Artwork Update

This is the completed drawing from the previous post.  Once again scans do not do these drawings justice due to the glare from the crackle glaze and varnish I am using.  Also a lot of the fine details are lost.

"Into thy hands, I commend my spirit."

This is a current work in progress that is ballpoint ink and watercolor on vintage paper called "It is finished."  This paper holds up pretty well to my abuse without tearing but I'm not going to push my luck too much.

"It is finished."

I haven't forgotten about the Exotic Symbolism series.  Here is the second ACEO (2.5" x 3.5") drawing.  I wasn't happy with it for the longest.  This colored pencil, micron ink, ballpoint ink and watercolor amalgamation didn't becoming appealing to me until I put a crackle glaze over it which took in the most interesting of places that don't show up on the scan. 

The work in progress that's on my easel?  Well that's going to remain my secret for now until I see how part two of my texture experiment takes.  I'll update in a few days.

The Doll Test Revisited...

 If you are light, you're alright. If you're brown, stick around.  If you're black, get back. 

While it has been a very long time since I have heard this, I am very well aware of its implications.  Being of medium brown tone, I did not get teased very much about my skin color.  I knew of classmates who were teased incessantly from elementary to high school about being dark.  I also knew of classmates who were put on a pedestal by not only their peers but adults for having a lighter skin tone.  I can remember classmates saying "she think she cute, who does she think she is" referring to a lighter complected classmate with long hair.  Family members used skin lightening creams as I was growing up and family members/church members and the like doled out far more compliments to the lighter children than I received.  I remember in church once, this girl about my age was visiting.  She was light-skin with fairly long hair.  My sisters and other church members stood around her as she did the Hammer dance and ended in a split (looking back...why was she doing this in church anyway?).  Well I could do some things too and tried to show them but I was told to be quiet and get out of the way as they doled compliments on this other girl.  I'd be lying if I said this didn't affect me...I wouldn't be telling the story now if it didn't.  I try to be mindful of how I handle situations with the kids.  Things stay with children, no matter how minor.


Anyway in my rare visits to CNN (as I have little interest in being constantly bombarded with foolishness and negativity), I came across a story discussing this sweet little girl.  Anderson Cooper did a story where  CNN recreated the doll test used to support the Brown vs the Board of Education case.  The results were still similar to what they were all those years ago.  How is it that we have not instilled in our children a love of self?  What was interesting was the lady who was interviewing them, her reactions.  Her attitude was like, "what are these parents doing to their children?" as though the parents were wrong. When it comes to race specific issues like this, I don't expect other races to understand and I do not agree with them even getting involved because they are on the outside looking in without understanding the true dynamics of what's going on.

http://cnn.com/video/?/video/living/2010/08/12/ac.obrien.doll.study.folo.cnn



I try to expose my children to mostly ethnic influences, preferably black.  My children love Little Bill but as a whole it is not easy to find modern day examples of positive Blackness.  My children watch Fat Albert and the Cosby Kids, which I grew up on, and love it.  They mostly (thankfully) ignore the television in favor of playing with each other or crafting with me so it is easy for me to monitor and control what they watch.  I need/seek positive Black families to show my children, our own included. I want my children to have the sense of pride in being Black that seems fleeting these days.  It's sad but a constant reality for many Black women and men.  How do you grow to accept an image that is constantly portrayed as something bad?  Nappy hair, darker skin...what do you do when these images just aren't beautiful to you?  Situations like this remind me of when I first went natural.  It was not popular or "the thing" as it seems to be now.  Attitudes towards natural blackness have certainly become more friendly since 2004 when I cut off my past shoulder length relaxed hair to rock a short two inch nappy fro. 

These and other things that have been going on have been weighing on my mind. I think so much it's amazing I'm able to get any drawing done.  I had to get a bigger purse to carry around a larger sketchbook and a lined journal.  My husband was driving me to work last week and I was just leaning back watching the scenery go by.  This image came into my mind and I just had to sketch it as it came.  I knew I would pretty much stick to the sketch.  I made one significant change in the pose since.  I started it this morning and it is still drying on my easel.  It's going to take awhile to finish this one...I'm dealing with multiple mediums and I didn't do a trial run.  Now there was a drawing sitting on my easel for the longest, this drawing of an old woman expelling her spirit.  I was never quite happy with it so like many others it is being recycled into this new work.  It's been torn, burned, decoupaged and gessoed and I still haven't started the new drawing yet.  If the new drawing doesn't fit my fancy I have discovered that in its new cropped state the old woman makes for a much better drawing so it's a win win either way. 

