Thursday, February 11, 2016

Moving Past Survival!

Buddy, our dog and mascot, of course made an appearance!
Creating art has been a part of my life ever since I could wrap a fist around a crayon (my sister loves reminiscing about it here). In many ways, it's a life-giving endeavor; I can tune out the world and pour myself out onto paper (I even have a website dedicated to my art: www.catherinerivard.com).

But, in order to be able to allow myself to do that, I have to have an excess of energy that isn't already earmarked for survival activities...like eating and walking and talking to people.

For the last few years of dealing with Lymes Disease and Chronic Fatigue Syndrome, I've been hanging onto survival, and art has pretty much been on the backburner (except for when I rallied while I was in the US and did a painting series on children). But, in the last few months, I've been feeling much better (thanks to treatment) and decided to give it a try again! How exciting to move past survival!!

Soft pastels on suedeboard have long been my primary medium, and I had a few old pastels here and some scrap pieces of suedeboard. To be honest, the quality of the materials I'm working with is a little like a cook being handed a rusted-out cooking pot and a bag of dog-food-quality bones and being told to work a masterpiece....but hey, beggers can't be choosers! (And yes, I suppose I'll bring back some higher quality stuff with me after my trip to the US this year.) For these pieces, I decided to give myself time deadlines (sometimes paintings or drawings of mine can easily exceed 20-30 hours) and I needed to complete it in 5-8 hours.

Just a random cat...but I love the orange contrasted with her fur!
A portrait of my housemate's horse, Caliber!
Some kids I've encountered in my travels!
I like drawing kids :)


Quick drawings!