Friends & Strangers

This is my newest art series, a bit of a departure from the style and mood of my last series "Love, Paint & Dance".

Friends & Strangers was inspired by the people in our every day lives, people we know, friends, or those we walk by on our usually day to day events, strangers.  Although sometimes the rolls can be reversed, our friends can be strangers and strangers can be friends.

Laila

Friends: We have many different types of friends, close friends, acquaintances, distant friends, friends that are neighbors.  We can know many different sides to our friends, although no matter how close you are to someone we can never truly know everything about them, who they are to the core.  Such as, something as innocent as lying about liking a present you gave them to spare your feelings.  Or something as deep and dark as abuse in their past... We all keep our secrets.

Blue

Strangers:  These are the people we pass by on the street, we bump into them on public transit, we purchase our groceries from them.  We don't personally know these people, we don't know their name, where they grew up, what their favorite color is.  They are strangers to us.  Although these strangers can be friends as well.  A stranger walks by and compliments your dress, you slip and fall on a side walk and a stranger stops to help you up.  That person you walk by on the street just might have more in common with you than even your best friend, but you will never know how good of a friend they can be.








We all have layers and many of us judge each other on those first few layers.  In this new series I have painted images of people I know personally and others I have never met.  I could go on and on about the many layers of this series, which is exactly how I painted these images, with layers.

1. Illustration board
2. Layer of Gesso, painted with different types of texture and designs, whatever came to me when looking at the image of the person I know or a strangers image I chose.
3. Before Gesso dries, I wrote words into it that I felt described the person, either by just looking at them, first judgements, or if they are a friends, things I know about them personally.
4. Layer of Gouache, usually two colors.
5. Lift out and find the face beneath.

Take what you will from this series, but I definitely encourage you to look deeper and develop your own interpretation.

Happy 2013!

Happy 2013!!  I hope you all have had a wonderful New Year and are excited for the year ahead, I know I am!

Since my last post I have been lucky enough to have two more art shows and 2 more planned for this year!

Art show #2: Lansplitters Pizza in Berkeley
This was such a fun and successful art show... Well for the most part, but I mustn't get ahead of myself.  The show opening was a blast, there was free pizza for all my guests as well as half off beer and wine, this of course was a big help in getting people out!  Which it did, quite a group joined me that night and it was so much fun to discuss my new series, munch on pizza and drink some beer.

Now the "well for the most part" part, sadly the show was cut a bit short because of a plumbing problem and they had to close the restaurant early.  However this was a blessing in disguise as the woman in charge of booking shows apologized as well as promised me another show at a different Lansplitters after the new year!

Art show #3: Addis Habana Dance and Art Studio in Oakland
This was my least successful event of the 3 I have done this year.  It was a nice space to hang my work, however the turnout wasn't as great as the past two I had.  Those in charge of this studio, nice people, however it wasn't the most pleasurable experience working with them... That's all I'll say on that.

I know every artist has their ups and downs and not every event will go as smashingly as my first two.  I know I am lucky to have had two great events in which I actually sold some of my work and I will learn from this experience.

For these two events I developed a new series of work titled "Friends & Strangers".  More to come on that in future posts, but until then here is the Original painting that inspired it all.

Wishing you all fun, happiness and success in 2013!  I look forward to sharing my art world with you though out the new year! :)

Love, Paint & Dance - After the Show

 My very first art show opening came and went and even better than what, in my worried mind, I had imagined.  It began a bit slow when I got there right at 6pm, I'm a very timely person, there was no one but the wonderful man who served the ice cream.  I chatted with him for a bit and decided to go get coffee.  Once I was back I proceeded to drink my coffee and text my friends practically begging them to come and check out my show.  I was beginning to imagine various sad scenarios of me sitting by myself the entire evening, no one paying any mind to me or my work, then the world would explode...  Luckily most of my over the top imaginings rarely come true.

