Speaking in your own voice

"Passion" Ink on Paper. Private Collection. 

This is a recent drawing. I finished it last week. But it’s taken me years to get here.
Years ago, before I started my music series, I was part of this little art group. Only a few people, very informal, none of us doing any showing. I had started working on a few drawings in a similar style to this one. I did a bunch of small ones in my sketchbook, and a couple at a larger size on watercolour paper. I took it in to show the group.

There was one artist in the group, and while she worked in a style drastically different to my own, she was very skilled and had excellent taste. I respected her opinion. So when she told me she really didn’t like these drawings, I took it to heart. And I stopped.
Fast forward a few years. I’ve been posting a #paintingoftheday to Instagram pretty much every day for a while now. I have a large inventory and have been painting regularly for years. But still… after a year of daily posting, I was running out of images. So I dug out these drawings. And you know what? They got a pretty decent reaction. I even got a commission out of it.

So why did I stop? I thought these drawings were pretty good. But I didn’t have the confidence to speak in my own voice. I was relying on other people to tell me my ideas were good enough. That I was good enough. But somewhere along the line I have figured out that I can trust my own instincts. If I think something is good, chances are there will be someone else around that agrees with me. Undoubtably there will be a few that don’t, but I know now that I don’t need to be everything to everyone. I’m ok with who I am. And I will speak in my own voice.

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I've discovered that publishing duplicate posts on two different platforms is really time consuming.... I basically have to format it paragraph by paragraph to get it to look even remotely the same. Ugh. So this will be my last post here. Go over to mariannemorrisart.com to see any future posts. Thanks. 

Jazz Legend: Lionel Hampton... or How I learned to paint teeth

"Jazz Legends | Lionel Hampton" 16x20" Acrylic on Canvas. Giclée prints available.

I always notice people's teeth. I think it's because mine are on the large side... seriously, when I smile they take up half my face. You can't help but notice, and if I'd have to guess, I'd say that's why I always notice other people's. I envy those with nice, even, white chicklets... My horse sized chompers are functional and strong, but not an insignificant feature. I also had an accident as a teenager that did a bit of damage to my mouth... broken teeth and a cracked jaw and a fair bit of time spent in the dentist's chair as a result. Things like that change the way you look at things... what you notice.

I've been painting, off and on, for a long time. I love painting people, but I have always avoided painting teeth. I think every artist has something they avoid... I know a few who avoid hands like the plague. While I have no problem with hands (one day I'll do a tutorial to show my technique), I have always managed to make the teeth look like they somehow don't belong in the mouth they've been assigned to. When I started the Jazz Legends portrait project my first thought was how on earth was I going to be able to do it making sure everyone had their mouths closed. I managed with the first few... then I got to Count Basie. I can't paint him not smiling... it wouldn't show his personality. Ok, so I gave him a slight smile. It worked out ok. Next came Cab Calloway. OMG, there's no way I can paint him with a closed mouth... his teeth take up most of his face and he's smiling in every picture. I have to just bite the bullet and go for it. Took a bit of fussing, but in the end, they looked ok. Charlie Christian? No detail in the photo, so no detail in the painting. Problem solved. Billie too... on that angle, didn't seem like much of an issue.

A young Lionel. Even in a suit he looks like he's
about 12....

Next up.... Lionel Hampton. The gap between his front teeth is a defining characteristic. It makes him seem to look young, even in his advanced years. The guy was a serious cutie.... and the disarming smile was a big part of that. But even 4 successful sets of teeth later, I was still a little hesitant. Turns out I had no reason to be concerned. It was easy... and I got it on the first try. When I was in art school and was having trouble with representing something complicated, my instructors would always tell me to just "treat it like everything else". Turns out, that really is the key. I like to paint light on dark, so that's how I approached it. A dab of white paint on a brush the right size and voila! Teeth! And they actually look like they belong in there.

Silly that it took me so long to figure that out. Sometimes the best way to solve a problem is not avoid it... but just tackle it head on. Just treat it like everything else.

Creative Immersion

 Happy Day 11: The only painting I actually completed this week. Believe it or not, this was painted from a model. As in a human. I know, it looks like a landscape. The exercises we did really stretched the way we look at things. 

Happy Day 9: I pulled up in front of the
main studio building. I managed not to 
get too lost this year... I got lost, but 
was only about 10 minutes off course. 
Much better than last time.    

I spent this past week in Dunedin, Ontario, at the Creativity Art Retreat (so apologies to those looking for my #100happydays posts on social media... the internet connection was a bit spotty). Long time readers might recognize the name from my visit there last year. It was such a great experience I decided I would do it again. And it did not disappoint.

HD 10: Awesome, light filled studio space
at the retreat. And some truly inspiring 
people to spend time with.

The workshop I decided on this year was working from the figure, with artist V. Jane Gordon. Right from the first day she tested our willingness to be open to the new and different. It was certainly not like any workshop I've ever done, or like any figure drawing/painting experience I've ever had.... we had the model moving constantly, were changing the orientation of our work as we worked, we were incorporating things we found outside, we had to change materials, go from standing to sitting, get right up close to things... it was a very, very different experience.

Day12: Awesome collection of books
here... and time to sit and enjoy them! 

