Back from Tea with the Velveteen Rabbit

Okay, so this blog is pretty much like my art diary, I use it to go into more detail about my work and the process it goes through and what inspires me. If someone is reading this and finds it interesting, then I'm very happy, because I'd like to share my thoughts with a greater community. I also like to hear feedback on my thoughts, although I've had a very minimal amount of response to my blogs, but maybe someday that will change.

Regardless, keeping track of my thoughts in relation to my art helps me keep on track and accountable to myself in my work progress. I know I've mentioned this in prior posts. In Russia we say "repetition is the mother of learning" and I find it very useful. It's nice to look back on prior posts and relish my accomplishments. It's also very useful to look back on any ideas or reflections in the past posts that are applicable to my future work because often I forget them and a record helps me stay focused and progressive.

So with those forethougths out of the way, I'd like to say a little bit about my Veleveteen Rabbit. This piece started as a sketch on one of my long days of subbing at the Tucson High School. Often the classes there are such that the sub is left with very little to do except just be present and on those days I read or sketched a lot. So I started sketching a rabbit drinking tea and didn't think it would turn into anything much. But after I finished my loose sketch I really liked the layout I came up with and decided to paint over it.

As I started painting, I kept in mind the detail and depth of the paintings I admire in some of the pop surrealist culture that has propped up in the art world in the past 100 years or so. I decided I will do my best to imitate the level of technique that I see in rendering eyes and textures and shadows. I see many painters that are able to depict something completely imaginary in such realistic shadows and tones that it impresses me a lot even if I don't like the subject matter. That's what I was going for.

I feel that the bunny came very close to the quality of aesthetic/technique I was looking for. Perhaps some of the inanimate objects could use a little more practice, specifically the table cloth, which I don't think is believable as a real object, as well as the table plant, and maybe just the entire setting. But I'll stay strong in my belief that the bunny came pretty close to being as real as a tea drinking bunny with purple fur can possibly be.

I feel that this piece of art is a stepping stone for me. It really shows where I want to go with my art. I am envisioning fantastical scenarios that are believable to the human eye, not in subject matter but in rendition. I'm also envisioning a human-animal hybrid. I'm not sure why but I really enjoy giving animals human characteristics, hands, like you see in this painting, are a common component of my animal characters. Often I also give animals human feet or human faces or just human eyes.
These believable human-animal hybrids live in worlds that are also realistic-fantasy hybrids.

Although the Velveteen Rabbit is not perfection relative to what I'm trying to accomplish, it is closer than I've ever been before, and I'm very excited about it.

Birth of a New Art Series

I wanted to stay on track with posting to this blog, but then life happened and I had to reconsider my priorities. With a baby on the way I've had to try to work more, exercise more, make music and vacation with my husband before life changes forever. So I did all the other things to prepare, but now I'm in my final stretch, just under three weeks left before the due date, and my will power to be active has depleted. I just stay home as much as I can, move as little as I can get away with, leaving me with some time to write a blog entry.

So the most recent new series I've come up with is actually not that new. The concept was born in 2008. I was doing stop motion animation internships in LA for that summer and I can't remember why, but for some reason I started drawing these creatures that I called the gipsy pirate octopi. Most of them were musicians wearing pirate and gipsy attire holding instruments, pirate flags, dancing with tambourines and other such nonsense. I ended up painting a couple of my friends as the creatures and doing one banner painting that I used to use for my blog. I've lost most of the old sketches I did but I do still have a few so here's how it began:

The image above was the very first, original gipsy pirate octopus. The story started with him. 

After some sketches, I used markers and some minimal painting to create pictures like the one above. Sadly I have lost them all, this image of one of my friends as an octopus is the only one that survives, and only as a low-rez file. In 2008 I had visions of painting entire cityscapes with these creatures and I imagined animations of them and day dreamt about them following me around in LA as I travelled through the metropolitan area daily to find my way to the studios I worked at using the public transportation system. But then life took a sharp turn in a different direction and my day dreams came to a halt.

