Pebbles are not a girl's best friends...

There are moments in our lives when we begin to realize that there are people around us who slip through life without any worries as if they were destined to be lucky ALL THE TIME. We struggle hard and the wind still blows, hardships seem to have no end, money does not come. Whatever we touch turns into a rotten pulp instead of gold. During these periods of hardships (especially when you have someone literally turning everything s/he touches into gold, totally unlike you) find comfort in comparing yourself to a diamond. Imagine each of the hardships as a facet on your precious surface leading you closer to your ultimate shine. Go even deeper into this comparison and imagine those “golden lipped ones” as being ordinary pebbles that were formed by sea, sand, rain, and a blow of the wind. In opposition to you, they will be treated mildly by the environment they are in, till the moment they become sand themselves and begin to form other pebbles. You, on the other hand, are different. You may have already experienced some tiny glimpses of that you somehow stand out, not only through a careful observation of the ones around you, but also stemming from your inner self. Hold on to that feeling because you are right! Things do not come easy to you, sometimes you have to wait in line, but the outcome will leave you breathless, because it will all stop one day. You are bound to shine and that is the major difference between you and the ordinary pebbles. That is why the pebbles are treated so mildly by fate – why even bother to add facets to their surface and waste the precious diamond polisher on something that is incapable of shining! Hold on to that inner light you have inside of you. It is there, even though it is not visible yet. One day the process of polishing will be over and you will smash everyone with your priceless beauty!    

When we hit the ground

There are moments in our lives when we get lost, or unmotivated to move on. The fantastic thing about being an artist is that we can turn all what is inside of us into art. Other people do not have this wonderful opportunity. They seek other means of doing it by drinking, drugs, violence or different forms of abuse.

We artists can do it in a different way – bring those emotions together and make them so dense that they behave like clay in potter’s hands. Diluted with water from our tears, the clay is shaped in our hands. What was inside of us slowly goes outside in form of a piece of art.

It happens to all of us, whether it is due to lack of sun, disappointment, unhappy love or other things in our lives going bad. It happens to me too. What I do is focusing on that emotion and turning it into art, as I did with the picture below. I was going through a toxic love relationship with an unhappy ending. Back then I had self-made Arabic stickers for my keyboard, which began to peel off one by one. So, eventually I unstuck all of them. I kept them in a small pile, as if something told me not to get rid of them for good. One day I came up with an idea of taking pictures of them forming words. The trouble was that I obviously had only one copy if each letter. Even though I know more than a few words in Arabic, at that moment I only could come up with the words “love” and “eternity”. So I took the pictures and began mixing it with other backgrounds I had. I did maybe a few dozens of different mixes with different shades but when I saw the one you can see below, I felt like I was struck by a lightning! That was it! Yes! That was what I had inside me! The word “love” mixed with a picture of my floor and a tune-up of colors to red and yellow. The original beige and black floor became bloody as if some kind of a massacre happened and someone swiped all that blood along the word “love” – my LOVE.

When we hit the ground, it is because we are supposed to bounce back with art! Make use of it!

STOP - OP + ART = START

So much has happened since I last logged in here and at the same time some things are constant and unchanged. With all those experiences that are now behind me, I have so much to tell and to express via painting and at the same time I am stuck and reluctant. It is as if the weight of it all was too heavy, too grave to come out in form of a painting. I remember when I was younger I used to write poetry and did not paint at all. It is as if I had only one channel of expression available for me at a time. The urge to express is so strong that I now have 2 new gouache paintings that I already began painting, 2 watercolor backgrounds drying and getting ready for Arabic calligraphy, and one bigger self-portrait drawn with the use of dry pastels.

I will never ask myself the question if I should actually stop painting because it is the same as breathing to us all and I know I cannot live without it. The thing is that sometimes too much has happened and there is so little space to throw it all on.

The good news is, wherever I move there is bound to be ‘art’ sign on the door, because STOP – OP + ART = START.

(OP stands for "oppression")

Hidden treasure discovered... Getting ready for another adventure...

Now that the poppies are almost ready, I move on to discovering the shapes of the hidden barley. First, the general shapes of it are being carefully exposed. Brush has to move quick making firm lines. The desert sand shines the same and a small smile appears on my face – I know the exploration is going in the right direction.

With the smile of satisfaction I add details to the poppies and barley. It is light, sunny and shining – just the way I wanted it to be! One adventure is over, but there are many more waiting for my exploration! Moving now to another excavation site with the same excitement!

It will be soon scanned and put on my Fine Art America profile, so that you could see it in a better quality :)

Desert sand shines in the sun, sweat runs down my neck

Next step in the adventure is getting rid of the latex. Once the background’s first layer is dry, all the covered areas are cleared up. Now, anything can happen. Therefore it is one of the most exciting moments of painting.

Young Indy now is ready to continue the adventurous joyride through the excavation site. There I grab my brushes and begin discovering the hidden treasures – their shapes and colors. The glittering pieces in the left corner of the "excavation site" are glitter in 3 colors: champagne, yellow gold, and bits of fine copper. I powdered it all over the paper when the background was still wet. The sparkles add more treasurelike effect. It is as if I was at some ancient site and desert sand shone in the midday sun. In the heat coming from the blue sky above me, I wipe the sweat off my face and neck. I am now ready to move on to discovering the barley's hidden textures. 

A few reflections on Photoshop and its magic

Being a detail freak and sometimes an artist using some devices to enhance photos, the growing number of “photoshop gone bad” pictures cannot escape my notice. We are not perfect, it is a fact I do not deny, but for God’s sake – use it properly! Photoshop and similar programs can really help – when a pimple decides to spoil the cute shot, your eyes get the red devil pupils during a flash photo session, teeth are not as bright as in real life, a fly passes by and half of your sexy lips are smudged. These are good and necessary adjustments, to name just these few, so you know what I mean. But when someone decides to use it to literally put a mask on her/his face? The effect used by those “individuals” is called “skin softening” or similar, depending on the software used. Look at the example pictures of Wael Kfoury and Clive Owen before and after: 

Does it really look appealing to you? To me it does not! First of all, as you can see, it was completely unnecessary in these cases! Skin does not look like that! Look at your skin! Look at its structure! This is where beauty lies – in different structure! People created complicated 3D software to reflect this very same structure you are destroying with one click of your mouse! You are not a shop window mannequin! You are a human being! I just cannot stand looking at that kind of pictures any more. They literally hurt my eyes! Many fanpages use that kind of pictures. And not only them, they are everywhere including magazine covers!    

Archeaologist's adventures continue

When the initial shapes of the hidden treasure emerge from the sand's surface, they send an invitation for more exploration. Even though they are very tempting, they have to wait and be secured first, so that I could work on the background. This is the moment when artists' masking latex comes in handy. The smell is really terrible (like old unwashed socks sprayed with some unknown chemical substance), but what could adventurous Amy do? Fortunately the smell is around only till it dries.

When the stinky latex dries all the fun begins! The Three Musketeers enter and I let them do their job. First, I apply some water and then the gouache. This is a painting that is going to portray summer and poppies among the barley, so I will not use that much of black color as I usually do. I want it to look light and sunny. I also like to apply some glitter to make it shiny and salt to add structure. Salt does not work so nicely with gouaches as with watercolors, simply because they are very thick, as I wrote in my first entry, but still, it adds some interesting effects. Sometimes they are new formed crystals, and sometimes just stains. 

As the professionals probably will notice, the paper was not put in water and stretched before painting. I like to use the "mountains" of curved surface to accumulate more paint and get darker areas this way. 

There we go - background ready to dry. Archaeologist is now really excited and cannot wait till tomorrow!