A Color Junkie Gets Clean

If you're at all familiar with my artwork, you know I love color! I'm addicted to color.  My studio is painted lemongrass green and my kitchen is painted mango yellow.  My art goes big with pinks, yellows, greens and reds.  Imagine how I felt this morning when I randomly chose my next art prompt: paint using only black and white. Luckily I already had a drawing on a canvas with no specific plan in mind for it. So, using only black and white I have begun this painting (still a work in progress).

So far so good.  Although you caught me cheating.  Caught me red handed.  Caught me red penned. Like all junkies I returned to my habit; luscious color.  In this case I added a few restrained strokes of lipstick red.

Actually, I'm no stranger to painting in grey scale.  All of my paintings start out this way; as a grisaille underpainting. Here's a perfect example of how I usually use black and white.

If I had decided to paint this week's painting in color, I would have started adding color at this point:

Believe it or not, a painting that starts out as a grey scale underpainting can turn out very colorful.  I use grisaille to create a foundation of depth and lighting.

I'll continue working on this week's painting and I promise to try hard to keep it black and white (with a dash of red). Ooh color, I miss you already!

And while I'm slaving away, my favorite fuzzy model will be keeping me good company on her day off.



A model's life is a hard life.











Art Prompt 5: Just One More Thing. A Lesson in Knowing When To Quit.

Today's art prompt: take a piece of artwork off your wall and do just one more thing to it. This was a relatively easy one for me this week because I had just the painting in mind. It's a painting I have never been happy with and had put aside some time ago. Sadly, I had given up and quit.

 I did one new thing to the painting, and then another, and then another.  Hours ticked by in the studio and still, I couldn't resolve this painting. It was now 4am. and I was out of chocolate almonds!Perhaps it was time to quit trying.  But before I did that, I tried one more desperate thing: cropping.  I grabbed my Xacto knife and starting slicing the canvas off it's stretcher.  No guts, no glory. It was either going to be genius or garbage (or more realistically, something in between).

I was finally happy. This painting has been a long time in the making.  The final key for me was knowing when to quit. Quitting on an "unfinished" piece can be liberating.  You don't have to treat the work like it's a masterpiece. You can be free to vandalize your own process; to take it in another direction entirely.

Here's what I started with:

The composition here is too tight. The colors are too bright. And I've told too much of the story for you.  The first thing I did after reading my daily prompt was to slash paint across the mask.  Unsatisfied, I began to wash browns and grays over the entire piece, I sanded back areas, splattered red paint, dripped black paint and colored with oil pastels.  Lastly, I lined the piece with pen and ink to get this:

But alas, bad composition is just bad composition. So I re-composed this piece with some extreme cropping.  I love the intimacy of this new peice.  There is room for you, the viewer, to tell your own story.

Today's art prompt of doing just one more thing to a piece led to a bigger lesson for me.  Know when to quite! Artists often talk about going to far with a piece until it is overworked and ruined. But don't quite too soon either.  Try doing just one more thing to it.





Art prompt #4:an art supply swap could lead to bigger things.

This week's art prompt was to swap supplies or art materials with a friend to spark new ideas.  I like this idea and I decided to take the idea one step further by swapping studio time and expertise as well.  One of my favorite things to do is to visit other artists' studios and be invited to join in a creative process. It reminds me of a woman's quilting bee. Cups of hot steeped tea washing down the energetic gosssip as many hands converge to create a piece that is more than itself.  When you share your inspiration with others, art becomes more than the product.  It becomes a story woven with the wisdom of many others.


With that thought in mind, myself and two aunties converged on my mother's studio a few weeks ago.  We all came with our own baggage: photos, papers, maps, paints, drywall mud and ink.  We also came with varying levels of art experience, none more valid than the other's. I managed to create this piece using art supplies I would never have thought of combining on my own: drywall mud and india ink.

My mom shared her expertise with textured fresco board.  One of my aunties broke out the India Ink along with her ability to be fearless.  She coaxed us into washing black ink over our boards (scary!). She continued by throwing in some maps and drawing her designs in an unforgiving and permanent ink. No such things as mistakes! I read once that a mistake is merely a suggestion of another way to go. At the end of the day all of our projects were wildly different and original from each other. They were also held together with a common thread: our willingness to be together and a mutual passion to be creative.

I'm thinking trading art supplies can be beneficial to any creative group.  Why not trade your basket of stash yarn with a fellow knitter at your next stitch n' bitch?  Or trade a quilted square with another quilter ? Share your art supplies, but also... don't be afraid to share your experience and passion with others!  Throw open your studio doors, put the kettle on and say welcome!

Why I love Painting Curvy Women

Art prompt #3: look through photos on your computer and just pick something for inspiration. As I waded through pages and pages of my own art, photographs of my "art models" and other's people's art I was inspired to write this blog" "Why I Love Painting Curvy Women".

The first time I ever won an award for a painting at a major juried art show, it was for this piece entitled "The Fishing Partner". I love this model.  She is my favorite go to model and she's been the subject of many of my paintings.  She's overweight, she's 59 years old and she's got a twinkle in her eyes that just won't stop.  She also happens to be my mother and she was the first woman I ever fell in love with.

