Category: Uncategorized

The Starving Artist Tag

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I don’t know who started this tag, but I was binge watching it on YouTube.   I love Tag videos and I remember when the Blogosphere dominated Tags.  So I figured, why should they have all the fun. So, I decide to join in myself.

So here we go!

1.   What’s your favorite experience as an Artist?  Well that’s easy enough.  Besides the process, I love it when I make someone cry when they receive the piece. Happy tears of course.  That’s when I know that I nailed it.

2.  What is your least favorite experience as an Artist?  Cleaning up my mess!!!

3.  What’s are your dreams/goals for your art?  I have gone further than I ever thought I would.  I never expected to do anything with my art except fill hours when I was a stay at home mom.  I do intend to sell my art when I have an inventory at some point but it isn’t necessary.  Since I mainly do commissions, I have very little art on hand.

4.  What is your favorite medium and why?  I don’t even have to think about this one.  Graphite, most definitely!   I love the medium because it is where I am the most comfortable since that’s where I started.  Drawing doesn’t get the credit as fine art that it should but that is an argument for another day.

5.  What inspired you to do art/why do you love it?  My Grandma was an artist, My Dad and twin sister are both artists and I always wanted to draw and paint. But what really inspired me to get started was a friend that lived in the same neighborhood.  She had all kinds of craft paint and canvas out in the dining room and it just looked like fun and it looked like SHE was having fun!  So I went to Walmart, got some cheap .50 paints, canvas, pencils and drawing pad…then I was hooked.

6.  What’s the most favorite piece you ever made and why is it special?  That would have to be a tiger cub.  It was for my nephew.

7.  Who/What are your biggest art influences?  I really don’t have any influences as of yet.  I do appreciate all art but if could paint in any style, it would be Impressionism.  One of my favorite artists is John Singer Sargent.

8.  What did you learn from being a full time artist?  I’m not a full time artist.  But the most valuable thing that I have learned is don’t sell your self  or your talent short.  You have to make enough money, so you won’t grow to dread producing art.

In my opinion, art is one of the most frivolous things a person can buy…If they haggle on the price then art is something they shouldn’t be investing in.  In all mediums!

9.  What do your family and friends think about you becoming an artist?  They are very supportive and helpful.  They are very proud of me.

10.  Was becoming an Artist your child hood dreams?  Nope, I wanted to be a writer. 

11. What advice can you give to people who want to be more artistic and creative?  Just Do It.  Don’t wait for time or permission…Go create!

12.  Were you supported to pursue art as a child?  Although I always wanted to learn to draw and paint,  I didn’t have that strong desire to.  But if I did want to be an Artist?  You can bet that my family would support me.

13.  Do you make money from your art?  Yes, I do.  I don’t market myself or advertise but I do commissions…mostly pet portraits.

Please feel free as I did and tag yourselves!

 

Be Well and Happy!

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Owl

Owl

5 x 7 Canvas panel in Acrylic

This little panel took me a while, but so worth it!  I find that I really enjoy painting owls.  I think it’s the eyes that I love painting….yep…its the eyes in any subject that I love and in any medium and these stare a hole right through, lol

And I have some exciting news!!!!

 I have been invited to submit this owl in the Miniatures and Small Works by Tidewater Artists show at Charles H. Taylor Arts Center.  I am really excited and I really don’t know what to expect, but come December I will be there 🙂

On a side note:

The palette from this POST worked like a charm.  The paint remained wet for the entire painting process!!!!  It is so worth the money!  But I do have a little warning:  Do not shake the palette or the paint colors will run in to each other, lol

Happy Halloween and have a great…but safe week!

Be Well and Happy!

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Projects gone Amuk and a Review…

 

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It’s been a while and I really missed blogging, so I thought I would take a few minutes and say “HI!” and let you know what I have been up to.  I hope you are doing great and having a wonderful summer.

Things on my end are plugging right along.  We take our little Sweet Cheeks back to school next Friday.  (kinda depressing…and yes she is 20 years old and I still call her little pet names, lol.  I think secretly she likes it)  I am still loving my job and I adore the people I work with.  My time management is still terrible, but since I am actually posting…I am getting better at it. (YAY ME!)

