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.

As you have noticed blogging hasn’t become a set habit yet but I’ll get there, don’t worry.  So how did Leprecon go… not so good actually.  I didn’t sell any of my paintings or prints, but I can count on one hand how many pieces in the whole art show were sold so it wasn’t just me.  It was a slow convention this year, and both the artists and vendors experienced low sales. I walked around the vendor area Saturday afternoon and it was empty save one or two people.  I was a little down about it for a few days, but you can’t give up on something just because it didn’t work out the first time.  When you get lemons you make lemonade!  And lemonade is really good!

This weekend is the Phoenix Comicon, and I’ll be helping with the Tiny Army Art Group booth on Friday from 2:00 – 5:00 and on Saturday from 1:00 – 4:00.  I’m planning on selling prints of some of my fairies and other works and telling people about the Tiny Army Art Group.  Not only that, I thought I would have some fun and give a discount on one print to whoever comes up to the Tiny Army Booth and says to me “pink marshmallows”!  Note: there will be other artist at that booth throughout the con, and possibly at the same time as me. This discount is only for my art – I don’t want any embarrassing mix ups. So come on down to the comicon and check out all the neat stuff there and say hi to me! The booth is just inside the entrance its number is T7 in the Phoenix Convention Center South Building. See you there!

Leprecon 36 started started Friday and my art is now in the art show there!  It was almost scary getting to it however.  I had neatly packed all the pictures in the car, some in the trunk and the rest in the back seat.  A lesson in packing pictures in the back seat, DO NOT lean them upright in the back seat, you lay them flat instead.  Which is the smart way to do it but I wasn’t the brightest crayon in the box that morning.

So we are heading to the con when the first light we come up to suddenly turns yellow.  I was trying to stop quick enough but slow enough so I didn’t knock the pictures over, but at the end, they all went toppling over to the foot of the back seat.  All I could do was keep driving (since the con is only 10 minutes from my house) and pray that everything was alright.  When I got there I found that out of the four pictures in the seat only the glass on one was broken.  And it was a standard size so we were able to replace it quickly.  But still its a little scary seeing something you work so hard on having a near death experience!

The art show has some really awesome stuff and it was great talking to some of the artists there also I was able to met some new people and found a Tiny Army friend had works on display too.  There’s one I met who had some fun creative art on display, and his website is pretty awesome too-check it out – http://alexanderscotthughes.com/

Last night the guest artist Charles Vess walked through the art show and first spoke of his art and then gave his opinion of the our art.  He is a pretty amazing artist and had some great advice to give.  Its was a honor being there and hearing what he had to say about my art.

I’ll let you know how it all turned out when it’s over…

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!

I had intentions to post this the other day but my body went on strike and shut down on me on Thursday.  I spent most of that day sleeping and being a vegetable.  I guess I was using more energy than I’d thought the last couple of weeks.  Listen to your body folks or it will stop listening to you.  Friday was busy, then the weekend flew by, and now here we are!

First I finished my painting titled ‘Lightning Sprite’. You can see the a larger version in my fantasy art gallery. There were so many times I wanted to give up and quit but I couldn’t.  For one, I would kick myself for the rest of my life knowing I failed at a piece, but the main reason I kept going because my husband wanted to see it finished.  I know I say this so many times on this blog but I consider myself a very lucky woman to be married to such a wonderful supporting man.

While we are on the subject of my husband, he gave the most wonderful mother’s day present.  He took me to see “Celtic Women” this last week.  It was even better than I imagined it to be.  We were up in the nose-bleed section but we could see the whole stage perfectly.  The concert was in the ASU Gammage, designed by Frank Lloyd Wright.  I thought I would just put that in for those curious.  So yes it was an amazing experience and I had never felt so special or so loved in my whole entire life!  So again thank you “Love”.

The next morning I had to take my son to the dentist to have some cavities drilled.  Because he has autism he had to be sedated first.  He had to drink the mixture and then wait for 45 minutes.  I thought that the drug would slow him down; instead he started bouncing off the walls!  And to add to that he walked up too almost every kid in the waiting room, asked their name, ran back to me to tell me their name and then ran back to the child so he can tell him his name.  It was embarrassing but cute.  At the end the dentist said my son did great! But he still has to go back in to get the rest of his teeth done.

So this weekend is Leprecon.  For those of you that are going to be down in Arizona for this event please stop on by the art show and see the beautiful work that me and the other artists have worked so hard on.   I’m a little nervous being that this is my first time I’m putting art in a show but I’m excited at the same time.  It will be fun to see how this goes.

I’m Alive! (sort of…)

I’m sorry I disappeared like that, a lot has happen recently.  Multiple family members have came down and visited, my son got scarlet fever (don’t worry he’s fine), and just little things here and there. But now things are quieting down and I can get some work done now.  Speaking of work, I spent all of last week working on this acrylic painting:

There you go!  “Stubborn” redone.  This is done in acrylics and took me about 40-50 hours to paint, compared to the 15 or so on the original (it was a speed painting contest).  It definitely looks like I imagined it to be and I’m very happy with the way it turned out. I’ll be including this at the upcoming Leprecon 36 here in Phoenix next month. For reference, here is the original version, done in Watercolor paints:

It has been a while since my last acrylic painting and I forgot how much more detailed you can get with them than with watercolors. My husband has been trying to get me to use acrylics more because he enjoys the bright, vivid colors that they have. I had to go out and purchase several new colors and replacement paints as several of my other ones were almost empty or dried up, and they had a nice sale on paints so I grabbed a few new colors. I plan on using acrylic’s for my next few paintings as well.

I’ve got two 5-foot panels that I’ll have my art on at Leprecon, and planning on putting some stuff in the print gallery as well. A few of my Flower Fashion Fairies will be up for sale as originals and prints, and a few other new paintings that I hope to have finished in time. I won’t be at the booth or the con itself, but if you’re attending feel free to stop by and let me know what you think of my stuff – or even better, purchase some of it .

Phoenix Comicon is coming up next month as well and I’ve got several ideas on what to have there. I’ll be helping out at the Tiny Army booth for a few hours and will have some prints, ACEO’s, and other stuff for sell. I’ll give you more details on that as it gets closer.

Speaking of getting stuff finished in time, I need to get going on the next painting! See ya!

With the help of my wonderful husband my website is finally complete! I am so lucky to have such a supportive husband he sacrificed a lot of time into the website and to help me get started with this blog and other things to help get my art out there! So please take a look around and tell me what you think.

If you are in the Tempe, AZ area, today is you last chance to buy a raffle ticket to win a drawing or painting at Jerry’s Artarama. One raffle ticket is $5 and 5 tickets are $20.

I am now starting to get art ready for the Leprecon coming up in May. I have some finished art but there some I need to start on or redo. I’m a little stressed about it but at least I have a plan, normally I don’t have one of those. Here’s a sketch of one of my “plans”:

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.