40 Works In 40 Days - Day 1

So I have not painted in aaaaaaages. When looking through my "scary closet" the other day (this would be the closet in my studio that houses any and all extra things I own plus my HUGE collection of Christmas decorations), a bag of acrylic paint that I forgot existed just kind of fell out. Okay, sign noted, day 1 would involve painting. 

In a college painting course I once took, my professor (a very serious dutch lady who outlawed listening to music during her class) once looked at me, arms crossed shaking her head, and told me I couldn't just sit there and "happily paint" and I needed to dig into some deep, dark place. She hated my use of bright colors. So in my next painting I tried to use "scary colors." What I ended up with: pastels. Lesson I learned: I like color. She does not. We are all different. 

Anyway, I started this by misting the paper with water in a spray bottle, then dragged some thinned acrylic over the surface. The darker spots are alcohol ink, one of my favorite game-changers (if anyone hasn't yet discovered Tim Holtz you MUST check out his stuff!), then splattered some white on top. It was so liberating and awesome to not worry about how it would turn out... which is exactly what I wanted to feel. 

Day 1 = crazy bright colorful success. Today is Day 2 and I'm already thinking of a totally different direction to try. No rules. My favorite way to operate!

Read about how this project began HERE.

40 Works In 40 Days

Life is funny sometimes. It has been 47 days since I left my day job. A lot of the things I thought would happen in those 47 days happened in a huge way. A lot of them did not. The "did nots" resulted in my waking up yesterday morning at 4am in a sudden all-out panic attack about money, bills, rent, and surviving. I have been bound and determined to make an art career work and have believed in it with unwavering faith. Therefore I did not line up a backup plan or part time job or anything... because this had to work. It's my dream. If you believe in your dreams you can make them come true, right?

What I've also learned in 47 days is that making your dreams come true takes a huge amount of drive and there will be pitfalls. There will be hard days. There will be countless times when you question yourself and doubts creep in. But if you want something bad enough, those things don't matter. It's not easy and you have to work for it. I think that's why a lot of people give up on their dreams; they hit hard times and just go back to living like many people do, taking jobs they don't like out of necessity. Kind of coasting through life like some sort of lazy river ride.

At the risk of sounding like a total cheeseball, I'm staying on my crazy white water rapid ride. Yesterday almost broke me. My creativity has been suffering these past few days because my worries about money are 100% dominating my thoughts. I took a long, late-night walk last night to clear my head and kept telling myself to keep going. I want this, more than I have ever wanted anything. My creativity and love for every single thing in life must dominate my thoughts and feelings at all times. There is no other way.

SO, that (long-windedly) being said, I'm embarking on a project and calling it 40 Works In 40 Days. Why 40? Because it just feels right and lately I'm learning to follow my instincts. Every day for 40 days, starting today, I am going to create an original piece of art. I'm not going to worry about subject, composition, or media. The purpose of this for me is to create, to remember my passion, to keep moving towards my dream.

To keep a sort of rhythm, every work will be on a 9" x 9" square of Canson watercolor paper. I've decided to list them on Etsy, for $47.00: 47 marking the days it has been since I left a very unhappy place to go after my wildest dream. I will not be making any prints, because I also need to learn to let things go. Each piece will be signed, dated, and titled with the day number (ex. "Day 11") on the back. There will also be a typed card explaining the purpose of this project: that this is your life and you owe it to yourself to do something amazing with it.

Works will be available in my Etsy shop here: http://www.jenndalyn.etsy.com.

Here's to Day 1 :)

Strange, Wandering Late-Night Thoughts

So it's been about a month and a week since I left my desk job in order to pursue my dreams of becoming a self-sufficient, self-employed artist. Amongst the other 1000 things that have changed in this time, my sleeping schedule has been turned on its head. As of lately, I go to bed at 4am and wake up between 10am and 11am. I forgot what it's like to be awake so late into the night and just feel so... alive. My creativity seems to flow best after midnight. I love that. I love not having a schedule!

