It has been ten years since I have used my oil pastels and for some reason I needed to use them. I pulled them out this week and literally blew the dust off of them. The last time I used them I was single, no kids, lived in the ghetto, and would drink canned beer with every late night project I created. My oh my, how my life has changed… I have two young children, am happily married, I don’t live in the ghetto anymore and I rarely drink canned beer. The need to create with oil pastels made me think what next? What crazy art item haven’t I used in years that I am itching to use? I have two that I haven’t pulled out yet – my dyes and my oil paints (which I really want to do but can’t oil paint with a one year old). I really wanted to do another hummingbird (my daughter wanted me to do it) I had planned on doing watercolor so I drew it on watercolor paper. I then decided that oil pastel was the way to go. It has been so long, I can’t even tell you what type of paper you should use for them. I will say the watercolor paper worked really well. I worked on it last night during Tenth Inning (Ken Burns) and was almost finished with it last night. I posted pictures earlier of the progress. I finished it this afternoon during nap time and am really pleased with how it turned out!
I will say I have been greatly inspired by The Hive (I promise this is in no way to try to get a featured post.) I have stated that I don’t consider myself an artist, I hear the word and my name together I get embarrassed. I not sure why that is. I not ashamed of my art work in fact it is just the opposite, I take great pride in my art work and craftsmanship. Much love, sweat, tears and sometimes blood goes into each project I create. I realized to take it to the next level I need to embrace the fact that I am an artist (I promise that is not the pain medicine talking – hehehe). In doing that it made me realize that I need to create more pieces in different mediums to rebuild my (sorry looking) portfolio. So I am back to painting (not oils) but I am working on a new painting, it is going to be a surprise (actually my Autumn Challenge Entry, so it is a BIG secret!!!) I might even work on a colored pencil drawing I found some dark gray paper that would make a beautiful drawing (at least in my head). I will say between this blog and joining The Hive I take way more progression photos than I ever have. I use to be the person, it isn’t finished don’t look at it. I hated progress critiques in college because I didn’t want everyone to see the “bad” stage of my thought process. Now I love taking photos so I can document the progression (and my thought process) from start to finish.
I also know that I am not the best blogger, actually I know I am a horrible writer, my husband cringes every time he reads a blog entry. I have said it before and I will state it again, if I ever write a post with no grammatical errors and makes perfect sense, my husband proof read it! I know that I am a better artist than a writer, I have never claimed to be a writer but I enjoy doing it and I appreciate everyone who can suffer through my posts (because some days they are really, really bad!)
Here are some progress photos and the finished piece. I want to add, I am still donating 50% of all the animal drawings, paintings, etc. proceeds to the National Wildlife Federation for Gulf Coast Clean Up, just because it oil stopped flowing does not mean that life is back to normal:
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| The beginning |
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| Making progress |
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| Hummingbird Finished |
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| YAY – It is done and on my Etsy Store |
Who Are You Calling Crafty? 
