Lingerie Painting Process

Above is a short video of me working on one of my lingerie paintings. I thought it would be fun to share some of my process for how these paintings come together. The video is sped up to 20 times faster than I usually work (which means that I paint polka dots incredibly slowly) and I cut out some of the boring watching paint dry parts. I hope you enjoy seeing how a lingerie painting comes together.  As you can tell from the video, I don't sketch out the shape in pencil and I paint the initial shapes pretty messily. I like the texture of the watercolor and different layers of paint to be visible - it gives me the feeling of the delicate, sheer fabrics that lingerie is made out of.  Here is a full shot of the finished painting:   

If you're wondering why I am so interested in making lingerie paintings (and pins, and collages), let me know and I'll make a post all about my fascination, because I have many reasons.  But one thing I love about keeping lingerie paintings around is that they are great body positivity reminders. And they're just pretty. In my opinion, a lingerie painting would make a great Valentine's Day gift, (for a loved one or for yourself). There's plenty of time to get one by V-day if you order from my shop.

The 100 Day Project Final Update

Today is officially the last day of the 100 Day Project, so I thought I would do a final check in. My project, 100 Days of Watercolor Without Reference started with a challenge from Elle Luna, a newly purchased set of 60 watercolor tubes, and me frantically searching for an idea. During the 100 days, I quit my job, visited my home state, packed up my apartment, road tripped across the country, and landed on the opposite coast. 

View fullsize

I've been painting through it all, and this project definitely did not turn out like I thought it would. Looking back on the goals that I had for this project, here is how they turned out:

1. Stop being lazy about watercolor. I think I managed this. I learned that I can arrive at a hotel room in Tulsa, Oklahoma at midnight after many hours of driving and manage to put a paintbrush to paper, so getting out my watercolors at home doesn't seem like such a big deal anymore. I definitely can get a little bit lazy about cleaning my palette, so I tend to use the same colors again and again for several days, but I think that helps me to expand on my original idea and come up with new combinations. At least, that's what I'm telling myself.

View fullsize

2. Explore painting without references. I think that this was kind of a fail. Or at least, not what I got out of this project. I guess I just like references? When I look back at all of the paintings, I can see that I majorly focused on abstract paintings, collages, and plants. Instead of pushing myself to paint new subjects without references, I managed to make this project fit with where my interests have been taking me - towards collage and patterns. I'm not sure if the answer is to push myself harder to try new things in the future. I definitely don't want to become complacent or only stick to making things that feel safe, but I think that the best way for me to grow right now is to chase what I'm interested in down the rabbit hole, rather than mapping out a direction for myself. 

View fullsize

3. Experiment with sharing work on the internet. I'm still pretty conflicted on this one. As I said in my first post on the 100 Day Project, I want my internet presence to be like the inside of my brain - I want it to make me feel happy, inspired, and proud. And some days I don't really achieve photos that incite those feelings (hello, badly lit photos of quick, exhausted road trip paintings on notebook paper). So I'm not really a fan of daily posts with a challenge like this. I also just don't think I need the accountability. I already make stuff every day. On the other hand, I do want to be authentic and I do want to share what I'm working on as I'm working on it. It adds to the process and is a way that I connect with other creative people online. This project also helped me to think more critically and creatively about sharing my work. I started to think "am about to paint this because I'm excited to paint it, or because it is the first random subject I thought of that would be quick and easy to paint so I can get a post up?" or "is this the best way to share this piece, or is there another way to photograph it that more closely matches my vision?" I'm hoping to keep up with that kind of thought process even after this project.

View fullsize

I've enjoyed working on 100 Days of Watercolor Without Reference, but I'm even more excited to be able to move on to other projects that I'm interested in right now. I'm fascinated by the way that working with watercolor influenced what I created - the medium just felt so perfectly suited to flowing, liquid abstracts and I couldn't stop myself from painting them. Right now gouache is calling to me and I'm excited to expand on the collages that I've been working on. Even drawing seems appealing these days - focusing on watercolor seems to have healed my sketching burnout. Onto the next.

100 Days of Watercolor Without Reference

Last year everyone on Instagram was all excited about the 100 Day Project (#the100dayproject), created by Elle Luna. It actually started right around the time that I was hitting the 100 day mark on my 365 day drawing project, so I didn't participate, but I loved following other people's projects - I found so many cool artists (notably Elena of Elena's Treehouse - her papercuts are incredible). My favorite part was that people's projects were specific, I was intrigued by having a bit more of a direction than making any drawing (although it might be harder to keep something like that up for a project more than 3.5 times the length of the 100 day project). When Elle announced that this year's 100 Day Project would be starting I decided to participate right away. 

