i guess i’m averaging one blog post a month this year, which is better than nothing but not as much as i’d hoped. this will be my 2nd for march though, so yay.
now that cvp has officially begun and life has slowed down a little even though it’s spring in new orleans and that means there’s always something going on, i’ve been spending more time in the studio. we’ve been in prep mode for cvp with a few welcome and immersion zoom calls last week, and folks have been getting their journals set up and prepping their wood panels for the course.
i already had a journal going since the first of the year – nick and louise have got me in the habit so even before i realized i’d be taking cvp, i set myself up with a new art/life journal to paint and sketch in, take notes on various things, make to-do lists, record my daily gratitudes, and write for myself. i briefly considered starting a new one just for cvp but decided, nah, just keep going in the one i have until i fill it up and then move on to another. (no shortage of blank journals here as i have a bit of a problem collecting them.)
i had about 8 of the 12″ x 12″ wood panels left over from last year that i didn’t use, so i’ve gone ahead and prepped those with gac100 and gesso. i will likely paint over some of the boards i did use last year as none of them were really keepers. and i also now know that i don’t have to do some of the exercises on boards, i can do them in my journal or on paper. so i don’t think i’ll need to order any boards this year for the class unless i decide that i want to scale up to 18″ x 18″ for the final series. but i have lots of time before i have to worry about that.
before i forget, big thanks to the 3 folks who signed up for cvp using my affiliate link! (you know who you are.) assuming y’all stay in the class past the 21-day money back guarantee, i’ll get enough to pay off the class, finish paying off my mechanic bill from january and help defray some of the costs of adopting my new cat Lily. (and i really need it since i cut back my dogwalking schedule to have more time for art.) she’s had one thing after another health-wise and i’ve already had to pay for one vet visit and it’s only been 4 weeks tomorrow since she came here. so thank y’all! i hope you love cvp as much as i did last year!
speaking of spending time in the studio… ever since i watched bibby gignilliat‘s online mixed media class in january, i’ve had about a dozen pieces i started working on but never finished sitting around my studio. with all the new energy for cvp, i guess, one of them kept calling to me last week so i *think* i’ve finally finished it. it’s a 14″ x 14″ cradled panel and i’m calling it “what a good time…” it’s a little busy but, hey, i like busy. when i posted it in the fb group we have for the class, bibby herself remarked “it is really dynamic!” not sure if that’s her nice way of saying “busy” or not but i’ll take it as a win. lol thanks so much, bibby, for sharing your knowledge and process with us.
after i finished that one, i started poking around with a few of the others and i think i am almost at a finishing place with one or two more. i’ll post them on my instagram when they’re done. considering the 3-word mantra i’ve chosen as my intentions for this go-around with cvp – focus, flow, finish – it felt really good to start cvp by actually finishing something from the last class i took.
ok, this is long enough so that’s all for now. as always, if you want more timely updates about what i’m doing in the studio, please follow my art insta @artbymagsdotcom cuz that’s where i post more frequently. happy spring everyone!
it was a long carnival season, y’all! but mardi gras has now come and gone and it’s back to real life, which for me is all about work, a new cat in my house, and gearing up for cvp once again.
briefly, the last few weeks of carnival were exhausting because of so many parades and social obligations and fretting about a costume. but it was also fun seeing so many creative parades, hanging with all manner of friends, and making my very diy costume. my group’s theme this year was flora and fauna and since others went with flora, i decided i needed to be fauna. what better fauna than a unicorn? an anti-fascist unicorn, that is!
photos by Karen Ocker
the week before mardi gras (why did i think that was a good time?) i brought home a new cat. i am technically fostering from zeus’ rescues, because i wanted to be sure she’d be a good fit, but i’ve pretty quickly fallen in love and am fairly sure i’m gonna adopt her. her name is lily and she’s the sweetest and sassiest little black cat ever!
she’s gotten into some mischief in my house and managed to injure herself already – somehow burnt her lip and then scratched at it making it worse – but other than that she’s been the perfect cat in her time here. i want to get her a friend eventually but after she heals up.
