SAYING GOODBYE TO DINING ROOM AND MOVING INTO THE NEW STUDIO

Heys guys... I am so excited to tell you that I have finally made the move from my Dining room into my new porch/studio after a year in the works.  I have moved almost everything into the new studio and sealed with a kiss by moving my wooden easel into it!  Last night was my first day painting in it and I have to say it was 'heaven'!  I had my supplies and my music...and I was so relaxed and calm.

NEW HANDSEWN CURTAINS ON FOUR WINDOWS

Even though I am so excited about the new move, I have to say that I felt a twinge of sadness when I was carrying things out of the Dining room.  It was a slow moving feeling, a quite sadness that I felt rising up in me every time I'd move something from room to room. I was experiencing a sense of loss and I realized that I was going to have to say 'goodbye' to the dining room experience just like saying 'goodbye' to a relationship that changes. Even though the Dining room did not really meet my needs and it didn't feel like a real working studio, I still had a part of me that was connected to it because I spent a lot of time in there. I will not miss it, but I will certainly remember working in it. It's strange how we humans are connected oddly to our 'stuff' and in many ways.  We know ourselves by the 'stuff' we surround ourselves with and the places we spend our time. 

SOME STUFF FOR THE NEW STUDIO AND PAINTING THE CEILING
AS WELL AS PREPAIRING FOR LANDSDALE ART FAIR

PINK AND GREEN DRESSER IN NEW STUDIO SPACE

TOP VIEW OF NEW PINK & GREEN DRESSER

CLOSE UP VIEW OF FRONT OF PINK AND GREEN DRESSER

I had so much stuff in the Dining room ( and still do)  and it no way will fit in my new studio.  Being the collector of supplies and 'stuff to make stuff out of '.   I have a lot of supplies that I will have to find some other place to store my 'stuff '.   I always plopped my stuff down on the pink dresser when I came in the door from classes etc.   Now after I resurfaced it, it is cleared off on top and it looks great.  I painted it and decoupaged/ mixed mediaed it (not sure if that is a word? Well, I'll make it a word!) and the new dresser really makes me happy when I look at it.  I am now working on a trunk for the studio to put my paper and mixed media stuff in.  I'll show photos when I complete it. 

So, as I have mentioned, I feel a little sad making the move into a new studio enviroment, I am so excited to finally be moving all my 'stuff' into it. Well, most of it anyway.  I am really going to like this new space because I designed how I wanted it to function in my mind so many times.  Palette on the right and paints on the left.  Everything on wheels.  Must have wheels. 

 I will keep you updated to let you know if moving to a studio space really is that different or not.  I will post some pictures when I get them to show how my studio is working for me.  Please leave a comment if you would like about your experience of moving your 'art stuff' into a studio space.  I would love to hear what you have to offer.

Cheers, 

Loren

NEW PAINTING FEATURED 'ON MY EASEL'

'HERES LOOKING AT YOU, KID!'  2012  oil on canvas  (c) Loren Fidalgo 2012

Well, it's time for an 'on my EASEL' painting to be featured on my blog and this painting is a little different than I usually talk about.  Maybe it is because I posted my painting, 'CHUNKY, CHUNKY GIRL' yesterday and it just put me in a funny and light hearted mood? Yeahhh..., yesterday's painting post,  it's still cracking me up!   So here goes another round...

When I first started this painting in 2012, I was really interested in faces and depicting the human face in my sketches and paintings. I usually love to add these big super huge cheeks to illustrate the delight and charm of my characters.  That's not to say that my faces are always happy and elated.  Sometimes they are somber and suffering with despair.  (that's a subject for another post) For this post, I will be focusing on this particular painting 'Here's looking at you, kid!' and the joyful nature of this girl and her suitor who came to give her his heart.

In one of my painting classes I was taking at the time of this painting, I was doing a lot of sketches in my book and the idea was that they were supposed to be from my imagination and/or a memory from something I saw during my day.. In this class, I learned to draw from lightly scribbling on the paper and watching until eventually something would emerge from the scribbling  Maybe it was from my imagination or maybe even a dream?.  Well, most of my scribble drawings I drew became faces of people with a lot of interesting features that had a lot of character.  When I first started painting, I would paint large red and round circles for cheeks and then around 2010, I started creating these paintings with these round, ball cheeks that seemed to be popping out of the faces and off the canvases..  What the large cheeks truly meant, I did not know however, I kept drawing and painting them.

In this painting , she has really large cheeks as I have mentioned  and she seems to be just thrilled with who she is and what she is about. (so I think.  I haven't asked her!).  She is delighted with the little male bird has chosen to make it's way over to her to give her his heart.  He reaches his beak up to her while holding the little red heart as symbolism  for his literal heart. This bird surely wants to give himself to her.   The excitement on her face is clearly evident and it reminds me of the place I was in emotionally when I painted her.  She seems somewhat coquetious, and a little kooky as if she is so proud of herself and why shouldn't she be?  I wasn't feeling in the same mood when I painted her, so I don't know where I pulled this image from my mind, that has such a euphoric tone. Possibly, it was from another part of my mind that I was not accessing at the time I was painting?  That happens to me sometimes. Maybe it happens to you, too?   For me, I will paint and just be in the 'zone' so deeply that may not be conscious of what I am expressing.  Sometimes, I don't know for months or years as in this painting what it is truly about. And the colors...I also don't know why I chose to paint with the colors I did?