I was there, waiting, for maybe 1/2 an hour when my first very lovely friend Heather came strutting her cute booty through the door.  She is also the muse of one of my paintings.  After that it worked out to be a steady flow of friend after friend, it was almost like they were planned in shifts.  Then my two lucky charms walked in, Corinne and a friend of hers visiting from New York.  They got ice cream, we chatted about my work, Hipline, the ladies of Hipline in my paintings... Then two men walked in looking closely at my work, I spoke up to let them know I was the artist, they seemed happy by this and to talk with me about my work.  They then left.

About 2 minutes later I see one of the men come back in and he says to me "I'd like to buy one of your paintings."  I was very shocked and excited to say the least.  My first sale, the first night of my art show and to a man that I didn't know previously or call friend or family!  "Samar" was my first sold painting and it was even better that two lovely ladies were there to enjoy the excitement with me.  This made my night, and even better, Jesse the ice cream man, told me that it's not often an artist makes a sale the first night! Best art show opening EVER!  So far...

The two lovely ladies that brought me some luck! :)

 

Love these two!

My fella and I, my self portrait in between us.

My First Art Show

Love, Paint & Dance
This is the title of my very fist art show!!  It all started with my friend Brownyn telling me of a sign she saw in the window of Tara's Organic Ice Cream looking for Artists.  I used the e-mail she sent me, Tara replied and asked to meet with me and see some of my work.  Tara's in Berkeley is a very small space, so when I went to meet with her I completely expected her to maybe pick a few pieces to hang in the space for a while, or just tell me she didn't like any of them and that would be that.  What I got was so much better!

10 pieces from my Dance series, half of them completely new pieces, will be hung in Tara's Ice Cream, Oakland Telegraph location for a whole month and the opening show will be a part of Art Murmur on Friday April 6th! AND there's a strong possibility I could sell some of my work there as well.  I could barely contain my excitement, but I composed myself and resisted the urge to jump up and down and squeal with glee like a five year old who just got a pony (not the most professional reaction).

So for the past couple of weeks I have been working furiously creating new pieces, designing a post card for the show (see below), writing my artists statement, creating a price list, creating a facebook invite, and buying frames...  I got a little eye twitching going on, feeling a bit of stress, bubbling with excitement and nerves though I know it will be all worth it!

Check it out!

Yay! New Art: Gabriela

I finished this piece a while ago but failed to blog it, as I mentioned in my last post, I've been lacking in regular blogging.  So here I am, back again and doing a little better on time spent in between my last blog post... I'm getting there!

This is another original gouache painting titled, Gabriela.  I met Gabriela a little over 3 years ago, and I'm definitely grateful I did.  Gabriela is part owner of Hipline, the belly dance studio that changed my life.  She not only runs part of the business but teaches toning and cardio classes, works a second job, and takes online classes, she is a super woman if ever there was one.  I tried to express this in the image below.  Gabriela is a powerful dancer, she is fabulous fire in motion!

I'm already working on a new piece and will have it up soon.  I love this series though I am having the urge to do something new... To be continued...

Check out Gabriela at Elven Grove!

Happy New Year!

It's been a while, and though I believe I have said this before, I am definitely going to start blogging more regularly and this time I mean it!

But how can I say that if I've said it before and failed, HORRIBLY FAILED?  Well things are changing in my life and for the better.  You may now be saying "and what are these changes?"  Or "change, pray tell what these changes be?" Or you've left to get some lunch, either way I'm going to tell you.

Over the past 3 years I have worked two jobs, one is a women's dance fitness studio which I love.  The atmosphere is creative and positive, I am surrounded by amazing talented women, I get to listen to music I enjoy, I belly dance, I can grow in so many ways and the list goes on.

The second is a evil and dark place, it is a children's consignment store.  Most of the children are not evil, the evil comes from the owner of this store.  I could go on and on about how crazy this woman is and how she has tortured me but I will spare you.  Perhaps I will make a separate post just to describe the evil craziness of this woman.