I love painting women because they can't contain themselves. Their stories behind their smiles won't stay hidden.  And why should it? Women are brave and vulnerable, strong and soft, wise and funny. I paint a women's soul as much as her body. And I really do love every shape and size women carry their stories in.  But here's the deal: It is really hard to convince women over a certain size to model nude. Especially since I prefer to paint women who are not professional models.

A couple of years ago I was thinking about this and realized what a hippocrit I was being. I was asking something of my friends and family that I didn't have the confidence to do myself.  So I posed nude and began a series of self portarits.  And it WAS hard.  But it was also freeing. I've now painted about a dozen self portraits and I get braver with each one.

Over the years I've had alot of friends and family pose for me.  I've had women feel beautiful for the first time when they see their paintings. I've had men thank me for painting real women.  I love the connection we all feel when we can see ourselves in another woman's courage. When I first put on show "Tragdey of The G-String" women of all shapes could relate.  I will never forget the woman who stood in front of this painting, laughing her ass off, exclaiming "I hear ya sister!" What more could I ask for?

 visit www.stinkingfishstudiotour.com/Angela-Menzies/  to see more of my portraits.







Art prompt #2: Using a viewfinder to isolate pattern and texture

Every morning I take a walk down to the beach with my dogs and kids.  It's about a 40 minute hike and I am surrounded by trees the whole way. It's a beautiful way to start the day.

I really needed the inspiration today because I was not at all happy about using a viewfinder to isolate pattern and texture: challenge #2.  I almost exclusively paint nudes.  The idea of using a viewfinder when painting a woman doesn't sit well with me.  I never want to objectify women by isolating one body part over another. I can't even bear to isolate a woman from her story.  I paint both.

And painting landscapes?  Ughh!  Although I can enjoy looking at landscapes I have never enjoyed painting them.  So what was I to do with today's challenge? I needed a muse.

I turned to the trees: sensual bark, rotting and peeling trees, driftwood, the firewood I had to stack when I got home, branches and roots stretched out over rocks.  Big amazing trees larger than life.  Old gnarled trees humbled by time and the elements. The tree; the only one brave enough to remove her clothing for the winter, baring her arms on this cold chilly morning. I love her skin, her bark.  It is tough, yet she can be wounded.

By the time I got back to my studio I wanted desperately to unzip her bark and run my hands along her smooth inner bark. I wanted to know the heart of her. I put away my brightly pigmented paints and smooth canvases.  Too garish, this was no painted lady. I brought out my beeswax, resin and wooden sticks.  The studio air quickly smelled of her spirit. I unzipped her bark and searched for her heart.

I'm not finished with her portrait yet.  I have a small poem I'd like to inscribe on her exposed inner bark tomorrow. But for now she waits. She is still my muse. There is still time to carve my love letters into her.

"Take 5" was just the kick in the ass I needed : why art prompts are my new resolution.

Every September I throw myself into homeschooling my two sons (now aged 11 and 14) and believe me, that's a full time job.  By October I start working on all the hand made Christmas gifts I create, which usually means spending about 4 hours a day sitting on the right side of my couch knitting like a mad woman: socks, hats, scarves, fingerless mittens and even sweaters for those dearest to me.  By November I can't rememebr where I put the keys to my studio and by December I've forgotten that I'm even an artist. Is it any wonder that when I break into my studio in Januaury it looks like this?

An alarming mix of blank canvases, abandoned tools and half finished works. Where do I even begin?  This year I have decided to embrace art prompts.  In the latest issue of Cloth, Paper, Scissors there is a wonderful list of 52 art prompts; one for each week of the year. I'm going to randonly choose one every Friday and see what I can make of it. I'll even blog about it every Saturday morning so you can get inspired too.

Week 1: "Take 5"  Go to your studio and choose the nearest 5 objeccts to you and create art with it.  Here's what I started with: a cradled panel, red paper, a scrabble game, glass shards,and a photo of one of my favorite dogs taken by my photographer friend Mar Lovejoy.

I know not every thing I create will become worthy of showing and selling.  I had to decide right away that wasn't the point.  The point of art prompts is to get me out in the studio in the first place and to kick start a weekend of creative frenzy. The piece will be finished later today, but here's how it's coming out so far.





So if your muse has left you, try some art prompts.  Start with taking 5!



Teeny Tiny Art

                                           "Now That's Cheeky"  4"x4"

Most of the time I paint larger than life. But it’s hard to pack a 40” canvas into the back of a VW bus with two dogs, two homeschooled kids, two overworked parents and all that entails camping. On any given weekend you can see us zipping around the back trails with a barbeque strapped to the roof of our yellow bus, Penelope. On these occasions I pack a few art supplies and smaller canvases. Some as small as 4”. I love to sit by a lake and a campfire and paint at a rustic picnic table, dogs at my feet. All of my smaller works are created this way. Many of my smaller works will be translated into larger works when I get back into my studio. 

                              "Sweater Girl" #4 in a series.   6"x6"

All I need is my easle and my pitbull!