There is a point to this. It's 2:03am and my thoughts are wandering. I am going to a metropark tomorrow to take some (hopefully) lovely autumn pictures. I did the same thing last year, and posted this post. I remember thinking the whole time how if I was an artist, I could do that any day of the week. I remember the joy and freedom and wonder, just from wandering around the crunchy leaves and orange trees with my camera. It was October 15, 2011. Exactly one year ago today. Okay... technically yesterday. Since it's now 2:05am. But I haven't slept, so to me it's still October 15.

Isn't it amazing how much can change in one year? Last year I was dreaming of this. And while probably exactly 50% of me knew I could do it and I would be there (here, where I am now) at that time the following year, the other exact 50% of me knew I would still be at the same miserable 9-5 desk job. A pretty intense inner battle. And right now I still remember telling my boss I quit. It was almost like I was watching someone else say the words, like I had no control over the words coming out of my mouth. And here I am. October 15, 2012. I did it. Yes, Normally I would have been paid today. Therefore, all my bills are due today, since that's the schedule I set them on. This year, some will be late. My paycheck today was being able to sleep until 10:30 after staying up until 4:30 the previous night painting... because I just couldn't stop. My paycheck was getting an email from the director of a local arts festival, inviting me to participate in their December 1st event. It was an email from a designer in Australia, asking me to design a logo for their new clothing company. It was an email from the very first person who ever contacted me after I started putting my art online, just about a year ago, when she said she thought it was cool. Today her email was congratulating me on being free and living my dream.

I actually had to buy some Tylenol PM the other night, because as soon as I lay down to go to sleep, a million thoughts like this fly into my head all at once. Please don't judge, Tylenol PM is legal and non habit-forming. I guess I just can't believe it. Still. Five weeks later. Then at night you turn the lights off and lay there in the silence and your head just spins. The fact that you are in complete charge of your life, all the time, every minute of every day, has never seemed so real. The angst I am feeling right now about how I am going to pay my cable bill (which isn't even a necessity... well... I mean... not really... kind of...) is NOTHING compared to the angst I felt over spending 9+ hours a day EVERY DAY OF MY LIFE doing something that made me miserable.

It's just a lot to take in sometimes. And right now I can see my camera battery charging. And I remember last year seeing my camera battery charging (but it was a weekend last year), being excited for my day of "adventuring." Walking around, taking pictures, exploring the woods, collecting inspiration. Imagining what it would be like if doing that was my job. And right now as I watch that blinking orange light, I'm actually worried about how emotional tomorrow could be... just knowing that I did it. I'm there. Where half of me thought I would never be.

I cannot wait for tomorrow.

Halloween Top 10! Things That SCARE Me.

Since I've done nothing but ramble about job-quitting and art-making and life-loving lately, here is a completely art-unrelated post in honor of the amazing upcoming holiday that is Halloween. I am afraid of an unusual amount of things and still sleep with my hallway light on. A total scaredy cat for lack of a better term. In random order, these things are SCARY:

1) Slenderman.

WHAT IS THAT THING? Thanks to my awesome brothers, who shared this urban legend/possible terrifying reality with me over dinner a few months ago, I now no longer look at trees at night in the same way. Slenderman supposedly has no face, is very tall and thin, and has multiple creeptastic dangly arms. He is pretty much the original photo bomber. Go ahead, Google image search him. Supposedly the more you are afraid of him the more he stalks you. Great news for me.

2) Grasshoppers.

Oh my lord one time when I was 11 I was swimming at this pool. I remember playing around when this giant grasshopper flew in out of nowhere and landed directly on top of my head. Okay, I have about 20 lbs of thick, wild, curly hair. I remember going under water again and again and again and every time the grasshopper got even more stuck. I remember the way his legs felt jumping against my head, trying to get away. I hate grasshoppers. No insect should be allowed to travel that far that fast if I do not have some sort of force field I can activate against them. 

