Number 16 and the title is The Intensity of Shared Memories

This painting I decided to do what I mentioned in the previous post. I decided to just let the spirit move me and go with whatever comes out. I was considering the conversations I had with my son while I stayed with him. There were some exchanges that were difficult. We had some serious conversations. I do believe that as we change in life we can hear something we have heard many times and it will mean something different at some point. I don't think it's a for sure thing just a sometime thing. No matter what I remember and felt about things of long ago it will never change my sons memory and feelings about those same events. He was able to be aware of things he was holding on too and this was interesting to witness. I couldn't stop thinking about shared memories. People see and experience one event and have different results or feelings or outcomes. This is what I considered while painting. I am drawn to the contrast of color and how intense the lime green looks next to the red. The dots of color are strong and they feel more intense against a darker background. Opposing colors that look as intense as those shared memories. They scream to be noticed. The dots of different colors compete with each other. This painting feels loud with bright colors. I like looking at it but maybe it's like being in a room with loud noise, you can only take so much. Life has it's moments of intensity, that's the idea. Taking a walk down memory lane can be like an explosion of color. It certainly is a big pop of color which we can all use from time to time or tolerate or like or maybe in just the right places or once in a while. It certainly makes for a colorful life. It certainly made a colorful painting.

Thanks for coming over to read about my work. I think I like one of the comments in my last post that there are no 100 day's police that will come and cart me off to daily painting prison haha.. but it's a plan and if I give myself too much leeway I might put too much time in between. For now I'm going to relax a bit and do 100 paintings. This is number 16 and if you would be interested in owning this one please contact me at iwilldream4ever@aol.com. The price is $116 and it is larger then most of the others. Roughly 16 x 18 on a wood panel. Thanks again .. have a great day.

Day 48 and still going

Day 48..

oh dear .. i may be getting a bit bored .. aaaacckkk!!! I'm not sure what it means .. but I do still love to paint faces. There is a thing I think with artists, that you paint something until you are done with it. I have over fifty days to go yet till I am done painting faces. I may have to mix it up a bit.

I have some ideas in the works, in fact that is often my downfall. I have too many ideas. I don't know if they are going to be successful or not but that doesn't really matter. The best part is that I just keep going on . ..I'm committed and the daily practice has proved beneficial to me in so many ways. I had a wonderfully validating experience with showing several of my completed faces to someone in person. That .. did a lot for my confidence. I think even stacking up the paintings and seeing them all there in a pile....it stands for many hours of creativity. Lots of writing even.

I have found that my contact with Josephine is really having a huge impact on me. So far away and yet we can email and have immediate communication. I find it amazing and she tells me her hopes for the children and I have asked her to send me photos of the children drawing faces. She said that she is amazed that they seem to want to do this. I LOVE THAT >>>> I love that they are now asking their friends to sit still so they can do a portrait. The thing about children that is amazingly wonderful is their way of seeing what they see. There eyes are fresh and unafraid .. there are no mistakes. There are no mistakes. Your hope and desire or passion about your attempts to draw are seen in the work. I believe that. So .. i hope to share some of the children's drawings with you in the days to come. This part of what I'm doing .. makes me feel truly inspired .. filled with gratitude. I want for the children to have what ever the children need. So I will urge you yet again to go to ChildUG.org and make a donation.
To the children .. i love your drawings .. keep drawing, keep going. You have my heart!!!

If you would like to purchase today's portrait a portion of the sale of this face will go to ChildUG.org. I am also committed to doing that here on out. Email me at iwilldream4ever@aol.com. This is painted on papers that my mother saved in a lifetime of collecting and i have put them together with a sewing machine and painted on them. This face is approximately 8 x 10.  See you tomorrow.!!!

Day 42 And riding horses.

Today is day forty two and I am grateful to be painting and sewing together a portrait. Kind of like stitching a new way for my self. Or putting all the pieces together.

I don't always notice how I think of the stories I wish to tell .. it's probably the influence of things I read or see or hear.. I guess that's what most people do.

Either way it matters not .. these eyes and this face reminds me of a memory of riding horses.

While living in Africa,  I remember taking riding lessons. I think this was one of my favorite things about living there. We lived a few blocks away from a horse stable, where my mom would often take us to go riding. I don't recall my sister coming, but my brother and my mom would usually go with me. I would always ask to ride Shambell. She was a big black stallion. I loved her. My brother would ride Knockifa I have to say that their names may not have been spelled this way. But I write them today in the way that I remember them. We would also go riding with a guide. The stables were crudely built but the horses seemed well taken care of. We would ride for an hour, traversing around the beautiful countryside. We could run and jump streams or sticks. It was so much fun. Every single birthday from that time on I would have the cake placed in front of me with the instructions to blow out the candles and make a wish and a horse was always my wish. Until I grew out of making wishes. I loved the horses. I loved their big soulful eyes. I loved how it felt to ride and glide along in rythym with the horses movements and it was magical. I knew the horses saw me and understood me. I just knew. I had many happy rides on Shambell. I know that wishes can come true at any time in life. I don't want a horse anymore. I lost interest when trying to horseback ride in the states. I never found another place that let you ride the way we did in Africa.I recall telling my father recently that I wished for a horse when I was a child. He said he was glad he didn't know. I know that horses are expensive to take care of. Its ok. I still have my memories. I hope that I don't forget them. I hope I don't ever forget .. and I am grateful to remember. That is this face ..thinking of horses.

