Second Syndrome

I've notice a certain phenomenon. When the first try turns out pretty good, the second try does not.  As a juggler who likes doing passing patterns with other people, this happens all of the time.  It also seems to happen with me when I draw or paint.

I like how yesterday's potato turned out and I also really enjoyed the process.  Today's potato, not so much on either front.  My drawing makes the potato look way more concave than actuality.

All and all, that's okay.  I'm drawing again and I don't get how to build shape with cross hatching, so I guess it's practice, practice, practice, followed by patience, patience, patience.


 

You Say Potato, I Say Cross Hatch

I am taking France Van Stone's Cross Hatching online class.  The class become available on 12/31 and the live Q&A session for the end of class already took place.  Fortunately, it's a class where you have lifetime access. There are four lessons and I'm not even done with the first one.  Watching her draw the example potato with multiple layers of dark and cross hatching was fascinating and the end result was beautiful.

I don't get cross hatching, but I think I'll get it better if I work through this class s    l    o   w   l   y.  One thing she mentioned was that you have to be patient and put the time in if you want to build a drawing with cross hatching.  I'm not very patient, but I'm willing to give this a try.

Potato drawing, take 1.

It felt really good to draw and the cross hatching was kind of fun!

If You See My Focus and Discipline, Would You Send It My Way?

I usually negotiate my life in a mostly deliberate and organized manner.  This includes coming up with a daily “to do” list and trying to get at least a few things done off my list every day.  That’s not how it’s been going lately.  I get on the computer, start doing genealogy research, and seem to get nothing else done. In addition to researching my bio-roots, I’ve also been looking into the roots of my adopted family. 

All of this has meant that my art-making has been on hiatus.  I've been feeling bad about that, but yesterday, my feelings changed.  I did a pretty good job for almost three years.  Yes, it would have been better to keep my habit going, but I didn't.  Equally important is finding my way back.  While it sounds easy, it's not.  I think about drawing or painting almost every single day, but I just haven't been able to start back up yet.  I am confident that I will get it back again and I think that will be soon.  The desire to do so is starting to gain on the inertia of not doing so.

Anyway, I finished one painting a week ago and have that to show. Here is a shot from mid-way through.

Here is the completed painting. I like this one better in person.

#290 - Bridge at Minnehaha Park - 8" x 8"

Starting The New Year

Wednesday went very well. I worked from home and was focused and motivated, so I got a lot accomplished. My plan for the evening was to watch video related to a Sktchy class on cross-hatching and also to draw. It was the evening my partner plays cribbage with this family.

I decided to work on my family tree for just a little bit, first. I am trying to figure out the paternal side. That was a mistake!  I spent the whole evening doing research. I am having trouble finding balance between doing this and doing other things and I really do need to find this balance.

On the art-making side, I am planning to start drawing again and working on cross-hatching will be good. It is a skill that I need to develop.

On the painting side of things, I am thinking about working on two paintings at the same time. One would be painting on black gesso, in a manner I learned from Kat. The other would be working in layers like I tried with Carl. I never really “got it” in class. I think some interesting things might happen with working this way. It might not be accurate to attribute one of the painting styles to be from Carl. In class, he would premix colors using a palette knife. I think that might work better with "diluting" the paint color with thinned medium, but that's not what I'm doing. I am going to try and create a toned background with the colors for the different areas and see what happens.

Here is the start of the first one. Ugh. A white background is a hard place to begin.

Here is the start of the second one.

Can you tell which one I'm avoiding? 

Water Is Hard

I find that I want to paint too many individual "waves" in water. Plus, I'm out of practice.

#289 - Mississippi River Duck - 5" x 7" - paper

All I Want For Christmas Is The 1890 Census

Did you know that most of the 1890 census was destroyed in a fire in 1921? I didn’t either until recently. I have been repeatedly falling down the rabbit hole of genealogy research trying to map out potential family trees as part of trying to solve the mystery of my biological roots. While I believe the paternal side of my biological mother has been addressed with the help of a person who has been researching 8 branches of his family for 30 years, I have been building out the maternal side of this line and also trying to figure out the mystery of my biological father. There’s much less to go on with trying to figure out my biological father, so it’s been quite a bit harder.

On the bio-father side, I believe I solved one mystery without the 1890 census, but it would have been easier if it was available. I was trying to figure out Anna and Albert U1 to see if they were the same or different than Anna and Albert U2, since both the Anna's and Albert's had birthdays within several years of each other, both families immigrated to this country within several years of each other, and they immigrated within several years of each other.  It turned out they were the same. While there are a lot of family trees to look at on Ancestry, I'm finding that there is a lot of inaccurate information out there.  

Don’t even get me started on how useful it would be to have the census from 1950 going forward. Another thing, I’ve learned recently is that the census is not released to the public for 72 years, so I have to wait until 2022 for the one from 1950.

Having the progress slow down is frustrating, but probably for the best. It easy to get a little overwhelmed by it all.

On the art side, I am slowly getting back to making this more of a priority. I started this painting at Kat's Friday night open studio several weeks ago and finished it yesterday. I am out of practice, but it felt good to put paint on paper.

#288 - Chandler - 8" x 8" - paper

As part of getting art-making back into my life. tonight I spent some time organizing my art-making corner in the basement organized and that felt good, as well.

A Pause For Station Identification

It's so much easier to keep a habit going rather than trying to resurrect one, but that's where I am at with my art. I did not draw or paint while I was on vacation. It was a good vacation and sometimes it's good to take a break. However I wasn't home very long before I got distracted and consumed by something else.

When I look back on this year, I think the theme will either be addressing or attacking secrets or tying up loose ends in parts of my life.

The latest one is that I took a DNA test, recently. Given the lab processing time on their website, I was expecting results towards the end of the year. Instead, they showed up on Thursday. As an adoptee with only vague, non-identifying information until this point, all I can say is that I fell down a rabbit hole, a reference to Alice in Wonderland,which fits since it's all been pretty surreal.

I started this journey just wanting to know more about where I came from and in less than one week, I have some answers and information. Through the DNA testing site, I connected with one of my matches and it turns out this person has been researching his family's genealogy for 30 years and documenting it, extensively.

While I am not 100% certain, I am pretty darn certain that I've identified my biological mother. She died several years ago and she was the last member of her immediate family. However, if I go back to my grandfather's brother and two sisters, there are a lot of people out there. It's a story of immigration and I don't think any of the rest of this family is in this country. By the way, I'm 2nd generation of this country on the maternal side.

I'll get back to drawing and painting, soon. Right now, I just don't have the brain power for it, since I can feel my brain working on processing this new information about my roots.

There's also the paternal side to research. That won't be as easy, but I do have some clues from the DNA test and the information about my maternal side. I'm not planning on starting on this until late December or January.

While the last 6 days have a been a roller coaster. Yesterday, when I was drive between work sites, I had the most powerful feeling of gratitude wash over me. My partner is so supportive and my friends are also supportive. One of them has been helping me figure things out, including creating a cheat sheet of how family relationships work along with the genetic stuff, since I am really clueless on this stuff.

Stay tuned. Art will be back on the agenda soon.