Mr. Tolson, I need your help...

I am still trying to "take back and keep my righteous mind".  I have been decluttering since 2016.  Household is pretty much done, except for books.  Remember back in the 70s how paperbacks looked.  They were much smaller than today's books classified as paperbacks.  I really should send them on to Goodwill.  But its hard to part with them for the sole reason they are African American literature and our books are the least to go into reprint or even digital availability.  Also, its hard to part with them for what they represent to me in my development as a teen-ager and young adult who struggled to be aware and conscious or as they young admonish today "stay woke".  That is an emotional attachment.  I will never reread those books (my aged eyes can't handle the print).  My oldest son reads and I have been passing some on to him.  I thought about just giving him most of them and let him pick  and choose what to keep and what to pass on.  That sounds like a sound plan...I think I'll go with it.

A friend who is a volunteer at an Art House in Louisville's West End took some art supplies.  I'm trying to keep a minimum.  Today I returned to the basementm (I had been avoiding the space for month and months), to move some things around.  Oh mercy me! More is more.  If I had my phone down here I would snap a picture and let you see all the stuff that has ended to one side of the room.  I want to go through and make a keep pile and a giveaway pile.  This pile includes more art supplies and art instruction and quilt instruction books.  No, I do not want to have a yard sale, (although, I might do Half-Price books).

The wall next to the pile in the floor is an old Elna system of wire drawers (that I found on CL for 20 bucks!  I was happier than a pig in slop!  I'm channeling my Mother with that one.(  I want to get back to quilting...contemporary and art quilts; but I do not want to keep a large stash.  Not that I have a huge stash, but I still think I can go through what I have and let go.  For contemporary quilting, I want to buy as I make and for my art quilts I want to keep a a couple of different rolls of PFD and paint and dye as I go.  I want to create more slowly and with intent.  Which means my blank art journals are definitely a keeper.  Its better to make crap in a journal then with fabric.  Restarting a journal practice can translate to a masterpiece in cloth.  Right? Just say sure and lets move on.

I want to be a good steward of the spaces I have to create in but to tell you for true, my creativity was higher and more productive when we lived in an apartment where I used the wall in the hallway and the kitchen table and cleared it up daily before my kids came home from school and we ate together as a family.  The next morning after everyone left I hauled my projects back out to the kitchen table and hallway.  To dye fabrics I rented out space 2-3 times a year at Mary Anderson Center (is that now defunct?) for the Arts on the grounds of Mount St. Francis (a peace/piece of heaven on earth).
 in southern Indiana.

But whenever I glance at the chaos on the other side of this room (I'm still in the basement) I envision Mr. Melvin Tolson placing his hands firmly on my shoulders and looking me in the eye and saying with conviction "I'm trying to help you take back and keep your righteous mind".

Until next time, Peace.

Episode 3 is Up.

This is episode #3.  I share a finished hat I made for an Aunt and talk about what is due to be made, including an quilt that has a deadline.  Below is the rough sketch for it and the hexies for the flowers.

The slip will be used in the quilt and it has since been dyed a burnt orange.  The crows, I'm undecided about including in this quilt.  The working title is Simply Beautiful.

This is Whats Up...

I am in my space this morning to start a shawl I had counting difficulty with last night and unfrogged. The softness in the air and the quiet while everyone remains sleep I am hoping will allow me to concentrate more.  I am using a foundation single stitch which is one I haven't used often.  My plan is to also do a little piece work from Piecing by Ruth McDowell.  Once I work through a book as part of my Karoda School of Art I am also deciding if the book will remain a part of my arsenal.  I want to streamline, reel in, what I create over a long swatch of time.  I want to have more command over what my resources are and should be in order to do what I do.  You know  there is that tendency to be a grasshopper, jumping all over the place and trying out every knew tool and trend that comes out.  And that is all cool for awhile, but I'm longing for a more distinct look in all that I select to keep, whether it is encaustics or quilts.

Yesterday I spent some time working on a Mojo.  I usually do these in painted papers stitched and embellished, I do them in down time to relax my mind.  This one is fabric and has been hanging around for two years. I plucked it off the board and began adding hand stitching.  I love everything going on so far with this small piece. Here I am auditioning the porcupine quill.

This study below I did previously last year...I want to revisit it in a larger quilt.  I made a small adapted version of it that was part of a collaboration.  It is about commanding spiritual transformation.

