Tag: 100 faces in 100 days

Where did All My Time Go?

I just got back from a much-needed vacation to Cape May, New Jersey, last week to celebrate my ten year anniversary. I had a wonderful, relaxing time and got a chance to just be, enjoying sunsets, walking around the town of Cape May and drinking in the beautiful Victorian architecture, listening to the reassuring rhythm of crashing waves, tasting great food, and reconnecting with my man. But when I got back from the trip, I had a major reality check. Several tasks awaited my attention, such as: scheduling a doctor’s appointment, grocery shopping, cooking, laundry, dishes, vacuuming, putting all my things away and preparing for two upcoming art shows to name a few. I felt overwhelmed just thinking about it, and my to-do list seemed endless. In addition, I had fallen behind in several areas of my art business prior to my vacation: such as an inventory of paintings and sketches, producing new art, bookkeeping, blogging, and following up on sales leads.

It was quite an adjustment to go from four days of unstructured vacation days to a more regimented schedule. During this time, I didn’t have to clean cook or do anything much, unless I wanted to plan an outing or decide where I wanted to have lunch or dinner, while I was a guest at the Angel of the Sea Bed and Breakfast in Cape May, New Jersey. I highly recommend this Bed and Breakfast if you need a relaxing getaway and you like historic towns. Now, I am trying to figure out how to catch up on things for my art business, without feeling overwhelmed. Enter an article I read this week entitled, Control Your Time and Become a More Successful Artist, by Jason Horejs, October 11, 2017, http://reddotblog.com. It seems that someone frequently writes a blog post about a subject that is meaningful to me just when I need it most. Thank you, Jason Horejs, owner of Xanadu Art Gallery in Scottsdale, Arizona!

Like me, Jason has been struggling with time management and organizing the many hats that we as entrepreneurs wear as small business owners, such as following up on sales leads, answering emails, bookkeeping, marketing, etc, (Horejs, 2017). But unlike me, he is a gallery owner and doesn’t produce artwork; he markets other artists and runs a gallery to help promote the artwork of other artists. I, on the other hand, am an artist and business owner, but we seem to be following similar tracks in our lives.And in the words of Jason Horejs (2017),

100 Faces in 100 Days, Chris Martin, pastel on paper, 2017, Jodie Schmidt.
100 Faces in 100 Days, Chris Martin, pencil on paper, 2017, Jodie Schmidt.
Angel of the Sea, Bed and Breakfast, Cape May, New Jersey.
Cape May, New Jersey, Sunset.
Cape May, New Jersey, view from the Lewes Ferry ride.
Photo of another watercraft.
Cape May, New Jersey Beach.
Cape May, New Jersey Beach.
Cape May, New Jersey, Emlem Physic Estate. (1876).
Self-Portrait with Light House.

the list was “simply too high, and “I felt I was falling behind in accomplishing everything I wanted to get done.” In Horejs’s article, Control Your Time and Become a More Successful Artist, (2017) he shares how in the midst of an overwhelming to-do list, he found some time management tools that have been helpful in clarifying his priorities and getting things done (Horejs, 2017). One of the tools he mentions is an Ideal Week template, which is based on a model created by Michael Hyatt, former CEO of Thomas Nelson Publishers (Horejs, 2017).

In the Ideal Week Template, Jason Horejs blocks out his day in segments of time to define what tasks are most pressing and how much time he plans to spend on them (Horejs, 2017). Michael Hyatt offers a downloadable spreadsheet on his blog, which can be customized to fit your schedule (Horejs, 2017). According to Horejs, this method of blocking out his time in segments has been helpful in prioritizing the most important tasks. In addition, Hyatt suggests that it is helpful to begin your day with “your long-term priorities,” instead of daily busy work (Horejs, 2017). After reading this article, I am realizing that most of my time is spent on day to day tasks such as cataloging art inventory, marketing my art projects and art shows on Instagram and Facebook, following up sales leads, blogging or researching articles about art business which could make good blog topics, maintaining my artist website, etc.

And while these tasks are important for running a successful art business, I am realizing that very little time has gone into working on new artwork. And as an artist, making artwork is what I would like to spend most of my time doing. However, the only art practice I have been somewhat consistent with has been drawing portraits for my 100 Faces in 100 Days Drawing Challenge, which I started back in June of this year. I still have 5 more drawings to complete to achieve the 100 portraits drawing challenge goal. I want to take some time in the coming week to block out my ideal week and see where I can block in time to work on my drawings and paintings, preferably in the morning before other things intrude or my energy wanes. I will let you know how it goes and post the artwork that I plan to create. Meanwhile, here are some vacation pictures that my husband took with his Nikon D40 camera. If you are interested in downloading the Ideal template, here is the pdf file,https://michaelhyatt.com/myresources/my-ideal-week.pdf. Thanks for stopping by! my-ideal-week

 

Art of Schmidt Newsletter: What I Learned at Art Pops!

