I survived critique on Thursday.
This is a mindless landscape I painted so I could have a mental health break from all the emotional paintings I did this semester. This one was fun. It’s not great art, but it was something I needed to give my brain a rest.
I thought this was going to be a fun little painting. I had taken several shots of a smiley moon and did a focus merge. That should have given me one very detailed smiley moon. Something went awry, and I got this wild photo with moons all over the place. I thought it might be fun to paint. Not wanting to use up all my black ink, I put the photo into a negative and printed out something intriguing. I thought it would be a nice abstract design. Then I decided I wanted to work with just one color of paint – Da Vinci Soulshine – plus black and white. And that’s how I got all the colors. I am not thrilled with this painting, but it set off a series of ideas in my head. This will be a series next semester.
The original weird focus merge is below.
Finally a decent photo of the painting about the events of October 7, 2023 as reported in The NY Times (a notoriously anti-Israel newspaper).
I survived facing down terrorists on Monday. Classes are done for the spring semester and I get a three month break before I need to worry about my personal safety again. I didn’t realize how much a hate crime, pro-hamas terrorists on campus, and feeling alone had affected me until I realized I have been six 5 times in 5 months. The last time I was sick this often was when I was in kindergarten. I had never been around kids until I started school and there were no vaccines against childhood diseases back then. I had both kinds of measles, mumps, and chickenpox all while I was in kindergarten. Since the first week of December, I’ve had covid (and I’m fully vaccinated and boosted), bronchitis, a UTI, an infected hair follicle, and the flu. I haven’t had bronchitis in about 15 years. I haven’t had the flu in about 20 years (I get a flu shot every year). I haven’t had a UTI in at least 5 years. I’ve never had an infected hair follicle. After finally finding a therapist who would take my insurance, I started therapy this past Tuesday.
I bought an embroidery machine, bought some additional embroidery patterns, and dyed some tee shirts.
A bit off center, but I’m learning. This is the small version of the Star of David. I’d like to try the large version – maybe on a tote bag. But I like how the dye came out on the tee shirt.
Now that I’m 71-year-old walker pushing bad ass who doesn’t back down from terrorists, perhaps I need an appropriately bad ass tattoo. I’m not a tattoo kind of person. Tattoos to me are like wallpaper. If I paint a room and get tired of the color after a few years, I go to the store, buy more paint, and repaint the room. Easy. Wallpaper is another matter. Putting wallpaper up is a PITA and taking wallpaper off the wall is a PITA times a factor of 10. Tattoos are like wallpaper and I get bored too easily. So, no tattoos for me. But I have having major emotional fallout and I went in search of an appropriately bad ass type tattoo. I didn’t find anything remotely bad ass. I did find a tattoo that said: Have The Courage To Live, anyone can die. I thought the last part was superfluous, so I embroidered Have the COURAGE to LIVE onto a tee shirt I had dyed.
I took the third tee shirt I had dyed and added Laurel Burch designed. The shirt looks much better now that I’ve removed the thread lines and washed the shirt. Laurel Burch designs are fun….especially considering I’ve a penchant for variegated threads. Makes for stripes in odd places, but cute nonetheless.
At the moment I’ve got three dye buckets going. Three tee shirts and enough cotton fabric for four large dog bandanas. I intend to embroider on all the tee shirts and bandanas.
I’m linking with Nina Marie here: https://ninamariesayre.blogspot.com
My on-line store, Deb Thuman Art is here: http://www.DebThumanArt.com
My Spoonflower shop is here: https://www.spoonflower.com/profiles/deb_thuman
Deb's Art 