and then there’s cvp. as i previously noted in prior blog entries, i’ve signed up for my second year and it gets going on march 20th. this past week was the free workshop that is always the lead-in to cvp every year. i wasn’t able to really participate in it live but i’m gonna go back through the videos this weekend because it’s a good way to get ready for cvp and it’s just fun. and i need a little help getting going again in the studio. if you missed the free workshop (yes it’s really free) and still want to watch all the video lessons and live calls, you can still do it until march 12th. sign up here and you’ll get all the info.
or if you were like me and put off taking cvp year after year but know that THIS is finally the year you need to do it, now is the time to register! there will be live calls every afternoon probably from now until next tuesday or wednesday when the enrollment window ends to try to convince you to sign up but if you already know you want to take it, please use my link so i can get credit for it as it’ll help me pay for my second year of cvp. (thanks!)
and if you’re on the fence and just want someone to talk it over with or have questions, i’d be happy to talk, text, chat, email, whatever. comment here or send me an email. i won’t give you a hard sell, just my honest opinions of how it went for me. promise. (i am not one of those brilliant instant success stories that art2life likes to use to illustrate why you should take cvp, but i still found it valuable and worth the financial risk/investment and am back again for a second year.)
i’m excited to be doing it again even though i question my ability to really keep up with it cuz spring in new orleans is busy and i already have one trip planned. but for no other reason than it energizes me and gets me excited about being in the studio, it’s worth it. plus i’m hoping to be more active in the community this time and meet more people. i’ve made some great online friends via the different art classes i’ve taken over the years and it’s nice having fellow/sister travellers on my art journey.
ok, that’s all for now. i’m sure i’ll have more babbling about art and cvp in the near future. thanks for reading!
this year has started out weirder than any other year i can remember. first new orleans starts 2025 in literally the first hours of the first day by having a domestic terrorist attack in the french quarter. many people killed, even more injured, by a radicalized military vet from houston driving his truck onto bourbon street full speed at 3 in the morning while new year’s eve revelers were still partying, running people over. thankfully the bombs he planted didn’t go off or there would have been a lot more casualties. it was an awful way to wring in the new year and we all woke up so stunned and saddened that morning.
then of course the inauguration of a fascist president, which thankfully was overshadowed here in new orleans by a once in a lifetime weather event – a blizzard across the gulf coast. we got 11 inches of light fluffy snow at my house and many places around the city measured 12-13″ even though the official count out at the airport was only 8″. the city was shut down for 3 full days – no work, no driving cuz we don’t have the infrastructure to clear roads quickly, just playing in the snow, being vigilant about our pipes and water pressure, trying to stay warm, and watching all the local meteorologists have the best days of their life. it was magical and cold and nerve wracking all at the same time.
the snow has melted and the rhythm of the city has gone back to normal. the last few days have been about digesting the flurry of awful coming from the tyrant in the white house. i’m not going to give much space to talking about him or his administration, but the reality of what this country has voted for is starting to settle in now sadly.
as for me? well i smartly made a choice to go on a break with one of my afternoon clients while the other one was in puppy training camp so i could have my afternoons free to be in the studio. it’s worked well in general though i didn’t get much done with all my extra free time during the blizzard cuz the snow was just so distracting. but for the most part i have maintained several hours of working on various art projects each day. well except for the week that i decided to switch phone carriers and had a clusterfuck of issues that required me to be on the phone with customer service every single afternoon for almost a week. and then there were the few days right before the pussyfooters blush ball – the mardi gras ball i attend every year that always has a theme which requires some crafty accessorizing – when i was working on pink-and-orange-ing shoes and belt buckles and cowboy hats for this year’s western theme. but still, i’ve done well this month with art.
is anything finished? no. but i do have many new pieces in process which i hope to finish soon. i took bibby gignilliat’s mixed media online course as it was a self-paced, low $ investment offering that i hoped would give me some tips and tricks for dealing with collage as the basis for mixed media painting. and it did! honestly there wasn’t a whole lot more info than one can glean from her instagram reels but the lessons were more fleshed out and you get to see her make some pieces from start to finish. i just love her style and energy and while i don’t want to be “copying” her i do want to use some of her techniques and build upon them for my own interests.