Every Friday Mo and I have lunch.  It is her day off.  Last Friday was our next to last Friday lunch date.  She will be going to a different shift at her job so we will have to come up with another way to connect.  Maybe she can be persuaded to take up a knitting class with me in the evenings.  Here we are at Long John Silver's.  Summer means we are a foursome instead of a twosome.

I hear footsteps upstairs, so I'm going to get this shawl started.  Peace.

Karoda University School of Art

Let's see, I have a lot running through my head this morning.  First, let me go make a pot of coffee and I'll be back.

I'm back, but not with coffee but a mug of lemon ginger tea.  This past Sunday I wrote out a curriculum for studio time.  I've done this several times before and although I rarely complete the course, it is due to me jumping off onto my own rhythms.  Having a curriculum brings intent and focus instead of waking up every morning undecided and loosely hodge podging something together for the day that doesn't continue the next day.

On Monday I woke up with a upper respiratory and throat irritation and was in bed most of the day.  Today I'm feeling better and am ready to begin.  Here is what I'm going to focus on:

• Free Motion Quilting (FMQ) and Zentangles (I see these as complimentary) and will use Leah Day's videos as a resource and the book Zentangle A Day by Beckah Krahula
• Piecing: Expanding the Basics by Ruth McDowell
• The Crocheter's Skill-building Workshop by Dora Ohrenstein
• Mixed Media Portraits by Pamela Carricker

When I did this before I called it Learning Curves.  I think I'll call it Karoda University School of Art.

I've divided my days into AM and PM segments leaving room for experimenting and deep porch sitting.  For May, I'll do gel plate printing and just as soon as I finish typing this and playing a few rounds of Puzzly Words, I'm going to mix up the ingredients for the plate.  I'm making one that will be plasticized.  It doesn't have to be kept in the fridge and is pretty much permanent.  I've only made the one which has to be kept in the fridge so I'll let you know how it turns out.  

I've also been rolling around the idea of starting a YouTube channel for crochet and with some art quilting thrown in.  Since the Hubster can't stop watching MSNBC, (has this not been the most grueling, painful, and LONGEST campaign season ever?!!!  This is the one that has broken me of calling myself a political junkie; although I've turned my sights to following our evil minion of a governor....the first Pub in 40 years and boy is he all of a mess up one side and down the other)  (that was a pretty long interjection in this sentence) I've taken up watching YouTube videos.  Most of them are yarn head type videos and there are tons of them with knitters.  Not enough crocheters and its been a while since I've had a tech challenge (Mo and Ade would say I'm challenged by using my smart phone, but I beg to differ).  And it seems like another way of putting myself out there for a chance to connect with folks who share the same interests and renew some presentation skills that have languished since I've been out of the world of employment now.  I really have a lot of time on my hands and I have everything I need to create the art I want to create.   It is a miracle after all the years of working 2-3 jobs and 60-70 hour work weeks.  

I'm listening to a pretty cool podcast called Crafty Planner.  I started from episode 1 and am up to 17.  She has focused on diversity within the Modern Quilt movement and I've been introduced to some pretty hip young women and men.  It is good studio listening.  Check it out.  

And in closing...Alonzo Davis sent me an email yesterday saying our collaborative piece received a red dot!!!!!!  That did my heart good!

Creating with Intent

Last night I cleaned up this image and tweeked it a bit.  This is not the cleaned up copy.

I'm going to attempt to blog the development of this piece and my thought processes around how it will come to fruition.  The notes I made in the margins are as follows:

• skin tones: raw umber/burnt sienna or paynes grey.
• consider the decayed urban church screened in the background or as the background
• bottom 1/3 in diamonds or hexagons-pieced-consider blue/white commercial fabrics, all different
• consider yellow-orange heart behind them, engulfing them which could give the opportunity to play with highlights, but I liked the flat appearance of the study.
• heart would have some metallic in it and/or reflective bead embellishment
• blackbirds/sparrows present one season in the town Sula and Nel lived in
• figure/male with bell, rope tied around waist connected to bell, if used, subdue image as not to compete.
• ear smaller, heads larger.
• could attempt a more complicated background in collage Romare Bearden style to suggest a village of people, if used, images fused in cubism....people combined with birds and masks and houses
• take a look at the sketch for Milkman's Journey and consider the layout for the background or merge the 2 images into one quilt....really want a quilt for each novel but the 2 sketches work well together, but could be too busy for my personal aesthetics as would the collaged background.