3) Flying.

Please don't judge me, but I cannot board an airplane unless I have had at least three glasses of wine. Or three shots of tequila. It does not matter what time my flight leaves. 7am? No problem. Bloody Marys are good any time of day. I cannot pinpoint when this fear started, but I know that nowadays it's overwhelming. Ask me about when I flew to China. 14 1/2 hour flight DIRECTLY OVER THE TOP OF THE NORTH POLE. Every bump any plane I am on hits, in my mind, is an obvious sign the plane is about to crash. It's terrible. It's annoying. I love traveling. Of all my fears, this is the one I would pay money to get over. The world looks BEAUTIFUL from 36,000 feet, yet I cannot appreciate it because I feel like we could plummet to the ground at any moment.

4) Spiders.

Such a typical fear, I know. When I find spiders in my apartment I suck them up in my mini Shop Vac, then duct tape over the end of the hose so they can't climb out. Squashing them requires too much closeness and a possible tactile feeling. No thank you.

5) Tornados.

So I grew up in Syracuse, New York. We had snow, not tornadoes. Then we moved to Ohio. They have tornadoes. Yet people here are so used to tornado warnings that you can be in the grocery store when the tornado sirens are blaring (SCARIEST SOUND EVER) and all people are worried about is which aisle the peanut butter is in. Me? As soon as I hear the sirens I grab my cats and a bottle of wine and hole up in the bathtub, obsessively checking the weather on my iPhone until the only sound I can hear is my heart beating out of my chest. LAME. 

6) The monster from Pan's Labyrinth. 

What mentally disturbed person thought of this thing? First of all, Pan's Labyrinth is an amazing movie and I highly recommend it. Whenever this scene starts, go pop some popcorn. Watch it in the microwave to be sure it doesn't burn. Whatever you do, do not watch this thing. It eats children and it's eyeballs are in the palm of its hands. Seriously? No. Sick.

7) Aliens.

Oh yes. I believe in life on other planets. Ever seen the movie Fire In the Sky? If not, DON'T. I don't remember how, but when I was maybe 7 or 8, I was exposed to this horrific piece of cinema that is about a guy who gets abducted by aliens. If I were given the chance to offer one piece of advice to people, it very well might be, "Do not watch Fire In the Sky." It scarred me for life. I believe other life is out there and just hope that it is friendly. 

8) The Mothman/The Mothman Prophecies

Any movie that is this scary and based on a true story? No way. Why did I watch that? I honestly was afraid to look out of ANY window at night for MONTHS. Why am I such a baby???

9) Coming in contact with a bear.

Don't laugh! I love taking hikes and roadtripping solo with my camera... yet there is always this creeping thought in the back of my mind: what if I see a bear? Once again I blame this on childhood; I loved reading my parents monthly copy of Reader's Digest cover to cover starting when I was maybe only seven. Do you know how many true stories they had in there about bear attacks? A LOT. I had reoccurring dreams when I was little about seeing a bear on my friend's driveway. Bears are scary and big and I only want to see them in zoos.

10) Ghosts/Spirits/the Supernatural

I have a fascination with the unknown and unexplained... I just think it's a really cool thought that there may be a lot of things that we don't quite understand yet. Do I believe in "ghosts?" I don't know. But I do think some weird things happen that we don't know the explanation for just yet. Recommended show? A Haunting. But don't watch it at night. I LOVE the idea of the unexplained.... but I have an irrational fear of buying an old Victorian house (my dream) and it being haunted. 

Yes, I am a freak/baby/wuss/pansy/WHATEVER. I am scared of a lot of weird things, but that's just how it is. Sometimes it's fun to be scared. A bunch of my friends are visiting from Colorado at the end of October and we are going to one of the scariest haunted houses in the country... that should be interesting. The sad thing is that I could list at least ten more things that creep me out! Ahh... I love Halloween :)

Creative Energy Extravaganza Explosion Supernova Thing.

