Gabriela Day 23 of 100 faces in 100 days

When I lived in Africa with my parents I was young. I lived there from the time I was five years old until I was eleven. My memories of those years are rich with happiness. The people that we met there were nothing less than interesting and most were fascinating. I named this face Gabriela I tried to remember what she looked like and I am sure it doesn't look like her but I invoked her spirit into the painting and wanted to tell the story of how she was part of our experience in Africa. I don't know how my mom met her. My mother wanted to learn Italian so that she could get around better there as most of the shop owners were Italian and we traveled alot in Italy on our way home to the states every summer. So Gabriela came to our home once a week. Sometimes she would bring gifts to my sister and brother and I. I think the dolls are still in a box somewhere in my moms home. I was trying to remember why I thought of Gabriela today. Then I remembered that I found a letter that she wrote to my mom after we came back home to live in the US. I put it in with the wrapping paper canvas for today.. i think you can barely make out some hand written words on her eye on the left side. She was beautiful and friendly and always smiling. I loved her name, it seemed to roll off the tongue so sweetly, so Italian .. Gabriela ........I will never forget her..

Ok so I'm off with sister again today .. she is here cleaning while I am typing asking me what I am doing .. so i have to go .. lol .. makes me laugh. I love her totally and for always..

If you would like this portrait today for $23 please send me an email at iwilldream4ever@aol.com. If you have a mind too I would love it if you would share my project with your friends or family. I hope you have a great day and thanks for following me on this interesting journey.

My tooth feels better .. :)

Girl with the Hat Day 22 of 100 faces in 100 days

Well the temptation here is to be critical, heavens knows that I have been. She's a little odd looking with the red cheeks but it's all an experiment in front of who ever is looking here. That is how I am viewing this experiment. I wanted to see how exposing the back ground colors more would look .. It's ok but odd appearance. So .. that was the plan .....

Who is she? She is from an old family photo of a school graduation. She looks like the teacher because she looks the oldest and all the other children are holding what appear to be diplomas. She is not.

My grandfather is one of the boys holding a rolled up document. He is very handsome and all the young people are wearing suits with crisp white shirts that have cardboard stiff collars. The boys all have ties and the girls are dressed in white. My grandfather is the only one wearing a carnation on his lapel. The teacher is wearing a dark suit that looks like it is a little too big for her small frame. And she is wearing a hat slightly tilted on her head. She looks smart, vulnerable and confident. I kind of feel like she is saying "well, I did my best." When I look at this photo I wonder what it was like for these people at the time the photo was snapped? My grandfather looks innocent. He grew up to be a hard working farmer who made his children and everyone near him very unhappy. I suspect at the time of this photo he wasn't planning that. His teacher doesn't appear to be mean even though my painting of her appears hard in some way. I think she looks messy but she doesn't look messy in the photo. Today's painting is just what I did today. It is interesting to see them all on the page at once. Not going for perfection .. well maybe a little .. but just letting it be what it is. A painting on wrapping paper.

I'm tired today .. and I have a tooth bothering me ..

Thank you as always for stopping over to my blog. Have a fabulous day. If you are interested in the  Girl with the Hat .. email me at iwilldream4ever@aol.com.  see you tomorrow .. haha

Twenty One Days of Painting Faces for One Hundred Days

Breath .. just breath. So far so good. Today i'm stressed out...not because it's day 21 of posting a new face. It's because I haven't gotten real people models for my painting .. and .. I'm in a hurry again. I can attest to the fact that painting in a hurry is NO FUN! So .....it's a work in progress how to go about this daily schedule of painting. Maybe it shows up in the work I don't know .........always i'm hardest on myself.

I do finally get to a point where I just say .....enough!

With these wrapping paper faces I always want some elements of the paper to show through .. I'm not sure that the orange in her lips shows up anymore but I did manage to keep the eyebrows their lovely green and she has a bow on her cheek .. I like these things. I think the best part about this process is that the more I paint the more ideas pop into my head about series of work or other things to paint. This is always brewing in the back ground of my mind.

So ......I guess like life there are ebbs and flows of feeling good and feeling other stuff .. today I have a head ache. But one silver lining .. i'm going to lunch with my sister .. so I'm going to take a chill pill and relax. I'll take my camera with me!!! Tomorrow I will be back here .. happily painting. Thanks for following along ..

This ia about 8"x 10" on sewn wrapping paper and painted with acrylic. Today's painting is $21. Please email me at iwilldream4ever@aol.com if you would like to own this face today. Thank you!

Twenty Days of Painting Faces of 100 that will be painted.