This painting is in oils and in this painting the colors are Naples Yellow, Cadmium Red, Titanium White, Cerealean Blue, Ultramarine Blue, Ivory Black and Cadmium Yellow.  I love to paint faces in yellows and warm colors.  I especially love to use Naples Yellow in my faces.  I know it can be tricky color to use and sometimes it can be overused, but at the time I had seemed to be taken to it and loved the buttery consistency and texture. .  I used Utrecht Brand oils then and I still do. I love them and they meet my needs.

So that's a wrap up for 'on my EASEL'.  I hope you enjoyed this one?  I think I am still discovering what my paintings are all about and I like to share the journey of discovery with you.  Keep reading my posts and please feel free and easy to leave a comment if you would like?  I'd love to hear what you are thinking and feeling?

Cheers for now,
Loren

QUESTIONING CHALLENGES AND BRAVERY

' CHUNKY, CHUNKY GIRL'    oil on canvas  2010  30x40  (c) Loren Fidalgo 2010

Every time I look at this painting it just cracks me up!  I don't know why I painted it and what the inspiration was, but I just love it.( Possibly, I will do an 'on my easel' and talk about what I THINK it is about?)  I thought this painting would be a good lead in to this post since she surely looks like she has something going on and is a little flirty with her winking eye. I know she is somewhat fearless but that is not totally what I was feeling when I put the paint on the canvas and so I ask "why"? "Why is she fearless?" She looks as if she is so free and easy going and that is definetly the place we all would like to be.  Well, maybe some of us? For me it has been a little bit challenging to be totally fearless but it's getting better especially these in past few weeks and months.
My journey the last few months has been an interesting one. I have been feeling a little more uncertain and unsure and have lost some faith about some aspects of my life and the direction I am going in than I usually do.  For those who do not know, about 6 years ago, a huge 10lb. ceramic vase came flying down onto my head in the Ceramics class I was taking and changed my life forever.   After chatting with my friend Jill the other day about this accident experience, l have been thinking a lot about the vase that fell on my head 6 years ago and how it has impacted me, my decisions, my preferences, my needs and my passions  (read more about head injury here and here )   I still do not know whether the head injury I developed had really influenced my desires and my calling into painting and mixed media.  Actually, I had been doing various kinds of art since childhood so it might have just been random?   But this change seemed different in it's flavor and intensity. I do know that I have not looked back to the life I had before. Since then I have slowly but certainly become more open, more free and more uninhibited than I ever was before the vase fell on my head.  Before the accident,  I felt I somewhat closed, isolated and wanting to be alone a lot.  I guess I was introverted and a little shy and I felt that venturing out was a scary and challenging thing for me to do.  Now I feel so free, I am being 'brave' and wanting to express myself so intensely and even more than I did when I first began painting.  I have become much more social and needing that 'girlfriend experience'  more often.  Friends are so important to me and making them seems effortless and joyful now.  Oh, how much has changed.  I have more courage than I used to.  Confidence in my work and my direction is still a little bit shaky, but it is also getting better everyday, as well.  I just look at things differently now.  There was a 'shift', a 'snap', a 'pop' in my psyche after the injury that I still can not explain.  Not knowing whether I suffered any damaged really is a curious thing for me to ponder.  I ask myself often, "why have I changed?  Where in my brain did I change? Why have my desires and my artistic interests changed so dramatically? Why did my life change creatively and socially?"

I think I will forever wonder what happened to me that day in 2008?  I will always contemplate if painting and mixed media was a calling as a result from the head injury or just a mere coincidence or odd happening that was bound to come out some time and reveal itself to me any how.  The question still remains?  I think this painting 'Chunky, Chunky Girl' is possibly about letting yourself go and shedding old skin.  Maybe it's about a way of saying,  "Hey there.  I see you and you see me?" Maybe it's about revealing ourselves to ourselves and to others and feeling more vulnerable when we do it?  Maybe it's about stepping forward and being who you truly are, chunky or not chunky and naked or not naked?  But in the end of this post, I have come to think that this painting is about totally about 'bravery'.  Brave that we put ourselves out there and that we don't really know what will come back to us.  So that is where I will leave it for now, 'CHUNKY GIRL' is about being BRAVE.

If you have encountered any experience like mine or just want to comment about being brave, , please leave a message? I would love to hear from you.  I have heard other people having a similar thing happen to them and I would love to know how many there are out there? 

Thanks for reading my post.
Cheers,
Loren