above are two of my mixed media pieces on wood panels that are in process. i kinda like where they are now in a minimalist way but i think they need more to make them interesting but i haven’t figured out what exactly. i thought sitting with them for a few days would help but honestly i now wish i’d just kept going as i think this kinda mixed media work is intuitive and all about energy and i clearly had some good energy flowing the day i made these. now i’m a little stuck in that don’t-want-to-mess-it-up place but i need to just do something to get back into these.
simultaneous to working on about 7 different mixed media pieces like these i also started playing around with some small 6″x6″ collage pieces, since i had all my scraps out. i was covering up old canvas board tiles i call them, ones that didn’t work or i just didn’t like. and i had an early success or two so i thought i was onto something… but similarly, i seem to have lost the energy for them as i went on to try to make several more and they aren’t coming out as good as the ones that i just did spontaneously.
above are the first two spontaneous ones that i really like. i kept it to a limited palette of black, white, red, kraft paper/brown bag and newspaper print. the black and white really pop in contrast to the muted browns and beiges and the red adds some interest/energy. hopefully i’ll be able to salvage the other 3 i have going so there’s a little set of them. they are good exercises in composition.
the month is almost over and i’m not sure how i’m feeling about possibly losing my afternoon studio time, or some of it. i have some pet sits coming up which will eat into that time as well. i welcome these warmer days post-blizzard though because it’s very hard to motivate myself to get in there to work when it’s 30-40 degrees outside cuz it’s not much warmer in the studio, even with the space heater on. so hopefully this will be a productive week.
this is already a very long post so i’ll stop for now. more later. i have more on my mind to share beyond this little catch-up session.
time just keeps flying. why is it the older we get, time seems to move so much faster? i guess it’s because we’re more aware of the eventual end of our own personal timeclock, even though we don’t know exactly when that will be. we do know that there’s less time left on the clock than we’ve already experienced. and i don’t know about you, but that weighs on me every single day.
sigh. well here we are in mid september. i’ve survived yet another hurricane hitting new orleans, francine. it was really quite a minor hurricane, a cat 2 only momentarily so mostly a cat 1. and the whole southern side of the storm on the other side of the eye wall had no rain, just crazy winds. but those winds were enough to make my power go out at my house at 11:30pm on the night after most of the storm had passed, and the power stayed off for exactly 36 hours. long enough to melt all the ice i’d frozen beforehand in the freezer to help keep it cool; long enough to require me to spend $25 on ice trying to keep the freezer going and to fill up a cooler with the stuff from the fridge; long enough for all that ice to start melting and some of my food to go off, resulting in me getting really sick after eating a frozen pizza that had meat on it which i thought had remained frozen, but i guess not. yeah, that was no fun. i really hate throwing up! so now i’ve thrown out all the stuff that was perishable from my fridge and freezer cuz i don’t want to have that experience ever again. it was very unpleasant. and expensive, as i’d *just* done a $150 costco run the weekend before. oh well.
anyways, i thought i’d be happy to have a few days off work (wednesday, the day of the storm, and thursday, the cleanup day after when many still didn’t have power, including me) and that i’d get some painting done, but that didn’t happen. turns out sitting in my unairconditioned studio, even though the temps outside were pretty bearable, isn’t very motivating.
i never finished that last series of mixed media paintings i talked about in the last post. they’ve gone to the not-done pile that is almost overtaking my tiny studio space. but i started a new series, covering up 4 older 16” x 20” canvases that weren’t going anywhere. i decided to let the thing that’s been exciting and motivating me the past few months – politics – inspire me in the studio. last week before the storm i rather spur of the moment had some play time in my art journal – something i haven’t done in a really long time. what i came up with was a sort of deconstructed american flag.
i really hate the color combo of red, white and blue. i’ve always thought it quite garish. and i’ve recoiled from patriotism in any form since a child. i hated having to say the pledge of allegiance and often did not, even in elementary school. something about being forced to do so never sat right with me. so the democrats’ current effort to “reclaim” patriotism doesn’t really work for me, even though i have let myself get a bit swept up in the vibes of kamala’s campaign. but flag waving patriotism is not something i can get excited about. however i did decide that using the colors of red, white and blue and playing with the elements of the flag while adding one of the themes of kamala’s presidential campaign, “freedom,” might be a good art challenge.
