This blog is now Chocolate Free!
Saturday, February 28, 2009 at 01:48PM 
The Cigar Box Portrait Project continues! I am so very excited about this project, in this picture you can see four more boxes all ready with the gesso preparation. The other day I went and bought 15 cigar boxes and the guy on the cigar shop couldn't believe it and he was a second away of asking why I wanted them for, but he didn't. I don't know if I would've told him what they were for. I may not use all of them, but it's giving me opportunity of messing a few of them up and experimenting a little bit. I had given myself permission to mess them up. Because sometimes I am so worried about the waste of money of buying supplies and not creating a masterpiece. Not that any of my paintings end up as masterpieces!! I sometimes wonder what would've be painted on that canvas if someone else had bought it instead of me and how unhappy it is that I was the one who bought it. (I know, it's all my insecurities talking) so I have to remind myself that no art is bad art. It's a way of expressing emotion and thought, and sometimes when I finish a painting that I think is just awful, instead of erasing it by adding more gesso and starting over, I will put it away for a while, turned around in a corner, and sometimes after a few months I can see exactly what I was thinking when I painted that. and somehow it's not that awful anymore. Of course, sometimes, it 's still awful, so you just have to start over. the only was to get better at what you want to do is practicing and practicing.
I was very much inspired by robayre's video of her finished artomat series. I had known about artomat for a few years, I think it's a great way to make art affordable and within reach to everybody. I've been always intrigued about participating on it and even though I really really want to participate, I still feel it is one big project to tackle, but after seeing her video, I think I really do want to give it a try!
On a non-art related topic, I wanted to share with you that Lent just started last Wednesday. What is lent, you may be asking? well, if you are Catholic or Christian you may already know, and if you don't you can go here for a good explanation.
In a nut shell, Lent is a time of preparation for Easter, and it involves doing a few things, but one of them is making the sacrifice of not eating meat on Fridays to remember the sacrifice that Jesus made, but worry not, my friends, this blog post is not about to you all spiritual on you. I just wanted to share with you that I am giving up chocolate for Lent this year. One of the reasons is that giving up meat for me is no biggie, so it may not be a good sacrifice. I did something similar two years ago. If you've been reading my blog for a while, you may remember the Coffee-Less Chronicles that took place during Lent of 2007. It was a hard, long Lent. My brain sans coffee was a mess, but it did what it was supposed to, remind me of why I was giving it up. So this blog went chocolate-less as of last Wednesday, and that includes Nutella too, I was reminded by my DH. NO!! I said, Nutella is made with Hazelnuts! not chocolate, alas, I was wrong, it seems it only contains 13% of hazelnuts, something I should've foreseen before making the chocolate-less commitment. I will try to be strong!
I am working on a new portrait, but I am adding more collage this time, I think it's going to be very interesting. Will share it with you soon. Have a great weekend!
Reader Comments (6)
I look forward to seeing more of your portraits!
ahh nutella, that is not chocolate, it's a chocolatey hazelnut spread. The key term being "chocolately" meaning, not chocolate, but chocolate like. I think it should be Lent acceptable. Perhaps this why I like it. I forget about it often, so great, thanks, now that you brought it up I'll have to add it to the grocery shopping list.