Because I must…

I’ve been putting this off for a while now, hoping I can work things out differently. But this week I came to my final decision. Much to my disappointment (especially after the work I’ve put in), I think that I might be done blogging for now. I hate to say it, because it becomes so much more official, but I’ve been thinking about it for a little while now. There are many factors the effected my decision, one being that I don’t have time to post more than twice a week (which most readers seem to prefer), two, that I’d like to focus as much of my extra time on creating art as I can (especially with a showing coming up in August - nothing fancy but it takes work to prepare for it all), three, that I’m having a hard time even finding the people like you who would just love to frequent a site like mine. I know that there are plenty of artsy people out there like you who would love to be involved in an artsy blog like this, but finding them is proving to take more work than I bargained for. So, at this point the decision is to take a break. Thanks to all of you who have made it worth it with your comments full of encouragement, excitement, and passion! It’s been fantastic to share my love of art with you! If you were excited about this blog, let me know with your comments and if I choose to start up again I will let you know right away (by the confidential leaving of your email address in the slot provided)!

Thanks for the fun ride!

Amy Joy Dyck

P.S. If you’d REALLY like me to keep going, round up as many artists as possible and either comment on this entry or email me at amy@icreatebecauseimust.com… I might just reconsider…(O:

Just a note to say that I won’t be able to leave a post today - sorry everyone! I hope to be back to my schedule of Mondays and Thursdays despite this little blip!

Oh, and happy Canada Day to all you Canadians out there!

On Monday I promised you an inside look into one of my pieces. The one I’ll share with you is called “Maternal Blossoms.” It was birthed (hmm…. I guess that is a pun) out of an exploration of myself as a pregnant woman. I felt, as I was working on it, that I was creating a self portrait of sorts. The idea came when I was doing visual brainstorming (following the suggestions in a book called “Birthing From Within”) on how I felt about my pregnancy and looming birth. I sketched a really simple form, and thought little of it at first. It was me, as a cherry tree, bending with the weight of pregnancy, beautifully blossoming with the promise of fruit (new life) and rooted firmly in the ground (I felt confident, safe). Here is the little sketch:

When I couldn’t get the image out of my head, I decided to run with it. I ran around my community with a camera looking for cherry trees to photograph, images I could use and modify to suit my final idea. When I found the one I ended up using, it was close enough to my house that I brought all my pastels/conte with me and drew it on site (yes, it was awkward bending over my drawing on the side of the road with a large belly in my way and a kicking baby inside who wanted SPACE.). What came of it is a piece that reminds me of the beauty of that time in my life. Here is the work I finished called Maternal Blossoms:

If anyone else has carried the ideas you’ve discovered in your birth sketches into finished art, I’d love to hear about it and if you have them online, let me know and I will link to them in my next blog. (leave a comment and include your link or email me at amy@icreatebecauseimust.com) .

Some of you who have read more than a few of my entries will know that I have a baby. Well during my pregnancy I heard about a concept that a friend called “birth art.” Naturally, as an artist, this intrigued me. I heard that it was about creating art that helps the expectant mother to express and process their journey towards motherhood, express fears about childbirth, anticipations, etc. My friend told me to check out the book “Birthing From Within” if I wanted to learn more. Fortunetly for me, my midwife had it in her lending library so to my house it went immediately! Now I didn’t find every bit of the book useful for me, but the section on birth art was enough of a reason for me to check it out.

As I followed the instructions laid out in the book, and explored different aspects of my pregnancy, my hopes for childbirth, fears, and expectations, I found myself on a wonderful journey of knowing myself better and being able to understand my fears and deal with them, either through understanding or prayer and trust. This gave me a sense of peace and preparedness for the unknown that I was coming upon, and in some ways a small sense of control as I now knew what I wanted and how to express those things if there was a need.

Some of the topics I explored were as following: How do I view myself as a woman during my pregnancy? What does my idealistic labor look like (mood, environment, who would be there, etc)? What do I think was likely to happen for me (natural, C-section, intense pain, etc)? How could I imagine comping with pain? What are my biggest fears in the whole process? If my labor was a journey through a landscape, what does that landscape look like? What do I associate with “good mothering”? In this process I was encouraged to use colors to help express how the feelings I was experiencing as well as any associations that came to mind.

