It's a GOAT Life

 

It's A GOAT Life T-Shirt
by maryhysong

It's been along time since I've done any real artworks. My little farm and other life are just keeping me so busy and my place is a train wreck that I'm trying to clean up. I'm trying to declutter, clean up and make more time in a lot of parts of my life. In the meantime I am revisiting my Zazzle shop. I've had this picture in mind for a long time and I finally went and got it done.

Zazzle is a print on demand company with loads of clothing, home decor, gifts and accesories. You can go in and purchase things already designed or you can upload your own photos and add text to any of thousands of products. When you order, your items are made up and shipped to you. Normally the process does not take very long and you will have your order quickly.

In the past I've designed hundreds of items with my original art and photography and they are still there in my shop for you to peruse. 

I’m Back!

After quite a long hiatus I’ve gotten enough junk moved in the studio to begin painting again!

I’ve missed it so much but so many things have been going on the last few years…. Hopefully I’ll be able to paint on the regular again. 

The little donkey above is 4x4” canvas, acrylic. I sell things at the farmers market in Superior, Arizona and this weekend is The Jackass Dash, ala burro races.  So I thought I should whip up a couple. 

This one is the same size, work in progress 

And I’m back to painting rocks. They are so much fun. 

Paint Party Friday & Colour Me Positive

Colour Me Positive Challenge

I worked on my week 4 Colour Me Positive challenge, including the not very good self portrait. I play a game sometimes, going through the alphabet and thinking of a positive and good feeling word for each letter. That is what all the writing is in the background, I went through the alphabet two or three times.  I can tell tho that I am not in as good feeling a place as I was a few years ago, by the words that come to mind. (I don't always use the very first word that comes up). Acrylic background, everything else is color pencil. I'm linking up to Paint Party Friday, hop on over and see some great art from all around the world.

Rustic wood signs

I also made a few rustic wood signs. The laundry signs were by request and I will make some others to sell. The chicken signs were for me, but again, I am going to make more for sale.

The are made of old oak pallet wood and acrylic paints, then clear sealed.

More Practice

man waiting  pencil on paper

I was very brave last week to sit and surreptitiously draw this man from life while we both waited for an oil change. Again my proportions and perspective are a bit off, but not too bad.

Random animals from a magazine pencil on paper

chickens in colored pencil

I finally found my bag of Prismacolor pencils. I really like the waxy sort of feel they have.

colored pencil

Some more chickens, a little better, but the cat is ugly.

random faces in color pencil

More random faces from my facebook feed. They don't really look like the pictures much tho.

fruit in color pencil

Last night I worked on this picture of fruit. It's not finished. Color pencil takes a long time, it's not as easy to smudge and blend like paint, pastels or regular pencils.  I'll probably try and finish it tonight.


Sorry I'm late but posting this to Paint Party Friday, even tho it's Saturday. Go on over and join the part, I always love to see all the cool art from around the world.

Practice Practice Practice!

animals in pencil

A lot of people seem to believe that in order to create art you must be born with some sort of special talent. I have always disagreed with this idea. Really think about this. If you were just born with a talent for drawing and painting then there would be no improvement with practice. You would just be able to create masterpieces from the get go.


This is soooo not the way it works.  I have been drawing and painting for as long as I remember. But there have been long stretches of my life where I did not make any art or I made other sorts of art like quilting or embroidery. When I take up my drawing pencils again after such a dry spell I must practice practice practice to re-train my eye and my hand.


One thing I am not so good at is drawing people, yet that is something I want to be really good at, so I am practicing! I work at it every day, doing at least one page in my sketchbook each evening.

fine point sharpie marker

And it does pay off. I have no attachment to my sketches, It's ok if the people look funny or even monstrous. It's ok if their eyes are too close together, or their foreheads are too short. It's ok if the perspective if off. Because each one teaches me what not to do next time. And since I"m not attached to the outcome I don't get frustrated with them like I sometimes do when I'm working on a canvas.

faces in pencil

Many of these faces are from random magazine photos and some from my facebook feed. They really don't look much like the photographs I worked from. But the point is to keep going and keep working and keep trying. Like they say, don't give up before the miracle happens.

wings, sharpie marker

random facebook pics in pencil

flowers in pencil

I did the flowers while I waited from mom at an appointment.  Some I sketched outright, others I laid down some graphite and smudged it, then "drew" with my eraser. I like working like that, very similar to drawing with white chalk on a black paper.

mom in pencil

random pics from my facebook

I drew mom while she watched TV, out of the corner of my eye so she wouldn't know what I was doing. She doesn't sit still much, seems like her mind is racing and she thinks of a 100 things to do all at once so she gets up and down a lot. It's really hard to draw a moving target!






Now for the fun part. Some of these actually have at least a slight resemblance to the pictures I used. Proportions are still a bit off but at least there is beginning to be a spark of reality within them. So never believe you must be born with some talent for drawing, you are perhaps born with a propensity towards it, something that draws you to the doing of it, but you must practice, practice practice!


I'm joining this to the great blog hop, Paint Party Friday.  I've also joined the Colour Me Positive challenge and if you missed my week 2 page for that, you can see it here.here

Malala Yousafzai = BRAVE

OK, I have no idea why Blogger persists in importing my photos the wrong way but it is very annoying. that said, this is my journal page for the Colour Me Positive 2nd week.

This weeks prompt was to Be Brave. The original quote given was "She took the leap and built her wings on the way down"

I pondered the challenge for 2 or 3 days finally outlining the words Be Brave in pencil while I thought about what to do with the rest of the page.

Then a meme came across my Facebook page showing Gabriel Giffords and Malala Yousafzai together. Both of these women are amazing for having both survived gunshot wounds to their heads.

So I googled them and downloaded and printed some pictures. But in the end I only used Malala's because of the space constraints of my page. I think this young woman is totally amazing. In many ways she and others like her are changing the world for the better.

I shortened the quote given to just "She took the leap and grew wings" as I liked that better.  I drew wings around her images and wrote "Be Brave * Grow Wings" in many areas. I think that may become my mantra for a bit. Be Brave. Grow Wings. Stretch your wings and fly.

Malala has certainly been brave. Despite multiple death threats against her and her father, she continues to speak up and speak out for education, for girls and women. And some places are listening to her and making changes for the better. I hope someday everywhere in the world has equality, amongst rich and poor, white and colored, men and women.


I'm sure there have been times when Malala was scared, but her brave heart beat on and gave her the courage to raise up her voice for those who had none.

Sketchbooks

So now I have two sketchbooks going at once. The plain one I bought last week that I have just been doodling in in the evenings.

This is last nights doodle, just random pictures from magazines, done with a fine point black sharpie marker. Besides faces there is a horse and a bird in there.











This week I have discovered a new challenge, Colour Me Positive.  This is a weekly challenge with a word, idea or quote to work with. It seems a lot of the participants are into collage and mixed media. Those aren't my strong suites, but I might try out some ideas. I decided to use the rooster sketch book my daughter brought me for this one.

Colour Me Positive week 1

The theme for the first week was Gratitude and what are you grateful for from 2015. There was a quote which I used. "When you look at life through eyes of gratitude the whole world becomes a magical and amazing place" Jennifer Gayle.

I used my new fine point sharpie marker and a little acrylic paint. The pages aren't thick enough to take a great deal of water without buckling so I didn't want to get it too wet.

The second weeks prompt is out and it is Brave. Perhaps I will be brave and use more paint and color. I am still thinking about that one.