Click on the following link (below) to read my latest Art of Schmidt Newsletter! This newsletter has some thoughts about my latest art project, 100 Faces in 100 Days, which is an “almost” drawing challenge which I have been participating in since June of this year, and some thoughts about what I learned from an Art Fair I recently participated in called Art Pops! at Everedy Square and Shab Row in Frederick, MD, organized and hosted by Leslie Ruby.

Art of Schmidt Newsletter, September 2017

The Lost Art of Drawing

About a century ago (well I exaggerate a little); I was a college student studying art at McDaniel College in Westminster, MD. I had a brilliant and successful art teacher who was able to make the practice of art making and the hatching of new ideas come alive like no other teacher I had before.  He taught me many useful things, such as how to keep an art sketchbook pasted with photos of art work by artists I admired, and how to write about my art in a way that expressed the message I wanted to share with it. Above all of the tips and advice, he gave I remember him telling me that I should draw every day. At the time, that task seemed quite difficult. I was always an impatient artist as a student and I often rushed through the drawing stage to hurry up and get to the painting, especially oil painting, because I enjoyed working with the buttery texture of the oil paint and I loved working in color. Now that many years have passed since my graduation from McDaniel and I am a professional artist seeking out new avenues to showcase my art and making custom pet portraits, I can truly see the value in his advice.

With hindsight, I can see that he was so right about drawing every day. I no longer rush art work projects and I have learned to love drawing, whether it becomes a painting or not. A few years ago, I took a drawing class at Frederick Community College, with instructor Cynthia Bausch, who taught me how to use charcoal, pastel, and pencil to create compelling drawings with a high degree of finish. This experience started my love for drawing, even though getting the drawings right was extremely difficult. Frequently, I would do the sketch over and over again until I was pleased with the result. For instance, the self-portrait in charcoal, pictured in this post, was drawn a total of three times before I  handed in the final piece to the art teacher. Since then, I have embraced my former art teacher’s advice, Steve Pearson, from McDaniel College,  to draw every day. at present, I am working on a drawing challenge I like to call 100 faces in 100 days. In this challenge, I draw a pre-selected photo from the Internet or a coffee table book, Icons, of a celebrity using only pencil and paper. I do not add in a lot of detail or shading and I limit myself to 45 minutes a day. This time frame for drawing sessions tends to be more like 5 days a week for me since I often work on weekends and feel pretty fried when I come home. The drawings are strictly for practice and not intended for sale at this time.

To see what others in the art world had to say about the importance of drawing, I did a web search, with the query term, Why Artists Should Draw More.  Artist and blogger, Lori McNee, states that drawing can give the artists a multitude of benefits to help them improve their craft as an artist, not the least of which is learning to observe a subject, which is a skill that is important both to the practices of painting and drawing. Source: http://www.finearttips.com/2012/10/10-reasons-why-artists-should-draw-more/.  Drawing more can also help you plan out your compositions better and give you a road map to follow for your design before you get to the painting stage when it is more difficult to make changes.

McNee, (2012), also states that many children enjoy coloring with crayons. For example, I have observed this tendency in the day care setting, (McNee, 2012),  when I was working as an Assistant Teacher at La Petite Academy when I was a high school student. However, over time many children stop drawing or making crafts and self-consciousness drifts in, stealing the spontaneous joy of creating something new. I observed this tendency when I volunteered as an assistant in a middle school art class back in the early 200s. A lot of the kids in this art class would say, “I can’t draw this,” or “You do it,” to me when I walked around to work one on one with the students.Picasso-quotes-every-child-is-an-artist  In fact, even artists (such as Mc Nee) who have been trained to draw, often let this essential art practice slide over time, (McNee, 2012) and may come to rely on tracing, especially if they need to get a project done quickly for a client. I admit, I am guilty of this tendency and until a few years ago, I rarely had a daily drawing practice, and I often struggled to get my proportions in portraits correct, often giving up in futility to join all the other drawings on the reject pile.

However this summer, I was inspired to tackle my fears about drawing and making mistakes by the drawing challenge artist and blogger, Julie Fan Fei completed which she called, 100 15 minute Balzer Faces, in which she made a daily drawing practice using a variety of media such as ink, acrylic paint, and jelly plate printing, among others. Source: http://balzerdesigns.typepad.com/balzer_designs/100-15-minute-balzer-faces/.  This challenge and my art teacher’s wise advice, motivated me to complete my own drawing challenge which I like to call 100 Faces in 100 days.  I post progress photos of my celebrity sketches on my Instagram account almost every day, but it tends to be more like 5 days a week because of my work schedule, in which I often work weekends.   I spend 45 minutes on each sketch, with minimal sketching, and I simplify this process by working only in with paper and pencil.

