Cedar January 31st, 2008
I’ve taken some pictures of my new bedroom, finally finished! If you’re interested…Click here.
Many thanks to those of you who have sent me photos of your cats! I could still use a few more, so please keep sending them in.
For those of you not already familiar with the Internet phenomenon of lolcats, this website might inspire you to take some photos for me: lolcat.com
Cedar January 30th, 2008
So, I’ve been bending my neck at an unnatural and painful angle for many hours today, working on the new ceiling mural for my bedroom. It’s about 6 feet in diameter. I just finished it a few minutes ago.
Starting tonight, this is what I will see when lying flat on my back in the middle of my bed:
We’re just finishing up our new bedroom and haven’t moved the bed or any of our clothes back into the room yet. The walls are now a lovely color called “Blue Thistle” (instead of a dull graying white) and we have installed new baseboards, outlets, switches, hinges, etc.
Apart from my new ceiling mural, my favorite part of our new bedroom is the two wardrobes we got from Ikea. They fit perfectly into our closets, which used to have shelves that didn’t use the space to its full potential. Now we have tons of storage space, and they look nice too! (I’ll post pictures when I have some.)
So, I’ve been working like crazy to get this bedroom project done, which is why I’ve been kind of quiet lately. It’s been an eventful couple of weeks.
My husband just bought another car–a 1998 Lexus GS 400. It’s beautiful! This isn’t the actual car we got, but this is what it looks like–I really like the color:
This means that between the two of us, we now own 3 cars, a Jeep, and a motorcycle. No, this is not normal. But for us, it is–Kevan’s kind of an automotive enthusiast.
I’ve decided I’m going to do the daily painting thing. I’m going to start out with a series of cat portraits, my goal being to finish one painting per day, 5 days a week. To start out with, I’ll do it for a month and see how it goes. But, I’m not ready to start yet…I’ve ordered a huge pile of 8″ x 10″ canvases, as well as some colors of paint that I was out of, and I’m waiting for my new art supplies to arrive.
Also, I want to make sure I’ve got plenty of source material to work with before I get started, so I can spend my time painting instead of finding cats to paint. I chose to start off with cats because they are such aesthetically beautiful creatures and I think I’m inspired enough by looking at them that it’s a subject I can focus on for a while.
My regal feline, Quani:
Quani is a gorgeous wild beast, but I don’t want all of the paintings to be of her. So I need to ask you a favor. If you live with cats and have any good close-up photos of your feline companions, and you’d like to help me make this a great series, please send me your pictures! I prefer close-ups that show the detail of the eyes, since I will be focusing a lot on the cats’ eyes.
Please send your photos to Cedar@ArtByCedar.com. I probably won’t use all of the photos I receive, but if I do use your photo, I will give you credit, of course, with a “photo by ____” line when I post the finished painting online.
Please only send me photos that you took yourself. If you send me a photo, I need you to also send this sentence, in writing: “I, _______, confirm that I own the rights to this image, and I give permission for Cedar Lee to use it as the source image for a painting.”
I’ve already received a few great photos from friends, so I can’t wait to see your pictures as well! I’ll start my daily paintings once I have enough art supplies and source material to keep me going for a month. (If you’re a subscriber, don’t worry–I’ll probably post my finished works once a week, so I don’t flood your inbox with daily blogs.) I can’t wait!
Cedar January 21st, 2008
I know I haven’t been keeping in touch the past couple of weeks–I’m just in a state of flux.
I’m thinking about maybe becoming a “daily painter.” There is a whole community of daily painters online–artists who complete a small painting each day and post a picture of it online for sale the same day. I don’t know if I could do this–I guess the idea isn’t so scary if I’m working on a small scale, so I might try it and see how it goes. It would be cool to have something new to show everyone every day. Right now it’s just an idea that I’m entertaining.