I am sorely in need of a proper update.  My process is slow.  I've been battling colds and other distractions of late but no excuses.  My next post will have a record of the work I've done up until now and my current work.

Series

I haven't gotten much drawing done but I have gotten inspiration!  I went to the flea market about two weeks ago to sell.  One of the vendors inspired my newest venture:  Art Cards featuring the Adinkra symbols.  Now I have done work with the Adinkra symbols before a long time ago in pastels.  The work, while attractive, felt too contrived for my liking so I abandoned the process/approach but never the idea.  After seeing the artwork on the African Tarot cards that she was carrying, the idea of Adinkra cards seemed more and more the way to go.  A series with the symbols and an image that doesn't immediate convey the meaning unless the viewer digresses on it beyond what's presented.  This is a project in which I can take some of the wisdom of my youth (much of which is not readily understood to the uninformed) and incorporate it into my work.  I am still sketching out the details and will update when I have a good grip on my ideology and approach. 

I'm keeping track of the various series that I have going on.

The "Lost Within" Series is never complete.  Actually all of my work still falls under this series' artist statement.  It is solely a b/w exploration.  I love working with charcoal and ink.  I will continue to explore ancestral connections and the psychological effects of the past on the present day condition of blacks throughout the diaspora.  I will continue to use children as that vehicle for exploration.

The "Awakening" Series is very much a work in progress.  It deals with spirituality and religion.  Many of my sketches haven't come into fruition primarily because what's an objective look at reality is for me is someone else's spiritual cornerstone and staunch belief system.  I've been on the receiving end of challenging various belief systems before especially Christianity and it is not pretty.  I won't engage in any verbal exchanges any more...I'll let me art speak for me.  My goal is to make an image that is immediately understood as something far from what it was ever intended to be.  An African child in bondage on a page telling the story of the Israelites sojourn in bondage are images that don't often correlate.  It is representative of not only the physical bondage but the psychological bondage that many African Americans are still gripped by.  The story of our true salvation is shrouded in the guise of the Christian (and other) religions which provided the ultimate tool to enslave the minds of our ancestors and make them better tools of service.  It is a tactic that has worked to present day.  A young black woman on a page depicting the wealthy parishioners as those being closest to God and that God was closest to them.  Deeper reflection on that ideology creates an uncomfortable juxtaposition of race and spirituality.  I have another image that was hard for me to draw last year.  It was originally intended to be a part of the Lost Within series but the research for it was too difficult for me.  It still is...also the backlash for such an image to portray to the world is not one that I'm prepared to take yet.  They will remain sketches in my sketchbook until further notice.  I'm debating on whether to make it large and intrusive or small and intimate. As far as the technique, I love this approach.  I get to be loose and tight, conventional and experimental. I'm contemplating a larger piece in charcoal/ink/gouache coupled with excerpts from James Weldon Johnson's The Autobiography of an Ex-Colored Man.

The "Adinkra" Series...I won't call it that officially but it is just a fledgling idea.  I did some sketches and drawings schematically but to be honest...I've been pretty much stagnate.  I collected some pages to be drawn on so I will be organizing.  I've been doing some life studies---there is nothing I love more than to people watch.  My husband says I'm being nosy.  He's concerned that people might react adversely to it but in my experience (nearly ten years) no one ever has.  As a matter of fact most people are flattered.  This past weekend I got caught in the act by a vendor next to us drawing some passersby and he was surprised when I pulled out a sketch of him!  He got so tickled!  Then he asked for my card and the possibility of a commission of his wife. 

Now that I think about it...I guess it is kind of being nosy lol.

New Drawing

So I started working on another drawing.  So far it is ballpoint ink on vintage paper with some watercolor.  It is roughly 5" x 5".  The original pencil sketch still shows through.  I am testing a new crackle medium in the meantime.  Hopefully this will yield quicker and better results.  Anyway, this piece is called, "Into thy hands, I commend my spirit."  I offer this innocent black child as an offering.  I ask, into whose hands?  Into the hands of the same God worshiped by the men who kidnapped her?  Into the hands of the same God worshiped by the men who would rape her? Into the hands of the same God worshiped by the men that would continually enslave, both physically and mentally, the fruits of her womb for generations to come?  Or is it into her own hands, by her own power?  We speak of her spirit, what of her soul?  This is going to be an interesting piece to work on.  Forgive the camera phone pictures---I will post a scanned version later.

