So I'm still doing this music and art thing. 

The drive from my house to ballet class is along country roads and through farmland. I really enjoy the drive, especially during the summer. The other night was beautiful; warm with a clear sky at sunset and as I drove home from the studio, I found the sky to be particularly large and beautiful. 

Of course I was listening to my musical obsession, 'Do Not Engage' by the Pack A.D. and it occurred to me that the music suited the sky. 

I carefully noted the colours of the August sky at sunset and painted it the next day.  

I'm not really sure what to do now, but I've been listening to 'Airborne' a lot. 

That is the same painting in both of the photos. Seriously. The left photo shows what a painting I am now calling 'Existential' looked like two nights ago. On the right is what that painting looks like now. 

What a difference.... and thank goodness for that! This was one of the paintings I mentioned in the previous post (though not the one I put in time out), and man, was it hideous! I mean really, so washed out and poorly planned...

This was another based on a Pack A.D. song ('Needles') and after such a terrible start I had to re-think my approach. This song is 'softer' than their other songs, but also edgy in a different way... the painting needed to show a certain amount of turmoil. The lyrics indicate a sunrise, so I spent a lot of time looking at photos of sunrises and even though I knew I didn't want to expressly paint a sunrise, I did want there to be a suggestion of one. 

This was the final result and its a bit surreal. 

I've been painting, which is SUCH a relief! Of course I'm working toward a deadline -gallery show next week - however I would have been painting anyway; these paintings have been trying to come out for a long time. 

I've finished the painting from my last post and decided on the title 'Rip Current'. I've also finished another painting inspired by another song by The Pack A.D. called 'Motorvate'. I started this one way back in April and hated where it was going but after a three month break I listened to the song once and finished it in 45 minutes. I'm in the Honeymoon Stage right now; I know this because I absolutely love the painting... . Anyway, I called it 'Zee' because it seems to me that the song is about a zombie apocalypse and the painting ended up looking a bit like a zombie apocalypse. 

I'm working on two other paintings based on songs and right now they are both horrifying. I actually have one of them in a corner, facing toward the wall because I can't bare to look at it. 

If that sounds like I've put a painting in 'time out' then I suppose I have. 

I hope it thinks about what its done to me. 

There is a relationship that exists between all of the arts and often, they depend on one another for success. The relationship between music and visual art has always fascinated me and inevitably, every once and awhile, there will be a song that speaks to me on a visual level. Of course, like an itch that I need to scratch, I have to try and paint it. 

The painting on my easel (left) has been trying to come out for about a month, ever since I attended two concerts headlined by The Pack A.D. Anyone who reads my art blog knows how much I enjoy their music, so I suppose it was only a matter of time before I painted one of their songs. 

Aforementioned painting has no name yet, but was inspired by 'The Water'

So I organized my art corner. 

Some artists are lucky enough to have a studio space; my dreams are made of a separate studio space for all of my art stuff, a place that I could leave my paintings out without fear that a cat will walk over it, a space where I can loose track of time and just be an artist...

Alas, in a 1,400 sq ft. townhouse, it was not to be. 

About a year ago I commandeered the corner of our basement and yesterday, I annexed all of the shelving closest to that corner so that I could have all of my art-making things corralled in one place. 

What follows are some photos of my art organizing adventures; I'm certain they say something about the artistic temperament, but I'm not certain what...

Pictured above: the hesitant beginnings of my 2014 Sketchbook Project submission. If you have visited my Sketchbook Project page then you know that I've had the 2014 sketchbook in my possession since June 2013. I vowed that I was not going to leave this one until the last minute because last year, I had mailed it with only one day to spare: stressful! 

Soooo, the sketchbook has to be in the mail by January 15 and I've barely started. 

Honestly, its not as though I procrastinate in any other area of my life! Inspiration to fill a sketchbook just has to come, it can't be forced.....

...luckily, I had an idea when I went to see the National Ballet of Canada's production of 'The Nutcracker' last week (for the seventh time!) I have a lot of programs from various ballet performances that I've attended; they are filled with great photographs, but I never know what to do with them. 

As a dancer myself, I'm encouraged to be aware of the shapes that I create with the movements of my body. My current instructor often says 'think about going through space.' As an art student, I was equally compelled to pay attention to the positive space (the subject of my art) and the negative space (the shapes around it). As can be seen in the photo above, I've decided to use my fancy new fine point exacto knife to remove the dancers from the photos and explore the negative space they create.


Let's see if it can fill a sketchbook. 

Sometimes art can take you strange places. 

For instance, a few months ago I stumbled upon a photo of wine glasses that had been painted to look like the Piranha Plant from Super Mario; pretty fun and the perfect gift for the video game fans in my family. 

Instead of ordering the glasses online, I thought that Ikea wine glasses and some transparent glass paint would do the trick... on the left (and below) is the final product. 

The design itself was easy to reproduce, it was the glass paint that presented the biggest challenge. To be perfectly honest, glass paint is a royal pain in the keester to work with; it requires two layers, but often the second layer pulls the first and the result is an uneven surface. Annoying! However, the outcome was still good and I had a chance to flex my underused artistic muscles. 

With the studio tour next weekend it has officially become 'Crunch Time'... which means that I have to deal with my collage work from the summer. 

Here it is, back on my easel. Ugh. 

Have I mentioned that the two smaller pieces will not fit the frames that I had in mind for them? True story. 

Uuuuuuugggggghhhhhhhh, collage. 

I've done three in total... they were a lot of fun! I really like the way images and words can interact, so I've added a bit of my favourite Gothic poet Edgar Allen Poe. Vaguely creepy, sort of odd, I really like them!