Thursday, April 25, 2013

5000 Views on This Blog!

I was checking on things this morning, and noticed that I am at 4999 hits on this blog-if you're reading it, you may be 5000!

There have been lots of changes in the last year, but things are slowly settling down and I'm refocusing on my photography and art. I've done several shoots lately, but had to cancel several others due to fibromyalgia pain. Hopefully plan to make those up in the coming weeks.

Stay creative!

Wednesday, April 17, 2013

Plus Size Models

I read something yesterday that has kinda been on my mind.

"Plus size models promote obesity."

Ok, I have a few issues with that. Lets compare to the French model body ideal. It hit the news recently that these models will go to almost any length to remain "Paris thin," up to and including staying in the hospital on a drip most of the time, to eating tissues to feel full. How is that not promoting unhealth? OK, now back to reality. The reality is that most women are overweight in America. Most plus size models are still smaller than many women, but have a healthy body, healthy outlook on themselves. It takes guts to go away from the so-called ideal in such a way. Pinterest "Plus size model" and there are many, many absolutely gorgeous women, confident in themselves.

I have found with my own weight, that I tend to lose when I'm feeling good, confident, beautiful which increases the chance I will continue to lose. I gain when I'm eating emotionally, from the opposite of those feelings. So. To me, plus size models increase the good feelings, increase my drive to lose weight, not the opposite.

Thoughts? I'm especially interested in what the models who read this have to say.

Thursday, April 11, 2013

Creativity Series: What is the art you WANT to make?

I've come to a realization lately that the art I make is much different than the art I WANT to make. I want to gain a cutesy style, mixed media with a twist of fine art, but cute-not the same as everyone's (No more butterfly winged fairy children photos) but not so entirely different either. The work I make is more gritty, expressionist, surrealist at times. My photography is clean and, well, not that creative. Drawing is something I need to improve on in order to get to the next level in my pursuit of Cute.

Pursuit of Cute. That's a good name for it. I'm not sure why I want to seemingly regress into cutesy, but I do. So many people work to free up their artistic style, which is a wonderful thing. Maybe it was art school's fault, but I need to work on tightening down. My sewing is tightening up, I made the decision starting with my current design, that if I'm going to sew I'm going to do it more accurately than I have in the past, no point in making clothing with bad workmanship.

Seems like I am doing that with several media at the moment. I'm zentangling, which is an interesting study in free vs. tight. I like the free patterns executed tightly, I think. My knitting is getting more accurate over the last year, I need to make another knock out design, like the one for KnitEdge (Out in May). It is very structured, short rows abound, with cables, structured stockinette and garter stitch. There is an amazing kick pleat type slit in the back, very structured, that I happened to knit on the fly. Details are where its at. I did a watercolor of a cutesy bird the other day, next steps on it are to add some of my new pearlescent watercolors to it, then draw on it, maybe even a hand lettered quote! That is something that scares me, writing. My handwriting is terrible but I actually can letter, I need to internalize that difference and GO FOR IT with lettering.

I got a book entitled "Creative Paper Quilts" and have been having the urge to work with paper lately. I may look into alternative media publishing-like paper, beads, etc. I have experience (of course) with getting knitting and crochet published, but I think publishing my other types of work would be so satisfying.

What is your favorite style of art to create? What do you want to create? Why don't you?