What to say.......

Hello! It's been a while since I've posted. 20 days, actually. I don't know why, but it's felt like longer.

Anyway, I've been thinking of what to put, because I haven't drawn a lot lately. I have tried and failed a lot of drawings for my next art club meeting. I can't draw despite my lack of inspiration, so I don't know what to do. I guess I won't submit anything. I'll try and work on it in the mean time, but I can't work on a schedule with this. Over the summer I'm going to work on that; drawing in a schedule. It's very frustrating for me, I don't know why.

Well, I would like to put more than this, but that's pretty much all I have. I guess all I'm saying is that making art hasn't been easy lately, so I haven't made any. Guess I should work against that, no?
I have been looking at Darrel Tank's 5 pencil method and I've been incredibly fascinated! I never realized the importance of not drawing with a mechanical pencil as well as using the wide variety of numbers for pencils. I hope to get more pencils and start drawing!
I've been only using the number 2 pencil, and sometimes I use mechanical pencils. I would like to see if I improve with his methods!

That's all there is; there isn't anymore.

Sorry for the shortness. Maybe I'll be more interesting soon.

Fauvism

Oh my gosh, I looooooved tonight's art club meeting.

I think I found a new favorite artistic style; fauvism. My goodness, the paintings were so elegant and simple yet filled with emotion and power.

This art club has really moved me. I don't want to make art when I'm inspired; I want to make art to inspire me. Does that make sense? I hope so. I don't know how to put it into words exactly, just how happy I am with art and how thankful I am that God gave us this outlet to use to say how we feel and how we see things as individuals without using words.

We learned about Henri Matisse and how he was one of the leaders for this artistic movement. Fascinating, just really fascinating. He used such bold color yet such simple designs. There were so many paintings that made my jaw drop, it really overwhelmed me.

Weird interjection: I know this might sound stupid, but being a Christian, I wonder sometimes if there will be art in heaven. Will there be no need for art? Will God still want us to create? Will WE still want to create? Hmm... quite the brain-teaser.
Oh well.
/end rant.

Ah, just LOOK at these colorful art pieces. I could stare at these forever, just wondering what Henri was thinking when making them. I won't share all the ones I liked, but here are some of my favorites that were displayed/that I found on the Wikipedia gallery (I know, total art expert here. ;))

 

 

 

 

Most (if not all) of these were done with oil paints on a canvas. :)

 

Last art club, the assignment was to create an expressionistic (or was it impressionistic?) piece. We were supposed to turn them in this art club. I put it out of my mind until the last minute, and then I was not inspired when I did remember! I did make something the day before, but I did not scan it in, and I thought it resembled something I could've made when I was 6. ;P

 

I have been making more art just for the sake of making it, with no regard to if it looks like a 6 year olds piece of art or not. Weeeeeell, the results have been interesting. They are irrefutably young-looking, the pieces, but I enjoyed the feeling I had when creating them and picking out the colors to make them. The style will catch up later, I hope!

 

Here's to breaking down artistic walls. :)

 

And with that, I will close with an amazing instrumental piece I found!

 

Andy Warhol

Lately, I have been very eager to try new artistic styles. Since I joined an online art club, powered by Elluminate, I am extremely satisifed with all that I am learning!

 

The last meeting I learned about Andy Warhol's pop art style. I find pop art very daring and exciting; I'm more into the black and white sketches and portraits, and portraying emotion without color. Using color is a very bold thing to do, and it's much harder; a lot of preparation has to go into making sure the color comes out correctly!

 

Being very curious, I decided to check out about Andy Warhol and his life.

 

Insert awkward moment story; I openly said that I learned Warhol was mentally insane, and I found that inspiring that he could find refuge in his art work. However, I had misread; he entered an institute for technology, not a mental one! The people in the meeting got a laugh out of that one.

 

Ha!! They will like to have me around, no? Yes? We'll see. ;)

 

Marilyn Monroe

Andy Warhol did a lot of pop art.  Advertisements (of, I assume, celebrities) were very prominent in the '60s, as I learned from the club leader.
I did some very extensive and professional research on Wikipedia *end sarcasm* and learned that Warhol was very sheltered as a child, due to some disability of his. He bonded with his mother and basically bonded with the celebrities he drew.
He listened to the radio, as far as I read, and must have heard quite a bit about these public icons through it. It makes you wonder if he admired them, in what ways he admired them, and why he drew them.
Maybe I'm looking into it too much, I don't know; even so, I really like Andy Warhol and learning about what a creative genius he is; he has inspired many pop artists!

I tried my own luck and submitted this picture of Taylor Swift in pop art form. (I apologize for the poor quality. I will upload a better one someday! ((I am not even a big fan of Taylor Swift, I just find her face very simple, plain, beautiful, and easy to draw!)) ) Since this is my first time of doing a pop art drawing, please ignore the fact there is no real resemblance to Taylor Swift! Definitely not one of the best things I've done, in my opinion, but it was fun to draw, for sure.