I have decided to bear my soul for you with the hopes that it might help and encourage some of you to explore your experiences (and birth art is only one example of how art can help us work through life’s complexities) through the creativity inside of you. Here is some of my own birth art. The drawings are simple, both in rendering and concept. I had to let go of the urge to judge myself on the finished products - this is not about creating art that can be framed, but about processing and coming to a better place inside yourself. If this exercise leads to a finished piece later - great! It did for me, but don’t let that focus ruin the experience for you. I also had to allow myself to produce images that felt to me too stereotypical for a serious artist to produce. This process is not about judgment. Let it come out how it may so you can learn and grow from the process. here is my art. It may have descriptions after it. It may speak for itself.

Somehow it helped me to even just envision myself giving birth without the screaming and torturous pain. It helped me past my fear of the pain and helped me, instead, to focus on meeting my baby.

This is a drawing about journey and change. At the left-hand side you see me walking towards a tunnel, I come out into a new phase of life with a belly, enter another tunnel, and come out in a new phase again with a baby in my arms.

The following expresses how I saw myself and felt being pregnant:

The following expresses some of my fears:

The following includes ways I imagined coping:

My husband supporting me in the birthing pool

Next entry (Thursday) I’ll show you the image (from this series) that spurred one of my favorite finished works of art. I hope sharing my journey with you was inspiring and encouraging to you.

 If you haven’t read the first half of this post, click here, then continue reading!

We must consider how we can mirror any shapes in our piece through the framing. Example:

• Last night I saw a painting that was surrounded by a mat whose edges were cut to have rounded corners instead of sharp ones (like a piece of toast is to a square). It worked fantastically since the abstract painting had circles that “stood out” when mirrored with the shape of the mat.
• Consider the width of the frame relating to any rectangles or thick lines in your art. Say I have a tree in my image, or pillars. It might be helpful to use the same thickness of some of those objects in the width of my matting or frame. This further unifies it by creating a sense of pattern throughout.

It helps to get as many first impressions as possible. I try to keep looking away, then quickly looking back at my potential frame and art combo and evaluation my own personal responses - I tend to ask myself questions like, do I like or dislike this in the context (This usually tells me the most, surprisingly)? Does it communicate the mood or hinder it? Would any other colors (or color combos) emphasize the strengths of my art better? What part of my painting do I see first when I look back at it (this tells me if the color and pattern choices I have made compliment the right aspects of my piece)?

Have you ever tried setting your artwork down, then looking at it’s reflection in a mirror? Framers use this trick - it helps to further remove ourselves from the art and to help us look more objectively at what works and what doesn’t.

Personal preference matters. I’ve come to realize that different frames have a style, just like I have an artistic style. Just because a framer or another artist suggests a particular arrangement, doesn’t mean that it is the only way it will work.

Sometimes the best framing or mat choice is one that simply continues on the background colors. It creates a look of simplicity and space. This worked well for one of my last drawings. International Artist Magazine had a wonderful article on an artist who happened to paint all her frames to match her simple (one-color) backgrounds and it looked fantastic! There was no distracting frame to pull the eye from the image in the center.

I am told that wooden frames are more acidic and could brown/yellow the image underneath overtime. It is possible that extra matting will prevent that, but you will have to ask a professional to be sure. Wooden frames, in my experience, also dent easier.

It is possible to get a pre-made frame cut down and sized to fit your custom piece. I have done this in the past with excellent results, and it was actually cheaper than ordering it custom-made to begin with. Consult with a framer before purchasing one to be cut down. Mine was bought from the framer who would be doing the modifications himself.

I am gaining more and more confidence with my framing skills the more I do it. I hope these tips help you like they have me! Happy framing!

