Day 16 Face of my 100 faces in 100 days

Well .. today I was up early trying to get done before my sister got here for our weekly ritual of going through stuff and my mom's house. I have only been living here near my sister for a little over seven months and she is the best part of being here. My sister is the sweetest woman on the planet but she is not like me... she works with numbers every day. She is a little ocd ..lol.. she asked me this morning as she was tidying up my table, something she feels compelled to do, if I was keeping a crumpled up piece of paper. I said yes .. she asked "what are you going to do with that?" I said sew it together with other papers and paint on it. I laughed and she just said ok.. I love her though a big big bunch. It's like we were born on different planets sometimes but she teaches me a lot about service. She gives alot of herself away.. she always wants to help others. I  just try to tell her that it is OK to rest sometimes and do nothing or find something she loves to do just for herself. I am so grateful to be able to spend time with her on Saturday's so I tried to go a bit faster with today's painting and I have no time to be super critical of my work.. sometimes I can't see what is missing or changing till a photograph the work .. amazing how that gives me clarity. So .. it's not perfection I'm after .. i am learning mountains every day .. Thanks for coming along for the journey here. I'm having a blast. and now i'm going to be with my sister. And as always the day's face is the price of the day. Size is 8.25 x 11, acrylic on sewn wrapping paper. Leave a comment if you want it or email me which you will find in my profile view. Have a fantastic day!!!

Day 15 of 100 faces in 100 days

Well .. I know it is most likely redundant to repeat how excited I get when I finish a painting. I find that trusting the process is such a valuable method for me. If I quit when i get so far .. i can surely say that I think .. aaaacccckkkkk .. this looks ........uhhh not so good. But .. i keep going .. painting, adjusting on and on and then the little details get me excited. Then I find myself giggling around the room. I just feel great getting it to the point it's gotten too. No doubt that point will change but it's the daily practice that I know will show me the magic. I just decide then at some point .. it's good. I love the wrapping paper designs peeking through. I know you can't really tell but some of the papers are metallic. Some of the papers are textured.
It's fun to break the rules I've imposed on myself over time with respect to making art. If your inclined to make art .. practice breaking the rules. You may not even know that you have them. So .. I'm happy again!!!!  Yayyyyy ....

But I have to get so .. this will be short and I am quite certain that I will have more stories to tell in the future. I do have 85 more days to go .. wooo hooo!!! Thank you for following me and I've noticed that FB doesn't always show my stuff but if you want to be sure to follow just come here .. i hope to develop this as I go .. it's a learning process for me. Have a fantastic wonderful happy day!! I will.

Day 14 of 100 Faces in 100 days

I just have to say .. that I am so happy to have started this and i do sort of giggle about getting up in the morning so i can paint. But I also have to say that I am not oblivious to the world although I don't choose to watch television unless I decide to watch an occasional movie. I have seen so much conversation about what's happening in the world that I feel this tug that somehow it's wrong to have joy in this midst of all the crisis.

When I am able to fill my heart with gladness I have so much more to give. I am in my head so much sometimes that spending this time perfecting a painting is a release from that. All my thoughts are on the painting. I put all my focus on creating and just letting it happen till I feel it is done. Sometimes I just have to let it be. Progress not perfection. If i am happy then .....I'm Happy!!! A dear person in my life told me that I could be happy every day. Then I think ... how is that possible? It seems that when I feel happier......I get happier haha. The opposite is also true. When I leave my house today, my smile will be there and hopefully my smile will make you smile and things will be better. Not perfect just better .. for a minute or for longer.

Today I love the texture of the paper and the sewing .............texture makes happy lol .. Thanks for stopping over and todays painting on my moms old wrapping paper and a piece of mail is sewn together and painted in acrylic. The size is 81/2" x 9 1/2". The price is the number of the day so this one is $14. Message me or email me an whoever sends me a note first will be the new owner of today's happiness. :) haha. Have a fabulous day and I hope you smile at someone.  Thank you for stopping over. I do love to hear your comments.

Day 13 of 100 Faces in 100 days

My lucky number .. 13. I was born on Friday the 13th. So growing up I always heard that it was a bad luck day but I always also thought how could it be a bad day if I was born? SO ...i reclaimed it as a lucky day. I do know that my mother was happy to give birth to me that day and told me many times that this was the day ......let's get on with it. I was her second baby. I am now the middle child ... haha .. first girl second baby. I bet you'll figure it out.

