Hula Hooping Love

When I am not drawing or blogging I am Hula Hooping. A new passion of mine, hooping is becoming one of those creative outlets that seems essential. I have no idea how I lived without hooping.

I started hula hooping to aid in my weight loss goal, but it quickly became an obsession, like lots of things do in my eclectic life. Now, 5 hoops later, I am loving the creative juices that flow out of my hoop dance. I feel more in tune with my body and the earth when I pick up my hoop. Even my dogs enjoy the circular unity of the hoop.

For some reason they really enjoy laying in it. That is BJ, my affenpinscher, and the little white legs there belong to Max, my Jack Russell. 

For some reason I do not have a photo of me Hula Hooping yet, it is sort of hard to hold a camera and hoop at the same time. One of these days I will bribe my husband into taking a few. 

I think Hula Hooping is a hobby that will stick with me. 

Any hoopers out there speak up! I love my fellow hoopers.

Canvas Phobia

As a newbie artist I have a phobia of canvas. Something about putting the brush to the bright white canvas and making a permanent mark makes me nervous. So nervous that I hold myself back. I have probably only made 2 large canvas paintings that I love, maybe 1 more that I like. The rest turn out not so good. Somehow my vision and small sketches when put on the big canvas don't turn out like I want them too. My current solution is to start my canvas like my sketches.

I do a technique when I sketch sometimes where I use a sharpie. The idea is that everything that goes down on paper is permanent. It forces you to slow down and think about every single stroke of your pen. You start somewhere on your paper and continue drawing until the paper is full or until you are satisfied with the drawing. For some reason I love making these and they almost always turn out well.

I am thinking about starting my next canvas like I start my sketches. I am hoping that this mentality will help my inner creativity loosen up somehow, and kick my phobia of canvases.

Anyone else have a phobia of canvas... or is it just me?

Getting Geometric

Recently Geometric designs are in fashion, and I am LOVING it! Besides filling my closet with some great items from Forever Twenty-One and Target, I have been filling my sketch book with them as well. They are so inspiring, and super easy and fun to make. My favorite is my pencil skirt pictured below. LOVE IT! Not only is it my favorite color, green, it fits me like a glove and has that wonderful design. Add the fact that I bought it for 8 dollars and you have a starving artists dream come true!

I got a little off subject there... the reason I bring this up is that I am loving the geometric designs so much that I cannot stop making them. I feel obsessed.

Anyone else feeling the geometric bug??

Antique Lamp

Late last year we moved. There were lots of things missing and broken, like always when you move across the country, but one treasure broken was an antique lamp given to me by my grandmother. The shade broke leaving me with an awkward looking lamp. I did some line drawings of it before we set it aside to fix or replace, haven't decided yet. This one is my favorite. Somehow it reminds me of a dancing jeanie lamp.

2012 Melissa Wenn

Antique Lamp

Pastel on Paper

Watercolors

I fooled around with watercolors the other day and was not surprised when it was not as easy as it looks. I had a lot of fun though fooling around with brushes, brush strokes, design and color. I ended up with one circle painting that I am okay with. I am planning on scanning it and adding some geometric designs to it soon. 

I have been busy with more domestic chores lately, laundry doesn't do itself as much as I wish it would!

Lamps

Once upon a time... in an art class I was instructed to draw what you see. There are a lot of interpretations of this, but when I started focusing on art I focused on drawing objects around me. The ordinary can sometimes create great works of art, depending on the way they are perceived. I grew up around abstract art. It was everywhere I looked and I viewed it as the rebel of the art world. Not quite understood by the general population, but intriguing to me in some wonderful way.

It did not surprise me that once I started drawing the items around me that they did not turn out quite the way they did to everyone else. I use line drawings to inspire me to see the abstract work around the actual item. Not letting myself look at my pencil or paper forces my mind to interpret shapes in a whole new way. Line drawings are probably my favorite form of art to make.

2012 Melissa Wenn

Lamps

Pastel on Paper 

*As always please do not edit, copy, or sell any of my artwork. Feel free to share my work with others as long as my watermark is still present. 

Oil Pastel Fetish

When we moved I found something I had all but forgotten about. My oil pastels. Hidden away in a wooden briefcase they were dusty and almost 5 years old. My husband (boyfriend at the time) had bought them for me years ago when he found out I loved to create art. Now, with my newly found oil pastels I rekindled a love that I hadn't seen since high school. Ah, oil pastels, how I have missed you.

Fooling around for a bit I immediately fell in love all over again. Something about getting down and dirty with them brings me back to the days when sitting on the floor with crayons was the highlight of my day. Oil pastels helped me find a new passion in my art that I had not felt for a long time. The movements of my hand and arm felt so right. No messing with cranky brushes that never seemed to put on the canvas what I was trying to draw. I had gone back to pencil, back to basics, and the basics were boring to me. Oil pastels brought color back to my work and I started to make works that I wanted to share.

One of my first oil pastel works. Turtle in Monochrome. Pardon the line on the right, I am not too good at photo editing. My editing software and I do not see eye to eye all the time. Computer editing was never my strong suit, but slowly (hours later) I am able to bring my art to you. Watermarked and ready.

2013 Melissa Wenn

Turtle in Monochrome

Oil Pastel on Paper

*Remember you are welcome to view, visit, even share my art, but please do not copy, sell or alter my work in any way. Ask for print pricing.