One of the skills that has lagged behind in my growth as an artist has been that of knowing how to frame and mat a painting. I don’t mean building the building and assembly, though I haven’t done much of that either, but more importantly, choosing colors, sizes, and combinations that WORK WITH the art I create. Upon realizing my weakness in this area, I decided that learning a few framing tricks were essential to my growth as an artist, and determined to learn what I could on how to frame an image well (and cheaply). Here are some of the tips I have learned along the way that should help you to choose the best frame and mat combination for your art. Feel free to leave your comments on what works for you! (For simplicity, from now on, when I refer to “frame/framing” I am relating to the frame-mat combination). I have had to split this into 2 since it is so long!

The framing and art needs to portray the same unifying mood. Example:

• rustic wood for a rustic nature scene
• metallic perhaps for an industrial
• subtle (soft colors, no harsh edges/details) for a sensitive painting

The framing mustn’t distract (too busy, too shiny, too much detail, too bold) from the art. No matter how much we’ve fallen in love with a frame, or really want this price-point to work, if it distracts our eyes we might as well hang the frame by itself. I am all for fun frames, we just have to remember that the point is the image underneath!

The more lines created by the mats and framing, the more the eye is drawn in, like to a bulls-eye on a target. This can be done by using more of them (try to imagine the layers each adding lines), or by using a frame that creates this illusion. I’ve decided that not all art needs this though. If your image’s strength is at enticing and keeping the eye (lots of reds perhaps or strong shapes maybe), you may not want to bother with this.

If we want to “pull” reds from our artwork and use them in the frame, it needs to be done with caution. Red is a powerful eye-grabber. If the frame has more red than the painting, again, we may as well hang the frame empty.

Pull from the colors in the painting/drawing. Lets not add more. It just gets too busy and less unifying. And the frame won’t seem like it belongs if we don’t.

Color theory still matters! Choosing opposite colors on the wheel to the parts we’d like to highlight could add that extra “punch” to the image. Just make sure that those colors are still in the original art or it won’t work.

to be continued…

I Admit it! I’m HORRIBLE at abstract art! There are many who seem to think that there is nothing to it - me? Nope. If I were restricted to painting abstract only I think my career would be over! I once painted this piece, it was an assignment for a painting class I was in. My teacher gave us no guidance, she just let us at it. Maybe she wanted to see what we were made of, or maybe, because it was the end of the class, she didn’t think there was time to delve into the subject. Regardless, what I was made of was perfectly clear by the time I handed that painting in to be marked. It was awful. My problem? There were too many to count, I suspect… but for starters I’ve noticed that I tried to do too much at once. Imagine this:

First layer - stripes, multicolored, of course.

Second layer - swirlygigs and whatchamutsits, different sizes and colors, of course.

Third layer - a thick blue glaze covering about 2/3 of the canvas.

End result - sore eyes.

I wish very much that I had a photo of it to illustrate my point (although my pride might stay in tact just a little more because I can’t show you just how bad it was!). Truth be told, a friend of mine actually liked it, so as it was on it’s way to the trash she snagged it. I let her keep it only with a solomn promise that she NEVER tell anyone EVER who painted it.

So as to not disapoint you completely, I’ll include an image of the only other bad abstract that still remains under my roof. The reason it is still around is possibly that it’s ugliness will never exceed my previous attempts, but none-the-less, don’t expect to see it at any art shows (except perhaps a “discount” bin???! I can see it now labeled like this: “Flawed, Damaged or in Extremely Bad taste. $1.00. Artist will not be held responsible for sore eyes, nor foot the bill for consequent Optometrist appointments or pain medications resulting from viewing the art in this bin”).

Here’s what I’ve got:

I’m actually hoping to take a class on abstact art one of these days. I have a lot to learn!

If you didn’t get a chance to check out my last post, here is the link. In it I shared a list of things that my muse, my inspiration, hides behind. It can be helpful to figure out what’s going on so you can choose the right antidote. So you’re stuck. What do you do?  Here are some of my favorite tried and true ways:

You are stressed, busy, overwhelmed, or slightly depressed: Go for a walk in the rain - Yup. You heard me. I find walking a fabulous way to get my brain freed up. I often have a notebook with me so I can either jot down any inspiring ideas or get the nagging ones out of my way, like someone I forgot to call back, for example. Why the rain? Somehow the rain has a way of taking me out of my comfort zone (go figure). Its wet. It usually a little cold. It blurs my surroundings which makes me feel closer to my thoughts. It has a way of loosening me up - if I can stop caring what I look like, or how wet I’ll get, I can stop caring about other things too. And usually laugh a little. If you try this, make sure you jump in a few puddles too!

