different" popped up. Despite the joy I got out of this clearly talented endeavor from my youth, it did not really prepare me for honest water coloring. My first attempt drowned my paint block in water. I dipped my paintbrush in it and spread it meticulously across the page. The paper blushed with the light suggestion of blue. I squinted to see if I'd actually made a difference or if that was, in fact, some lucky shade that the rest of me wasn't getting.

"Okay, so it needs to be thicker, right?" I thought.

I dabbed my brush right in there, swirling it all over the water and the color block and brought it to the paper with panache. Bam! Everything was absurdly blue. Overkill! Thankfully, water color is the most forgiving process in art that I've seen yet. You just get your brush damp with clear water (but not soaking) and you spread that overkill of color out and it will honestly listen to you. Try telling regular paint to be less intensely paint-y (hint: you'll have no luck with this)!

In the end, I basically just dabbled in water color. I know that if I want to be actually good at it, I'll have to work on mixing the colors more intricately and working with a multitude of brushes to help me get the right depth. As it were, when I began to grow tired of the water color, it looked like a five year old had had a hand party all over my page. I wasn't that impressed. Neither were the people passing by me on the path and getting all judge-y over my first attempt at this wateriest of arts. It is rather nerve-wrecking doing art out in the open where anyone can come up to you and say something like, "Is that a leaf or a hand? No really..." When people are walking around in the park and they see someone working avidly over an easel, you have to admit that they probably think you must be somewhat good at art. If you go out and buy a nice easel, it probably means that the quality of your art deserves such representation. Therefore, when you pass by an artist whose work looks like some kind of epidemic of mold growing slowly over their canvas, it doesn't look so good. It was definitely time to step up my game.

Here's a hint: when you do art, unless you are some mystical genius at it, there's going to be a long portion of time where it looks like an utter mess of disgusting failure (I'm being generous here. You should hear me when I'm actually painting). If you give up at that point, you will amass a slew of grotesque paint arguments (or perhaps you'll give up after one or two of these endeavors!). The point is, when it looks like that, all awful and repulsive, you know you're onto something. You know that if you push it further, you're going to get something more appealing. That stretch where you're taking something from the maggot-infested stage to something that wouldn't make you throw up if you saw it leaning against your wall is when you're really improving as an artist. This is where you get to learn a bit more about your style as an artist and your true aesthetic.

I put away my water color tools (and poorly so-I still can't get my green out of the little bag I put it in...) and I pulled out the tool that I use the most in all my art; the pen. This is ironic for me. I think that I use ink in so much of my art because it also happens to be the tool of writers (although within the last few years, none of us can deny that the pen is being sorely replaced by the keys of our laptops...). Still, I've been an avid ink user for the last several years (Hi everyone. My name is Grace and I'm an inkahaulic...). Thus, I pulled off the cap and began to define shapes and pull out shade and color. It looked different than I expected but certainly better than where the piece had been before. After about two hours outside working on it, I packed up my equipment and headed home. I worked on the piece a little more at home and have some further plans for it but I figured I'd share the work in progress here now, even though it isn't fully finished, just so you get an image to go with the wad of a story I just threw at you.

Oh the leaves!!

In other news, I haven't quit drawing comics yet.

This is a life-changing comic about a life-changing thought.

In further news, I'm not having what I'd call a writing block but rather, a "good quality" writer's block. It's frustrating; I can get my word count done everyday but it's not impressive to me when this means that I hate every twist of the story I have just created. I need to get out of this funk!

Well, happy 10th of August to one and all!

*Current trunk inventory: one (1) large scratchy blanket, two (2) towels, two (2) pairs of boots, one (1) pair of old jeans, two (2) white shirts, one (1) shovel, one (1) ice scraper, one (1) wooden heart, one (1) michigan license plate, and approximately five (5) shards of glass. Just thought you might wanna know?