If you would love to have this face email me at iwilldream4ever@aol.com. See you tomorrow.

Bridget smile Day 19 of 100 faces in 100 days

One of the things I do when I want to have fun or be around people is to go thrift store shopping. I love to mill around and look for priceless treasures. It feels like treasure hunting to me especially when I get something for just a dollar.. i don't always buy something. I find that many of the workers in the thrift stores are volunteers and they're often very friendly. I get a conversation in here and there and this makes me happy.

I mentioned yesterday that I was thinking of doing something different with regards to the painting and I'd thought I might do portraits of people I run into during my day. While I was in the first thrift store yesterday a woman walked by me that looked familiar and she was friendly and said hello .. we both sort of thought the other looked familiar.  We didn't know each other. Her smile was infectious. We had a little conversation going and I thought hmmmm and even though it was a bit out of my comfort zone I told her what I was doing, with painting 100 faces etc. and showed her some of my portraits and she was very sweet and said she embarassingly gushed over my faces and said she thought that yesterdays portrait looked like her room mate. Then i just popped out the question, "would you mind if I took a photo of you to paint? I'm looking for faces to paint." and she said "Yes" .. woo hooo .. i was so happy that she was willing. Then I realized the pressure .. would it look like her? Will she like how I interpret her face with paint? I had to remind myself that this was an exercise and most of all .. I met an amazingly joyful woman. Beautiful in her heart .. things that she spoke of touched my heart. As we stood at the counter paying for our trinkets (yes I bought something lol) I heard her say that she was needing a new book to read while she rode home on the bus. We chatted a few more minutes and meandered out the door then I asked if I could give her a ride home. She was excited and said where she lived .. not too far but too far to walk in the heat of the day though. So off we went......we talked about many things on that short ride to her house. One thing stuck with me.. she told me that she lived across the street from a church and her friends would often ask her why she didn't go to that church.  She said, "my spirit won't let me go there, and I go where God leads my spirit."  She was emphatic about this and there we were. She hugged me good bye and I was off with a smile in my heart.
So Ms. Bridget .. I hope that you love the portrait .. you gladdened my heart. Strong tall woman with a big smile. I hope I did it justice .. i'm finding that painting a smile is challenging. I'm not sure that you can get the sense of it in this photo but on the paper .. i see that smile and it makes me smile. Thank you for being my model.

And yes today's portrait is approximately 8 x 10 not always straight on all sides .. it's machine stitched wrapping paper and painted in acrylic. Today's painting is $19 ...Contact me or leave a comment if you would like to purchase today's painting. Thanks for following me on this journey. Have a fabulous day!!!

Flat Out Under Pressure

A few weeks ago I participated in an event in my hometown called the title of this post. The purpose was to compete with other local artists to win a spot on a trash bin. Doesn't sound to illustrious but if you won one of the top eight spots you won a little cash and the top winner won an all expense paid trip to Tuscany. I thought that alone was worth the try .. cause you just never know. So I did the necessary things to enter and after 24 hours of effort. Oh you had 24 hours to create something and turn it in. Here is what I created. A collage of rusted papers and cloths and my painting and cutting and arranging and it all came together. I was very happy with the results of this work. I didn't win but that's ok because I had a blast creating. I had spent most of the day outside working on this because I just seem to be happier outside and while I was out there something kept buzzing my shoulder and when I looked I noticed it was a dragon fly and this made me very happy so I included him in the painting. If you look closely you'll seem him in there. So overall a good experience and if it happens again next year, I'll try again !!!! Oh and for those of you that have been following me I've just been busy so I haven't posted so much but I'm hoping to pick it up again soon!! ANd more photos to come too. THanks for stopping over and I'd love to hear your thoughts!!!

Tuesday Tones of Textural Textiles

 Here is the progress on My Heart & Soul cloth. I was stumped on what to do and then learned about thread beads from Jude Hill's course called Heart Whispering. The class has ended but the experience will last me a long while. Hopefully I will be able to take another class soon. Currently I am unemployed and haven't found any job that I want to do. Soon I am hoping I will be motivated to put up a shop and sell some of the artwork that I've been creating. I've had a hard time getting myself out of my recent funk. So honestly I've been lying in bed stitching hearts. This is some of the evidence of that work. I have fallen hard for thread beads. I love love love them. I am thinking maybe this is much like the dots that I like to paint. White on white .. what I see that the beads do in the back ground of the biggest heart here are to sort of bring together the heart. It's still seen but the beads give it some cohesiveness. Maybe this truely is like healing my heart with the beads of light. I will continue to add more and more stitching and not worry about the time it will take.. certainly it can take a life time to heal a heart.

 This is the heart on a shirt that I did with the inspiration from Deanna's experiments with Shibori. I did this on a white tshirt. I love how it turned out. I plan on making a special shirt out of this by adding some stitching and other elements. I'll post those in the future.
The rest of the hearts here are a heart stitched for someone elses healing. Healing hearts with stitches. I don't know the person it will be going too but I wanted to send it out because she is a fellow stitcher from the class with Jude. I have learned many of the stitches here from her and hopefully my intention will offer some warmth whatever her situation is. :) It's nice to be a part of that.

More to come soon~