I should pay attention more when drawing....

Totally papercut the side of my hand while brushing away eraser dust from my drawing, and didn't even know it till I noticed blood spots on my paper. Awesome! At least it's not a final draft and is just on tracing paper...

Well, some real art has been completed! I worked extremely hard and long on a nice big painting for my Grandmother's 80th birthday. She loves birds, and I had painted her a hummingbird (her favorite bird) in acrylics about 10 years ago. Well, these days I look at the thing and go "Omg, it's so awful." So I had to paint her something beautiful to replace that old thing. My whole family decided to have a large birthday party for my grandmother, and my painting gift to her was on display at the reception that the whole town came to.

Woo hoo!

The finished piece. Pictures are with my phone, as I had to actually take my painting and paints with me to finish. I stayed up til 3am the night before and tried so hard to finish, but it just wasn't happening. So my last resort was to pack up and take it with me! It turned out alright in the end though.

The finished sketch on Arches 90lb hot press watercolor paper.

Just some progress....

 Tee hee... It's Mordecai and Margaret! (You're welcome, Regular Show fans.)

 The Magpie is definitely my favorite. I'm going to have to do a single magpie painting, he was hella fun and turned out great!

Nearly done! On my cousin's dining room table.

 Another sweet magpie shot. Finished version.

All in all it was a great project and learning experience. I tried to go lesser on the detail, but still make it good-looking enough to be a great painting. I'm quite proud of it, it seems every painting I do these days is "the best" when it's done. I like where this is going. :3 More to come soon, hope the few people that actually read this blog enjoy!  

TTFN

Intimidation of the Blank Board

I know that a lot of artists suffer from the intimidation of a blank board (with sketch, of course) ready for painting. I have found comfort in reading some of my favorite artist's blogs and noticing that they, too, suffer from this dilemma.

You have a sketch. You love the sketch. You finalize your layout and transfer it to you painting surface of choice. You stare at the blank, colorless sketch, seeing all the colors flowing onto the page into what you want (and hope) it to be. It's time to lay the brush to the surface... But what's stopping you?

Oh my god, I'm going to ruin it. 

Watercolors aren't as forgiving as acrylics or oils. Digital media of course is impossible to screw up. (What I would give for a Ctrl+Z in real life.) With watercolors, you can't just paint over it if your colors are not right. You can't just paint it back to white and start over again. You get one shot to make it right. Just one. Then there is a fear that perhaps the paper might be one in a hundred that malfunctions on you, bubbles up when the water touches the surface. There's a chance you may accidentally paint over something, and forget that element was there, and there is no option to paint over it again. Watercolors are by far, to me, the most intimidating media ever. I do not think twice when I mix up some acrylics and throw it on a canvas. I think eh, if it's not right, just paint over it, it will be dry in no time in order to correct. Watercolors are notorious for holding grudges against you and your mistakes.

Even though I have done this a hundred times, stared at the blank paper hundreds of times and telling myself exactly the same thing... Just do it, don't worry, it will be fine. All you have to do is get started with one tiny area, and the rest will flow and it will turn out as gorgeous as you had hoped for....  Each time I have a new painting to be filled in, I stare at the white-ness of the board and procrastinate for as long as I can, even when I get right down to the nitty gritty of cleaning up my palette and preparing to dip that brush into the paint and push it around. 

What stops me? What is this irrational fear that I'm going to make it look horrible? I know that I am not the greatest artist in the world, but I would consider myself a fairly mediocre type. Some tell me that my skills match such great artists that I follow--This I'm not sure of. I don't think any artist would measure themselves against someone's art that they love. "She'll always be better than me." So why is this blank board so intimidating? Ever since I began this sketch, I loved the way it looked. I thought and thought and thought about color schemes, details, textures and lighting. In my head it is already painted. But putting that brush down is the first step; you have to take a leap of faith with yourself, I suppose. 

This immense pressure comes from one particular painting, which I am at the "intimidation stage" as I have decided to call it, in which I am determined to make it the most beautiful and amazing thing I have ever painted. The reasoning is that it is for someone very special, who I hope to make gasp and stagger with it's awesomeness. This adds a thousand more pounds of pressure to the already daunting task at hand. 

And yet, I have to have that faith in myself to get started, and know that I can and I will produce something great. 

Now I'm ready to give life to that empty white sketch. 

...Now if only I weren't at work right now and could sit right down to paint. 

