Yes, you read that right. Having two attention-demanding, resource-sapping, energy-eroding, time-consuming, WONDERFUL little children actually saved my art career.
So how did this happen? Continue reading
How having kids saved my art career
children
COMIC: The Ruby Machine
The Ruby Machine 6 page comic has been uploaded in full to read from this website, enjoy!
Phonetasia I: Several months of a small child’s abstracts
I always save my little son’s phone doodles simply because they’re so bright and cheerful. My goal was eventually to make a big gallery of them so I could view at them all at once and enjoy the feast of random colors and shapes that emerged. (Kind of like Jodie Foster listening to washing machines in Contact.) After seeing the finished gallery, I actually think it would be fun to try a “redraw” of some of these sketches where I took an interesting form or idea from one of Paul’s pieces and then actually tried exploring it in one of my own drawings. I might try it!
With due credit to the original artist of course.
I’ll be making more “phonetasia” posts exploring the weird things you can do with various phone apps and filters. Paul’s art below was made using Kids Doodle.
DRIFT part 2: SCRAP
In my last post I mentioned that DRIFT had gone through different forms. Here you see DRIFT:SCRAP, a piece I made for last year’s Earth Day Art Crawl. I took a copy of my digital painting and decoupaged it to a piece of scrap wood left behind by the last people who owned our home, then screwed in different bits of machinery from busted appliances. I wanted to both extend the lines of the reclaimed bits in the children’s home-made rocket and also explore the Earth Day theme of art made from found objects. Everyone loved it including me!
My pictures of the piece are from last year (read: last phone) and aren’t that hot, but I’ll try to get some new ones. I still have this baby and I’ll be bringing it to this year’s Earth Day Art Crawl on the 19th where it will be for sale!
DRIFT part 1
A lot of people have resonated with this cute digital painting of two children navigating the sea of outer space on their home-made rocket, powered by a star. I’m even proud to say it took 1rst Place at Digitized back in 2011! It’s knocked around town in several places and forms (more on that next post) and finally come to settle on Society6 and Redbubble. But there’s more to the children’s story:
This piece actually has a place in my personal mythology. The two children are the same kids from Atomic Jazz!
These two children are my son (right now still in pre-school, I aged him for these pictures) and the little sister I thought he might end up having one day. This little sister is also one of the two possible children filling out the mysterious raincoat in The Seashore:
I made these three pieces when I had my son and was aware I was going to have a younger child to accompany him through life, but didn’t know if it would be a boy or a girl. The little girl would have been called “Violet,” and so that is her name in these pictures. I did eventually have my second child, a merry little boy! And so “The Seashore,” which I deliberately kept ambiguous, turned out to be the first picture of him in my series of fantasy children.
Love Letter
I did this work in 2013 for my “Patchwork Dragon” solo show in November 2013. The show version had pages from my childhood personal diaries collaged around the edges to form a border. After its debut at the show, this piece with the diary page collage was auctioned off by The Literacy Center to raise money to help adults learn to read. I picked this piece especially because of the title “Love Letter” and the diary entries attached to it. It seemed the most perfect piece I had for a literacy auction.
It’s sold now to a generous supporter, but this teaser I did for the Patchwork Dragon Show shows some of the diary collage on the original piece:
Love Letter without the collage is on Society6||Redbubble.
You can check out The Literacy Center on their Facebook and at their home site, www.litcenter.org.
Atomic Jazz and my most touching customer
This painting of a jellyfish/bomb was responsible for creating one of my favorite customers of all time, a little boy no more than ten and probably not so old as that. He and his sister admired the different digital paintings at my table at Evillecon 2011 and their mother told them that they could each buy a print if they wished. The little boy considered long and gravely and then asked me the meaning of Atomic Jazz. I explained pretty clumsily, how the city is meant to be dull and drab but suddenly, this impossible amazing thing has happened, and this great creature of color and vitality has descended upon it to shake up all the people in the city.
Wide-eyed, he said “So they jellyfish didn’t come to destroy the city…but to transform it??” I couldn’t believe my ears and I felt no end of amazement at this sweet child and his marvelous insight. He asked his mother if he could buy Atomic Jazz and receiving her assent, handed me the money with trembling hands and asked if it was really okay for him to have it and take it home. Aside from my own boys I can’t remember the last time a child touched me so deeply! Wherever you are, young man, you will always be one of my best memories!
Atomic Jazz is on Society6||Redbubble.
And now I am curious: have any of you been deeply touched by a customer, artistic or otherwise?
Sandpaperdaisy Art 