i ended up really liking how it turned out and so thought, well, i have all these ugly canvases sitting around just waiting to be covered up – why not try to do a series of actual paintings based on this same concept? the thing that started it all was that i (re)discovered a bunch of protest signs i’d printed out on heavyweight paper in 2016 for various street demos against trump’s “winning” of the election that year. one of them said “democracy is dying, do something.” so i tore off the “do something” part, thinking of michelle obama’s dnc speech this year, and glued it down with gloss medium onto one of the canvases that i’d painted blue. and then i added some stripes, though i ended up not liking the original fatter stripes and went back and made skinnier, messier ones like i did in my art journal, which i’m still not super happy with but it’s closer to working. and i started adding all kinds and sizes of stars with the eventual goal of having 50 or maybe even 56 to include the territories.
i’ve added more since i took this picture but it gives you an idea of where i’m at with these. there are 4 canvases and the others use other slogans from the current presidential campaign like “hope is making a comeback,” “a new way forward,” and “joy.” but “do something” is the furthest along as it was the first i started and feels like it has the most energy to me.
i’m not really sure where any of these are going or if i’ll even finish them but it’s been a fun challenge to wrap my brain around. i spent some time this weekend creating my own collage papers with paint and then cutting out various sizes of stars to collage in on these canvases. i think that is working but i feel like the paint/background needs more layers so some will likely get covered up and i’ll have to make more. the composition is lacking something – maybe just some really big stars, not sure – but i keep playing with these whenever i have a little time.
(i still think red, white and blue is awful but it’s made a little less garish by layering and scraping several different shades of blue with grays and whites and creams for a more distressed look. these canvases have a lot of texture on them from underlying layers since they are cover-ups so that is helping.)
what else? i’m still in the art2life academy but haven’t really utilized much of its resources beyond the facebook group. not sure i should stay in it but every time i think about quitting i find some videos in the vault that i want to watch, so i don’t. nick sure is good at marketing! lol
louise fletcher’s free find your joy taster course came and went. i signed up for it just so i could get the emails with the video links and i watched some of them while painting but didn’t actively engage with her prompts. and had no interest in going through FYJ the full course a second time, despite the deep discount for alums. my year-long access to FYJ 2023 ends today so i spent some time last night downloading all the pdfs and copy/pasting some of the lesson info so i’d have a record of it if i ever want to go back to it. i like louise and will keep following her on youtube and her podcast art juice plus i get her newsletter but i don’t think i’ll be taking any more of her courses.
nick also had his free taster course breadcrumbs which i also signed up for but didn’t really engage with other than to listen in on some of the videos of live events. his free taster is the lead-up to the paid spark program which i did in 2022 and enjoyed but i have no interest in doing that again, especially when i still have access to all the CVP material that i really need to go back over again.
i have a stupid busy work week this week so not sure i’ll have much time in the studio. it’s always the challenge – how to make time to paint when what i do for a living is get paid to give my time to other peoples’ pets. i racked up a $750 emergency room bill from the fall i took in my backyard in july so i need to work as much as i can to make the money to pay that off, but it leaves me sad and pining for my studio time.
it being september i am already thinking about how to use the holiday shopping time as a way to sell some paintings but at the same time don’t feel like i have a lot i’m proud of and wanting to sell. last year’s “open studio” was fun and made me a little bit of cash but my house really isn’t set up for it and i don’t have the energy or the setup/supplies to do an art market, so not sure how i will do it. maybe some kind of online sale/drop is the best option for me. we’ll see.
that’s all for now. thanks for reading. i’ll write again when i feel like i have something to say.
well the summer is zinging along at what feels like a rapid pace. cvp feels like a distant memory already, even though all the unfinished/in-process boards are still littering my studio – especially my final series boards. i’ve returned to them again and again and while i’ve decided to try to just keep pushing through on the designs i’ve got going right now instead of covering them up YET AGAIN, they are still not finished and i keep having to let them sit for a while in between passes. maybe one day they will resolve in a way that makes me happy.