In other news, today was the first day of school for my munchkins!  The two older ones are veterans in the second and fourth grade.  The younger ones...it was hard.  My husband and I spent a lot of time teaching them at home.  Letting them go just isn't easy.  My kindergarten baby was super excited to be in school finally.  She was all decked out in her pretty pink.  I sent her off with her school supplies and list of allergens (she's my sensitive baby) and a hug.  This school thing is going to take some getting used to.  She's really shy and sweet with gentle and humble ways.  Her teacher is great so I don't feel as uptight as I was feeling.

My pre-K baby was upset.  She saw all her siblings off to class and as we were heading out, she looked at my husband and me tearfully and asked "What about me?"  Bout near broke my heart.  We consoled her and told her that she would be there later today.  Today she had to be tested for eligibility into the pre-K program at the school.  My husband called me and said that she came bounding out of the classroom exclaiming that she told the teacher what the earth was and that she did really good. My husband said they passed my kindergarten baby on the playground and she was having a blast.  I'm happy to hear it.

Completed Portrait

This is an interesting manner to experiment with.  I am creating artwork that while it is visually interesting has the potential to be an archival and photographical nightmare.  To get really good pictures I would have to employ the help of a great photographer.  I am experiencing glare issues with the glaze and reflective issues with the scanner. This is a scanner here and the buckling of the paper shows up light on the hair even though it is all dark in the original.  I love how it came out either way in real life.  The textures are really beautiful.  This was completed in ballpoint ink, watercolor, goauche and crackle glaze.  It will be finished in a matte varnish.  This fits well into my Awakening series. 

In the closeup the textures are more evident.  I would love to see the dynamics on a larger scale.  I will do a larger portrait in watercolor, ink and gouache in the coming weeks, probably a self portrait to really experiment with this.  I am going to work on another piece in the Exotic Symbolism series that I will probably post later today.

So what does this piece mean?  It holds a lot of meaning in regards to religion and spirituality for the people of African descent in America.  I tend to avoid themes of religion specifically in my work however this piece deals with it directly.  The text talks about how the Hebrews yearned for their distant home after being in bondage.  It speaks to how despite being far away from home they harbored a longing for their future generations to survive and wished for the future what they themselves could not obtain.  They sat by the rivers of Babylon, in the land of their captors and wept when they remembered Zion.  This text resonated with me in its correlation to the plight of the people throughout the African diaspora.  The image is for anyone's interpretation.  Is she a representative of the past or a foreshadowing of the future?  I touched down on a similar theme in my piece To Our Future, Black Children.


That being said, the furthering of the Awakening series will no doubt ruffle a few feathers.  A lot of my recent ongoing readings have been slave narratives dating back from the late 1700s through the US Works Progress Administration in the 1930s.  It's painful, jarring, sad, and angering.  It's hard to control the gamut of emotions that comes from reliving their experiences.  Awakening has to deal with primarily our ancestors taking on the religion of their captors. What am I interested in? The lies they were told, the beliefs they were forced to hold and eventually accepted out of survival's sake, being told that if they ran away they were doomed to hell...the psychological effects of that is evident through today.  It passes down through the generations; a curse of sorts.  It's disturbing to me, and my thoughts, sketches, and writings over the years has culminated to an exploration in a series of small personal drawings.  Children will remain a central theme in my work they were with the Lost Within Series.  As I stated in my artist statement for that series:

"I chose children as my primary subject mainly because they are the purest vessel through which we can hope to reclaim our future.  It is through them that we survive and it is through them that the answers to the unknown can become known."

Current pieces and ACEOs

I decided to work on a larger piece that's about 4" x 6" roughly.  I named it "Difficult Journey Home."  It is ballpoint ink on a torn vintage page. This is a present work in progress as it will become a watercolor piece and an experiment with the crackle texture.

I completed this ACEO over the course of Monday.  Since I actually have to work, the original pencil and ballpoint ink portions above were done on breaks and taken as best as they could be with my camera phone.  I love the crisp lines of the ballpoint ink and believe it or not they blend really well when other mediums are added.  I start all of my drawings in pencil with basic shapes to make sort of a skeleton and approximation of where the features would fall.  In my larger work I let them stay as they only add to the final piece.  I built up a foundation with colored pencil on the face and watercolor on the veil.  I then layered on more applications, alternating between colored pencil and watercolor.  Then I overlayed portions of it with crackle glaze.  Below is the completed piece and a close up of the texture.  The challenge with the scan is that it whites out some areas due to the reflective nature of the glaze so the darks aren't as dark as they are in real life.  I am going to experiment taking photographs with my 10 mp camera to see if I can get a better rendition.  This is the first in an exploratory series I have tentatively named Exotic Symbolism.  It will feature close ups of ethnic women throughout the world and feature a sort of visual commentary on their different struggles.  This obviously is a Muslim woman.  Notice how her lower face is veiled but her hair is not.  I came across this article Joan Smith:  The veil is a feminist issue and was inspired to do a portrait based on this quote from the article:

"Women don't wear the burqa in Afghanistan because they like it; they wear it because they are afraid of being killed if they don't. Women haven't suddenly gone back to wearing the veil in Iraq because they're pious; they do it because women who refuse have been murdered. I loathe the niqab and the burqa when I see them there. And I can't pretend I don't find them equally offensive on my local high street." 