You have unresolved art-related problems: Put your creation that you are stuck on out in the open. Somewhere that you will bump into it on a continuous basis. I often use this trick when I know something is bugging me about a painting and I just can’t put my finger on it. Usually after a day or two of glancing at it I get a multitude of “first impressions” and pretty soon the same things begin to stick out in my brain. Make sure that you don’t leave it out so long that you get sick of it in its unresolved state! If your problem pursists, see if you can’t find an artist to critique your work for you. You may have to pay them a small fee, but it might be worth it for you.

Busyness and Distraction: Priorities. Sometimes you may need to get through a certain project, such as packing for a big move, or your distraction may just be really important, such as children with extra needs, but I find that if you want to do it, and you find yourself doing things that are less important than creating but just never get around to making your art, priorities likely need to be re-adjusted.

Discouragement, focusing on what others want from your art, feeling like art isn’t legitimate, even just feeling “down,” or in an undefined lul: Go see other art. Surround yourself, to the best of your ability, with other artists. There are few things more inspiring to me than surrounding myself with great art and the artists that make it happen. It stirs up a passion in me (that helps me to realize that setting time aside to create IS a legitimate thing to do because I become aware of the life it brings to me), it shows me what CAN be done, It speaks to my soul (which makes me want to paint out of that passion instead of always out of demand). There are many ways to do that.

-Go to your local art store, see if there is a tack board of info about shows, or if they know of any art/craft shows in your area.

-Read the arts section in your local paper. Events are sometimes posted there.

-Take an art class. This way you can see other’s art in progress, see how they do it, and maybe be inspired to try new things

-Subscribe to an art magazine (one that relates to your passions). My absolute favorite is International Artist Magazine! They often show the progress of the artwork, or interview the artists for a bit of the “up-close-and-personal.”

-Go to a local art critique. It might take some snooping around to find one though.

-Get together with local artists to chat, discuss work, plan art trips, etc. You can ask around at the art stores, or arts festivals, or ask artists at shows, for groups that meet and how you can be a part of them if you don’t know anyone else who is

-If an online art reference and community is for you (though it is focussed towards fine arts and less of the crafty-type creations), the best I’ve discovered is Wet Canvas. On this site you can see what others are creating, critique their work, post your own work for critiques, discuss topics, access free reference photos and just be around people who do it too!

Those are just a few ideas - feel free to share your own so others can glean from them!

Likely all of us have had moments (or months) of staring at a blank canvas, or pad of paper, a glaring screen, stack of fabric, or whatever your means of creating, and being STUCK. I’ve been there. I’ve gone for months without creating any art. And hated it. I shriveled up inside. I’m sure many of you have experienced the same thing. That’s why I decided to touch on this topic…what to do when your muse is playing hide and seek? In order to explore the topic thoroughly, it would be helpful to identify some of the things that can lead to artist/creative block in the first place. On my journey so far, this is what I’ve discovered:Stress - when I’m stressed out about something or just still haven’t unwound from a crazy or brutal day, I’m useless for anything more than dipping a huge brush into a pot of paint and throwing it at something, or closing my eyes and smearing paint-covered hands all over everything. Which sounds like fun anyway… (hmmm…so maybe stress isn’t an excuse after all?)

Pain/sorrow- I am not capable of creating much of anything in the midst of my pain. Perhaps I am too consumed with myself to concentrate on something outside of me, especially when care and steadiness is required of me.

Depression- I don’t know about you, but there doesn’t seem to be a better hiding place for my muse than behind the wall of depression. Although I don’t believe that we should wait until we feel joyous to create. Sometimes, (not always though) forcing ourselves to create (whether it be “bad” or “good” art should be irrelevant) is just what we need to pull us out of ourselves for a while.