I also keep a visual photo file of celebrity imagery I would like to draw from. One important note of caution here: If you want to sell a portrait or sketch, it is best to use your own photos if possible to avoid copyright violation, or to visit the Wikipedia web site, http://www.wikipedia.org, where you can do image searches by the name of the celebrity and find out the photo’s provenance, such as the name of who took the picture and whether it is in the public domain. Here is a link Wikipedia with a public domain photo of Cary Grant: https:enwikipedia.org/wiki/Cary_Grant#/media/File:Grant,_Cary_(Suspicion)-01_Crisco_edit.jpg. I have attached my sketch of Cary Grant based on this photo.

Cary Grant, 100 Faces in 100 Days Challenge. Photo reference was attributed to Public Doman, via Wikipedia.
The Police,100 faces in 100 days challenge. Photo reference attributed to photographer, Terri O’Neill.
(Original Art) Ghost House. Pastel, charcoal, and colored pencil on pastel paper. Created by using multiple reference photos and stitching them together in Adobe Photo Shop.
(Original Art) Owl at Midnight. Pastel and Charcoal on pastel paper. Assembled with multiple reference photos collaged together in Adobe Photoshop.
(Original Art) Self-Portrait from Copier Machine. Made with charcoal, kneaded eraser and pastel paper, using the erase out method.
(Original Art) Vanitas. Made with paper and drawing pencils from an art class still life.

 To be on the safe side, you want to choose photos in the public domain if you plan to show your work or sell it or publish it in any way unless you can get written permission from the photographer to reproduce their work.  If you’re drawing is just for practice, no need to worry. But do try to give credit to the photographer if you can find out that information, and include that photographer’s name in your sketch when you sign and date it. Here are two web sites you can refer to learn more about copyright violation and terms: https://www.copyright.gov/help/faq/faq-fairuse.html, and https://blog.kenkaminesky.com/photography-copyright-and-the-law/.

In conclusion, I am still working on my drawing challenge and I am really enjoying the process.  I feel like I am getting more comfortable with drawing and the pressure if off because this work is not for a custom art order, or for an art show entry. I am learning how to slow down and not be in a rush to finish a project. What really matters is that I have passion, determination, and am willing to put in the time to learn to draw, paint, etc.  It takes time to acquire these skills and is similar to learning a sport or an instrument, which requires hours, days, weeks, and years of practice. I’m trying to be patient with the process and remember that most of what I know how to do now with ease, had to be practiced and (and often!), whether it was walking, talking, reading, writing, cooking, etc., etc.  to reach a level of mastery.

In Search of “White Space”

 

I’ve been working at a hectic pace these last two weeks preparing for a one-day art event called Art Pops! At Everedy Square and Shab Row in Frederick, MD.  Last Saturday was the big day to kick off this event and hopefully make some new connections and sales of my art work. The weeks leading up to this event were jam packed with activity and tasks such as weekly social media marketing campaigns, packaging and pricing my art works for sale, creating an inventory list in Excel, researching how to create an art booth display on Pinterest, etc.  And I learned a lot from this show, such as the importance of making in person connections with people to sell my art, how to read people, etc. In fact, I sold more art work in one day at the art show, then I did from months of posting about my art on Instagram, Facebook, and Etsy, and I am thankful for that.  However, all of this activity really took a toll on my energy and motivation to create art.

In all the business of preparing for the art show, I have really struggled to make time to create new art work. I feel that I have reached the end of my creative resources and knowledge, tapped out, so to speak. It’s been several years since I took an art class, and I haven’t read any new art technique books in several months. And this state of affairs is not like me. I am usually restless when I am not making art or coming up with some new ideas for a series of paintings or drawings. The last few days since the show ended, I have made a concerted effort to at least draw one portrait a day for my drawing challenge which I started back in June called, 100 faces in 100 days. Some days I have made some decent portraits, other days I have really struggled or been disappointed with

The Artist at Art Pops! event
Frank Sinatra singing, As Times Goes By
Cary Grant
Grace Kelly
Sean Connery
Creative Block: Waiting ( with Gesso added). The composition was getting too cluttered so I decided to cover up the distracting elements with acrylic gesso.

the results. If you would like to follow my progress with this project, you can view my 100 faces in 100 days drawing challenge on Instagram. I am listed as jsjschmidt2 on Instagram, and I post almost every day. Pictured are some sketches from this week including Frank Sinatra, Cary Grant, Grace Kelly and Sean Connery.