The eyes were once confrontational.  The glaze took the edge off of them and yet they are still confident.  I named this piece "Without a Voice (But Still a Choice)."

I came across a sketch in an old sketchbook from 2003, the start of my natural journey.  I had drawn a shattered glass with my image in it and had titled it "Missing pieces of my identity."  Seems I still haven't gotten away from identity issues or depicting fragmentation in regards to women's issues.  I have an old print I did of a woman from India wearing a burqa back from high school and another piece of a woman wearing one in college.  That image of being covered and having no voice sticks with me and creeps into my work every couple of years or so.

This is presently up for auction on ebay!  See the auction HERE!

More small pieces...

I've been doing a lot of writing over the past few days.  I can see a series developing out of this group and I have tentatively named it Awakening.  I love textures on a page.  It adds another level of visual interest to a piece and one of my favorite textures is the crackle effect.  Even in my earlier works from my late teens I incorporated these types of textures from torn edges to burnt edges.  My art professor from college still chuckles at some pieces I made my junior year he called the "burning women."  A great idea also that I may explore again....maybe.  The crackle effect isn't too easy to replicate and took quite a bit of running around to different craft stores and experimentation.  It is an ongoing process.

Anywho, I went in and messed around with the drawing from the previous post.

 I darkened it over all and messed around with the texture.  The nuances that occur with the crackle effect are much more noticeable and appreciated in person than through digital media.  Even the close up doesn't do it justice. 















I worked on several other pieces...it's just a matter of getting them all scanned in and resized.  This next piece was the second one that I worked on.  I tentatively named it, Closest to God. 

I really liked how it came out.  I remember this portion of the book.  It talked about how the wealthiest members of the congregation were important for the priests to stay close to because the parishioners with the most money were the "closest to God" and felt that God would be closest to them.  Obviously my subject doesn't fall into that category so it is an interesting juxtaposition.  Once again unintentional but  interesting to note.  I managed to get more of a crackle effect with this piece...I used a two part crackle glaze.  After it was finished crackling I overlayed it with a brown wash to make the cracks show. The close up shows the texture more.  It is a beautiful effect.  I am excited about where this is heading.

I'm Baaaccckkkkk....

After a rather long hiatus from this blog, I have returned to the world of ACEOs.  The past year has been a rather eventful one.  I have immersed myself into the craft of crochet which I explore in my blog HERE and I have been pursuing my venture with my store, Moya Arts.  I have moved into more local avenues of selling.  I haven't been selling on ebay in a good little bit but with the new promotion of free auction style listings through 9/3, I have a reason to get back into the swing of things.  I have a bunch of prints I will place for sale sometime this week.

Also I had been neglecting the great art of ACEOs and miniature drawing.  I participated in an art exhibition back in April in which most of my pieces were 17 x 21 -24 x 30 inches and in charcoal.  I love that body of work and I hope to continue to exhibit in the future.  See my larger format work HERE. 

What brings me back to ACEOs?  The exploration of the same ideas of my larger format work.  I love cats and all; however, the messages I want to convey with my art cry out to me much stronger than my niche commercial market.  My more recent work evokes contemplation and thoughtful meditation beyond what's on the paper.  I've had all sorts of reactions from discomfort (most common), to shock (more to come on that), to marvel.  The different interpretations I have been given by others has surprised me.  My work does convey a lot of pain and it is interpreted in many different ways.  On one of the pieces (Among Our Dreams), a viewer likened it to a domestic abuse victim because of the anonymity of the image (that was intentional on my part) and the unknown.  The eyes aren't shown so the depth of the pain cannot be measured.  Out of everyone I've ever spoken to only one person actually understood the meaning of my work as a whole.  It goes beyond my artist statement...there's only so much I could say there.  I am content with people developing their own interpretations.  The subjectivity of art is what makes it a worthwhile venture.

The works are large and unavoidable.  I am now going to play with that same concept on a smaller format which is more intimate.  I am going to explore the dynamics between having the viewer's space invaded to the viewer becoming the invader. 

I look forward to this new turn in my work.  Now there will still be cats and anything else I get the fancy to draw.  My primary focus will be on my new series.

