Watercolor

I always thought I hated watercolor until my color theory teacher made me buy a set of gouache and forced me to use it for an entire semester. It was temperamental and difficult to use. I could never quite get the right consistency until after weeks of practice. I painted endless color swatches that were supposed to be as smooth and seamless as the swatches you pick up from the paint section of the hardware store. I hated her for it. But I slowly started loving the medium. After the weeks of paint swatches, when we finally got to use it in still lifes, it actually seemed very forgiving. When class was over I found it kind of zen to watch where the water bled to see what I could vaguely make out of the mess of water-stained chaos soaking into the thick textured sheets of paper. Defining the shapes or buildings or faces that I watched emerge in rapidograph ink.

These artists above make me want to break out my set again.

Don't wait for it.

An inspiring quote about not waiting around for inspiration.

The past few days I haven't really been hit with a ton of it.

Although I am sure I just haven't been looking.

Stress tends to zap every bit of creativity out of my body at times.

It's something that I am ever working on.

Not waiting for that lightening to strike, but to create the lightening myself.

Well thanks for this, Chuck, I needed it today.

Moroccan Inspiration.

I haven't posted anything about my trip to Morocco yet. But since the other day I posted some of my design work, I thought this would be all too appropriate.

This picture was snapped toward the end of my trip, we had just finished up a long trip to Erfoud, which is a several hour drive. I snapped hundreds of pictures but I kept being taken back by the creativity and art that was in the form of murals on school walls along the way.

When I saw the murals on this particular school, I made my boyfriend pull over so I could take a picture. I stealthily snapped some pictures and started walking back to the car when a small man walked over and started speaking Arabic to me, when it was clear I was not an Arabic speaker, he tried some French. But being the paranoid person I am, I tried to just hurry back to the car and ignored the man. I was in a hurry after all.

When I got back to the car he knocked on the car window and started speaking Moroccan Arabic to my boyfriend. I soon learned that he was the artist of the murals! All he wanted to do was sell me a drawing. Silly girl.

10 Dirhams (1 dollar) bought me this beautiful drawing. He said it was of a "shy woman" and an "emancipated woman" sharing peace together. I was so inspired by his persistence and the beauty of his work that I promised myself I was going to carry his message over to the states.

So when Islam Day came around at the University and I found out the panel was about women in Islam I thought it would be a perfect opportunity to reinterpret his message in the United States. The word in arabic there is "salam" which means peace.

It isn't hard to figure out why so many European artists spent years in Morocco to find inspiration. I wasn't even looking for it and it persistently managed to find me.

-Angela

108 breaths.

108 Mala beads. A gift my boyfriend brought back for me from Singapore when we first started dating.

The number of beads on the Mala is meant to help keep track of breaths or mantras done when practicing.

Sometimes things come along right at the times we need them.

Just when you have lost faith in happiness, faith in kindness and compassion.

Life proves you all wrong.

You never saw it coming.

And it's better than anything you were planning.

I always thought that if something wasn't happening...

well then gosh darn it I would make it happen.

It is how I approach most things in life.

It works out well with a career, goals, dreams.

But there are two things I know for sure don't work this way.

Love and Growth.

I am glad I sat still in the quiet long enough to let them find me.

Counting my breaths.

Instead of continuing to circle the labyrinth in vain.

-Angela

Yep. Still designing things.

1 color foil. 8 page mini view book for the Art Department located in The School of Visual Arts, Oklahoma City University.

You guys may remember This Post and a little later, This Post. Well, to continue getting over my stage fright about showing work, I decided to post up some photos from the second book I designed for the School of Visual Arts. I did this one last year specifically for the Art Department. They wanted something that was in the same vein as the first book but with a little more color and more photos of selected student work. I still am torn to this day about which book I like better, the first or second.

But... I was especially delighted when in July at a yearly conference my coworkers and I attend for the Oklahoma College Public Relations Association, that this booklet won Gold for the brochure category (and that the wrestling poster linked above, also won gold). It isn't why I do what I do, but it never hurts the ol' self esteem to be recognized for your hard work. And it certainly doesn't hurt when trying to get over being shy about your work.

Hopefully next year I will have even more pieces to enter that I am proud of.

-Angela

Goodbye Oklahoma Summer...

I know summer has officially been gone for a few weeks now.

But I think today it finally really hit me.

When I woke this morning for work,

the sunlight that normally wakes me was just a little dimmer.

The sky is now overcast, and as I type I am glancing out my window to water droplets falling from gray clouds.

Looks like Ill be running in the gym today and not outside...

These photos are a couple weeks old, from the last actual weekend of summer. I was thinking I might go the whole summer without going to the lake, but at the last minute was invited to Lake Eufaula for a lovely weekend. We spent the whole day Saturday on the lake laughing and soaking up as many rays as we could, but were reminded of reality when Sunday morning we were greeted with jacket weather. We truly had enjoyed the last day of summer in the best way possible.

Well, I've never been good with goodbyes

so I just needed to say it one more time.

-Angela

Reminder.

Sometimes it's good to leave reminders for yourself

around the house.

Happy Friday.

Happy Friday everyone.

Someone asked me in the comments of my last post

...what I've been up to lately...

As I tried to summarize my answer I realized it isn't easy to answer such a question in a few sentences when you life has changed so much over the course of just a few months.

So maybe next week I can get to it all. Or maybe just a little.

All I can say for now is that I've been up to... growing.

-Angela