My own personal hurricane...

So it seems that over doing it and packing every minute of my day with something to do or make or fix seems to be the way I operate. I wonder what would happen if I slowed down? Do you lose steam and procrastinate or refuel and keep going? I even seem to rush through the relaxing things just to say I relaxed, Some like ROR would say I am riding the wave, and it is encouraging to see other women pushing, and trying, and creating, and being strong leaders.Tomorrow night is another Monstrosity Art Show put on by Central Texas Annie Consulting, which I thought at first I wasn't going to be involved in and then when I realized I was and I really don't have much breadth in my sexual or sensuous side of my portfolio, I freaked for 2 minutes, then proceeded to gesso two new boards on Tuesday, painted one on Wednesday. Which I was not sure in which direction to take my sass to... and was surprised to see that I could use some techniques I enjoy in drawing and painting and actually come up with something pretty, although my mom did ask, in the way that blunt, embarrassing moms do, " What's with the Porn?"

She did not see this second piece I completed Thursday,which is beautiful and has inspired me to actually pinpoint the series of paintings I'd like to work on which I will explain soon, once I've gathered all my thoughts and written an artist statement that I can hold my self accountable to instead of jumping around project to project with the only thing tying them together is that I made it. Yes, I will still make curtains for the shower window by accident when I really meant to take a shower, and I will still paint furniture when I should be paying bills, but I will make every effort to sit still tomorrow cuddling with my little one, slowly sipping tea, and breath. Just breath. Try it with me? That is before the art show followed the next morning by an early birding walk and Habitat Stewardship training class and off to close at Patagonia. I swear, I could have much bigger problems, my only problem is I love doing everything. Now, is that really so bad?

Lucha Libre Mural for the Jeff Cave

I've painted a lot of murals in my day, so when Jeff said he wanted to work on a project for the house together like a mural I was excited, but also knew I did not want a mural in the house. I get sick of images quickly and change my art around enough as it is. Jeff was kind enough to prime and paint the water heater doors in the garage and then he picked out images from an awesome Mexican street art book called Sensacional of Luchadores.

Here is a list of things I needed to get this mural done:
1.Images that we wanted and a wall to work on
2.Tracing paper
3.Pencil fr tracing and drawing the image on the doors
4.Scissors to cut the tracing paper images
5.My projector (not necessary but it speeds up the process so you can get it done during nap time)
6.Cup for water
7.A few different size paintbrushes
8.Acrylic Paint
9.Step ladder to make reaching easier and level to draw level lines
10. music and a beer.

First I measured my work area, divided that by three for the three images that each door would have, and using a level I drew two lines horizontally across the doors. After tracing my images and cutting them into pieces that would fit on my projector, I lined them up with the level lines and using the pencil traced the images in the perfectly dark garage. It is helpful if you have a water color pencil to do the tracing so that the lines blend in with the paint and they are easy to wash off, if you don't have one any pencil will work. Then referring to some of the art in the reference book I picked out a few colors and mixed my acrylic paint to match.

Then came the fun part of painting in the big blocks of color.

Sometimes I am so impatient to get to the final product since a painting could look blah until the last step. Fill in your color evenly, wet your brush with water to get a nice smooth consistency so your edges of color are solid and completely filled in. Then my last step with the luchadores mural was to outline and detail in black with a fine paintbrush, and as Ione says, "Ta-da!" There you go, something more exciting to look at in the grimy garage. I think I'll paint the trim later, it's time to go do mom stuff.