This Redhead Creates

Painting for Suzi’s class (Nov. 15, 2008)

Elf — Sat, 15 Nov 2008 22:10:57 +0000

Painting for Suzi’s class (Nov. 15, 2008), originally uploaded by Misa Arant.

This is a painting that I did for Suziblu’s class. At one point, I thought I’d ruined it. But now, I think it doesn’t look too bad.

First woodburning, for Les Petite Dolls on 6 Oct 2008

Elf — Mon, 06 Oct 2008 08:35:33 +0000

OMG. Big big big big HUGE GIGANTOR learning curve on this. This is my first one ever. I’m not happy with how this turned out.

This is for SuziBlu’s class, Les Petite Dolls. We’re woodburning our outlines. As you can see, I totally suck at this. The tool kept slipping into grooves. Every time I tried to do a curve, the tool stuck. Some lines that were straight now aren’t. One eye is bigger than the other because the tool slipped. The drawing looked loads better before the woodburning. And I sat there thinking “This thing is going to slip. I’m going to burn myself and scream.”

I’m so frustrated.

And yet, I’m so excited. I’m still going to continue on this piece, but I’d like to get more practice in with woodburning – for other mixed media pieces and also because, well, I like the look of woodburning.

"The Gap"

Elf — Tue, 12 Aug 2008 22:31:11 +0000

No. Not the clothing shop. The gap between the level of work you’d like to do and what you actually ARE doing. See also this video, with Ira Glass:

I feel like I’m CONSTANTLY in the gap. But maybe I constantly give up, too. I flit from one creative thing to another. And, yes, that has a lot to do with too many interests. But it also (no matter how much I try to tell myself otherwise) has a lot to do with me being frustrated at my abilities.

What about you? Have you ever been stuck in The Gap?

Where I’m at.

Elf — Mon, 11 Aug 2008 23:04:10 +0000

I haven’t been doing much creative lately. I’ve been wanting to, but there’s a project that I needed to finish, but was struggling with. What’s worse is that it was a RR. It sat, static, for a very long time, before I sent it on. I feel horrible about the whole thing and I imagine the girls in my RR probably want nothing to do with me. That really makes me sad because they’re a great bunch of women.

Unfortunately, most of the people in my life aren’t interested in the same hobbies that I am. Almost everything I know about these things, I’ve learned through the net. It’s not such a bad thing, except that when I get stuck, I have nobody to turn to. I used to have another blog, but I want to start over with a new blog. (Plus, I like wordpress better than blogspot.)

Hopefully now that I’ve sent on the round robins, I’ll be able to move forward. I just recently finished taking a class with Sharon B called “Studio Journals: A Designer’s Workhorse”. That class was LOADS of fun and got me working in a journal. In the past, I’ve used a sketchbook mainly as a place to hold pieces that should still be finished, versus someplace to hold ideas and concepts or a place to work things out. Now I’m using it to collect and work ideas, thoughts, and concepts out.

So, I’m hoping to be creating more in the very near future. Christmas is coming and I have some ideas for that – I just need to get past my fear of the sewing machine (I don’t know how to sew well at all). Plus, there are some things I’d like to do/make for myself.

We’ll see where all this goes.