The paintings I wanted to work on, however, are not coming together. Instead of posting the finished product as I had hoped to do this week, I have to take several steps back and ask myself what isn’t working with the composition, values, colors and the drawings in my art work. For example, in my Creative Block: Waiting, watercolor painting, I feel there are too many elements battling for precedence and not enough quiet spaces to allow the viewer to contemplate the scene. The composition feels cluttered and overwhelming and the message of creative block feels “lost” in the muddle. So yesterday, I painted over several spots in the painting with acrylic gesso. And the Civil War soldiers fared no better. So out with the gesso again. I am struggling with the drawing and the tonal values in these acrylic paintings. I have discovered that the acrylic paint dries much darker than it looks when I mix it up and put it on the brush, which is really throwing off the values. So I may re-do the painting in oils after the gesso has “cured.”

The paintings seem to be a type of metaphor for where my life is these days. Overstuffed and empty all at the same time. I feel I have lost the wonder I used to have about making art that keeps me motivated to get into the art studio ever week to see what new ideas I might “cook up.” Meanwhile, I am realizing that my workaholic tendencies are not conducive to making art work. I must create and seek “white space” to re-fill my creative tank, so that I have something to draw from when I go to make art work.  Meanwhile, I will be be seeking out this “white space” in its various forms, whether it is taking a walk, journaling, going to an art gallery, reading an art technique book, etc., to try and regain my sense of wonder for life, and for making art.

100 Faces in 100 Days: Drawing Challenge

Back in June of this year, I had started a drawing challenge with celebrity portraits. In this challenge, I drew one celebrity portrait a day, using photo references of actors, actresses, and entertainers from the 1980s. I was inspired to start this series by a drawing challenge which I read about in a blog by Julie Fan Fei Balzer, called Balzer Designs. She called her challenge a 100-day

Harrison Ford as “Indiana Jones”
Michael J. Fox in his Iconic role as “Marty McFly”
Cyndi Lauper as herself
Vincent d Onofrio as “Dawson”
George Newbern and Elizabeth Shue as Dan and Chris

challenge and she created 100 faces in 100 days using a variety of media including acrylic monoprint, screen prints, ink on paper, ball point pen on paper, etc. I modified this challenge by using just paper and pencil to simplify it and instead of making up imaginary faces; I attempted to capture celebrity likenesses. I was also motivated to do this challenge because I had recently completed a portrait commission in May, and I truly struggled to get the likenesses of the people in the photo.

To make this challenge a daily habit, I collected photos of celebrities from the internet that I found inspiring and saved them to a file labeled, portraits, on my computer, so I had a ready supply of faces to draw. I also did a few other things to keep me on track, since I struggle with discipline and finishing art projects that I complete, especially ones without a definite deadline. So, I coupled setting the timer for 25 minutes and making the drink, usually coffee or diet coke, of my choice to go along with it. I also tried to start my drawing mid-morning, before other activities intruded. For the most part, the challenge has been going really well, and most days with a few exceptions, I have set aside time consistently to draw.  On the days when I can’t get to my sketch pad, I don’t beat myself up and I just start again the next day. And I feel I am learning so much about how to draw better portraits, for one, taking the time to really scrutinize the subject’s face and other features.

Also, just stepping back frequently has given me a fresh perspective on how closely the sketch resembles the photo reference.   On the other hand, there have been some days when I have felt really discouraged about whether I have what it takes to be an artist, when I have to do a drawing two or three times over, maybe even selecting a different photo to draw from if I get desperate.  On days like that, it’s hard to keep going with this challenge and I start to get discouraged. Lately, it has just been the dedication to push through and get it right. Last week though, I felt encouraged about the necessity of making art because, without a studio practice, I can’t have anything to share with my friends, family, and fans.  Nor can I grow in my skills as an artist, if I don’t practice. And not only that, I feel I would be losing a big part of myself and my identity as a person if I stopped showing up to make art.  I would lose that joy of creating something or seeing my internal visions come to life in sketches and paintings.  In the words of art business coach, Allyson Stanfield, “Without your art, you have nothing to promote, you have nothing to market, you have nothing to take out of the studio and share with the world.”  Source: Ecstatic Encounters Lesson 1: Devote Yourself to Studio Practice, from https://artbizcoach.com/ee-1/.

So despite the difficulties I sometimes encounter with making art, I am not giving up, not on this challenge or any other art project. As it stands, I still have quite a few more days to go before this challenge is complete…By my calculations based on my Instagram posts, I have 63 more days to go. After that, who knows what new challenge I will take on… If you would like to watch my progress, you can view my Instagram profile at jsjschmidt2 on Instagram. I attached a few photos of this drawing challenge from my Instagram account. I hope the challenge to draw every day or almost every day, challenges you as much as it has challenged me. Thanks for stopping by!