Around 2012 I was already in UC Davis studying for my Master in Education and for Valentine's day I made the guy above using Adobe Illustrator and handed out the cards to the children in the classroom where I student taught.

Finally, in 2017, Tony and I started our band which was the name sake of my original branding concept (in fact I never did relinquish that title and have used it for my art related internet presence rather consistently). Above is the first sketch I did for our very first gig, using pencil and marker.

In 2018 we planned and executed our very last gig before the coming of the new baby. For that event I painted the above image.

Next I decided I needed to do a sister painting for our very favorite friend and fan of the band, Heather Guido. In her honor I did the piece above. 

I think the progression of these images shows a growth in the development of this concept as a series. I'm envisioning a series of paintings along the lines of my matryoshkas, where I'd use people I know as inspiration for the character development of individual octopi paintings. 

Exploration

I've been getting behind on this blog again, but fortunately I have not been behind on making art. I started reading some interviews of artists I admire lately and it has really made me re-evaluate the way I've approached making art in my own practice. I often come up with a project for myself and feel confined in its parameters. I think "I started working on this project and I should not move onto any other new projects that I'm thinking of until I finish this one."

The problem with thinking this way is that often, when I've worked on something for a while I loose enthusiasm for it and end up wanting a change because I simply want something new to look at with my eyes. An example would be my matryoshkas. I've worked on them for a while and painted ten paintings of them. While each painting was very different from the one that came before, and they were getting more and more complex each time it still felt repetitive to my brain because the overall concept and style of execution were very similar. But because I did not permit myself to switch into a new concept and body of work I simply slowed down in making any art at all.

While I was working on that series I have had MANY new ideas come up for new projects I'd like to work on, but each time I'd backlog them, thinking they're good, but I must paint everyone I ever wanted to paint as a matryoshka first. But there are SO many amazing, talented, lovely, beautiful and kind people that I want to paint that it seems like getting them all down may take a lifetime and I may never complete the project absolutely.

In the two interviews I read recently, one of Mab Graves and the other of Ray Caesar, both artists mentioned that some projects took them years to complete. I think one of the artists referred to a whole body of work as a project, while another artist referred to single pieces of work as projects. Reading this made me realize that I'm being too rigid and need to loosen up because I'm denying myself the opportunity to expand and play with my art and become more versatile in my repertoire. I also think that finding my own, cohesive voice as an artist will come to me faster if I will allow myself to play with my many works of art.

I think I've developed a self discipline that is so strong that I don't really need to fear the possibility of starting too many things and not finishing any of them, which I think was a major fear I used to have. I have great expectations for my new approach.

I work as a substitute at a high school and often times I've found myself reading for up to six hours of my day because in higher grades there's not such a need for constant interaction with the kids like there is with elementary schools. I've finally came to the realization that I can also be drawing in my sketchbook during that time rather than just reading. Coupled with my new desire to explore multiple projects simultaneously this should be a great breakthrough in the motion of my progress.

Here's something I started yesterday and finished today...

My Etsy Shop

Today I'd like to put to record that I finally made my first sale on my Etsy Shop yesterday! About a year ago I was commissioned to paint one of Tucson's talented bassoonists as a matryoshka by her husband for her birthday. Yesterday her husband also bought three of my cards. Thank you!

I strive to succeed as an artist and that is why I utilize several online platforms to make my art available for viewing to as wide an audience as possible. Here's a list of them all:

Facebook Page: Gipsy Pirate Octopi or Margaritabrosovaart
Instagram: @margaritabrosova
Online Portfolio: mbrosova.myportfolio.com
Etsy Shop: margaritabrosovaart.etsy.com

While two stores in Tucson do carry my art cards, Old Paint Records Shop at the Old Town Artisan's and Petroglyphs in the Lost Barrio, I prefer to sell my own product because I do make more money that way. I found out last year that selling my cards to a retailer has almost no profit for me if you take into account the travel time it takes me to go a drop the product off as well as the time it takes to package the cards before bringing them to the stores. But I do it anyways because the goal is to have as many people see my art as possible, so if they see it in the store that's great too.

