Creativity & Paint

I was reading a book in Border's the other night, How I Learned to Cook, written by a variety of cooking folks. There are some absolutely hilarious disaster stories in there. The reason I bring this up is that my art classes stink (which isn't even acurate, my painting class stinks) and it's been getting me down. One of the fellows wrote that at one point his cooking gurutold him to be creative. He asked what it is to be creative. The great guru said that to be creative is not to copy. Which sums up my problem with my painting class: all semester long we've been copying. I was talking to the Hub about this last night and he said there's probably a lot to be learned from what we've been doing, which I completely agree with. The problem is not that we've been copying, but that it's all we've been doing. A few weeks would have been fine, even a couple of few-week chunks of time would have been fine, but it's been nearly the whole 15 weeks. The point is, without the creativity the spark dies. Painting loses it's pull for me. Which is sad, but happy too. Now that I have identified the problem, I can work on solving it. And isn't that what creativity is all about?

Life Drawing

Earlier I posted a few drawings and then proceeded to write about how my art classes stink. Then I rambled and ran out of time. I meant to say that my drawing class was going alright. Fascinating, right?

Oops, it's a passion flower.

Cold.

I am so fucking sick. I wish I could die. Well not quite but almost. There was no warning with this one, one minute I was fine and healthy, the next minute I was crappy and getting worse. And it couldn't have come at a worse time.

Art

Honestly, art hasn't been going well lately. I haven't been getting into the way I sometimes do.

There are a couple parts to this. The first part is painting. Spring of last year I fell in love with painting, oil paints specifically. This fall I thought painting was what I wanted to pursue, so I jumped right into it, and hit a big hard wall. Painting just isn't doing it for me this time around. There are a few part to this as well. This semester we've been mostly focused on exploring and imitating the style of another artist. While this has been valuable in many ways, it has separated me from my art in other ways, taken the integrity out it maybe, certainly taken a lot of my passion out of it. Or maybe just made it more difficult to access. Another part of it my body, which really at the moment, is gearing up to get pregnant. In so may ways. So my concentration is shot for art, and focused on other things. The other reason relates (I think) directly to the pregnancy issue. I think, in preparation, my body is rejecting poisons. For example, I loved coffee my whole life, even when I was little (although that migh have just been because of my mother's reaction) then about a month ago, I stopped liking it. I quit drinking it, didn't miss it, still don't miss it, and didn't experience any withdrawals. Come to learn a few days ago that caffeine damages fertility in women and 4 months is the time your body wants to clear it out before a pregnancy. Perfect timing for my body, with no help from my mind, to reject caffeine, perfect almost to the week. My point is this- there are few things in my life more toxic than painting. Going into the painting room creeps me out now, and I'm thinking it's more of the same.

I have to take my hubby lunch and go to school, but I'll finish the rest of this later.

I must have chickens!!!

I must!!!!!!!!!!!!!

I got a camera phone!!

It's not quite a camera, but it's so much more than a phone!