Being overwhelmed - with having too much to do, with how hard your project is, with difficult relationships, with the loudness of the red shirt you wore today… any and all of it!

Discouragement - This one is tough. When I feel defeated, it’s hard to have any confidence in my ability to make something I can be proud of (although not all art has to be made for that purpose).

Unresolved art-related problems- Something is bugging you about your work but I’m just not sure what to do about it.

Busyness/Distraction - This one usually gets me once my muse has already scurried off somewhere, and it makes it harder to find the will to round up the search party!

Focusing on what others want from your art - This  is also a fabulous hiding place for my muse! In my opinion, focusing ONLY on what others might want you to create instead of what you feel moved to create (commissions, or deals - like the one I’ve got going on, or even self-inflicted sense that other people know best what you should create) is almost like shooting your inspiration the foot if I stay there too long!

Feeling like art isn’t a legitimate priority to pursue.

So there is my list. Do any of you have any additions? Where does your inspiration hide? I’ll be sharing some great tips on how to find it again for my next post.

While drawing live nude models is a common practice among the art community, and promoted as helpful and even necessary, many people either get squeamish at the idea, are downright against the idea, or don’t have access to the drawing groups that meet for this purpose. Yet, it’s true, drawing from life is a GREAT exercise - it helps us to loosen up (especially helpful for me, a detail-freak), sharpen our skills, enhance our observation skills, forces us to devote a chunk of time to practice, among other things. I know that I really benefit from drawing from life, but trees and buildings just don’t do it for me. It’s people that give me life. Here are a few tips from those of you who want to draw people from life but, for any of the reasons above, haven’t been able to.

-Go to a coffee shop. The bigger and brighter, the better! Grab a coffee and sit down. Scan for people who are reading the paper, who are angled away from you, or engrossed in a great conversation.

-Go to a park on a busy day. Make sure your notebook and pencils are obvious while drawing the kids, or parents will likely get suspicious about the person staring at their treasure over in the corner! Oh ya, and you’ll need shade, the blaring sun either in your eyes or on your paper usually make things more difficult.

-Hit up the closest airport. This has been my favorite, although I admit, I have only done it once or twice. There are a lot of people, many nationalities, often in their national garb, and they are usually just sitting around - perfect for getting a bit more detail! Some of my favorite sketches were from the airport. The downside to this option is that you’ll likely have to pay for parking unless you’ve arranged drop-off and pick-up.

-Take your sketchbook to arts and music Festivals. There are often fun costumes, or musicians doing the same motions again and again (drums for example) that may make it easier to capture the moment.

-Recruit a family member. This way you can bribe them with a cookie, perhaps, and you might even get them to sit still for long enough to capture them!

Some helpful supplies to bring along are extra pencils (pre-sharpened so if yours breaks you won’t miss out on the moment during sharpening), extra eraser, some music and headphones (it helps me get into my “creative zone”), and sunglasses (to hide your eyes! People become nervous if they think they are being watched).

Now, of course, most of my ideas are different than drawing a live model for the very reason that a paid live model stays still. You have no guarantee that yours will stay still for any length of time. Always work fast - get the shapes down first, and proportions before you begin with any shading or details. And don’t worry about “finishing a drawing!” That’s not the point! It’s about practice, and sometimes about developing reference images, not about making a finished piece of art.

So, there you go, here’s my tip for Works For Me Wednesday. Happy Drawing!

(Modification: Lots of us part-time artists can’t just get away by ourselves to practice. I know I can’t very often. If this is you, try taking your kids WITH you to the park, or to the beach. Or you can try drawing your kids while they watch a movie, or as they sleep, as one of you suggested! Some kids would love the opportunity to bond with us by drawing beside us. Lets make sure we encourage our kids in their artistic abilities too!)

This is a sketch I did from a coffee shop one afternoon. This man kept shifting positions, so I gave up trying to develop one drawing and drew his face in as many positions as I could!

Another coffee shop.

Airport.

Beach sketch!