Lizzy D's Art Blog|My art, projects, and life in general

Back while I was in college, I took a Basic drawing class. This class had a teacher by the name of Leon Parson and he showed no mercy when it came to critiquing our drawings. There were days I actually went home in tears after hearing one of his critiques – he was not easy to please and I wasn’t the only one that felt his wrath. For our final, he gave us a hand written test of what we learned. I don’t remember how well I did over all but I do remember one question on that test. Did you change your Major? I later found out that why he was so harsh was because he wanted to filter out the students that couldn’t handle the cruel reality of an occupation in art. I remember looking at that question with my pencil in hand and thinking “Jerk” and with a smirk on my face I written the answer “No”.

Twelve years later to this weekend I had my art on display at LepreCon in Tempe AZ. And to my luck I got a personal critique from one of the Guests of Honor artist Darrell K. Sweet. And he showed me no mercy! He gave me a critique that would make my old professor proud and then some! I was told to draw more, to use references, to see with my mind and not my eyes, and pointed out all the flaws in my art. I drove home in shock and stupor as I felt what he told me tattooed itself to my brain. It was not at all what I expected but I knew I needed to hear it. It was one of those moments where I had to make a decision. Whether to keep going in art, and improve myself by pushing myself harder, or to throw in the towel and give up.

Later that evening I went back to the convention to have my art critiqued by the other guest of honor John Picacio. His critique was different from Darrell Sweet’s. He spoke of similar things but he asked me what I wanted to do with my art, and to tell the truth I did not have a straight answer for him. The next day I took my sketchbooks in for a critique (since the art I had on display was my portfolio and was already torn apart by critiques) and showed them my sketchbooks. They spent almost an hour talking to me and amongst each other about what I can do to help my art. I was told I from both artists I had to choose a direction with my art. So once again I had to decide. That stupid question I had to answer 12 years ago reemerged in my mind. I know my art isn’t the greatest, but I also know it’s not the worst and it can become something more if I work at it. So once again I will answer that question. Did I change my major, my choice of occupation; did I give up my dream? And with a smirk on my face I type the answer, ‘NO! ‘

Those two artists gave me the strength to get up and make my art better than ever. Though my path is not yet clear, it does not mean I don’t have a path to follow. For those budding artists that find themselves getting merciless critiques from their professors and feel like it’s too hard to handle know this – yes the world of art is hard to handle – but every critique you get is a gift, nothing more, whether to accept that gift or not is up to you. The more critiques you get the stronger you will be in your persistence. Never think that the artist or professor is critiquing harshly to bring you down – they want you to succeed.

And so without further ado I now have my finished Dandelion Fairy for you. Out of all my pieces, this is the only one that got a direct compliment from Darrell Sweet. He liked the dandelions because he could tell I had done plenty of research on them.

Danelion Fairy

I also have this piece to show, A Simple Act of Kindness.

It got one of the harshest of the critiques from both artists but John Picacio said he really liked the concept of the piece and the emotion that it gives.

So last year I was lying in bed after a day at looking at art and photos being sold in downtown Mesa AZ.  For some reason I distinctly remember a photo of Marigolds and that image stayed in my head for the rest of the day and into the night.  An idea popped into my head as I was lying there…and it was a good idea!  Fairies wearing flowers!  Very original I know but it wasn’t fantasy type clothing I was thinking of-no it was modern clothing!  And so I set myself to work and now a year and a half later I finished my project.  14 fairies were painted but only 12 will be seen grouped together in a calendar for 2011!  I am so excited about this just because it was the biggest project I put myself into!  I have it on sale for preorder here in my Etsy shop.  Here is a sample of one of the months.

In other news I finished my painting of my Dandelion Fairy only to be struggling with making it look right on the computer. I will post it once I get things fixed.

For future notice the TusCon is coming up in November 12-14.  I’ll be having a dealers table there and I’ll have a panel in the art show.  I’m going to be selling the calendar, prints, cards and even originals there so stop on by if you are in the area.

Sorry for the absence; as the summer progressed it became harder and harder to find the time to do anything with my art or anything online.  So I decided to just wait until school started again for my son.  Now that it has, I can get back to work.

This has been the project I have been working on recently. I’ve had this fairy in my sketchbook for a while and wanted to do something with it.  I am starting out with watercolors then using acrylics for brighter colors.  So far so good I think. J

These Fashion fairies were one of the summer projects I started and had to stop until school started once again.  I actually redid the Lily; here is the first one;

It wasn’t what I had in mind in the first place though it does look good it wasn’t what I wanted, I’m happier with the second one.  Now the Hibiscus, if you haven’t recognized it yet, was originally done for a fundraiser for Haiti at Jerry’s Art-o-Rama.  At the request of one of several people I made another one, though slightly different.

