Hey y'all! So glad to have this chance to chat with you! Wait, hold on a second, let me put down my noodles... no, actually, let me finish my noodles.
....
......okay, you have my full attention now, noodles are done.
Ahem. Good evening. I'm Em, I'm a carb-loading, bird-watching, green-loving, thirty-something, self-taught fine art watercolor painter from the South. I'll be posting here with art tips and inspiration, how-to's (or how not to's!), supply suggestions, studio vibes, some art tutorials maybe, and other news from the Em Campbell Art "land." For today though, I thought it would be helpful to introduce myself some, and give y'all a little backstory on how I got here.
From Small Doodles to Big Fails
Have paper, will make marks - that has been my story. At age seven, I began to write "books" (and illustrate them) to read to my little sister. I kept a doodle diary, sketching the big happenings and trips that my family of nine embarked on for several of my childhood years. (My kids love looking at those scribbles and smileys now!) As a teen, my best friend Jeni and I spent hours imagining ourselves into fabulous stories with fabulous boys that we just HAD to draw to make the tales complete. Jeni was always better at drawing the cute boys (and still is!), but though I abandoned figure drawing as I entered college, I knew that I still wanted to do "something art." My ever-practical dad steered me away from a strictly art degree, and by my sophomore year, I had declared my major to be Art Education. By then, I had tried several mediums, including oil painting, where I ABSOLUTELY FAILED.
In my defense, I was somewhat distracted by a handsome face that semester, AND I was not given any directions or taught to use the oil painting materials beyond "explore your medium and don't inhale the turpentine fumes." Our bird-like Polish professor, Maya, in pants made from floral green carpet, stood in the middle of the paint-smeared studio classroom, waving her arms and assuring us that we would "find the strokes, the flow would come." Well, I searched, and y'all, the strokes I found weren't pretty. When I asked for advice, my professor's suggestions was like her fashion - confusing. While I poorly painted a milk pail, she offered, "Hmm, success is not apparent here. You need more inspiration." Uh, it's a milk pail, Maya, and one could observe the same thing about your pants. Needless to say, my first attempt at finding the strokes of painting left me not found, but lost. Oh well, it worked out alright in the end, as what I did find that semester was the love of my life. (Thirteen years later, he's still a keeper, by the way. Awww.)
I know. All you want now is to see pictures of my work from that class, right? You're gonna make me dig out those old canvases and dig up those bad vibes. Ok, fine, but you owe me noodles.
Here's a piece entitled "Chen, Sans Eyes, Pre-Desertion In Studio Class B." I got a C on this one. "Not as compete as a more inspired piece could have been." Guys, Chen blinked a lot, so I decided to study his eyes later, and then he left for lunch and never came back to class... ever. So, lesson learned, start with the eyes, and bring Chen lunch.
Ah! The infamous milk pail! There it is in all it's uninspiring glory. I got a B on this one.
Here's my final project. The assignment was "Create a self-portrait conveying an aspect of yourself." Well, I chose the aspect of myself that had strong feeling about Oil Painting 1. Professor Pergo Pants gave me a C on this one too.
Another Try, Another Medium
It would be nearly ten years before I picked up a brush again. (Doesn't that sound super dramatic?? Teen me would love that kind of melodrama.Teen me would have written a book about it.) Now before you feel sorry for me and my GPA, I will point out that I did gain a lot from failing at something that I had thought I was good at (art classes). And in the years following, the time wasn't wasted. I may not have been growing in artistic skill, but I was definitely growing. I fell in love, got married, moved five times, had a baby girl, lost a baby boy, found a baby boy, and remodeled a house.
By the time I had the time to "art" again, a lot of years had passed, and I wanted to try something I hadn't tried before. After a few YouTube videos, library books, and a lot of trial and error, at long last, it happened - I found the strokes. Professor Maya had been right. I did need more inspiration, and the movement did eventually flow. Watercolors. I was falling in love with a brush in my hand all over again, except this time, my heart and my hands were fully connected and communicating.
The process of how I got to know my new "love" is a blog post for another day, but if you are wondering if you might be in love too with a new medium, even if it's a simple doodle diary, keep going! The flow will come. The strokes are waiting to be found.
Comments