Growing up we lived in Africa. Back then my grandmother asked my mom how she could take her grandbabies to the dark continent. That's what she called it. Every summer when we were not in school we went back to the US. I think my artistic interests were sparked then. My mom and dad used to plan our trips to the states so we got to see Europe. My mother made sure we went to every museum and art gallery that we could go too while we were in a new place. I always enjoyed this. So early in my life I was drawing faces. I remember one summer we didn't leave to go stateside as soon as school let out. So I think we did some kind of summer camp there in Ethiopia. We were at a small military installation there and it is now Eritrea. I recall drawing faces and girls in particular. Other little girls would come over and ask me to draw their girls hair.. they'd drawn the face but couldn't figure out how to put hair on the girl. I laugh when i think of this .. it is a fond memory for some reason because it was the first time that I felt like I was doing something I liked. And people wanted me to help them. It was a good feeling to be able to do this for them. I was proud. Some where in there I kept going with the art and I perfected coloring when a neighbor girl that was older showed me how to make the coloring look pretty. Then since we were a small American school in a foreign country there were probably less than thirty students in each grade. I think it was my fifth grade teacher that was an art teacher who taught us all the subjects. He was a bit wild but he always inserted a lot of art in his teaching. I even remember painting a vase on some Ethiopian newspaper. It was the first time I had worked on shading. So many experiences that have influenced me in my artistic endeavors. I am grateful. And glad that I have taken this leap of faith in doing a daily painting. I was up early this morning excited to get started. This is a very good thing. Thanks for taking a minute to read and check out my work. Today's painting is a lucky $13. Message me if you are interested. I will go by the time on the requests to see who will be the lucky purchaser. I am filled with gratitude. My joy is abounding. May your day be filled with boundless joy as well. :)

Day 12 of 100 faces in 100 days

Following my heart today I decided to just try something new and different. Many times I think about doing something and then I don't always follow through and just do it. Today .. i piddled around and maybe it feels like a birthing. There are ideas that come into my head and they sit there and i consider them and they percolate in my brain. Sometimes you just have to follow what your heart says to follow. Sometimes it's just not easy to do .. that critical voice inside just can be such an annihilator of doing what you love. But like the anticipation of what might be ....it just happens.

Today this got me excited. You see not quite a year ago my mother passed away. Yes I've been grieving and processing this for nearly nine months now. Not always easy but necessary, I have been now helping my dad go through everything in their house that they have lived in for some twenty years or so. My mother saved everything. She saved every letter, every card and every magazine clipping that she cut out. She even filed them and labeled them. I often say if she could have, she would have loved, Pinterest. She had her own real live collection of everything she loved in pictures. Amazing what you can learn about a person by what they collect. Another thing that she collected was wrapping paper. She had bags of it. Being an artist and lover of paper and someone who loves to repurpose, I had to keep the wrapping paper and a lot of the paper things. This portrait today is a few pieces of wrapping paper that I have sewed on the sewing machine. I also love sewing and fabric and my mother also was the same. Perhaps it is my way of processing and connecting to those parts of her that are clearly in me. I think she'd be tickled to see what I did with her wrapping paper. The exciting thing to me is that .. now I know what I'm going to do with it .. haha. So . this birthing of an idea makes me HAPPY!!!! And yes my baby is beautiful, she's mine.. but she can be yours. Today, just email me and you can have her for just $12.  Acrylic on sewn paper 8"x 12". Thanks for stopping over. I'd love to hear your thoughts. IF you just want me to send you every day's portrait post send me an email and I'll add you to the list.

Day 11 hmmmmmm

I have to keep reminding myself that everything is ok. Even mistakes or works I wish were better. Maybe that mind set or fear of not being good enough interferes i don't know. Maybe they don't get better and better.. i sense that pressure that they should be.

I get tired of hearing my thoughts haha. Maybe you do too if your reading my posts.

I may have to mix it up a bit to keep myself motivated to keep painting.

Maybe some days it's best to just make less words.

Either way it's REALLY all Good.. I just love that so far .. yes only day 11 but i'm still doing it. Someone emailed me and said they would be bored doing the same thing every day for 100 days but I assure you I am not just painting. Maybe I can post some in between posts of what I sandwich in between these portraits.

I've been volunteering at a lady's church bazaar too .. painting silly images and stitching things like purses and bracelets. I enjoy that experience. I've even been knitting and crocheting .. :) Thanks for stopping over. Blessings to you. Oh and just a reminder today's portrait is for sale .. acrylic on rusted fabric .. this one has a few holes in it so those are no extra .. i usually say they are extra. haha .. about 7" x 11" . let me know if your interested. :) The price is the day number.

Day 10 and still going

Day 10 and the temptation is to judge my work. Or if it isn't just how I wanted it to turn out .. or what i'd wished I done better or whatever, is always in my head. So I am being self critical. There is a saying that I hear from time to time, "f you see it you got it".. or another one that says "you cannot see in other's what is not inside of you". If you see things in others then you have this trait in yourself. I've also heard that if you judge yourself you probably judge others this same way. This pokes me, because I don't wish to be judgmental. Then I can take it one step further .. how I wish to be with people in general is compassionate and loving with kindness in my heart. So I can practice compassion and loving kindness with myself. Today's face feels like a loving smile on my heart. I have to constantly tell myself that it is enough. My heart can be loved ...i am worth loving.

I have to say this sharing like this is a bit like cracking open the door to my closet. haha .. I fear judgement. Either way I am enjoying the process, even though I may proceed with caution. ha  And the most difficult part about today's portrait was the smile ... you have no idea how easily a line can make a smirk or a oddly strange expression. I also know that everyone see's the images with their own filters. Today I see love. And this feels good for me.

Thank you for stopping over. It is for sale so if your interested ..send me a message here or email me or comment on my facebook page, My Art of Hearts. I am trying to add as many likes on that page as I can, so more people will see what I'm doing. The more the merrier right? Have a love filled day!