but i’m not letting them bog me down. i’ve started working on a new series of 14″ x 14″ canvases. (i don’t know why this size other than that i had a 6 pack of them from the last sale i hit at michael’s and they just felt right.) i started off thinking this was going to be a sort of simple, minimalist, color-and-line-based series (which the first one kind of is), but as i have continued working on more of them in the series, they’ve gotten weirder and mixed media/collage has crept in.
here’s a sneak peek at the first two in the series – not sure they are done yet but this is where they stand right now. they are both untitled at the moment, though that may change. (not the best picture because of the glare, sorry!)
i’ve been inspired by many different artists i follow on instagram who work in a minimalist style with acrylic paint – some who focus on color, or who use limited palettes, or who feature line prominently. (too numerous to name them all.) but i’ve also recently got really excited about the mixed media work of bibby gignilliat who is part of the art2life extended family of artists and made an appearance last week on our cvp “art of business” bonus zoom webinar – her energy is infectious and i just love how free and joyous her work is. truly #goals. she makes a lot of her own collage papers and uses a lot of found paper and other scraps, which i relate to, as i am constantly picking up things that i find on my dog walking travels for future art use. she also uses more industrial materials like house paint and polyurethane in addition to acrylic paints. i love her use of color and bold lines. her work just looks like she’s having the time of her life making it!
so yeah, i’m not trying to emulate bibby’s work or that of any of the artists i follow on instagram, but i am inspired by them and i do get ideas from them. this series feels like a departure for me… but not really. but it’s definitely gelling better, quicker. i guess we’ll see where the series ends up but i’m liking these first two pieces so far even though i’m not quite sure they are done yet. the first one is acrylic paint, acrylic markers and pencil; the second one is acrylic paint, acrylic markers, homemade collage paper, and found library card and drywall mesh scrap. (the second canvas is also a cover-up of a previous painting attempt so the surface has some weird textures to it.)
stay tuned for the rest in the series. #3 and #4 are mid process and giving me some trouble. #5 has just been started and i just got an idea for #6. i want to finish all 6 and see what that feels like to have a full series to show y’all!
in other art news… after cvp ended i took the plunge and signed up for the academy (which includes the studio, the 24/7 zoom room available for art2life artists to connect and paint together). i did it knowing there was a 30 day money back guarantee, but thinking i’d probably pay for the first month or two to check it out and then decide if i wanted to stay. i’ve not really had time or inclination to dive very deep into the academy vaults or participate in a lot of the live zooms or the studio so far, and with my 30 days coming up soon, i almost convinced myself to quit it all together and get my money back.
but in the time it took for them return my email telling them i wanted my money back, i watched a few interviews on the academy site and realized there are a lot i’d like to see and that maybe i do need a month or two with the vaults… so i changed my mind and decided to not make any changes. i’ll continue for now and maybe pay for another month as a birthday present to myself (it’s $77/month so not cheap!) and then i’ll quit. unless of course all of sudden i get really prolific and start selling a lot of art so i can afford to just keep it!
i do really want to go back through the cvp material to focus on the stuff i didn’t really finish or digest well during the course, but i also feel that i should follow this rare spurt of inspiration that is making me excited to explore these mixed media pieces. i have a year to go back to the cvp stuff so there’s no rush. it feels so good to have something feeling like it’s flowing and that i actually like.
so that’s what’s up… for now. i’ll post again when i have something to say and/or show you.
this is not really a review or even wrap-up of the 12-week online class cvp (creative visionary program) but rather it is just my now what? kinda post. i think it’s gonna take me a while to be able to really assess how i feel about the overall program and how i did with it, because i’m still doing it. i got behind, skipped over a few assignments here and there, and have not finished my final series… so i still have a ways to go. life got in the way – well really, work got in the way, mostly. my pet biz has been really busy and i’ve had an uncharacteristic amount of overnight sitting, which i don’t really like doing but which is financially very lucrative so sometimes i say yes. but when i do it, i’m not really living at my house and therefore not able to spend time in my studio cuz i’m being paid to spend my time with clients’ pets. hopefully july will allow me to get back into my home studio groove. but all this is to say, i’ll do another post at a later date about how i feel about the class and my progress.
