Flying High . . .

I AM flying high lately. The last several days have been great. I have sent sold work to Spain, Australia, Canada, and all over the U.S. I sent traded work to the Netherlands and am about to send some to England. (It is just so dang cool to know a little piece of me is on the other side of the world!) I just found out yesterday that one of my pieces was published in the spring Art Trader magazine and I was asked for permission to be featured on three other blogs. I got cool and beautiful pieces in the mail from other artists too! You cannot, CANNOT beat that. Collecting art is just about as fun as making art.

It's not finished yet, just like Hope that you've seen in progress (she's still not finished), but here is my flying girl/woman. She needs a name, purpose, cape and a background, but she's started. I'll credit images when she's finished, but the vintage face and body are from Lisa Kettell's Etsy shop.



Here's how the image inspiration started with images from one of Lisa Kettell's image cd's . . .


(this body was printed in two different sizes, trimmed, attached, hand tinted, then placed with recolored boots from a magazine in my piece)


(this face was printed, hand-colored, trimmed and adorned with hair from a magazine in my piece)

I am in a weird spot with making art again. I take a step back, a couple of days off, and wonder what the heck I've been doing when I get back to working and then I get stuck. I've lost my vintage-ness somewhere along the way and have gotten even more "finished" instead of finding the expressive or gestural grungy quality I find in the work that I'm most attracted to as a viewer. Being trained as a graphic artist, I think I have a REAL problem with executing whimsical or gestural. Just can't train my hands and impulses to carry it out, can't resist the impulse to be neat, tidy, clean, graphic, etc. That creates the conundrum - can't finish something cuz the whole piece takes a big sharp detour from whatever inspiration it started with and I don't know how to "end" the piece.

So, though my Etsy is in dire need of more new art (all that's left is mostly older simpler pieces), I find myself studying, researching and practicing again. And, I'm learning that that doesn't always lead to significant changes in my finished work. So, I'm not sure how long the dry spell will be this time. Where is that dang muse of mine?