I think this drawing portrays not necessarily Taylor Swift, but a very strong and powerful woman. The way I drew her mouth (completely accidental) makes her look very fierce and strong-jawed. It's hard to tell in this picture, but that is the impression I got after I finished.
Although I wanted it to look one way, it came out another. While that could be considered a failure by some artists, I don't; I guess you could say it's a motivational tool. I tried something new, which isn't easy for some people! It came out as okay as it did, and I am pleased at my effort. :) I hope to post more art soon and to keep expanding my artistic horizons.

The next subject is expressionism, which I am very excited about!! I will post the final product when it is done/if I get it done in time. :)

God bless,
The Artistic Believer



(Watch the video to understand the post)

My friend showed me this video, and it amazed me to see how much God cares about every detail of our lives. This video is of the main singer in Tenth Avenue North, Mike Donehey. His story has many similarities to mine; I also got into music because there was pain in my life.
When I was about 8, I found out I have an accessory navicular bone (you can read a bit about it here) and it made it hard to have fun. In 2005, I sprained my ankle (from winning a jumping contest, totally worth it...) Symptoms of this painful bone started flaring up right around that time. I had to quit ballet dance, which I really enjoyed.
After I quit, the pain started getting worse, and it was hurting to even walk around the house.We saw a few orthopedic doctors. They said to put ice on it, get arch-supports for my shoes, to not run on it... I was very impatient, and wanted a quick fix. I was incredibly tempted to go for surgery, but I knew recovery was long, and there could be severe consequences if there were any complications during surgery. I wanted to run again!
My mom, being the amazing genius she is, came up with the idea for me to wear a cast on my leg, to reduce the swelling around it. Turns out that was the reason it hurt; not the actual bone itself, which was a relief to find out. The cast worked very well, and I have been pain free since. :)

The doctor advised, however, to not enter into any extreme physical sports or activities that could cause the pain to flare up again. I permanently stopped ballet. It was pretty hard, but God blessed me with flexibility as one of my character qualities. That made it much easier.
I couldn't do sports. I couldn't dance. It was rough. But I knew there was something I could do instead. I knew I wanted to do something that would stand out from stuff the other kids were into.
I had quit piano, I wasn't singing in the choir... music was out of my life pretty much. So it was strange, to be honest, when the harp just... came to mind! People ask sometimes why, of all the instruments, would I play the harp... and I still don't know why. Maybe it was God, I don't know! But February 1st, 2010, I got my first harp lesson. And I loved it.

Like Mike said, God can really take the bad in your life and make it for good. He is very interested in letting His light shine in and through your life. Don't look at what I've been through, look at the cross. He will bring redemption in your life. Just submit to Him.
I'm in a place I never thought I'd be. When I was 8, I never dreamed I would ever play the harp. God has used music in many incredible ways in my life, whether listening to it or making it.
When you make the choice to give up your life to Him, you can trust that what He is doing is best. He loves His children, and I would like to say that time in my life has turned out to be a testament to His faithfulness through trial.

In the light of the moon

First of all, Anberlin is amazing; I'm listening to them right now. This is my favorite of the ones I have listened to. I like a few others, but you should really listen to Breathe:

(No, I am not breaking my Lent promise. I didn't promise giving up music! Haha, I mean, how could I?)

Anyway, I got hit with a bout of inspiration at an incredibly random time. I dropped everything I was doing and started working on it. I love it when that happens! The idea started when I listened to The Girl with the Flaxen Hair, by Claire Debussy. David Watkins (never heard of him before this, but he's really good) is playing: 

Okay, so you can hear a lot of happy/sad notes kind of intermingling with each other, right? I knew there had to be color, but I wanted it to mix with the idea of there being sadness, maybe even loss... with the idea that there is hope springing forth. And when I listened, I always imagined this song going with a ballet dance. 

The night before I had seen a full moon, with clouds rolling by, and it really added to the inspiration.

Back story over! Here it is:

Full

I looked up the form of how I wanted the girl to look on the computer, but other than that, this was pure imagination. I am really pleased with it! I wanted her to look like she was glowing, and creating something beautiful out of her dancing. That's why colors are pouring out of her arms, as she creates something beautiful in the darkness. A lot of hidden meanings in this, which is why I was so happy it came out the way it did.

Like I've said before, drawing stuff like this is the most enjoyable for me. And to me, this is art in it's purest form; self expression. To find out why someone drew something the way they did explains a lot about the drawing. A lot of things that could be mistakes may be accenting the hidden meaning, which is why I really enjoy looking at abstract art. While this is not as professional looking as my portraits, I prefer doing stuff like this.

I'll have to fix the moon looking the way it does. Since I used pastels, I use my fingers to blend the colors, so when I ran out of fingers, I went to wash them, and I guess I forgot to fix that part, haha. Ah, well.

God bless,

The Artistic Believer