Folk Flower Tattoo: A hand designed commission

 

In 2011, upon return from my trip to Poland and Hungary, a woman who donated some money to my quest got in touch with me. She liked the images I was making inspired by eastern European designs. She also admired my quest to travel, learn and meet family. She wanted me to design a tattoo for her based on my eastern European Folk Flowers.

A big birthday was coming up for her and she wanted a special tattoo to mark this passage in her life. She is a talented flower arranger, has a flair for creative color palettes and creates unique, locally grown flower combinations that are used in her arrangements.

We got together to talk about what she wanted. Then I got to the drawing board.

A tattoo! A bit daunting, isn't it? Tattoos are a creative expression that are pretty permanent for a lifetime. I wanted to make sure that the design I came up with would be something she'd want to live with for the rest of her life.

I created two design options and she liked them. She took elements from them both and used them in her final design. This was an interesting process for me because I never had to design an image with the dimensionality of the human body in mind. Bone, skin, muscle...it was a cool challenge. Especially for the location of her tattoo as she wanted it to come from her foot, around her ankle (where that ankle bone protrudes) and up her calf.

Ultimately I had to hand the design over to the final artist, the tattoo artist. She would bring the image to the skin and to life. We met with her and she thought she had something good to work with. She and my client tweaked some of my color choices and varied the drawing just a bit, combining elements from both drawings, so that my work would translate to the tattoo medium, needle and ink, skin, muscle and bone.

When I got to see the pictures of the final result I was happy with how the image found a home on my client's skin. Graphic folk art patterns and design lend themselves well to tattoo art. The colors are so vibrant and beautiful. I know that my client really wanted colors that were vibrating with life as part of her tattoo.

This commission was a fun project and good challenge. I really enjoyed working with my client. I'm happy she has a piece on her skin that means so much to her. It reflects her life and her work with flowers.

Studio Time

I am making a real effort to spend time back in my studio.

Working.

The time is right to put energy into my creative practice with gusto.

Now that Kaz is over a year old, takes two regular naps, has an early bed time, and enjoys some time at the local daycare a couple hours a day, a day or two a week, there is no reason I can not get at least 6 -12 hours of studio time in every week. I know this doesn't sound like a lot but it is something. Something which is very special to me.

First I spent time reorganizing and cleaning up my studio space after using it as a home office for the past year. Now that the space is in studio mode I am back to work. Paints can stay out and works in progress are easily accessible. This is great as I sometimes need to get to work fast when I only have a bit of time to spare. A half an hour here an couple hours there soon add up to sketches being made, watercolors being experimented with and dreams taking shape.

During studio time I am taking care of Where Earth Meets Sky business. I want to use some of my creative time to get ready for craft fairs and holiday sales that happen in the fall through Christmas time. I would also like to get my cards and prints into some more retail businesses. I want to update my facebook business page and learn how to connect it better with my blog. I'm thinking about setting up my Etsy shop again since it has been dormant for the past year.

I just finished a commission I had been working on for a friend for long time. I want to share all the commissioned projects that have come to fruition in the past year and a half. I created a wedding invitation, a tattoo design and a business logo with matching business cards. I still need to finish a poster/flyer template for a musician friend. Posts to come will show the work in their completion. I will also have an organized page here on my blog which focuses on the commissioned projects that I've been hired to create for others.

Giving myself a kick in the pants to get out of my head, take action and get to work has felt really good. Creative work brings a greater sense of purpose and meaning to my life. My other roles in life are satisfying but when I put energy towards my creative practice I feel more whole and complete. The danger for me is procrastination and fear of failure. Somehow when I take action these two negative aspects become weaker and quietly hang in the background instead of blazing in the foreground. I do not feel good when I procrastinate or am unnecessarily fearful.

I have found a website that I find particularly inspiring and helpful as I make headway organizing moments of free time to create art work in the studio. It is a space for mothers who are artists called Studio Mothers. There are some good articles there for those of us looking to use any bits of free time we have pursuing creative endeavors. Really the inspiration here can be useful and translate to how one may pursue any life passion. Sometimes we just need some positive affirmation to help us along the way. This is a place I can find that.

meme taken from studiomothers.com

New Folk Flower

So many warm and sunny days have spent their time with us this April. I can't say that I've minded although I was beginning to worry after days and days without rain. Thanks to the rain gods, the rain did come this past weekend and have visited us here and there every day since. Things are greening up again and look well hydrated. It goes to show how important balance is.

I'm about ready to wrap up my series of folk flower paintings and send them to the press to be made into cards. Here's a new one! It may be my personal favorite so far...most likely because of the color palette.  I have a soft spot for turquoise and think these colors play off that color background well. I hope to post two more finished designs later this week so stop by again if you are interested to see them!

I'll leave you with a photograph of twilight through our trees that was taken last week on a balmy evening. I never tire of looking at the dark silhouette of trees against the colored sky painted by the setting sun.

Thistle

I finished this thistle design last week and I'm painting in another new design today. I'm having fun coming up with bold, graphic, color saturated designs as I come down the home stretch of my folk flower series. I've been looking at a lot of the embroidery work on Polish and Hungarian festive clothing. The motifs are seeping into my brain and coming out on paper.  As I paint these simplified flowers and plants I feel a connection to the land and my gardens, the natural world, even while I sit at my desk indoors. It's a pleasant feeling like one I have while I slowly and meditatively weed my gardens at home.

I paint these images and dream of trying to learn and take up embroidery at some point in the future. What would happen if I mixed embroidered elements into the paintings? I think it would be fun to try. Also I'm noticing, probably because of the graphic, simple, yet precise quality to this work, I'm dreaming of painting bigger and looser in the next round of creations once I'm finished with the two series I'm working on. I need to let loose a bit. I'm looking forward to playing more freely with the next round of bigger work.

Garden Within

Colorful roses have been blooming in my studio. The gardens outdoors are cut back, going inward for their long winter's rest. Meanwhile, outward from my mind, heart and hands will come the gardens of my imagination. I'm thankful to have this time to get back to my paintings and paper cuts. Especially while feeling full of inspiration from what I soaked in while in Eastern Europe.

I now have hand designed cards available for sale. During an open house we held a couple weeks ago I sold my first cards and sold more to the local store, The Creamery, where they will be available on the rack with other delightful cards made by talented local artists. If you are interested in my cards for the holiday season feel free to contact me and I will send you any number of your choosing. Prices and images of all the cards I have available will be listed on my blog shortly.  Also, I am planning a blog makeover but still have a lot of work to do to make this happen. I want to have the blog reflect more clearly where my newer art and designs are currently taking me and what's inspiring me. I feel like having things set up in a way that more truly reflects what I'm working on these days will allow me to write and post more with ease. For me, it's good when things, like the the design of my blog, are more unified and streamlined. I can't wait to share this all with you! Thank you for being patient with me during this transition.

I hope you all are well as we enter into the holiday season and into the darker, quieter days. I look forward to connecting more through my blog and by looking at your blogs more often again.

Sketchbook Sunday #7: ...on a Wednesday

8 1/2" x 8 1/2"

gouache on watercolor paper

Spring is on my mind.  Some rain (and snow here in New England) falls.  The sap is flowing.  Trees and bushes are showing their buds.  The energy in the seeds and in the bulbs fire up for the push of growth that is coming.

I'm still testing materials.  I like the liquid gouache that I used here and the way it opaquely covers the paper in even color however I miss a semi glossy reflection or shine.  I'm on a quest for the paint and surface that will work best with my bold, graphic, colorful and tightly patterned designs.