Through the Window, painting

So, this is one of the paintings that I have worked on this semester at Art Awakenings. The title is Through the Window. This is a 10 by 20 inch painting. It is an acrylic of a photo that I took somewhere in town, Tucson, AZ a long time ago. It is my first real geometrical painting because of the shelves. It was a challenge, but fun. I have in the past done perspective with buildings and structures only in pencil and charcoal.

Anxious Birthday Cake

So, this was my second project for my Sculpting Class this Semester. We had to pick a feeling word and an object word out of a hat this time to do an Abstraction of the object that was picked. I got Anxious Birthday Cake; my therapist likes this one the best. Most everyone that I have shown this to really likes it. I had a sheet of steel to work with, so with this project, I learned how to use a plasma cutter, metal power tools, die caster, and a welder. I have a second steel project that was a Kinetic Project which means it had to mechanically move. By the end of that project, I have become a pretty good welder. I would have never thought that I would be doing these things in my life, but boy has Tuesdays and Thursdays from 8-11am been a lot of fun and a lot of learning. Note: The Birthday Cake looked more like a space rocket, so I added acrylic paint mixed with molding paste to give the appearance of frosting dripping off the cake.

End of Semester Graduate School for Art Therapy - Impatient Sculpture

Well it is official, I have everything in for my first semester at Graduate School for Art Therapy. On top of taking three graduate level courses this semester, I needed 6 credit hours of studio art in 3 D work. I still have two weeks left in my Sculpting Class at Pima Community College with Joe Del Par who is an amazing teacher - I highly recommend any of his classes. I also participated in over 60 hours of clay wheel work and hand building at the Tucson Clay Co-Op, also a great place to learn. My roommate joined me at the Clay Co-op and has just taken to clay like a natural. I think she will continue there as I go back to focus more on painting and watercolor. I have truly missed those mediums this semester. I have done some Acrylics at Art Awakenings here in Tucson which I will post here in the next couple of days. However, I wanted to share my adventures into 3D art. My first assignment in my sculpting class was a Non-Objective Piece (So it could not look like anything in everyday reality). I had a sheet of wood to work with and Pima West has a ton of tools (I am the POWER TOOL Queen now). So for this first piece, each student had to take a feeling word from a hat and create that feeling with the wood. We could paint our pieces with only one color. My Word was Impatient. I tried to give the idea of going in many directions, somewhat chaotically, and I painted it orange because impatiences has some feeling of frustration and anger which I connect with red but it is more mellow - those the orange. I have included a view from the top and from the side.

Safe Place Painting

I have now been working in trauma therapy for a little over six months. Early on, I had this visualization of a safe place to go when the memories and flashbacks come at me. This was the acrylic painting that I did at the Art Studio to help me to remember to relax in nature.

Purple Prickly Pear

I did this acrylic painting at Art Awakenings a couple of weeks ago. My new housemate loves the blossoms and the purple prickly pear, so this was for Rebekah.

Walk Together Poem

Let us walk this path together—
Same, same, same
Born into evil
Born of the same clay
Born of a loving God

Let us walk this path together—
Down, down, down
Into pain and sorrow
Into suffering and joy
Into loving-kindness

Let us walk this path together—
Care, care, care
Carrying each others’ burdens
Carrying each others’ fears
Carrying each others’ sorrow

Let us walk this path together—
Hope, hope, hope
Allowing each other to stumble
Allowing each other to feel
Allowing each other to share

Let us walk this path together—
Love, love, love
Loving each precious moment
Loving each tender thought
Loving each other as one

Resting in the Hand of God

This project was also for school this year and I call it, "Resting in the Hand of God." The idea of the project had to do something with transition and/or dimension or pattern. I used a sculpture that a friend of mine (Julie Brunson) made for the figure. This was displayed on Pima Community College Campus this semester. It is done using pieces of Color Aide.

School Painting

In my color and design class this year, we had to create a picture out of magazine colors and then duplicate the picture in acrylics using four colors, black, and white paint only. We then had to take our basic outline and do something really creative and out of the box with it. These are my two paintings that I did. I got on A on both of them. YEAH!!!

Tucson Botanical Gardens

The other day, I went to the Tucson Botanical Gardens with my friend Keslea. I love the flowers there and we were early enough in the morning to beat the heat. This is the watercolor sketch that I did.

Graduate School and Sunflowers

So, I finished my electronic portfolio for Graduate School in Art Therapy on Friday. It was so awesome to get it done. I wanted to post a painting that I did this past year that I had not posted because up until recently I had not taken a picture of it. It is Sunshine for Carol as I painted it for my friend Carol who loves sunflowers.

New Beginnings for Feburary

February starts the beginning of some more New Beginnings. So far this year, I have quit my job at Child Protective Services, started art classes to pursue Art Therapy, paid off all my debt, and soon I will move to a new place of my own after living in a community house for nearly eight and half years. I wanted to start blogging again this month as well; to share what I have worked on and what I am currently working on through my journey of healing and school to become an Art Therapist. I worked on this piece and many others over the Holidays. It is a lively tree full of mystery and excitement.