Done with Ophelia, on with Juliet

Ophelia is finally done, varnished and ready to hang. I am going to submit her and Xaipe to the Exhibition at Industria Studios entitled Mirror, Myself: A Self Portrait. We'll see what happens.

I've decided to continue on this theme of Shakespearean women. Next in line is the well-known tragic figure of Juliet. I did a preliminary sketch yesterday and thought I'd show it to those interested. In this next painting, I'm not going to focus on her death, but on the morning she has to say her last goodbye to Romeo. He is not in the scene, but has just left out the window, and as she stares regretfully at the eastern horizon, a lark alights on the windowsill. Shakespeare's star-crossed lovers "argue" about the lark, and&emdash;as always&emdash;I never forget to include a highly symbolic bird:

"Juliet: 'Wilt thou be gone? It is not yet near day./ It was the nightingale, and not the lark,/ That pierced the fearful hollow of thine ear;/ Nightly she sings on yond pomegranate tree./ Believe me love, it was the nightingale.'

"Romeo: 'It was the lark, the herald of the morn,/ No nightingale. Look, love, what envious streaks/ Do lace the severing clouds in yonder east./ Night's candles are burnt out, and jocund day/ Stands tiptoe on the misty mountain tops./ I must be gone and live, or stay and die.'"

After Romeo expresses his will to stay and die because Juliet wants him to stay, Juliet gives in and presses him to leave:

"Juliet: '...It is the lark that sings so out of tune,/ Straining harsh discords and unpleasing sharps./ Some say the lark makes sweet division;/ This doth not so, for she divideth us.'"

Moving Right Along

Ophelia is moving right along and I have two more progress pictures to share. I've paingted in her hand, the robin and her hair; I've also given her a dark red dress to compliment the warm red on the robin's breast.

Fighting Inspiration

It's been one year since my mother died, yet I still find it extremely difficult to be productive and active, especially in my art. The first painting I managed to do after her death was one of an Ancient Greek grave stele of a young girl with her doves (Xaipe).After I finished, I thought that maybe it would be unhealthy to continue on this theme of death... and so for little under a year I have forced myself to think of other subjects.

First phase of my Ophelia painting.

I came to realize one morning that I shouldn't fight inspiration, even if it is macabre, because if I am not inspired to do a painting, I can't do it well, I can't be happy with it and I can't finish it successfully. Creating work on the subject of death will actually help me heal and release the overwhelming stress, frustration, sadness, and regret.

Progress of my Ophelia painting.

As soon as I let go and listened to my inspiration, I immediately thought of ideas for new paintings and became excited about them. It feels really good to be excited again about making art.

Don't force yourself to do things you aren't inspired to do. Act on the inspiration and you'll be happier.

The inspiration for my next painting is the tragic Shakespearean character Ophelia, who, through the loss of her father and rejection from Hamlet, was driven mad and drowned in a stream.

Portable Oil Palette

Materials

Process

The best palette surface for oil paint is glass and the cheapest way to get a nice oil palette is to get a glass frame from a place like Walgreens (don't waste your money on special oil paint glass palettes). After squeezing out all your colors and mixing your paint just the way you want it, the last thing you should do after a day of painting is scrape off all your excess expensive oil paint and throw it away or have it sit idle and start drying until you paint again. To preserve your muy presioso oil paint, carefully put your palette in the freezer to freeze the paint, then thaw it before painting again (this will slow down the drying process considerably).

Now, it doesn't take long for an artist to realize that storing and transporting an oil palette is a hassle; when you store it in the freezer, the oil paint can get on your food and you need to make sure you have enough room to store it flat. There are special storing palettes for acrylic paint, but—as far as I can tell—there are only messy, non-convenient options for oil paint. Enter my portable oil paint palette.

This post will show you how to make your own, relatively inexpensive oil paint freezer palette.

Materials

You will need:

• Large, plastic scrapbook box (or if you want something small, a plastic snap-lid pencil box)
• Two 8"x10" cheap front-loading glass frames (I found mine at Walgreens—they're called Format, made by MCS) . If you want to make a small palette case, get the 4"x6" frames.
• A metallic Sharpie, or something that can mark on black plastic.
• Eight 1/2" machine screws with nuts.
• Phillips-head screwdriver for the machine screws.
• Sharp, round file suitable for poking holes through thick plastic.
  

Process

Step 1

Take the two frames apart and with the metallic Sharpie mark the insides of the frames directly in the middle of each side. Then, with the sharp metal file, poke holes through the frames where marked (I only had to poke two holes per frame because the frames I used already had two holes in them for hanging).

Step 2

Center each of the two frames inside the lid and the bottom of the box and mark their position through the holes with the metallic sharpie.Then, poke holes through the box where you marked the placement of the frames.

Step 3

Once there are holes in the frames and in the box, screw the machine screws through the holes into the box. Then take the screws out and do the same with the frames. This will ensure that the holes are large enough to accommodate the screws and make threads in the plastic that the screws can follow.

Step 4

Once you make sure the screws can go through the holes, line up the frames' holes with the box's holes and from the outside of the box, drive the screws into the box and frames. Screw the accompanying machine screw nuts onto the end of the screws to secure the frames to the box (you don't want your frames to fall out when you have all your paint on them!).

Step 5

Replace the paper and glass into the frames (flipping the paper around to have a tan or gray surface showing).

Conclusion

...And that's it! You have a portable palette you can throw into the freezer or transport without a big messy paint hassle.

Please let me know if any of this didn't make sense and feel free to tweak as necessary.

New Year, New Work

There is no end to my resolutions this year and one of many is the dedication to paint more. I am currently working on two—soon three—paintings and have a few ideas of sculptures I want to carve. I hit the ground running at the beginning of this new year: I resolved to get paperwork in order to officially start my own business, which I believe I will call RLM Studio (or something like that), I am working with a new website client, and I have decided to go back to school in the fall semester for a computer science class and another foreign language (I'm leaning towards Arabic). I still ultimately want to become an art professor, but I want to expand my horizons before I narrow them; I want to build a stable financial foundation before I tackle such a challenging task. Plus, I really enjoy working on websites—they provide endless mind puzzles, which I adore.

Art is still my heart's passion, but there is always time for art if you make time (sorry Facebook games, I've got better things to do). The first painting I'm working on has been around for a while collecting dust because I wasn't very happy with it, but the other day I looked at it again and decided to salvage it. The subject is about bird nest soup, which comes from the actual nests of swifts—not swallows—as sometimes it's called "swallow's nest." Although I hear it's very healthy, I'm averse to the idea of eating regurgitated nest material. In the painting, I felt to express my uneasiness by playing with the idea of a bird nesting in a person's open mouth.

The next painting's imagery has been stewing in my mind for about a year. The subject matter is simple and is comprised of a Japanese Shinto gateway (seen from a low angle) with birds sitting on it and flying over it. I am not sure it will work as a painting, but it made a really nice little relief print. I've always been fascinated with the Shinto belief of birds being the messengers between this world and the next. The gateway marks the divide between the ordinary world and the sacred, and since birds are the messengers, it's natural to find them at that divide. In fact, the Japanese call the gates "torii" and the word for bird is "tori." It has been said that the gate also functions as a type of glorified bird perch (I can't remember where I read this, please correct me if I'm wrong).

I've included pictures of both the works-in-progress in this post. Hopefully they come out as well as the imagery I'm imagining (crossing fingers).