~Sophisticated~ Fine Art Photography

... or not. :-D 

When I've just finished a piece, I want to get it out there on the web NOW. If it's after dark, forget it, the answer is: Wait for morning. If there's sunlight, great; now the art must be well-lit without getting full of glare. Today, ^ this is how I solved that problem.

Blue and Gold -- two Jays for March

Blue and Gold, 10 x 8" mixed media on cotton printmaking paper. Original sold; you can buy prints here.

These happened because a few people on Facebook voted for the Blue Jay as the next bird I ought to paint. Sounded good to me! I added forsythia for the lovely color contrast, immediately sold the first one, and then created a smaller second piece that same night.

Blue and Gold 2, 5 x 7" mixed media on cotton printmaking paper, available at $69, or buy prints here.

So now there are two, and they're making me happy, what with all the snow still on the ground around here. They're perfect greeting-card format images, too, so those will be coming soon to an Art Crawl (and a local retailer) near you. I will make two more Blue Jays and then it's on to the next bird, but which one?

Robins? Cardinals (which I've avoided because it seems like EVERYONE does cardinals)? Goldfinches? I don't even know. I'll have to have another round of voting.

"Who let in the riffraff?"

This is Jasmine, who knows she's upper crust and is quite selective about the company she keeps.

The source photo had her on a cream-colored sofa, which seemed visually not strong enough to hold up against her bright black coat, and in any case not expressive enough of this particular cat's bold character.  So I kept the basic shape, but made it more luxurious and bright, and gave our kitty some jewelry while I was at it.

Winter Loses its Grip

The monster, barely hanging on.

 This is on my balcony this morning -- but not for long. It's the last of a funky snow formation caused by air rising through the spaces between the planks.

The potting soil in the foreground is there because I've been doing this:

After I got done putting dirt and seeds in pots yesterday, I put away my tiny Christmas tree and all its ornaments. For me, the answer to, "When do you take down your holiday stuff?" is, "When I can believe winter will end." :-)

Calling the cops at 4:30 a.m.

That's what I had to do this morning. There was a huge fight next door. I lost a lot of sleep and now I do not want to do much.

But artists make art, even (maybe especially) when we don't wanna.

This is often called DISCIPLINE. I hate that word. It's a trip to the principal's office. It means running laps, driving yourself hard, everything soul-sucking and miserable about working. Also I've never been able to maintain it for more than a few days.

Then I would feel like a failure.

Yet here I am, working on Queen Ruby when I don't feel like it. If this isn't discipline, what is it?

I'm calling it MOTIVATION. When I thought I needed discipline, the underlying feeling was, "I suck. I have to work harder and be better because I'm lazy."

Motivation is deciding I'm good, that I deserve to have the life I want, that I'm worth my own effort. It is one big decision followed by thousands of smaller ones, from "Do I bother entering this show?" to "Do I take the trash out before it gets rancid?" And since I deserve to have my work get seen, and to live in a place that smells nice, I do both those things. I'm no longer "lazy." Maybe I never was.