a few shots from my art instagram (@artbymagsdotcom) from the past few weeks
but yeah, cvp is over. last week was the last week of classes and the wrap-up call was this past tuesday. i have access to the materials until march of next year though, so i can go back over anything i haven’t finished or feel i need more work on. i haven’t really done that so much with the last class i took, find your joy, which i lose access to in august right before she offers her free class and the 2024 version of find your joy. but i don’t really feel i want to anymore. i think i’d rather keep the momentum i have going with art2life and cvp. like i feel like i’ve found my community that i vibe with. i tried fletcher’s community art tribe for a some months before i took find your joy and while i appreciate all that it offered (masterclasses in all kinds of things, group challenges, members’ studio tours, etc – just tons of content plus a facebook group), it seemed mostly based in the uk and europe and i just never felt quite like it fit me. art2life is based in california and while there are people from all over the world involved in all the art2life courses, for whatever reasons i just feel more at home in this community.
there is also a membership-type community with art2life like fletcher’s art tribe – it’s called the academy. but it’s only available to those who have gone through cvp, which somewhat limits the membership. (i think they said there’s about 1800 in it currently.) it’s sort of the next step, and a way to reinforce what we learned in cvp and also keep in touch with the coaches and community. and unlike cvp, where we did not get any one-on-one feedback other from the other cvp students – we are taught how to critique ourselves – in the academy you can get feedback from coaches on weekly calls. there’s also another perk called the studio (which can be done separately for a lower fee if you don’t want to be in the academy) where you basically can dial in to a 24/7 available zoom to paint with other artists, which i think is pretty cool. painting is a very solitary endeavor and it can get lonely; not everyone can afford a studio in a space with a lot of other artists, and not everyone lives in a city or area where there is a thriving artist community. so this offers a way to connect to and grow a community of other artists who are working with your same vocabulary about art, because we’ve all taken cvp.) nick wilton himself – the art guru at the helm of art2life – even makes appearances in the studio painting for hours on end with others.
i wasn’t initially thinking i’d sign up for the academy because i feel like i still have so much work to do to “finish” cvp but i went ahead and signed up today for at least one month and if i feel like it’s just too much or i won’t really use it or i’d just rather wait til next year, i can cancel within 30 days and get my money back. i mean, i do really love the idea of it and look forward to checking it out to see if i think it will help me stay focused, stay on track, and keep painting. but i also haven’t made much of a dent in the cost of cvp which i put on my paypal credit hoping to pay it off within 6 months to avoid financing charges – it’s due at the end of september. so adding another monthly art charge on top of all that i need to come up with to pay off cvp… well, it doesn’t seem smart. but hey, i didn’t know how i was gonna pay off find your joy either and i managed to do it without any financing fees. so maybe i’ll pull it off.
i just need to get painting, need to actually finish some things that i can put up for sale. because i did recently sell an abstract piece i made in 2023 on etsy. it was one of my favorite pieces i’ve ever made in an abstract style and i even submitted it last year to the art2life online art show. (it was not selected. but that just goes to prove that rejection from a juried show is not an indication of a piece’s worth.) so i know there is an audience out there for my abstract work. i just need to fight through the resistance i’m experiencing to actually finish.
hopefully july and august will be a bit kinder schedule-wise to my art endeavors. it’s such a hard balance, wanting to scale back the pet biz so i have more time for art but also needing the pet biz to not just pay my bills but also fund my art endeavors. but the pet biz takes me away (literally) from my art endeavors. this is the struggle i’ve been in for the past decade or so with my art, but i’m closer than i’ve ever been to figuring it out and i feel better armed with art knowledge than i’ve ever been. i just need to buckle down.
so that’s where i’m at right now. i will at some future point go into much greater detail about the cvp program itself and my experience with it, and now that i’ve signed up, i can also tell you more about the academy after i’ve experienced it for some time. but for now, i’m just trying to get through the rest of june and my heavy petsitting schedule. and hopefully get back to painting!
