Heather Bleasdell

Week 4: "La Loba" complete (composition assignment)

It took me most of the week to get started. I had a general idea that I wanted to paint a woman with a wolf in a forest, but as I started looking at images and sketching out placement and ideas one wolf turned into 4, and the forest into a plain... and well, you know how it goes from there. I l love the story, her wolf hat and the fire. Those things turned out really well for me. Again, such a learning process. I really wanted the ground to be hot pink but was unable to make that color or find it at my local art supply store. I had to paint it so many times and fianlly, painted it white... in my last attempt. The wolves ended up being extremely tricky and I honestly painted them about 7 times until I got them to a place where I felt they looked like wolves. Last, I left out the trees I had been thinking about and will "ponder" what, if anything, I will do to breakup the mountain range a little. All in all, feel inspired by the direction I am being taken. I also loved the inspiration I came across as I "researched" this painting assignment. Below I have included some links and some of the process images. 

PROCESS

Nearing the end - repainting the background!

Middle

Beginning

INSPIRING ARTISTS this week

Amy Klingman, Carol Loebbert and Olaf Hajek

Week 2: Inspiration - choose an Artist I love

Well that is both an easy and hard request. (You can actually see a lot of artists I love here on my blog by searching the category by the same name.) I'm going to start this assignment by LOOSELY looking at my favorite artists and seeing what/who has the most energy for my right now. Off the top of my head, these are the folks/styles/subjects I think most about. Also, my new paints came today! I am dying to start playing with them.

STYLES: Portrait, Flat/Graphic with minimal shading & some distortion, bright colors

SUBJECT MATTER: everyday life, forest, animals, portraits, people/characters, rainbows, magical creatures

ARTISTS: Two of my favorite portrait artists: Alice Neel & Maira Kalman. I also feel so attracted to the work of Betsy Walton because it connects to a lot of themes from my personal work as process-painted and intuitive consultant. I love the animals/characters of Julia Potts, as well as the feelings and simplicity of Camilla Engman. Royal Art Lodge, Rachel Bone, and Mia Christopher too.

Alice Neel - above image and below (Annie Sprinkle 1982, by Alice Neel)

Maira Kalman - check out her blog for The New York Times

Betsy Walton

Julia Potts

Camilla Engman

Royal Art Lodge

Rachel Bone

Mia Christopher

Thank the Goddess, I finally got inspired!

Artist Jennifer Sanchez

So sorry, it's been awhile. So long in fact, that I thought I might not be coming back. This space is dedicated to my artistic explorations, and to be honest, I have had my mind elsewhere. Mostly, I have been completely focused on health, work and family. And because my work includes an incredible amount of art & creativity, I find that I spend little time in my own personal art world. I don't beat myself up too badly about it. From what I have seen in my work as an intuitive consultant... the easiest way to manifest, is to relax, allow and let yourself feel into what you truly have energy for. For a while there, I had no energy for my painting. In fact, I need space from "thinking about painting" because it certainly wasn't helping me to paint! ha ha, not really. So I gave it space. However, recently it has come back in again when I saw that a favorite illustrator/artist was teaching an on-line painting class (STRUCTURE - aha!) So I signed up, ordered the new paints I had been "thinking about" for a friggin year, and have been enjoying the getting ready process as I set up my painting station in my office. (It's too damn cold to paint in the studio in the winter.) I found the artist above because she is the artist/inspiration for this weeks painting topic. What I like about Miss Sanchez's work is the combo between geometric shapes and messy painting. I need to let a little more mess & experimentation into my painting. In fact, I did a painting for my Wild Woman book club project and my daughter painted on top of it! (I got mad.) But as I sat with her "marks" on the face of my carefully rendered BlueBeard (representing the psyche's predator) for a few days... I thought they were pretty perfect. And, after seeing Miss Sanchez's work, I thought I could take it to the next level. Ba-humbug to the Predator of Perfection!

So now I am starting my GET YOUR PAINT ON class. This is week one. So far, it's fun to be in another on-line creativity class. I really enjoyed the one I took last summer. I'll be posting to Flik=ckr on Sundays, and most likely I will be talking about it here. Finally, something to talk about here! What are you trying on?

Artist: Nura Porat

I don't know. It just made me laugh. You can tell what kind of art I like. Illustrator Nura Porat

Artist: Nikki McClure

Poster: Mendicino by Nikki McClure’s work. If you haven’t seen her calendars or her book Collecting Raindrops, you should definitely check them out.

Artist: Bansky

This is beautiful.

 

I also recommend the book Wall & Piece by Banksy. So inspiring.

Artist: Betsy Walton

I'm very excited about my new purchase from Betsy Walton!

Artist : Amy Blackwell

At Home on the Sea by Amy Blackwell
Image on Etsy 

Home: Ordering Wallpaper Samples

I just ordered color samples of a wallpaper design I love for the dining room, created by the fab illustrator Julia Rothman. I'm trying to step out of thinking about things exhaustively and moving more into action. So, my first action-step in making my home my own = ordering samples. Yeah for me!

Ode to the Blue Walls

We painted the living room. It was a heroic event. After 2 years of living in our home, the color is finally our own - thank the Gods! Yesterday I spent the day putting up our "art collection." I started collecting art in my late twenties with the idea that if I wanted others to buy my art, I had to buy original art myself. So now, some 10 years later, we have a lovely little art collection with pieces made by artist friends, local artists, folk artists, art bought traveling.... and of course, our own artwork. Each piece tells a story. It makes us so happy to be surrounded by beauty, good memories and tons of inspiration for living as artists. With the living room painted and re-arranged, I feel like I have entered a new level of home-owenership, self-expression and YES-I-CANness. I say EAT ART EVERY DAY!!!!

Some artists from my Living Room Collection:

Jessica Martin, Debbie Baxter, Francesca Preston, Alison Kendall, and more

Living Room Paint Color: Cascade White, BEHR color Home Depot. (The only white with a tint of blue.)