Day 7 - John - What a sweetheart with big dark blue eyes. He brought me irises. At 8 he is already learning the way to a woman's heart. Girls love flowers!
John was a bit squirmy. But, that is his great personality. It's just harder to capture someone when they are too interested in what I am doing and not focusing on the movie. All in all, I captured his look. John is the son of one of my students, Martha. I am so happy that I got to meet him and spend the time creating this painting. What a handsome guy he is!
Day 8 - at 10:00 AM this morning I met Audrey, the beautiful granddaughter of my classmate, Gail Comstock, from Casa Robles class of 1976. What a sweet and bright young lady Audrey is. She was very beautiful in her turquoise dress and even drew a picture for me! I am very happy with the outcome of her painting and actually having the time to get the details of the dress and her arms in. That is a lot to pack into 3 hours. As Audrey's mom Kara was filling out the questions that I ask of everyone, she asked Audrey what her best experience was. They came up with a trip to Mexico but there wasn't a lot of excitement surrounding the answer. So, it was really cute when Kara wrote on FB that Audrey and her both think this was the most exciting experience of her life yet, to sit for a painting. :*)
All these kids are so sweet and wonderful. It makes me miss my son being young. He is 30 and is still single. (I am taking applications for a mother to my grandchildren! :*) Just kidding. He wouldn't be happy to have mom's help and is actually doing fine on his own.) Gary is a journeyman electrician in the commercial field and manages about 6 other electricians under him. I am really a proud mom.
Well, unfortunately I wasn't feeling good at all since day 6. So, I didn't blog yesterday (written on 8-8-15) because I slept to try to get rid of the horrible headache that I had. Good news ... as of today I am back to my happy, healthy self! Yeah.
I had coffee with my dear friend David on Thursday evening and he asks such poignant questions. I was all set to talk about it but my brain can't recall what it was that I was going to talk about. It's hard to be witty, deep, and right brained at the same time. I will keep trying to remember what that was that we were talking about and hopefully hit that point in the near future.
It seems my life is a maze of fun encounters where I think I might be having more fun than those who have to sit for me. But, at least with all the kids I have done this week, they get to watch a movie or two as well. I know I am not getting as good of a painting as I could because I am listening to the movies and distracted from what I usually think about when painting to music alone for adults. I feel that I could do far better. I have one more little girl and the rest of the models are going to be adults. So, I can have them sit without the television involved and hope to get better focus and paintings.
Even with those issues and my bar set so high, I do feel that I caught the character of each of these handsome and cute little kids. It's been very fun. Please don't take my correction of myself and sharing my higher standards for my work as a criticism or lack of self confidence. It is the push behind me to make myself a better painter daily that makes my work stronger every time I go back to the easel. Without this inner critic, I would be satisfied and passively never learn or desire to learn more. I teach my students that no matter how good you are as an artist, there is always a bar that is higher than we are now achieving and that bar is what makes us better artists. It's true that a 3 hour painting of this degree is good. But, I strive to be better than good and hope that some day I will be excellent. Thank you if you think I am now.
The trick I tell my students is that you must not beat yourself with that bar. It's one thing to recognize it but another if you stop yourself from doing any more work or believing that you can do better work that causes damage. This applies to everything in life.
John was a bit squirmy. But, that is his great personality. It's just harder to capture someone when they are too interested in what I am doing and not focusing on the movie. All in all, I captured his look. John is the son of one of my students, Martha. I am so happy that I got to meet him and spend the time creating this painting. What a handsome guy he is!
Day 8 - at 10:00 AM this morning I met Audrey, the beautiful granddaughter of my classmate, Gail Comstock, from Casa Robles class of 1976. What a sweet and bright young lady Audrey is. She was very beautiful in her turquoise dress and even drew a picture for me! I am very happy with the outcome of her painting and actually having the time to get the details of the dress and her arms in. That is a lot to pack into 3 hours. As Audrey's mom Kara was filling out the questions that I ask of everyone, she asked Audrey what her best experience was. They came up with a trip to Mexico but there wasn't a lot of excitement surrounding the answer. So, it was really cute when Kara wrote on FB that Audrey and her both think this was the most exciting experience of her life yet, to sit for a painting. :*)
All these kids are so sweet and wonderful. It makes me miss my son being young. He is 30 and is still single. (I am taking applications for a mother to my grandchildren! :*) Just kidding. He wouldn't be happy to have mom's help and is actually doing fine on his own.) Gary is a journeyman electrician in the commercial field and manages about 6 other electricians under him. I am really a proud mom.
Well, unfortunately I wasn't feeling good at all since day 6. So, I didn't blog yesterday (written on 8-8-15) because I slept to try to get rid of the horrible headache that I had. Good news ... as of today I am back to my happy, healthy self! Yeah.
I had coffee with my dear friend David on Thursday evening and he asks such poignant questions. I was all set to talk about it but my brain can't recall what it was that I was going to talk about. It's hard to be witty, deep, and right brained at the same time. I will keep trying to remember what that was that we were talking about and hopefully hit that point in the near future.
It seems my life is a maze of fun encounters where I think I might be having more fun than those who have to sit for me. But, at least with all the kids I have done this week, they get to watch a movie or two as well. I know I am not getting as good of a painting as I could because I am listening to the movies and distracted from what I usually think about when painting to music alone for adults. I feel that I could do far better. I have one more little girl and the rest of the models are going to be adults. So, I can have them sit without the television involved and hope to get better focus and paintings.
Even with those issues and my bar set so high, I do feel that I caught the character of each of these handsome and cute little kids. It's been very fun. Please don't take my correction of myself and sharing my higher standards for my work as a criticism or lack of self confidence. It is the push behind me to make myself a better painter daily that makes my work stronger every time I go back to the easel. Without this inner critic, I would be satisfied and passively never learn or desire to learn more. I teach my students that no matter how good you are as an artist, there is always a bar that is higher than we are now achieving and that bar is what makes us better artists. It's true that a 3 hour painting of this degree is good. But, I strive to be better than good and hope that some day I will be excellent. Thank you if you think I am now.
The trick I tell my students is that you must not beat yourself with that bar. It's one thing to recognize it but another if you stop yourself from doing any more work or believing that you can do better work that causes damage. This applies to everything in life.
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