These are thoughts I contemplated as I looked at the outline and asked myself "where do I go next with this?". 

I was going to use a projector but I remembered the glass got broken last Spring.  So, my next step is to take the image to Kinko's and enlarge it.  I know I could do it on my printer but I do not want to tape the pages together.  

Prayer Wheels

John 14:2

Celebrity sightings all over the city, but I am home after a long productive day.  The thought briefly rolled through my head to go out on Central Avenue (the main entrance for Churchill Downs) and hang a sign around my neck "buy my art"...you know I heard Langston Hughes sold his books from the trunk of his car at one time in his career.  Gotta love grass roots marketing eh?!  

But with that said, Archeology, (apologies for the poor photography)

is hanging in Churchill Down's new development, "The Mansion".  It can be seen on this video at the 40 second mark and again at a minute and a half in the background.  At the 42-3 second mark, another textile artist, Ramona Lindsey's work can be seen in the background on the right.  The pieces were selected from the walls of Kore Gallery and also included 10 pieces by resident artist Donald Cartwright.  The work will be there for 100 days.  Kudos to Churchill Downs for selecting art by local artists to enhance their space.

Today I was at the top of my game! I was up early before Peter left for work and decided to have him drop me off at the studio.  We are down to 1 car but I am giving praise and feeling grateful because the other car was totaled in a wreck 2 weeks ago and no injuries were reported.  He was coming home from work on a Friday and a mile from home when a young man ran into the back of a van and the van ran into the back of Peter and he had to slam his breaks to keep from ramming the car in front of him.  The young man was speeding and had a baby in the car but at the time of the accident no injuries of all involved were reported and for that our inconvenience is like water off a duck...no big deal.

But I was in the studio at 6:45 am, no, make that 6:45 AM!  take a peek at what I did inside my own mansion....

 

 

 

America

 I will take the above photo and draw some aspect of it 3-5 each week until I feel I can see enough to  begin it on cloth.  This is my first day and what I did was to outline shapes.  From here I'll add looking for changes in value.

I doodled feathers.  I finally have a quilt where I think feather quilting will be enhancing.  I've never quilted feathers other than practice.

And the below images are fabrics that I designed yesterday and today...

It is this last piece that it hit me why I love marbling...not just the process which is fickle but the out come...it achieves the same ethereal appearance that encaustic art has.  I've decided to let the notion of experimenting with encaustics go...(just not prudent) and let the marbling be my encaustics.

 

 

And she's off....

to the studio and readying for Derby Dye Fever!  Today I prepped for marbling, dye painting and screening, and will add painting on silk in my experimenting for the month of May.  I made 3 strengths of sodium alginate thickener, 1 for painting, 1 for screen printing, and another for breakdown printing should the weather outside get hot enough this month.  I also made up a batch of Alum and marbling size using metho-cyl.  Last year I used carrageen for the size and had a time with getting the paints to float and I used everything from fluid acrylics, inks, air brush paints, to prepared paints for marbling.  I did get some good results but still had a lot of loss of paint that sunk to the bottom of the tray.

I use a blender to mix my urea water and thickner.

3 strengths of thickener from sodium alginate (seaweed derivative)

 

Since my fabrics have been sitting for awhile, I decided to scour them again to remove dust,...a combination of various pfd (preferred for dyeing) silks and cottons.  The silks are washing as I type.

 

 

 

 

 

 

This past week I was at the studio and gallery for a combined total of 19 hours.  On Saturday I did a demo for my ART Going Postal(c) postcards while gallery sitting.  The visitors were few but I enjoyed the company and conversation of fellow artist Dennis Shaffner. 

 



 

 

I haven't made new postcards in years.  I used designer silk fabrics from a sample book.  I'm going to make these as warm-up exercises on a weekly basis until I exhaust the fabrics.

Poetic touch stones have filled by day...started last night with Proclamations of Forgiveness by Estella Majozo.  This morning Cherryl Floyd-Miller shared the link to this poem by Naomi Shihab Nye. And the radio show On Being posted this poem on their FB status and I ended up listening to the podcast.  I'm still feeling strong and joyous...gonna ride this vibe as far as I can!  Peace!