Happy Day 13: I got out my quill pen and
ink for this assignment... I had forgotten 
how much I like drawing in ink.  It's been 
years since I've used anything but a marker. 

Behind V. Jane's thinking is the act of inquiry. She has written a book about it, which I purchased for myself, because there are so many things I am curious about and I'm positive I have only scratched the surface of what this is all about. One thing she has managed to convince me of is the need to carry a sketchbook, for what she calls "data collection". That's something that I've tried to do, off and on, for most of my adult life, but never really did with any conviction. I think that stems back to my University days, when we had to pass the book in to the professor every couple weeks... the feedback I got was how to make the images better as finished drawings, so I never really saw it as a tool to collect information, but only a way to practice my drawing skills. I preferred to do this on a larger scale, so my sketchbook largely remained empty. In a lot of ways, I seem to have missed the entire point of it.

A drawing done while looking at the model, while
at the same time running my fingers over my face...
I would get confused as to what I was actually drawing,
me or her. The final result is certainly more interesting
than your typical life drawing.

I think it is going to take me a while to absorb all the things we worked on and figure out how I can apply them in my own practice. It is such a different way of thinking that  if I can work it out, it may have the potential to transform my work. I have a couple projects to finish up before I can truly get going, but I'm pretty sure I will be spending a fair bit of time over the next few weeks, sketchbook in hand, intently studying some little detail of something or other, and recording it for future use.

I was playing with the panoramic settings on my camera... the view of the river, from behind the River House, where I was staying.

My past as an artist: Change and Growth

"Butterfly", Oil pastel and graphite
 on paper from about 2005

A few weeks ago I ran into someone who had purchased something from me many years ago. I was dropping off some work at a gallery, and he happened to be a friend of the owner and had stopped by for a visit. He took a look at my paintings and said he would never have realized they were done by the same artist, they were that different.

A simple, off the cuff observation... but it caused me to take a look at some of my older work that I had put away into the back recesses of my brain. I pulled up my old pictures. I looked at the few pieces I still had hanging around the house (much of my older work was destroyed in last year's flood). And while I see that my work has changed pretty dramatically, I can still see many similarities.

"The Journey", Charcoal on paper from about 2006/07. I think.
My records are somewhat incomplete here... I was working
full-time and had a small child. I was exhausted. 

Thematically, my work is much... well, happier I suppose is the best word for it. Like a lot of artists, I am prone to introspection, and when I started to seriously use art as a tool for self-expression, my life was in a bit of turmoil. But as far as subject matter goes, I am still working with the figure, and still exploring how the figure blends into and stands out of their surroundings. Still fully forming some areas and leaving some parts flat. I thought today I would share some photos of my older work. Keep in mind, art is one of those things that improves immensely with time and practice. For this reason, I'm not going too far back...

"Flying", oil pastel and graphite on paper. Again, from 2004/05. I was simultaneously looking
at cubist art, trying to figure out if yoga would help with my physical issues, and studying the mandala
as a spiritual symbol. I still have this piece, though it has been a bit battered and bruised. 

"Sorrow", oil pastel and graphite on paper, from the same series.

Another example of my charcoal drawings. I was studying native art and trying to figure out what, if anything,  my Metis heritage meant to me. I still have this one... It was framed but the frame broke during the move and it happened to be upstairs waiting to get fixed when the basement flooded. Only one other piece from this series has survived. C'est la vie. 

Ink drawing from 2009. I had been completely blocked for quite some time before I started working on these little drawings. They came from discovering the whole "Zentangle" thing, combined with a creative exercise where you take one word and do a mind-map type of expansion based on that single thought. These are just little drawings. I had intended to rework them as paintings, but I couldn't figure out how exactly to get what i had in my head onto my canvas. I gave up after a couple attempts.  

Another example form the same series of drawings. 

Drawing from Life

5 minute pose,
drawn entirely with my left hand.

I took a workshop years ago where my instructor insisted that we draw with our non-dominant hand. At the time I was somewhat less than enthusiastic... I had trouble enough getting the drawing down without a lack of control over what kind of marks I was making. The results were interesting though... everything looked different. As someone whose drawings all looked similar, I was intrigued. So I kept at it, and over the years whenever I went to a life drawing session I made sure to do at least one left handed drawing.

Lately I've been having some trouble with my hands. My doctor tells me it's carpal tunnel, caused by excessive time on the computer. What can you do when that's how you pay the bills? I put on a brace, and kept going. Unfortunately this kind of thing just gets worse over time. Now I'm glad I kept up with that left handed drawing... I've got much more control than when I started. And now that I have a bit more time to get back to the life drawing, it's going to come in handy.

Enter that sketchbook project that I've been putting off. So many themes.... how to decide? I've narrowed it down to "Strangers" or "Memoir". I thought I'd let it stew for a week before I decide. I need to gesso the pages anyway, and if you don't let them dry between spreads they stick together and make a mess when you pull them apart. In the meantime I went off to a life drawing class and found a stranger to draw. I think I'm going to do the whole book as a lefty. It's different and experimental, and I think that's the whole point of the project.

30 minute pose, drawn with both hands alternating. I think the artist parked beside me thought I was a little nuts.

Final 30 minute pose, also drawn with both hands. After 3 hours I was feeling much more comfortable.