View fullsize

I'm calling my project 100 Day of Watercolor Without Reference (you can check it out at #100daysofwatercolorwithoutreference). I have no idea where the idea came from, I was on a plane home from LA on the day before the challenge started and the phrase just popped into my head. I think I chose it because I liked the sound of the alliteration. I knew that I wanted my project to involve watercolor, which is my favorite medium lately, but I didn't want to be limited to just abstract or just representative painting. I am drawn to abstracts lately, but I also want to practice representative watercolor painting, so I created a project that would let me do both. (I've also done collage with watercolored paper, because it is my project and I do what I want.) But I still wanted something to make the project a little bit more interesting and challenging than just painting in watercolor every day, so I decided to paint without a reference (a photo or real-life reference for representative work and a color reference for abstracts).

With this project I'm not really looking to build a creative habit. After my 2015 drawing project I feel like I have done that already. But there definitely are some things that I am looking to get out of the 100 Day Project this time. 

1. To stop being so lazy about watercolor. As I mentioned, watercolor is my favorite medium of the moment, but it feels like a lot more effort than drawing does. I have to take out a bunch of supplies and then clean up more supplies when I'm done. I have to wash brushes and palettes. I can't do it with my sketchbook in my lap on the couch. You get the idea. It is much easier to just grab a few pens and draw, but watercolor really doesn't take THAT much effort. And the results are so magical - infinite colors, swooshy, unpredictable, watery goodness. Hopefully, having to bust out the watercolors every day will get me out of the mindset that they are too much effort to set up. Thus far I have been dealing with that by leaving my watercolor stuff out on the kitchen table, which I'm sure my roommate loves (Hi Hannah, if you're reading this, I'm sorry for leaving my art crap everywhere!). I also never watercolor while traveling, so I'm excited to be pushed do that, too.

View fullsize

Day 2

2. To explore painting without references. If I am painting or drawing something that is supposed to look like something (as opposed to an abstract) then I typically always Google the thing to look at photos as I'm working, or I'm working from something I can see in front of me in real life. I'm starting to get to a place where I care more about what my work is trying to convey than how much it actually matches the thing I'm trying to represent. Wow, that sounds super pretentious. I just mean that if I want to include a house in a painting it maybe the shadowing and the scale and the detail of each windowpane doesn't have to be exactly like that of a real house for me to be happy with the overall piece. Also, drawing or painting objects around me, or photos from Instagram of Tumblr is my go-to way of practicing. I'm excited to see what subjects and ideas come out of my brain when I deny the impulse to look around my immediate (real-life and virtual) surroundings for something.

3. To experiment with sharing work on the internet. By the end of my 365 day project I was so ready to have my Instagram feed "back." I was so tired of being forced (by me) to share photos of work that I didn't love or that didn't do the work justice. Maybe the idea is to make work until I have something that I'm actually proud to share, but that just isn't going to happen for me. I have a job and a life (kind of) and some days it isn't in the cards to keep making until I get it right. In the months since the end of December 2015 I've been happy to make my Instagram feed look like the inside of my brain - carefully selecting the photos and work that make me happy and hopefully convey where I'm at. But I'm still really interested in the idea of posting art every day, sharing what I'm making in the moment, and maybe being less critical of what I post. So I'm taking this project as a way to dip my toe back into sharing daily art to see what I think of it this time around. I was talking to someone recently who said that I seem like I think a lot about my work (I think the length of this blog post alone shows that I do), so I'm also using the daily Instagram posts as kind of creative check ins that allow me to share some thoughts on my process and the challenge every day. Maybe that will be interesting to someone!

View fullsize

Day 4

I might do some more posts reflecting on the 100 Day Project if I feel like I have things to say, but you can keep up with it on the daily on Instagram @haleyca. If you're participating let me know what your project is so I can check it out!

P.S. I haven't mentioned this here on the blog, but I recently did an interview with the wonderful Denise on her site, My Internet Girl Crush. If you're interested in thoughts on my process and the internet and how those two things relate (and what one of my college theses was on) check it out! While you're there definitely have a look at Deinse's other interviews because they feature awesome creative women from all over the world.  So honored to be an Internet Girl Crush!

Pretty Patterns - Ugly Thoughts

I'm not entirely sure how the idea for this little book came about. I was having a pretty bad day with lots of negative self-talk and somehow journaling about it became writing each negative thought with a watercolor pattern. I let myself play with paint and colors and I'm really happy with how some of the patterns came out.  It was also a pretty nice feeling to not be able to think of a negative thought for the next page.

Have a look at the pages below. It might be too much information to be sharing all of my insecurities on the internet, but I think most people have had similar feelings at one point or another.