Sometimes I just have to leave it alone

for awhile and come back to it when I can see something new.  A lot went into this quilt...dyeing, breakdown screen printing, stamping, building up colour with watercolour crayons, going back over with medium, then quilting.  My first challenge after all of that was not having a table large enough to square it up...I did my best with what I had and then zig-zagged the edges for a finish...this is where it went wrong. 

Wanting not to be defeated by my own creation...I comtemplated cutting it down in size and sacrificing the flowers on the end...but my inner 2 year old kept whining and asking why?  I left it alone for months and last Sunday while gallery sitting I used Don's large table to recut the edges.  This week's time in the studio has been dedicated to sewing a binding on it. 

While looking for a fabric long enough to cover the 160 inches of edge, I begin to rummage and everything I liked I didn't have enough fabric...didn't want to dye or paint any, so it hit me to piece together the binding from all the fabrics I had selected...I've never tried this before but it is really working for this quilt...

Just doing what I do...

The binding on XX is being sewn down. The fabric was designed some time last year but the quilt I started in January and if this is any indication...it takes me about 2 months to finish a quilt  Yeah, I've been working on other quilts and haven't been singly focused on just the one.  But it is typical of the way I create.  Last week I was in the studio for about 15 hours.  I'll finish XX on Sunday when I'm at the gallery.  But it looks like I'll finish out this week with about 10 hours of studio time.

I'm already thinking about my next portrait quilt.  A newly discovered photograph of a great-great grandmother was shared last August at our family reunion. Her name was America Shannon.  I'm really puzzled and curious what it meant to her parents to have given her the name America in her birth year of 1860 (or 1863) at the start of the Civil War.  We have a marriage certificate of her 3rd marriage at age 40 to William Burnside. in 1900 having her age listed as 40.  Of course her portrait will be the focal point but I'm challenging myself to come up with a background which reflects my curiosity about her.

 America Shannon

The fabrics hanging around "Home" (working title) are being auditioned for 2 borders that I want to go around the passage way.  I have a vision of how I want to quilt the center with bronze metallic thread but I'm not sure my skill level can pull off the design.

 The fabrics at the top and the yellow-orange fabrics on the sides come from Southern Africa but I cannot recall what country specifically.  They are Jacquard and were made by a women's collective.  The backing fabric is a tie-dye that came from Nigeria.  Is my passage way a "door of return"?

Tomorrow, I'm heading to the Kentucky Crafted Market...a prestigious exhibit opportunity for artisans and craft persons in the state and region.  It started today but it is not open to the general public the first day, only to galleries and corporate buyers. I have a few studio neighbors who have been juried into it.  I hope they do exceptionally well! It gives us all hope to focus on the possibilities!

Peace,

Hemp ain't cheap...

Its been almost 9 years since I've been in the workforce but I still get excited about Fridays. I'm tracking my studio time this year so I can have a clearer picture of the amount of time I'm there and what I do while there, believing that my time and how it's spent is a direct link to achieving my goals for the year.  In addition to a calendar where I write my start/end times I come home and enter time into an excel spread sheet along with abbreviated notes of what I did while there.

The hemp fabric might be a blend of hemp and rayon.  It has a lot of give in it.  I ironed on a leave-in stabilizer to give me more control with cutting. Today I decided to add prairie points at the bottom in the black fabric.  The points will be in front of 3-4 inches of green and cowrie shells will hang from the ends of the point.

The state legislators on both sides of the aisle are discussing returning hemp growing to Kentucky (Kentucky was a producer in the 1800s) and with Rand Paul (groan) and the state chief of agriculture leading the pack plan on asking the Federal govt. for a special waiver to start.  The state police are the voice of highest concern.  I'm not sure what the process is to turn hemp, the plant, into hemp, the fabric...but my selfish interest is, will it bring the cost per yard down.  

I spent time combing through my fabric stash...I don't have any brights...I lean toward shades which might account for my love of grays.  I was looking for fabric to write on. When I found it, I tested out markers for colour...the ones at the top of the fabric I eliminated and the ones on the right are possibilities.  The b/w image helps me with determining value...all of these will work value-wise.

It has something to do with Home.

High winds and rain are predicted to move in around 3:00 am...so possibly, I could find myself in Oz tomorrow looking for the Wizard.  But I'm hoping all will be well and whatever comes will pass through quickly and without any loss of power and life.

