Finished Mandala and current "monster" work

I finally finished the mandala I was working on. It was a little tedious but I've done worse. It is the fourth in the yoga series and done in ink and colored pencil on wood panel. I'm pretty happy with it but it might be a while before I do another mandala.

So here are a couple of "in progress" pictures of the painting I am working on now. I am calling it a monster painting but that won't be the finished title. I love the girl in this painting and may even include her in future work. She just has this crazy look to her and I find her fun. She is in her girl scout attire in this painting and she is on her way to sell her load of girl scout cookies. Not that it was a factor in this painting but I was a girl scout when I was a kid and vividly remember peddling the girl scout cookies. I had one woman with three boys and she would always buy 20 boxes from me! I loved her for that but her boys were brats and bullies. Maybe it was too much sugar!

Awareness...

I had a great day today with artist girlfriends. It was composed of lunch and an organizational meeting for a competition I help out with every year. Then I came home to do my "homework". I am taking an online class from Alyson Stanfield. She is a woman/consultant who helps artist market themselves. I am hoping that this class will help me get off my duff and step it up. I have goals but I haven't written them down or said them out loud. I am not sure that they are even complete in my head but I have a general idea. But that is the problem. With only general ideas, how are you to achieve specific goals? I am hoping that this class will help me there. You know, force me to ask the tough questions of myself, make me take a look at my poor time management, get me really motivated to produce and sell. There are excuses galore that I could insert here but that is all they are. So we move on. Once again I think it comes down to awareness. [I learned this in practicing yoga.] Until you are aware of a problem you are unable to fix it. I am hoping for awareness...

Oh by the way, two postings in less than a week must be some kind of record for me! Woo Hoo!

New Facebook Page

I have added a business/artwork page to Facebook. To find it, you can search for "Michele DeSutter Art". Once you find my page please click on the "Like" button so you can become a fan and have yet one more method to follow my career and what I am up to artistically. Besides, who doesn't like having Fans! It makes me feel like a rock star!

The information that will be on the new Facebook page will be like a cross between my web page info and blog info. Here's the type of stuff you will find on the new FB page...photos of new artwork, quick/short postings of what I am working on currently, events I have coming up, & any other "arty" type stuff I can think of. It will probably be updated more frequently than this blog, I am sorry to say but I check my Facebook account several times a day and that just doesn't happen with the blog. Not that I am not trying.

Soooooo. What have I been up to lately? I have a new yoga series painting about half done. It is a mandala. If you are asking yourself what a mandala is, it is a geometric pattern, usually circular in form that aids in meditation. I just like that they look a lot like a kaleidoscope and that they are very graphic in nature. If I like the finished product and it is well received by you guys, I may do more. The sky is the limit with this sort of subject matter! Here is a picture of it as it is right now. I will add color and probably more detail.

Also, if I can get it in gear, I would like to have a 12"x12" painting done to donate to Spiva's auction. I haven't done this for a couple of years but I plan to this year if I can meet the deadline. I will keep you posted.

Hey! I'm not dead!

That title almost sounds like one of my favorite Monty Python quotes. "I'm not dead yet!" It's from "The Holy Grail", one quotable, awesome movie!

So....I know, I know. You probably thought I was dead since I haven't posted in so long. But I'm not! I'm just forgetful...at least when it comes to my blog. So what's new? I did finish "Urban Angel" and start a new Yoga series. The Yoga Series (that's the official name, creative, huh) currently contains three paintings and one in progress. I believe there will probably be a couple more and then this series will be done or it will evolve into something different. The three that are complete are titled "I Am The Lotus", "Ganesha", and "Honor The Earth" and I am working on "Namasté". They are all warm in color and feature subjects that remind me of my yoga practice.


Here's "Ganesha"...


Speaking of yoga! At the end of this month, I will be attending another training near Kansas City. It will be three days long and bring me much closer to my national accreditation. I really enjoy the trainings because I get to meet incredibly nice people that have a shared interest in yoga. I can have discussions on ALL aspects of yoga and not worry about whether I have have offended someone or not. This is a small town in the Bible belt. Not everyone one is comfortable with discussion about the Bhagavad Gita or chakras and don't get me started on chanting! And...I learn so many new things to share with my students.

