Beautiful words

These beautiful words were written by a women who's life was taken away on 9/11.

To view the amazing memorial site that her family made for her go to www.sweetalicia.org

By Alicia Titus
Written January 4, 1999

Happiness is such an elusive emotion.
One day you're soaring on its wings,
the next you're looking about hoping to catch a glimpse
of its sunny magnificence,
trying to convince yourself it was real
and not just a memory of a fairy tale from childhood.

Over the years my recipe for happiness has changed.
Used to be, all I needed (or thought I needed)
was a knight in shining armor.
Then, it was the King and his kingdom,
next I just needed the kingdom,
I could rule.

What ingredients do I need today?

1) An infinite amount of love to give
and receive freely

2) A purpose, goal, destination,
I'm still working on it.

Those who have known
the greatest happiness
have opened themselves
to the most gut-wrenching sorrow.
It's a gamble, you have to play to win.
Or maybe those who have endured suffering
have a greater respect for joy,
can appreciate it wherever they find it,
the smell of a rose,
the sight of a baby,
an old couple holding hands.
And those who've lived their lives
in a heart numbing cocoon
of sanity, safety, and contentment
don't have the capacity for pure joy.
Or, maybe this is what I tell myself
in order to pick myself up,
dust off, and hop on again.
Back into the battle. -

Annoying thoughts

To be honest, I haven't been producing as much work as I would like to this year, I've also fallen into extremely bad habits, missing classes, handing in work late, avoiding showing my work to others :(

I think the problem is I've been too self critical and approached my work in a really uptight, tense sort of way.

I read a great quote that a student said their teacher made, something like this

"there should be 10 bad drawings before you produce a good drawing"

This is such a great piece of advice. Everything doesn't have to be a masterpiece, it's really all about experimenting and trying out all kinds of different things.

I think it's also really important to avoid comparing yourself to others constantly, although this can sometimes be a way to help you improve your standard and not become lazy it can also make you loose all confidence in yourself and feel inadequate. I love it when artists support eachother and provide truthful feedback

On a more positive note, my class had their fundraising exhibition last night and we sold nearly every piece, It was such a success and a true team effort! Am so inspired by my classmates. Everyones so supportive of eachother, it's been a nice environment to be around.

Look how many people were there!!!

More Bday cards

Here is another small birthday painting, This time for my lovely friend Serena.
I hope she likes it, I haven't given it to her yet :D

I only recently discovered the multi-coloured effect that occurs when you paint with water into the black ink you have already placed on the page.

Birthday Card

So I've been wanting to make personal birthday cards for my friends more often so I'm proud that I actually got two done for once
Yay

For beautiful Liru and Gezza who both turned 22 in August

Digital Painting Practice

Well I've been trying to get my head around digital painting so I thought i'd start out simple and do an apple.

I followed this great tutorial by bumskee on conceptart.org

Gustav Klimt

So I'm currently trying to get some concept art happening for my Tafe unit but I feel the open brief has made me constantly question my decisions. Everytime I reached an idea I kept on thinking I could seek out a "better solution." All of this has resulted in no real progress but a large bunch of undeveloped sketches of random concepts. I only have two weeks left to get some really concrete work done or else re-enrolment for me, HA!

Anyway at the moment I have a huge art crush on Mr Gustav Klimt and can't stop looking at his beautiful work! The book Gustav Klimt: Art Nouveau Visionary by Eva Di Stefano is fantastic as it gives really close up detail images of each work.

Judith II