Friday, February 15, 2013

Chickens, Surfers, and Freaking Out

This week has been crazy busy for me. Teaching has been a bit hectic with all of these three day weekends (last weekend and this weekend) plus Valentine's day, which is always disruptive to a classroom environment. Since we have block scheduling, I am only seeing some kids four times in two weeks and others six times, which just throws off my timing of the curriculum. Trying to keep up and make sure everyone is learning the same thing has been hectic. I also need to create my calculus curriculum, since this my first year teaching it, which includes a lot of deciphering, note-taking, and math solving lately. Math is hard enough and trying to translate calculus into a language my kids can understand is no easy task.

The surfer painting is almost done. Good thing
I don't have to worry about this one selling!
In addition to this, I have been trying to get some pieces finished by March first so they can be shown at the Affordable Art Fair with JoAnne Artman Gallery. I had two finished and was working on a diptych as my final piece. Well, fortunately the diptych sold before it was even finished (yay!) but now that means I still need to finish the piece AND come up with two new pieces to replace the sold one for the art fair. I also have a 12"x12" piece that is due soon for an upcoming invitational show and I have yet to figure out what I will paint. Throw in an interview for a Barcelona magazine, where they are featuring my art,  that still needs to be completed and you have an overwhelmed girl. But wait! There's more! The California College of Art wants to feature my artwork in their upcoming arts/ literature journal, which is awesome! I now need to get high res images to them. This isn't too hard to do, but when everything else is feeling overwhelming, this is just one more thing to do. I haven't even mentioned the three 16"x16" pieces that were commissioned but not started. It's for my brother, and since he's family, it just keeps being put on the back burner. Sorry Albert!

Detail of painting. The panel is two 16"x16" panels. Since the panels are so
small and there are 8 surfers, painting these tiny faces and still have
discernable expressions has not been easy.
So right now, instead of doing some much needed calculus planning, I am writing a blog post and making a list of what needs to get done by me personally and what can I get my art assistant to do. I am a list maker and I find that this calms down the anxiety and feeling of being overwhelmedness. Unfortunately, first I have to freak out about all that I have to do before I can calm down enough to write my lists. Now that I am calming down, it's time to get working on that list.

Another detail.

Oh, and did I mention the chicken I am painting? This was commissioned by a
friend many months ago and I am finally finishing it. Unfortunately commissions
by friends and family can take awhile for me to get to.

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