I just came in from the studio. When I rough sketched the quilt out I wrote Welcome Home underneath it and tonight while piecing it, I kept thinking "going home", "returning home".  The center fabric represents a passage, an illuminated door. You know by now, I just listen to what comes and at this time I don't know what it means really.  Before I left I cut the right and left side down to bring more focus to the doorway. and some of the top will also get cut down.  The other idea that came was to place a face at the top.

While meditating on it the idea came to me to make it 3-D and I saw a room with about 50 of them varying between 4-6 feet tall.  I don't think I'm going there but I'm noting it here for reference.

Listening to Public Radio...it's not illegal yet.

I'm really quite sleepy at the moment...but my head is still swirling from yesterday.  The class yesterday was on pricing wholesale and retail.  Do you see see yourself as an entrepreneur or wanting to become one?  If so, are you creating multiples that can me marketed to wholesalers? Do you see yourself as creating one of a kind pieces? multiples of one of a kind pieces?  how quick can you turn over work?  how do you find your target audience?  The presenter's pov is that an artisan should have a foot in both worlds.

I find myself having to adapt much of what is being presented for the way I work when what I really want is to have a business model to fit the way I work instead of me trying to pour myself into what feels like a size 8 dress.  When it comes to business models, does one size fit all?  There has to be various models out there?!  I love the physicality of creating art quilts.  Exploring processes is a dialog that I'm having with not only my mind and spirit, but my body as well.  I try to focusing on doing while at the same time listening and focusing on what my body is doing and learning.  I don't want to loose that.  I think I can take some of the ideas and apply them, just not all.

For months I've been yo-yoing over joining a new co-op gallery at Mellwood that opened last Spring.  Well as of yesterday, I'm in!!!!!  I'll have a place where my work can hang and breath instead of being stored away!  I will gallery sit about 4 hours each weekend and will do a website.  I created the FB page and update it already for The Kore Gallery.  (see why my head is still swirling?).  More info will come as plans crystallize.

Do you listen to Moth Radio Hour?  Saturdays are great for listening to the local public radio.  This American Life, followed by Snap Judgement, The Moth Radio Hour, Wait Wait Don't Tell Me, and Bob Edwards (a Louisvillian, btw).  When I'm at the Studio I can listen without interruption while piddling around.    I heard a great story today about a therapist who was challenged by a dying patient and a dying automobile and how both gave her clarity in the end.  Last week I listened to a story about a young white woman whose father became ill and her mother, thinking her husband might not make it, revealed to the daughter that her father had kept a secret...he was actually a black man from Louisiana.  I didn't hear the end of the story and looked for it on the website, but I couldn't find it.  If you caught it, let me know how it ended please.

I think I finally have a plan to feature this fabric in a quilt...

Here is the design I layed out:

The green fabric is hemp.  I ordered 1 yard of it and dyed it when I was all in love with chartreuse.  It is more textured and weighty than the focal fabric which is cotton.

Trying to make something stick....

Trying to clear my head and see what I can see...

A gazillion ideas for what to do next have rushed through my mind the last 2 weeks.  When I couldn't settle on any one thing I decided to return to my roots and work with creating texture by couching yarn....

cotton, cheese cloth, couched yarn

wasn't feeling it...I thought about writing on cloth but wasn't up to clearing off any tables.  So after piddling 

this is what piddling looks like...applique and painting

around, I thought I would return to pulling a palette together around the shroud like fabric.  (I've longed to do something with the Shroud of Tourin for some time now, but the focal piece here reminds me of fossils)

various stages of adding and removing pieces

I resisted using a colour wheel, would like to go through the process more intuitively

In pulling fabric, I found the Iron King...this face grew out of seeing the artist, Willie Cole, years ago on tv when he was in his iron phase...I think currently he is in a shoe phase.  I was struck by the his facial features...regal and well defined.  I did an outline in thread as play...but when I saw it tonight I thought I'd try to work with him in a similar way as The Mid-wife.

Several things came home with me...a basting project, gonna try Sharon Schamber's method for basting; more applique, and more embellishments for The Mid-wife.  If the freezing rains come, which are suppose to start around 4:00am, actually come, I'll have something here at home to work on.  

Having a party...

I lack the discipline to not share my quilts in progress.  I get so excited that I want to have a party and just hang out and drink wine...sharing here is the closest thing to doing just that in a way that provides immediate gratification among community.  Thus, my chances of creating something to submit to exhibits that prevent any form of public photo sharing seem low unless I change my ways. Something I'll ponder in the distant future...but for now...lets get down and party...