If I become a daily painter, I’ll have to make sure I still have time to simultaneously work on my larger paintings. Do you remember the 2 landscapes I did last month, on multiple panels? I’m continuing on that idea of multiple panels. I have lots of ideas but I need to work on actualizing the things floating around in my mind. I’m feeling generally challenged and frustrated, like I’m in a total rut. I’ve done this long enough to realize that my “rut” is probably a sign of artistic growth, and I need to push through to the other side, where my art will eventually be richer in meaning and more polished in execution.
We’re in the process of moving all our clothes, furniture, etc. out of the bedroom so we can paint the walls a steely blue, install new baseboards, outlets and switches. We’re considering knocking all the shelves out of our closets and replacing them with large wardrobes. I’m going to paint over the ceiling mural above our bed:
and maybe replace it with a cooler ceiling mural–I’m not sure yet.
We bought our house when I was 20–I was recently looking at pictures from the time when we had just moved in. It’s amazing how drastically our home has improved over the past 6 years. I’m glad we’re the type of people that take a hundred photographs of every mundane detail of our lives. It makes it really obvious how much progress happens through the simple passage of time. Sometimes I need that reminder that if I just keep working, good things will definitely happen.
For example, here is what my “studio” looked like in 2001. (I’m not kidding.)
And here is my studio today!
I’ve started my belly dancing classes and I’m kind of excited about it. I bought 2 jingly coin-belt hip scarves on eBay, one black and one crimson. They’re not here yet. I can’t say I’m anything close to graceful at this point, because we’ve only had one class and we’re just learning how to isolate certain muscle groups and control the movements of our ankles, knees, and hips. But even if I never get good at it, it’s still fun.
I’m making a list of galleries I want to check out as possibilities for new places to sell my work in the coming year.
We decided to take our dog to a holistic vet. He told us a lot of things that I already knew intuitively, but needed to hear from someone knowledgeable. Now I feel much more confident about taking good care of my dog. He advised us to change her diet, so now instead of dog food, she eats mostly free-range chicken, beans, rice and veggies. She eats better than a lot of people I know! We’ve only been doing this for a little more than a week. The vet says it will help her maintain a healthy weight, give her more energy and a shiny coat, improve her overall health and extend her life by years. She sure is happy at dinnertime these days.
Cedar January 9th, 2008
Today is my husband Kevan’s 28th birthday! I’ve known him since he was 17–we have grown up together. I love him so much and am so glad he was born!
I’ve taken a part-time job at a nearby arts center. I am their new gallery installer. (That means I hang the paintings on the walls in a way that looks polished and professional.) It’s a lot of arithmetic and measuring. It’s only a few days every couple of months, when new shows go up.
I’m going to start taking belly-dancing classes with a few of my friends! I’ve also gotten into contra dancing…so it looks like there’s going to be a lot of dancing in my near future.
And I’ve got lots of ambitious plans for artwork, but the new year has unfortunately gotten off to a slow start on that front, due to a wicked chest cold and a feeling of chaos in my life. That’ll pass soon enough, and then I’ll have new paintings to show you.
Cedar January 2nd, 2008
I just got home from visiting my family in Asheville, NC. It was wonderful. I am sick with a nasty cold, but despite that I’m feeling amped up for 2008. I want to wish all my friends, family, galleries, & collectors a happy and prosperous new year!
Many lovely people appeared serendipitously in my life last year to help me on my way, and I’m very thankful for the resulting progress I’ve made in my career. I can only hope the coming year will be as good as the last.
I’ve got big plans for 2008 and some of them are already set in motion.
I’m going to be working in the studio a lot in the months to come. I’m starting a new body of work, which I won’t reveal to the public at first. I want to make it a private process of self-reflection and evolution, unaffected by outside influence. When I feel ready, I’ll release the new artwork for sale and post photos here.
In the meantime, I will continue to show you works of art unrelated to the new body of work, including portrait commissions and any artistic experiments.
As usual, I’ll be accepting orders for custom portraits and pet portraits this year–for pricing or any other questions, just email or call me. You can expect prompt, courteous and thorough answers.
It’s freezing outside, but now that it’s officially winter, I can start looking forward to spring in a tangible way.