Coming up this weekend is CopperCon , it’s here in Mesa so if you are in the area come check it out.  They are not having an art show or art auction, but they did offer several panel spacing in the dealer’s room for artists to show their work. I’ll be displaying some of my original art there. CopperCon runs Saturday thru Monday, Sept. 4-6.

This time around I’m going to try to post more blogs and try to keep you updated on my art.  I must warn you though, I may forget; sometimes I get so into my art that nothing else happens – including keeping the house clean.

Tomorrow is the first day of Leprecon!  So if you are in town come check it out, it’s at the Phoenix Mesa Marriott here in Mesa, AZ. I have spent this last week trying to get everything ready, with the one thing that took up most of my time was trying to finding mats for the pictures.  I knew what colors of mats that I wanted to match with the paintings and the frames I had for them, but after searching through four different stores I had to settle with some second best mat choices.  After cutting them I found that they didn’t quite go well with two of the paintings and I wasn’t happy. My husband remembered a smaller art store that we hadn’t been to in years because they were a bit pricey and the store was cramped and unorganized, but I figured we might as well check it out. When we got there, the first mat I saw was EXACTLY what I wanted in the first place!!  In fact they had a lot more in store selection then the other places, and their prices were similar to the other places I had checked out.

So now everything is matted and framed and ready for the art show.  I must admit this is my first art show so I’m feeling a little nervous.  Mostly because I won’t be there the whole time so I can’t protect my art from any bad scrutiny.  I know that sounds silly but my art means a lot to me.

I just finished another piece for the art show, one I had as an option should I find some extra time for it. It was done on black paper with prisma pencils, which causes issues getting a good scan out of my scanner for some reason, but here is the original sketch:

She is the second of a light fairy series, this is the first one:

Well, I still have some last minute things to do so I’ll type again soon!

It’s been a while but I’m back.  This has been a pretty busy month!  My In-laws came down and we actually did some National Parks hopping.  I didn’t realize how many Indian ruins there really are here in Arizona!

The Art-a-thon was a lot of fun and I sadly had to part with this beautiful fairy:

I hope she goes to a good home.

If any of you are interested, all of the art is going to be raffled off this Saturday, 3/27 so if you are in the Tempe, Arizona area please stop by Jerry’s Artarama and buy a raffle ticket – it’s $5 for one or $20 for five tickets.  The pictures will be up for the remainder of the week and they will be raffled off on Saturday.

I’ve been keeping my husband busy this past week with my galleries website’s re-design.  He is such an amazing guy you won’t believe how much work and time he has put into helping with not only my website but this blog and has been teaching me how to use everything along the way.  I’ve designed a new logo that I’m going to use on it and try to incorporate into other places like my business card and maybe on here as well eventually.

There are a few things that I’ve been working on as well. Today I’m starting on a piece for this contest it should prove fun.  I also am getting ready to redo this picture:

I call it “Stubborn” and it was originally from a contest that had a time limit of 24 hrs.  Yep, I was up working on it till 4 in the morning then didn’t win anything.  Oh well, it turned out pretty cool, though it’s not at its best. I’m going to redo it in acrylics with some slight changes and fix some of the things I don’t care for in it.

I’m planning on displaying some art in the LepreCon convention here in Mesa, May, 14-16. I have never done anything like this before so this should prove quite an experience.  I’m hoping I’ll have “Stubborn” done for this event as well as a few others, but I do have some finished ones I’m excited to show to the public. I may also be attending the Phoenix ComiCon this year, and helping out the Tiny Army with their booth. I’ll post more about that when I find out more information.

We made it to the annual Arizona Renaissance Festival on opening day this year. A much better experience for us than when we attended 2 years ago during its final weekend. The crowds were a lot smaller, the people were full of energy, and my son let us enjoy most of it.    One of the things I missed was enjoying the musical performances, my son, sadly, doesn’t show much interest in that sort of thing and feels he must express it verbally during the performance.  The sacrifices of a mother *sigh* oh well.  But with that aside everything else was great!  We saw some great juggling and tightrope walking and of course the JOUSTING!  We were rooting for the blood thirsty knight – it was pretty awesome!

The villagers were great too, if not a little weird.  A man was trying to sell his niece and nephew to us for 2 pence each, I had to turn down his offer as my son is like having 3 children in one, I don’t need more.  Not long after that I found myself playing match maker for a young man’s mother…who was a potato.  I advised a radish for I thought the potato might find it rather hot!  Then there was a fairy, I must admit there was something other worldly  about her presence.  The children around her (including my son) were just captivated by her mute, innocent gestures and by the music of her two-pipe flute.

The shops were fun to walk through, they gave my husband and I ideas for some costumes that we would like to make and some great ideas for my art.  I tried on some feathered hats and a corset that I thought would go well with a costume idea I had. Too bad the prices for those things are outrageously high at the faire’s.