This is the piece that has sparked my curiosity once again.  

I have this old book that's pretty much falling apart.  It has been read eons ago and had lost a few pages already.  The pages are slightly yellowed and a great backdrop to draw on.  The drawing is done in ballpoint ink, watercolor and goauche.  I do not know the archival quality of the ballpoint ink but it is much cleaner than pencil and shows really well through the letters without completely obliterating them.

It is roughly ACEO sized (2.5" x 3.5") but it goes over some because of the torn edges.  Working title: "...had invaded the inner citadels of her completely. There were no secrets the...barrier to throw up to protect herself...always naked, always open to pain." The wording wasn't intentional.  I noticed it after the drawing was done.  The child's withdrawn expression gives a lot of weight to the words.  This is very similar to the larger format work I have done that deals a lot with psychological effects of events, mostly past and ancestral events on a modern subject.   I went back in and made some areas darker like around the lips and the lower left.  That white area was competing too heavily with the details of her face and took away from the effect her eyes were intended to make.  I'll probably post the update later as an edit to this post. This was only a preliminary study.

New Website!

While I'm in the process of building a new home for my upstart, Moya Arts, LLC (www.moyartic.com), I have built a temporary website @ http://moyaarts.mybisi.com. .

What is Moya Arts?

Moya Arts is a Lexington, SC based company that specializes in beautiful fine art and cultural effects from around the world. Moya provides a variety of products as unique as the name, ranging from beautiful jewelry, handcrafted by the skilled artisans of Africa, one of a kind custom jewelry and artwork created by me (the owner), upstart and established local artists, African clothing in an array of designs and much much more! Jewelry, home decor, artwork, and much more can be found here at phenomenal prices. There is also a selection of handcrafted crochet and knit accessories. Moya Arts was founded in May 2009. I've been working through various ups and downs to officially launch Moya.

I hope that everyone that visits enjoys what they see and purchase a few of these unique items.

At Moya, we know that quality matters and we strive to provide the best quality products for the best prices. See the pic above for a sampling of the variety that we will provide. I also attend local venues in North and South Carolina!

Thanks so much for visiting my blog and I hope to see you at Moya!

Ebay auctions

I have two new kitty ebay auctions up for Labor Day! They were both done in ballpoint ink in July and August respectfully. I'm just getting around to posting them. It has been a busy couple of weeks. I'm back in school full-time in addition to working full time and the kids. The "Of Dreams" portrait remains unfinished; however, I will finish her up later this month. I was going to enter her in a contest; however, I changed my mind. I will complete her for my portfolio.

Pensive





R&R

New Drawings and Auctions

I have two new ebay auctions listed today:

Hummer



Good Conversation


This is a current work in progress that I am working on entitled, "Of Dreams." The scan doesn't do it much justice however I can still track my progress pretty sufficiently. I need to have this finished by September 4, 2009 at the latest.

Update

It's been awhile since I updated. I have still been working on some pieces. I will hopefully be able to post my progress soon. Just wanted to let the internet world know I was still alive!

Three new kitty ACEOs

I have three new kitty ACEOs up for auction on ebay this week. I completed them last week. I just noticed that they are all facing the same direction. I took three very different approaches in drawing them and I like both the similiarities and the differences between the three pieces.

Kitty Sketch

This one was done in ballpoint ink and colored pencil for the eye and nose on watercolor paper. It is a lot more refined than I intended for it to be when I began. I like how it came out.

Thoughtful

This one was done with ballpoint ink and watercolor on acrylic paper. I love the permanency of the mark with ballpoint ink as well as how clean the drawings look when compared with graphite. The texture of the acrylic paper is challenging.

Watching the World Go By

This one was done in graphite and colored pencil on watercolor paper. I really like how the eye came out in this one.

All the reference photos for these kitties came from the morguefile.

Pencil Portrait complete

This is a graphite pencil portrait I completed for my portfolio. It came out really well and I am going to be doing a few more pieces. I worked on this for awhile running the progress pass coworkers and classmates who were all complimentary of the results. I will be doing commissioned portraits of people and animals in the future and I am in the process of building up a repertoire of work for my portfolio. This is the beginning of many more to come. The reference imagery for this drawing came from morguefile.

The reference image.

Old Faithful ACEO Completed

Well I ended up working on this through near completion. I ended up using micron ink, watercolor, colored pencil and goauche on this little piece. I'm not really adept in colored pencil yet; however with a little practice I'll get there. This really didn't take a very long time and I managed to work on it in between looking at the neighborhood fireworks with the kids.