My mother is in Korea right now and I miss her.
gouache
Distillation
In drawing and painting, I am cultivating “my style.” I am definitely not someone who likes (or can) make realistic faces and people. In elementary school, I excelled at stick figures with faces of tiny dots for eyes, no nose and semi-circle mouths.
But this was a fun and relatively easy portrait painting that I learned from August Wren on Creativebug.com. I like the bold colors and rough frame.
The Hustle
Soft and Bland
Exuberance is Everywhere
“Being present means living without control and always having your needs met.”
Byron Katie, On Work and Money
Control = illusion
true needs are few, wants are not
all I need, I have
Feeling Stuck
I’ve been feeling stuck in my writing and my art. Doing the art in Lisa Congdon’s “Messy Sketchbook” Creativebug class has loosened me up. But I think I need to do more of it, and more yoga, too.
The Notions We Have
Your world (the way you see it) is a direct reflection of your mind.
Freeform
I’m playing with form, color and inspiration. No great art here, just having a lot of fun. For the last one, I didn’t know I was going to write my name in Korean until I did it. It might have something to do with recently reading about Bruce Lee and how proud of he was of his Chinese ethnicity and because I’m so happy that Sandra Oh is the first Asian-American actress nominated for a best lead actress Emmy award. Who knows?
I started with acrylics, but it’s so hard to clean up (requires rubbing alcohol) and gouache is more forgiving. I’m sticking with gouache and watercolor for the near term.
This is a continuation of exercises from Flora Bowley’s online class. Check her out, she’s a great teacher.
Elephantine
Self-Advocate
Listening to Oprah’s podcast with will.i.am, I was profoundly impressed with him not only as a musician, but as an education proponent. His i.am.angel foundation brings STEAM (science, technology, engineering and math) programs to under-served communities. This foundation has also awarded over $800k in scholarships and 97% of these students are the first in their families to go to college.
Will echoes Milton Berle’s sage advice:
If a door closes, build a new door.
This reminds me of something that happened a few weeks ago, when I was reading the Red4Ed message board. A school bus driver wrote: “Are you guys (teachers) demanding a raise and better benefits for us classified staff?”
I see way too much self-medicating and not enough self-advocating these days. Don’t ever assume someone is looking out for you. You’ve got to do the heavy lifting yourself. Exercise your rights. Vote. Do something with what you have.
If you go by the usual quote, “When one door closes, another opens,” it assumes you will just wait for another one to open. When you build your own, it won’t ever close.
will.i.am
Kismet 