I had no intent of going in today, but my son called and needed a ride home from work after pulling a double shift, so to make the most of bathing and dressing and going out, I headed to the studio after dropping him off here at home.  The day went lovely, after an hour or so spent socializing, I finally mosied back to my sanctuary.  The front windows and glass doors needed washing, so I piddled with that until I was as close to streak free to make it worth my time...turned on public radio, rearranged some boxes that really didn't need rearranging, picked up scraps from the floor, put some fabric away, and then finally I was ready to pick up The Mid-Wife and resume quilting.  Her body is quilted and I think her face is finished or very close to being finished and then I was ready for the background...fruit, hanging fruit came to mind since she delivers babies...so I doodled a bit, see above.

Still not ready to commit to stitch, I recalled a method to audition quilt lines that Juanita had shared with me...cover up the piece with clear acetate and use a dry erase marker to sketch the thread lines.

It is generic fruit, buds that haven't come to fruition yet.  I also have to decide how and where I want to sew on the 40+ teeny tiny baby dolls that will embellish this quilt.  If I go with this hanging fruit, I'm thinking the babies will fill the empty spaces from top to bottom.  She will also get a necklace of pinkish/purplish pearls.  Oh, and I also came up with a full title, She Who Sees and Touches the Future.  By the time I got this far, the synapses was firing off and that led me to pulling out the praying crows and thinking about a background and story for them, (see them in the botton right corner on the photo on the left side?).

All this will stew for a few days and hopefully I can return over the weekend.  Now pass the wine and turn up the music!

Catching up with myself...

I went through a major rearranging at the studio.  It took me 3 days out of 2 weeks.  Then when I finished I went through a empty spell about creating anything.  After some days of just sitting, looking around, and wondering about nothing in particular, I decided to just do something...so I grabbed up the canvas scraps I graffiti-ed and started bead work on them.  Slow hand work is good for the soul.

I have at least 20 of these graffiti-ed canvas scraps.  It was my intent (there is that word again...intent, sighing) to get them finished for the small art show/everything under 100 at The Kore Gallery.  But if I get 5 of them completed I'll be happy...this is the first one you see above.  After I started beading on the second one, up jumped the mojo, I went to work quilting this...

Between the jockey and my latest music crush, jazz vocalist, Gregory Porter...I was feeling a full immersion art-gasm!  The music is fine! but the lyrics are some of the freshest and energizing I've heard since Lizz Wright!  Go youtube Porter right now then come back and tell me what you think!  I have his Be Good CD and just like I do with Lizz Wright, I want to order all his cds.

I'm also looking for another photo to portray.  After spending the Spring and early Summer drawing the jockey almost every day, it wasn't until I did this real fluid drawing that I found some semblance of style that felt good for me to portray realism in.  I love it and want to do more of it.  I have a photo of my Great Great Grandmother that I'm leaning toward...here it is.

I'm not doing a big Thanksgiving meal this year...just gave myself permission to let go of it a few days ago.  After letting that go I thought about my cousins and my Uncle's wife who is a very proud Wampanoag Indian who has never recognized the holiday as it is celebrated...being Native American, the take on Thanksgiving takes on a different perspective.  To quote a line by poet Margaret Walker..."let a new earth rise, a new world be born".

What a relief!

The conversation across the nation is about weather in some form or another.  After a 10 day run of temps in the high 90s and over 100, it rapidly dropped along with the humidity causing scattered rain storms, but what a relief, I tell ya!

My hours in the studio are awkward. Today's hours were from 6:30pm-11:00pm.  I could have stayed longer but I had reached a point that I needed to rest and think about the 2 pieces I worked on this evening. When I push myself to go forward at the point of uncertainty, I usually flub it up.  These 2 pieces couldn't be any more different...

The top one being an abstract landscape. It is heavily layered with mixed materials and is evolving intuitively.  The bottom piece is Oliver Lewis, the first Kentucky Derby winning jockey in 1875.  I keep drawing him over and over in different ways using different media. (you can google him to see the reference photo I'm using)  With this piece I'm more conscientious by being more deliberate, moving with a slow hand, and thinking more about value, light and shadows.  When I ask myself which one is most representative of my spirit, I answer the top one...but as for the processes both are very representational of why I enjoy doing what I do.  And the transition from one piece to the other was a smooth one.