I haven’t been painting all that much…which makes me antsy.  I mean I have started quite a few paintings and drawings  but I haven’t finished ANY!  Wellll, that isn’t exactly true…I did draw a couple of cherries at work, while I was on floor duty but other than that?  Not so much….I have one painting that it perfectly content to stay in the ugly stages forever and four more with nothing but a set of eyeballs. I won’t even discuss the three foot painting that I have started.  At first I thought that I was just being lazy (and it still may be a little of that) but I believe mostly its just access of the materials and clean up.  I just hated dragging everything out and set up every time I wanted to paint….just to put it all back….then drag it back out….then put it back…See where I’m going with this?

I saw the Masterson’s Sta-Wet Palette  at  Michaels.  The palette looked promising so I purchased it.  The palette was a little over 11.00 (using my coupon).  And boy am I pleased.  I loaded it with acrylic paint on July 9th and it has been 1 month to the day and the paint is still wet!  No bottles of paint everywhere I am not being  intrusive on David’s space, so  I don’t feel too guilty about leaving stuff out until I get the chance to paint again. It has really helped me steal bits of painting sessions when I am able to grab a minute or two. And it is especially helpful with my watering bucket (pictured on right)  It has two wells: one for clean water and one for dirty.  So when I want to paint, I just take the lid off of everything and when I am done I just have to put the lid back on, wash a couple of brushes and that’s it.  And if this doesn’t work?  Its all just laziness, lol

How do you deal with spatial issues of an art space?

Be Well and Happy!

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The happenings…

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As I sit here at the office, I realized that I haven’t posted in a while…So I thought I would drop in and say Hello and let you know what has been going on.

Soooooo, First things First!  “Hello!”  I hope this finds everyone well:)

Things here are going pretty good.  Still love my co workers and my job, My baby girl is finally home and warmer weather is just around the corner, so what’s not to love!

I have been doing a lot of painting…watercolor mainly. But the unfortunate part is that my garbage can is nice and colorful with most of my mistakes,  it’s ok though,  I have been enjoying the process believe it or not!  I am familiar with most,  if not all techniques in most mediums, but they don’t always equal success in execution, lol  let’s just leave it at that 😉

I also have a commission that I completed and awaiting delivery.  That’s about it for now.  I hope you guys have a great week and until next time…

Be Well and Happy!

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Meet Sassy Mae!

IMG_20160221_150918625Sassy Mae

Graphite on Bristol Smooth

I giggled the whole time I drew this sweet little portrait.  Those ears….those wrinkles….those bulging eyes!  I mean, seriously?   What’s not to love!

I treasure each experience when drawing these little love bugs…But this experience was different.  I smiled like a complete goof ball every minute I was at the drawing table and quite frankly I was sad when it was over.  I dunno, it just made me happy.

Unfortunately,  she has passed over the Rainbow Bridge but the owners loved their tribute to remind them what joy she brought to their life.

And that my friends is what its all about!

I hope you guys have a great week!

Be Well and Happy!

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Extra Protection When Posting Your Art

Owl 2015I belong to a few on line groups and over the years I have heard some horror stories about artists getting their images stolen on line.  It almost makes you afraid to post anything these days for fear of being ripped off.  An artist can watermark their name across the whole image and somehow thieves find a way to photo shop it out and display it as their own. (If they only used their powers for good, huh?)  

The way I see it we only have two choices:  One to post and the other not to.  Personally, I like seeing all the beautiful art in the blogosphere and I love sharing my art.  Its scary knowing that there is no full proof way to protect yourself before the art gets stolen.   But we can after… and have been doing something to protect my work if it gets stolen.  Now as far as I know no body wants it, lol….but you never know!

Over the past couple of years I have been embedding stuff  with in my drawings that can’t be cropped out like my signature or a traditional watermark.  I mean it could be anything, a word, a symbol, a tiny picture, just anything your heart desires.  But it has to blend in using the same medium and so discreet that no one knows it is there, but you have to be able to find it.  I use to embed different things, but it was just getting too hard to remember what I did where, so now I use the same thing over and over.  Say, for example you are working in acrylic and you chose a heart to embed in your art.  So you paint a hidden heart in your painting.  Sounds easy, but it is pretty hard to do.  Because although it can’t be found by anyone at the same time it has to be proven intentional when it is found.

The owl above is embedded (and no I won’t tell you what or where it is, lol).  It is completely obvious to me but I welcome you to try and find it.  Enlarge the picture as large as you want…I bet you won’t find it 🙂

I hope you guys find this helpful and that you all have a great weekend and wonderful week!

What do you do to protect your work?