Ok, I guess it's alright to tell you all. You are my friends after all, right? I have a problem. It's expensive and addictive and I should probably seek help but I just don't want to give it up. I am an Macintosh Apple fanatic (we're a cult, you know). I have been using them since 1990 and don't understand why everyone doesn't choose Apple but I'm really, secretly, glad that they don't. This whole having to wait to get a new product because of demand thing is new to me and I don't like it one bit! I miss the days when Apples were just for "those creative types". Do PC people have no brand loyalty? They will buy a PC for their home computer but purchase their kids an iPod and the wife an iPhone. You wouldn't catch a Mac person doing that! We stick with Apple products even if they are occasionally crummy. I own a Newton for pitty's sake! Hey! At the time, it was cutting edge, handy, and it only weighed as much as a six pack of Spam. So here I am waiting for an iPhone. I will have to admit that a large part of my problem is that I just can't bring myself to change phone carriers but you don't see me buying a Droid, no sir, I am a Mac User, a MacHead, a Mac Maniac! So while I wait, I try to appease myself with the Apple products I do have. Like now for instance, I have just gone into iCal and set an alarm to go off each week to remind me to post on my blog. Maybe when I get my iPhone, I can even post remotely.......

Not much new...

I got a lot of ink work done on "Urban Angel" yesterday. As a matter of fact, it is almost entirely inked in. I just have to add some more graffiti. I am really liking this piece. It is funky, bright in color, and just weird enough. I will post a picture of it when it is done. Other than that, there is not much going on here. I am fighting another cold which has me on the couch more than in the studio and that is really frustrating. The weather is a little nicer now that it has gotten winter out of it's system. We had 5 1/2-6" of snow just 4 days ago! Now it is gone but it has left swamps in its place and more rain expected this evening and tomorrow. I miss the sun! Maybe I should work on a piece that is all yellows, reds, and oranges. That would warm me up!


I am thinking about starting a new series of paintings. At my last yoga training, which was awesome by-the-way, we talked about following your intuition. I like the idea of doing paintings based that flow from my intuition. Free flowing, non-restrictive, paintings. We shall see if the idea pans out. But for now, back out to the studio! Have a sunny day, everyone!

Expanding...

In a move to make more posts on my blog, I have decided that there will be more than just art discussed here. Right now, I am working but there are other things that are drawing my time away from the art so the posts have been slim. If I include ramblings of another nature then there can be more posts.


I did finish a painting last week. I'm calling it "For Sale By Owner". Here is a picture. Sorry that the quality is not great, I still need to have it professionally shot. It is 16"x20" and all colored pencil on wood panel. Once I get some better pictures, I will post this one on my web site.


And a detail...


And here is a tiny preview of what I am currently working on.


This piece is only about 1/3 done but I wanted to give you a taste. I am calling it "Urban Angel". It will be ink and colored pencil on wood panel. You can see the wood showing through now (it is the brown background color) but when I am through, I doubt you will see any wood. It will just give the entire painting a warm tone.

My work is taking a funkier turn. More like my older work. And I like the direction it is going. I feel completely uninhibited by rules or the need for everything to make sense and it is quite liberating. So who knows where it will go or what you will see?

New year, new beginnings...really???

Close up of frost on our window.

It's a new year and a time to take stock, make resolutions, and set goals. What a bunch of bunk! Why do we only take a close look at ourselves on January 1st? Change can happen any day of the year if we really want it. I see this happen every year in my yoga classes. Just like clockwork, come January 1st, my classes swell to enormous proportions with students who will exercise with drive and commitment for all of two months then drop from the face of the earth. Don't get me wrong, there are always a couple of students who find in that experimental period that they love yoga and will stick with it the whole year through but they are a very small minority.


Why don't we all resolve to take stock of our lives once a quarter or once every other month? If there are changes we want to make, we can gradually make them while continuously aware of our end goal. This way, maybe, the changes that we make will be more lasting and have more value than those that are made in haste once a year and last only two months.