I feel like I go on and on about this whole transition from a miserable 9-5 desk job to a sometimes 8am-3am job as an artist. Hopefully it's not too redundant and boring... but I just cannot help myself.

I had a lot of worries about my first few weeks as an artist. I was afraid things on my mind from my previous job (still cannot believe that is what it is now) would cloud my mind and create a creativity block - like they have for about the past two years. Perhaps it was my week at the beach after my last day of work, but all the awful memories of ringing phones, complaining people, superficial crap, and feelings that I was not working fast enough/hard enough/efficient enough are all but a distant memory.

It's amazing. In less than a month's time, I feel like I am me again. I am that freak that you see walking around the grocery store smiling for no reason. I am the person you get fussy with at the post office because I'm chatting with the employees and holding up the line. All of this energy has come out of nowhere and about 95% of it is fueling this incredible Renaissance that seems to be going on in the spare bedroom of my apartment. (The other 5% went towards the run I went on today. It had been almost a month and was miserable.)

Last night I was up until 3:30am because I didn't want to stop working. I find myself waking up early, sometimes like 6am early, because an idea will just come to me and the excitement makes going back to sleep impossible. I think there have been at least four or five mornings that I've been in my studio with a Red Bull before the sun is fully up.

It's all unreal. It really is. Sales started to pick up momentum over the weekend and I'm hoping it's not just a coincidence. Making this work and not having to get another job is a dream that I cannot even fathom. If I can make it to mid-November, then ride the holiday rush, it seems possible. My fingers, toes, eyes, everything = crossed. This has to work. It feels so right.

Wow... so after that dramatic display of emotion, here are a few of the things I've cranked out this week:

Had a blast with this one... searching for shiny things and flowers then gluing and doodling? Yes please.

Always loved this quote!

My collection of magnolia pictures from this past spring is HUGE. This won't be the last :)

"Not knowing when the dawn will come I open every door." -Emily Dickinson

From a day trip to a rose garden in July :)

The evening light in the Outer Banks = pure magic.

"Do you suppose she's a wildflower?" -Alice In Wonderland

This is what I think: the world needs people who are fine with working 9-5 day jobs, even if they are awful. Without them it would not function. In turn, those people need creative people: people who do their own thing and who make it their mission to remind the world of how many beautiful things are out there. People who inspire, who laugh and smile for no reason. Sometimes the realists need to bring the dreamers back down to earth a little; sometimes the dreamers need to lift the realists up. It's a perfect balance. I'm happy to be one of the ones bouncing around up in the clouds :)

My First Week As A Full-Time Artist.

Well, here it is Sunday. My first week as a full-time artist is complete. Things I have learned:

1) I am already tired of people (friends!) making comments like, "It's not like you have a job" or "It's not like you have anything to do." Umm, I'm sorry. I have a TON to do. Technically I'm working 12 hour days, but it doesn't feel like work. I'd like to see someone start their own business and claim they have nothing to do.

2) My worries about finding motivation to "work" were pretty unnecessary. I actually found myself waking up super early because I was so excited to start something.

3) Online pizza ordering will be the death of me. Why must they make it so easy? And enticing me with coupons? Evil.

4) Time management is tricky with you have 1000 ideas whirring around in your head and you want to start them all at once. Some days I'd go to start something, then start something else, then do something else, then five hours later remember the first thing I meant to do.

5) It is such a great feeling to not have to use the days to measure how close to the weekend it is. Every day is equally great. Usually at this time on Sunday, my friend Amber and I start texting about the "Sunday Feeling." That's the sinking feeling we would get knowing the entire work week is only hours away. I never want to feel that again and am determined to help Amber find a million dollar idea so she won't have to either. Be on the lookout for the "Champeg" in the future. It's a champagne keg. We are going to invent it.

I could go on and on about all the realizations I had this week, but I want to share some pictures of the Outer Banks. That place is BEAUTIFUL. We could hear the ocean from the roof of our house. It was amazing.