I can't believe it's been twenty days of painting every day. Doesn't it say somewhere that twenty one days of doing something it becomes a habit? No temptation to quite so this is good but I have eighty more days to go. So far a good learning experience for me and I hope that it is something that people enjoy following along. I know from past experience that repetition of something can create some kind of magic. I have had this happen atleast once in artistic endeavors. Maybe more if I think about it. I also become aware of a perfectionistic side of myself. I try to let go of that.
On to the face. I didnt' go anywhere yesterday so I had no meeting of strangers that I could photograph but I have been wanting to move away from magazines and even my purist artistic self feels that drawing/painting from a live model is a more ideal method of expressing a human form. There is a part of me, perhaps a teacher from the past that says .. painting from a photo is cheating. So i'm a cheater. I think it is perhaps because a photo flattens out the lights and darks and you can clearly see where they are. It doesn't always mean you can paint it that way and not everyone wants realism, I have done both realism and a kind of stylized face or even some pretend faces. I am not giving myself any rules so anything is open. This is a young person that is friends with one of my children. It's an old photo in my collection. I don't have the sense of youth that her photo conveys. But I do feel her presence in it. She was an age that wanted to appear older than she was.  I don't wish to say who she is or much else except to say that she was always a fun loving young person when she was around. So in my mind I will think of her today and wish wellness and good things for her. As always thanks for following my journey and please do stop and leave me a note. I've decided to add my email here so you can email if you are interested in purchasing. My email is iwilldream4ever@aol.com yep .. I will dream for ever.. i know it's aol ..but I've had it for a long time. Just can't let it go. So email me if you want to purchase this or just make a comment if your too shy to post one. The size is about the same 8"x10" approx. and painted on sewn wrapping paper that was my moms (who saved every THING) and painted in acrylic. Have a fantastic day!!!

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!!!

The face of a man 18th painting out of 100 faces I will paint

I took a bit longer today.. or aaaaaaaa ok i was a little obsessed with the details of this one. I have only done one boy and one other man in this so far. Men can be harder I think when you are used to doing beautiful women but this man ......he just struck me. And it occurred to me this morning while I was painting how I still go through this incredible struggle as I create not to be self critical and yet I feel compelled to make a face speak something. Maybe it's part of being an artist that I am also an emotional person .. i don't know if that is true for all artists. I can only speak for me. As I was painting I realized that one of the reasons I picked this face is because the lips were like .. wow .. haha.. and this beautiful dark skin, then this question popped in my head, how could you not love this face and this man is a beautiful man? And i followed it with a response. (I know I talk to myself haha ) Maybe all humans should see like artists.

I know that I have been painting beautiful faces with one day of sticking my tongue out to that idea that I don't always want to paint magazine beautiful women. I decided to give myself a break and just paint what I'm moved to paint even if they are beautiful faces, it's usually the eyes that get me. I honestly think that I can't totally separate my heart from my painting. I look at the shape of the face, I look at the eyes .....eyes speak volumes. A casual look can say....much or little ....but I can't not love the incredible shapes of this face and not feel fondly toward this man .. now maybe it's because he's a man haha and I'm a woman, but I do love each one of my faces that I paint.. I think painting people feels a bit intimate to me. Maybe that's putting a lot into it but that's what I noticed today.  As I go I'm going to try to be aware of this .. I have some other ideas I'm mulling over. No matter what it is a learning process. This is for my benefit and I'm sharing this honestly with you.

Maybe today as you go about your day you will consider the idea of looking at the eyes of a person, and the contours of their face and the shape of their mouth and their nose and all the details and remember that there is a heart attached to it and no doubt we all have similar feelings from time to time, we are all human. After i reread this I thought you know I sort of do this with bugs or animals too hahah .. when I get up close and notice the details I am fascinated and I love the details .. so i love the bug haha .. maybe that's what I need to do . . paint everyone and love the world.

Well almost two hours later than I have posted the others. And yes this is day 18 so the price is yep .. $18. Message me if you would like to have this face today. ANd ofcourse I love hearing what you're thinking about my sharing and my work. I will keep going no matter what. THank you for taking a look. Have a wondefilled day!! oh and this is 8"x11" on sewn wrapping paper that my mother saved for years. :) I think she'd like that I am using it this way.

Girl with the Red Eye Day 17 of 100 faces in 100 days

I'm still here .. i still get so excited about the faces .. it's interesting to me, how this makes me feel. It's just good for my day .. as each day goes I feel more and more confident and i'm happy painting. Sometimes I wonder why I waited so long to make this a daily practice. I did make some kind of art every day before but not this committed. It really just makes me want to do more and more and more haha. I find when I am less and less forcing myself to paint in any particular way I find i get more excited about the results. Thats how I'm feeling today.

I had a good time with my sister yesterday and while we were at a rummage sale we ran into Claire, she was running a booth there and we happened to buy from her at the last one there. I think it was last spring when I first came back here, she was funny and we bought things from her and laughed and talked about going through my moms things and just life. This year she remembered us and we remembered her. She said "come over and take me thrifting the next time you go I'd have a lot of fun with you two." She made us both smile and we enjoyed the morning we had together.

So today's face is for sale 8" x 10" on sewn wrapping paper that my mom had saved in bags from every christmas, neatly folded. I have sewn them on my sewing machine. Today's painting is $17 and it has my heart in it .. thank you for stopping by and sharing this journey with me ..leave me a comment if you wish to own this or just want to share your thoughts I really always wonder what you think .. hope everyone has a wonderful fantastic passion filled day!!! I already am.:)