I think about how I'm going to make it in this art business/career dream I have, and I try to imagine what my end goal is and I must admit, I actually have no idea what will get me there because I don't yet have a very clear vision of what I'd like to do exactly. It's hard to go after something if you don't know what it is. I remember in one of the Pirates of the Caribbean movies Captain Jack Sparrows has a compass that will only take you where you want to go if you know exactly where that is. I feel like in life having a clear vision or a dream is like that. It's impossible to attain a dream if you do not know exactly what it is.

So I am now very aware of my challenge to really take the time and decide what I want to do. I know I want to illustrate books, but I'm often not sure if I want to illustrate books for other authors, or if I want to attempt writing myself. I also often question weather illustrating books is something that I will be happy doing, because it seems constricting to work on one story for several illustrations, right now I just paint whatever I want, but if my job is to illustrate then I have an assignment I must do which is very different from doing whatever I want.

I do know that selling my own art on Etsy is something that I'd like to be successful at, although I don't think it's my ultimate goal. I think of it as a step in achieving success artistically and also it's a challenge to run as a business and I like challenges.

I will conclude with posting the three cards that were purchased:

Baron Munchausen and his Stories

I am hopeful that by next Sunday I will finish my last two blank ornaments that are still left over. I'm a bit perplexed as to who I will give them away to. I think I have given all the gifts that I can think of for this year's holidays and can think of no one else to give an ornament to. The one I'm posting today is a gift to one of my favorite people in the world and I'm glad it will be decking her walls along with her other beautiful art collection.

This past week I have also made some significant progress with finally getting some of my greeting cards printed for my Etsy shop and for the two stores in town that carry them. Old Town Records shop at the Old Town Artisans and Petroglyph in the Lost Barrio both have my cards for sale and I'm told that they sell pretty well and that a replenishment of the stock is needed. I'm hoping that someday I'll have that problem on the Etsy shop. So far I've had it for longer than a year and NEVER sold anything. This time I picked some of my most liked art work and got prints of that for greeting cards and I hope that someday soon I'll make my first sale.

This time I'm posting the first of the new series of ornaments that are black with white art painted on top. The image was inspired by one of Baron Munchausen's tall tales where he was out hunting but didn't have any bullets. He decided to use a cherry pit for a bullet and shot a deer in the forehead. The deer ran away and a year later he saw a deer with a tree of cherry blossoms growing between its antlers.

Gamaun

Today I'm posting the final of my ornaments from the series I did for Christmas. After this I have just a few more that are painted post holidays and are of a different style. I'm still planning to take up illustrating Gogol's story "The Terrible Revenge" after I finish this project, so I'm really excited that it's finally coming to an end.

For today's slavic mythological creature we have the Gamayun (or Gamaun). She is prominent in Slavic folklore and is said to possess a lovely singing voice and a beautiful complexion. Symbolizing wisdom, harmony, and knowledge, she also knows a thing or two about the secrets of humanity and the creation of the world. Unfortunately, though, she won't let any of the secrets slip.

Not only is Gamayun extremely beautiful and wise, she is also capable of predicting the future and telling fortunes.

The Firebird

I am happy to say that I finally started painting again today. In my last blog entry I confessed that it was almost two weeks since I've drawn or painted anything. Having put that down in writing made me feel accountable, like I have to make sure and paint before the next time I write. So I did. Today I finished two more ornaments, just one more to go!

Today I'm posting one of the older ones. It is of the firebird. According to Wikipedia the firebird "is a magical glowing bird from a faraway land, which is both a blessing and a bringer of doom to its captor. Some believe it can see the future. It is described as a large bird with majestic plumage that glows brightly emitting red, orange, and yellow light, like a bonfire that is just past the turbulent flame. The feathers do not cease glowing if removed, and one feather can light a large room if not concealed. It is beautiful but dangerous showing no sign of friendliness."


I knew all that myself, but it's easier to copy and paste what's already been written rather than recreate the wheel every time.