I loved the cactus-type-things that grew all over the island.

The beach was just gorgeous. I've only seen the ocean from various parts of Florida and the Bahamas before... I loved all the plants/fences/rocks/lighthouses by the water in NC.

We may or may not have done an astronomical amount of drinking.

The waves were pretty intense due to Hurricane Leslie being parked directly east way out over the water. At night they glowed GREEN because of bioluminescent creatures or something?? And when you kicked the sand it looked like green sparks. One of the coolest things I have ever seen.

Taking walks in the evening light was like magic.

One day we woke up to watch the sun rise. It was nothing short of miraculous and looked like the sky was on fire. I took approximately 75 pictures!

This week I worked a lot on altering the ocean pictures to sell on Society6. I have been tossing around the idea of opening up an Etsy shop for my altered photography... thoughts? I am nervous about the printing process because it seems like everyone prints differently. 

I have also been teaching myself to make patterns by drawing things on paper, scanning them in, then repeating and coloring them in Photoshop. Here are a couple of my favorites:

It can be kind of a tedious process but really really fun. I discovered the website Design Seeds via Pinterest and have been pinning color inspiration like crazy. Websites like this are helpful for people like me who get ideas in groups of 1000 (apparently I really like that number today) so nailing down color schemes can be next to impossible. I am so grateful to have such a resource! 

All in all it was an amazing week and I can't wait to have 1000 (heehee) more just like it. This weekend got a little crazy; my best friend came to visit and we went to campus (I live right by Ohio State University) to tailgate for the game. Things of course got crazy, so it has been nice to quietly work and recover today. On tonight's agenda is watching the Emmy's at my fabulous chef friend's house where chili, shrimp, and bruschetta are waiting. Again, life is good. Hope all is well with everyone out there and here's to another amazing week for EVERYONE! :)

The Last Hurrahs

Oh boy... we are really down to the wire now. This week is my last week of work. Kind of nice that today was a holiday; now there are only four days left. In four days, my only commitment will be to creating. As those days creep closer and closer, my fears of running out of money and not being able to make enough money are annoyingly growing stronger by the day.

One would not guess that based on my actions: I just spent a three days weekend in Chicago helping one of my closest and most amazing friends (and I don't just say that because she reads my blog... she really is amazing. Hi Amber :)) move into a new apartment. Her new place is amazing: tons of space and lots of natural light. Being there while she was moving in really got my mind going... I'm not making any decisions any time soon, but the more I think about it the more I become convinced that I want to live in Chicago. At least for a little while. There is something about the noise, the lights, the constant activity of a big city that is so incredibly inspiring. If I am not tied to a specific city by a job, why not try and live someplace else? So much to think about lately.

On top of that, I am leaving on Saturday to spend a week in the Outer Banks with my brothers and some friends in a large vacation house full of liquor and about 20 other people that I do not know. Talk about a last hurrah. I am so excited to have a week to unwind, lay by the pool, listen to the ocean, feel the sunshine, party like I'm 21 again, and most of all daydream about new art to start creating the second I get home. This is all so unreal.

In other news, I have really been getting into using Society6 as a place to post and sell my photography. There is a really strong sense of community among the artists there and it is pretty amazing. You follow people and have a news feed, like a lot of other social networking sites. When someone posts a new piece of art, people can "promote" it and comment on it. The thing that gets me the most is that almost all of the artists reply to peoples' comments thanking them. Where have the words "thank you" gone nowadays? Where have manners in general gone for that matter? I have always been very big on manners; they are a very simple way to be courteous and show that you can treat strangers like human beings. Anyway, I have found that I really enjoy altering my photos by adding textures, then finishing them off with little phrases in subtle type. Here are a few example of the final products:

I have soooo many pictures from the past year to play around with and so many little phrases and quotes floating around inside my head to use. I'm super excited to take pictures at the beach next week too. Lately there are just countless things to be excited about. That is how life should be, right? :)