Before anything else, I have always sucked at portraiture. So take everything that follows with a salt mine.

Weirdly, if you think about it, though, a greedy lion’s share of my work could be said to be portraiture, although I have never once thought of myself as a portraitist.

But like all my recent posts that have been just, reactions, basically, to what’s been going on in jillaworld, I thought I’d share a thought or two about portraiture and why doing it the slow, old fashioned, by-hand way is still worth trying to do in an age when you can just shoot people with your phone.

I mean photography was invented a bazillion years ago, but people still painted portraits and made busts of other people after that (although probably not as many). (I’m just writing off the top of my head, by the way; lazy jill’s not looking anything up.)
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I don’t know whether I’m saying this because I’m, me, or because, it’s true ~ I mean, what about the artists who work in pairs, or collectives, or, artists who have whole teams behind them? Like Michelangelo didn’t paint the Sistine Chapel ceiling all by his lonesome.

And even if artists didn’t have a team, there would still be the framer, or, the people at the gallery, agents, maybe, that kind of thing. Then, there are (obviously) married artists (sometimes to each other), or artists who have artist buddies. There are entire communities, too.

And what about orchestras or ballet companies, or bands? Writers have editors, and sometimes chefs have teams, too.

And what about the audience? Or the viewers? The listeners? The (pardon the parlance from my other job) target market?
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So yeah, I used to teach art ~ not at schools, as such, meaning, I wasn’t on the staff, or faculty ~ I would need a licence or I would’ve had to pass the LET (which is no walk in the park, and I have the deepest respect for anybody who’s passed it) for that.

Having made that full disclosure, I did spend quite a few years teaching art ~ in workshops, mostly (a few at a few schools, as a sort of art club moderator, I suppose you would call it). I taught kids, mostly, although I had taught babies (literal, months-old babies), teens, and seniors (as in older than me or as old as my mum and dad).

I taught classes (as in groups of students) and I taught one-on-one (or two, or three, if the student had siblings, or a cousin ~ usually in people’s homes. And I taught all sorts of things ~ drawing, arts and crafts, illustration, watercolour, acrylic ~ the last time I ever taught was an oil class at the museum (which was when I wrote this guide).

​If you saw The Incredibles, you probably remember E saying how she never looks back (dahling) because it distracts from the now. I also knew this famous artist once who I remember said something like, for example, if in 2024 he did, say, clay sculptures, this year he would say ‘that’s so 2024’ (and therefore he would no longer do it).

This particular post was brought on by something we were asked to do at INK in connection with the exhibit we had going (I think it’s still up at the time of writing) focusing on the creative process. We were asked to share old pieces that we didn’t like (from way back when) or pieces in progress we never finished.

Given what Miss Mode and what that artist dude said, is there, in fact, any value in artists looking back at what they’ve done before, apart from maybe, being able to make sure they don’t repeat themselves lol ~ heck they say Wolfie plagiarised from himself so WTH ^^

You know how some folks say when accidents happen while making art, you should work with them to create something beautiful and unexpected? We’re not talking about those kinds of happy accidents.

This month I’m continuing on from my last post (and continuing to rip off that hardware blog I was working on for a client at my day job).  I had meant this post to be a list of safety tips for avoiding booboo’s while you’re painting (or sculpting, and so on). But instead, I ended up recalling all the accidents (one or two of which really were quite serious) I’ve had in the painting factory over the years.

The sad thing is that when it came down to actually listing the tips for avoiding these mishaps, it really only came down to just three (super basic and obvious) things. Anyhow, my hope in sharing these experiences and bits of advice with you today is so that you can avoid such things in your own practice so that you can stay safe.

(Although really, unless you’re as clumsy x accident prone x Calamity Jane as I am, I trust you won’t need them.)
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So we have a client at the agency who’s a hardware store, and last Friday I was preparing an article for them. The article was basically a list of tools for beginner DIY’ers so I thought, I could so make a list like that ~ for artists ^^

So here’s a list of things you’ll find at your local hardware that you’re bound to find real handy in your studio ~ if you paint (more or less like me), that is ^^ I’m aware that your practice may be different so you may need different tools or hardly anything on this list ~
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~ but, just sharing the babies without which I’d’ve found it well nigh impossible to live over the years (okay, some, just recently ^^). Just on the off chance that anyone might find this useful ^^; See if you can find numbers 1 to 17 in the photo above (*answer key* comes after the list) ^_^
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​I, fraternise a lot with a lot of folks half my age (or thereabouts) ~ not by choice, really, but by circumstance ~ and quite apart from work, too. Like today, I went to therapy (physical) for my achy joints (#suxtobeold) and the lady in charge of the clinic is, in fact, one of those young folks.

This being only my fourth time to come to this clinic (which, I’m compelled to say, is a lot kinder than that other PT place I’d been to), I’m not, like, super familiar with the kindly couple who run it. I mean, they’re helping me manage (and hopefully totally get over) the pain I’ve had to live with (or rather work with) for years ~ so that I can work better ~ but that’s basically it.

(Believe me, it’s not fun glomping your brush ~ or even typing ~ for hours on end with fingers that feel like they’re being crushed by Gryla on a bad day (does she even have good days lol).

Anyway, the nice lady in charge seems to want to, you know, paint in earnest ~ or at least have a show, and has been telling me about this gallery she and the nice physio have been going to. (Turns out, it’s a gallery I’ve, had a fair bit of recent history with.) (But I digress.)

Maybe it was the (first) full night’s sleep (I’d had in forever) the previous night, or maybe it’s because shut-ins like yours truly don’t usually have a warm body to talk to ~ but for some reason, I found myself encouraging this lady to just go for it and apply for a show.

I don’t know why I did that. I mean, it’s not like she was asking. In fact she even said something like ‘Wow, you’re mentoring me already.’ (But yeah, I’m afraid I’d already said too much x was too far gone into ‘lecture mode’ to take the hint.)

​I’ve written a fair bit about artists having day jobs, I guess, and I’ve mentioned my own day job here more than I wish I had.

But I guess it can’t be helped, and though I would’ve liked to keep both my jobs separate, I guess given my own big mouth it was inevitable for one job to find out about the other.

Although it has happened where colleagues from one job would be somewhat surprised upon finding out about my ‘moonlighting’.

It’s not a complete stretch, though, I mean, both jobs are sooomewhat related ~ I guess anybody would say they’re both (so-called) ‘creative’ lines of work.

Last night, I had a Zoom call with an artist from New York, a super nice, super kind woman named Leslie Volle. She creates these fantastic works in encaustic which I admire very much, but it’s her graphite drawings of twigs that I love the most.

I’m so grateful to have been able to meet her when I was taking my Praxis classes back in 2020; even more so now that she still remembers me and keeps in touch.

I had ‘planned’ to write about something else for the jillablog this month but last night’s Zoom made such an impression on me I felt the thingy I was thinking about writing about could wait. In any case, I figure writing about this now might help me to process x make more sense out of it ^^
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I spent this year trying to clean up the various messes I made last year, and also in trying to ‘catch my breath’ so to speak, and to regroup in terms of my art practice. I’ve gotten in whole worlds of trouble, and by the grace of God I think I’m finally starting to pull myself out.

I’ve taken a deliberate break from ‘painting factorying’ (indeed, to be honest, I’m not sure I want to go back).  And all this time, I reckon what’s kept me grounded x from completely losing it was to do my best to make sure I at least drew one thing a day.