The Herzeleid Theory

Yes, I have indeed decided to begin a blog. I'm not entirely sure where to begin. I suppose what I really wanted was an art blog. Or really, anything to put down my hum-drum thoughts and to also share art and progressions of my work. I do find it entertaining when artists post works in progress; it gives you a wonderful picture of how they work and is quite enjoyable to watch a blank page turn into a wonderful work of art.

I suppose I should explain how I came to the title, "The Herzeleid Theory". First off, I have been using the alias of "Herzeleid" for quite a few years now; it's my gamertag, my nickname, hell maybe you could call it my own personal franchise. Herzeleid the character was originally created as some sort of dragon-fox-wolf character that acted as my portrayal in my art. Nowadays, she still exists in many forms; a skeleton creature, a wiry skin-and-bones depiction, pretty much anything my mind can come up with. Why the name Herzeleid? Well, I suppose the first thing some of you are thinking is "That's a Rammstein song!" or perhaps "Herr... zee... leed? What the heck is that?" The word is "Hur-zeh-lyed"--in german, it means Heartache, or heart-sorrow. And yes, it is a Rammstein song, but that's not how I arrived at the word that would eventually become my handle. The simple name of "Heartache" was too emo, too cliche. Perhaps it's still cliche even in a different language? Yes, I'll admit it probably is. Nevertheless, I do enjoy my tag, and I use it quite often. The reasoning behind it is probably a little too personal to divulge to the masses of the interwebs, so I'll leave it to your imaginations.

I arrived at the idea of "The Herzeleid Theory" bearing in mind the translation of the word to Heartache. I scratched my head for a minute when creating a blog; what should I call myself? What kind of heading should I go under? My most favorite artist, Stephanie Pui-Mun Law, goes under the heading of "Shadowscapes"... which I find to be absolutely astounding to my mental and artistic psyche. It sounds like a dream, rolls off the tongue, describes her fantastic art in a single word with the same intensity that her art brings to your eyes. Something about it just rings true. So I sat here and thought... What kind of branding would I give myself? I previously had created things to sell under the name "Phoenix Feather Studios"--which I adore as a sort of business name, but it just doesn't quite fit my personality. After thinking for a moment, and deciding that I did indeed want to incorporate "Herzeleid", I started adding words and playing around with them in my head. The Herzeleid Theory came to mind when I passed over the word "Theory" in some article I was reading. "Theory"..... One definition being "a proposed explanation whose status is still conjectural and subject to experimentation, in contrast to well-established propositions that are regarded as reporting matters of actual fact", and another being "the branch of a science or art that deals with its principles or methods, as distinguished from its practice". I propose to you exactly this; what is the explanation for where art comes from? What is an artist's motivation? What principles and methods distinguish each artist from the rest of the bunch? So many questions surround art for me.... "How does she paint so realistically", or "How does he draw so well without reference".... Part of my theory, hence, "The Herzeleid Theory", revolves around emotion, and how emotion can greatly impact art--or any form of art really--and be the basis for the reason we create. How many songs do you hear about painful breakups? Songs about the immense happiness one feels? Even songs about a cowboy and his horse encompasses a certain kind of emotion. How many paintings have you seen with dark colors and a dreary mood that strike an empathetic chord in your chest to a point you actually FEEL what the artist was feeling? Or the happy, bright, sunlit cottage that brings on a warm feeling of calm... How many pieces of art do you see that actually have zero emotion? Granted, there may be some out there. But the works that interest me are those with a story behind them.

If you're still reading this right now, I commend you for being genuinely interested in what I have to say and it's truly heartwarming. I used to skip over tons of blogs and postings just to get to the pretty pictures. I used to do the same with art books too, skipping over all the texts--with USEFUL information, I might add--just to look at the pictures. I guess I'm more a visual person than I am a reader. But once I realized that hey, this stuff actually contains really useful information, I find myself digging for more blogs, more journals, more books, more and more things to read. I love seeing other people's ramblings or reminiscings (is that a word?).

Over time this blog will contain sketches, artings, ramblings, perhaps even some dream logs. I have TONS of crazy dreams, and have wanted somewhere to share their weirdness and their details. I generally dream in great detail. Sometimes I can wake up, and draw you a map of a house I was in, or paint you a picture of the forest I was romping through. I really should sketch up some of the scenes I find in dreams sometimes. Ever since I can remember I dreamed with vivid detail--perhaps that's the artist in me imagining detailed worlds with extensive flora, fauna and odd dramatic situations that entire books could be written about.

What I would greatly enjoy is to hear thoughts from others, feedback and critique, and best of all some blogging friends. :)

More to come soon. <3