So my big change is in less than I month I will be saying SEE YA! to the crazy children's store and calling job #1 the only 1!!!!!

With having only one job to worry about and being in such a creative environment I will have more time to focus on other joys in my life, such as my art which comes in many forms, writing, dancing, drawing, painting... I love it all and soon I can do it all!!!

So I just had to share my good news because I am jumping like a jumping bean with excitement!  2012 is a year for change and I hope you all have some amazing changes coming your way soon!  Thank you to those who have stuck around and to those who have joined my blog while I was away.  Welcome and I hope you enjoy my art and my ramblings!

New horizons ahead! Yaaaaaaay!!

Show myself the love: Curls

I've decided to start a new series of blogs which are titled, "Show myself the love".  So many of us put in so much energy caring for others, weather it be at work, or people closer to us such as family or friends.  We strive to reach higher, hoping to be accepted and judging ourselves, usually harshly, along the way.  "I should have done this differently", "I wish I had a flat stomach like hers", "why didn't he notice my new dress?" "I did that speech horribly" and the list goes on.

We're our worst enemy and most of us don't realize how much we can really bring ourselves down.  I say enough!  These blogs will be dedicated to bring ourselves up!  Don't look to the outside world to boost you up, look inside yourself and remind yourself how amazing you truly are.  Though don't get me wrong, revel in those random compliments others give you, try to see what they see and know that it's true.

In this series I will post a picture of something I love about myself and I encourage you to think of something you love about yourself as well even if it's the same thing and please, leave it as a comment.

I love my curls, I take a shower, put a bit of gel on my hair and BAM! I've got body, I've got bounce!  I don't have to spend hours with a curling iron or damage my hair with perming chemicals.  I can leave it down or throw it up with a few delicate curls left around my face.  And if I happen to want to use a curling iron to get more styled curls I don't have to worry about them falling out by the end of the day.  Yes, I love my curly hair!  What do you love about yourself?

Just for a little extra fun, and because I love random fact, here's some info on hair:
1. Facial hair grows faster than any other hair on the body.  In fact, if the average man never shaved his beard it would grow to over 30 feet during his lifetime, longer than a killer whale.

2. Every day the average person loses 50-100 strands of hair. Unless you’re already bald, chances are good that you’re shedding pretty heavily on a daily basis. Your hair loss will vary in accordance with the season (growing faster in summer than in winter and fast by day than night), pregnancy, illness, diet and age.

3. Women’s hair is about half the diameter of men’s hair. While it might sound strange, it shouldn’t come as too much of a surprise that men’s hair should be coarser than that of women. Hair diameter also varies on average between races, making hair plugs on some men look especially obvious.

4. One human hair can support 3.5 ounces. That’s about the weight of two full size candy bars, and with hundreds of thousands of hairs on the human head, makes the tale of Rapunzel much more plausible.

5. There are as many hairs per square inch on your body as a chimpanzee. Humans are not quite the naked apes that we’re made out to be. We have lots of hair, but on most of us it’s not obvious as a majority of the hairs are too fine or light to be seen.

6. The lifespan of a human hair is 3 to 7 years on average. While you lose a few hairs each day, your hairs actually have a pretty long life providing they aren’t subject to any trauma. Your hairs will likely get to see several different haircuts, styles, and even possibly decades before they fall out on their own.

7. You must lose over 50% of your scalp hairs before it is apparent to anyone. You lose hundreds of hairs a day but you’ll have to lose a lot more before you or anyone else will notice. Half of the hairs on your pretty little head will have to disappear before your impending baldness will become obvious to all those around you.

8. Pulling out 1 grey hair does NOT cause 7 to grow back. What it will do however is cause damage to the root preventing any other hairs to grow back.

Now it's your turn, tell me what you love about yourself. :)


Most info gotten from 10 Cool facts to know about Hair/Nails