Sunday, January 16, 2011

A Subtle Change in Direction

Writing a blog on a regular basis is pretty therapeutic! I have often struggled about which direction to take my art, and have found that just writing a few things down has helped me to see a path appearing. I see myself lying on the psychiatrist couch of Dr. Blogblogblog. (Do they really use couches?)

After doing my first three foamances ( I need to call them something!) I decided I didn't want to pursue that style of art. I call it my eBay art. My high school art teacher would have called it kitsch art. I think he must have drilled that into my head, because I have felt through all the years of selling art online, the kind of art I sold there was inferior to what I should be doing. I felt I ought to be doing 'fine art', but that takes more planning and a lot longer to paint. In my situation I needed to have daily online sales. So I painted things that were cutesy and fast.

Now I am not saying that kitsch art is bad art. People love decorative fun art like this and that's a good thing. However it's sidetracking me from where I think I want to go with this. So I decided this weekend as I was drawing in my sketch book that I would do sketches on my foam figures and this time try to make it look more fine art-ish. It would also be a mini practice for the direction I am heading. I think it's a little bit different from the others.

I was thinking about Valentines - I love holidays! So I decided to make my sketch into an angel with a heart and put words on it. I know, it's still looks kitschy. I can't help it! This is a journey, one step at a time. This foamance is titled Love is Kind and will be on etsy tomorrow.

6 comments:

mary helen said...

Wow, how I can relate to EVERYTHING you say. I'm the EXACT same way. Most of my art can be classified as "decorative" or “kitschy” as you say. I left the Artisan’s Guild I was a part of due to wanting to pursue a “finer” art, mostly to work on portraits and figurative work. I HATE drawing anything in my “sketch” book that I don’t feel is “finished”, I don’t let anyone look at them. It’s taking me a lot to break myself of that. Even though I know that it’s the process, not the result. I mean, I still enjoy doing the whimsical art and creating fanciful things but I totally get what you’re saying. Thank you so much for sharing your journey, I will be watching and working along with you. Let me also say, I LOVE your angel as well. ~mary helen

Catherine Darling said...

Thanks Mary Helen, it's so good to hear you say that! I don't know if I will ever get the desire to make whimsical art out of me :-) but I would like it to have a more fine art patina on it. At least that's how I feel today. What I definately want to do is draw more upon inspiration in whatever I do.

Amanda Makepeace said...

I can relate to this so much right now! So I had to put this in the EBSQ Friday Five. ;)

Anonymous said...

Foamances...cute word for it and like the perspective. I enjoy your work.

Kim Vanlandingham said...

I like your work! Found you from the EBSQ blog.

Catherine Darling said...

Hi Sherry, Thanks! Kimberly, that's cool, I love EBSQ!