Be Well and Happy!  

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Same Blog, New Look, New Name…

Hello Everybody!

I guess you noticed that I updated the look of my blog. It is a lot different from the orange paisley, isn’t it?  I enjoyed the old look, but it was a little busy and kind of clashed when I posted art work. I really like this new one. It plain, straight forward and I hope you like it too and find it easier to navigate.
What may not be too noticeable is that my blog is now cjottaway.com. No, I do not go by C.J. but it is how I sign my artwork and I thought it would be appropriate and easier to find if I changed everything to my art signature.

The reasoning behind my signature:
My Dad is an artist and this is as close to his signature as I could get considering my last name is different and that is why I kept the J. after him as well. My Dad is very talented and I am extremely proud of him.  He is so supportive and has helped me a lot in learning to draw and I think this is a good way to honor him.  It doesn’t hurt that I love him to pieces as well 🙂

I hope this finds everyone having a great weekend. Here, the weather is cold but we are enjoying some sunny skies. It’s still a little too cold for my liking but at least it is pretty when I look out of the window from my warm house.
I hope you guys are staying warm as well!

Be Well and Happy!
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Uhhh…Happy New Year?

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Brothers

Graphite on Bristol Smooth, photo from Wet Canvas

This has been one crazy year.  It’s been scary, difficult, awesome and life changing.  Starting a career in your late 40’s is pretty daggone daunting (especially after being a house mouse for the last 10 years).  But I’m getting the hang of being out there again, and I am meeting some great people.   The downside of all this that I have been M.I.A. on my blog and art in general.

I am hoping to get on some kind a schedule.  I am at a point  where my life is running me and I am not running my life.   But there are people that work full time and still manage to find time for art and blogging.  And I will be one of them…eventually.  I guess in a nutshell, I just wanted you to know that I am not giving up my blog and I haven’t quit drawing or painting.

Now on with the drawing,  This thing was a beast to draw and I thought about throwing it away a hundred times. If you draw and paint, you know about the ugly stages and how you are suppose to work through those ugly stages.  But I was so frustrated.  Those ugly stages were fighting and clawing and just didn’t want to leave.  Even though the photo quality isn’t that great, in real life this is one of my better pieces and I am so glad that I didn’t give up.

So, How long are you willing to work through the ugly stages?

Be Well and Happy!

My <3 Belongs to Brody…

Brody 2014

Brody

Graphite on Bristol Smooth

Yes, I’m in love…Sorry David, but I am…

     Over the weekend we took the opportunity to deliver this housewarming portrait to our nephew and his girlfriend.  And this sweet four-legged fur baby met us the door.  Brody licked my face, laid his head in my lap and just let me rub and love on him as long as I wanted.  He is just precious as could be and (sorry guys) but if I could have slipped him out with no one noticing I would have dog napped him.

We also got to hang out awhile and have dinner together. We had a very good time.   On the way home we could get over the fact that they remind us a lot of ourselves back in the day.  Well except for they are smarter, prettier and more successful, but I can see many great things in stored for  them.  Anyhoo, They seemed to like the portrait, so that’s a good thing too 🙂

Well, since I didn’t post anything Friday, here is my sketch.  I love my erasers and I spend as much time drawing with an eraser as I do a pencil.  This was a quick sketch so it isn’t very detailed, but I suppose it is much better than a staple, lol

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Be Well and Happy!

Friday Sketch…

staple

Draw the office supply that you find  you can’t live without?

     This is a staple.  It may seem like a cheat, but this little guy has saved my butt on so many occasions at home and on the job. And the lack of using a staple has also on occasion made me scream, “Why! Oh Why! didn’t I take the time to staple my pages together”! lol   I was going to draw a staple gun, but the gun is just a vessel, and during the times I had to search for 3 out of 10 pages, it was mostly due to the stapler being empty and I was too lazy to fill it back up.

     On the home front, this is the last week Alana will be home for a few months as her new adventure begins in college.  Luckily, it has been too hectic for self-analysis, but as I type this, I really don’t know how I feel.   On the one hand, I’m so proud and excited for her that I could burst.  But on the other….she’s my baby and when I’m 80 she will still be my baby.

     Lots of changes…Lots of uncertainties and lots of praying and that is my only certainty. Okay, this is too much reality for me, so I am going to end my post here. Have a great weekend!

 Drawing Prompt

Draw the art supply that you find you can’t live without.

Be Well and Happy!