my shadows

it's nearly 2am and I'm getting sloppy but I wanted to post these little sketches that I did this week. somehow I had the idea to draw shadows completely removed from their context-- leaving a distored shape of the figure. somehow this way of drawing the figure (without including the figure, or any physical objects) is interesting to me-- and I want to push it further and keep playing with the idea. btw, they are charcoal & acrylic on gessoed paper and are all about postcard size. perhaps I should actually do them as postcards if I do any more. there are more of these on my flickr site too. and now to bed....

uploading, organizing, and pulling out my hair...

yes, I still really don't have any comprehensive internet location for my own artwork. my website has been in process for months and still I don't feel I can refer anyone to it without prefacing the state of it. it doesn't contain a single image I like personally or feel represents "my work." so lately I have turned to flickr for an intermediate place to upload stuff. why? because it's fast, cost effective and requires no "designer". it still won't be as together as I would want my final artist site to be, but for now it will serve as an informal place to view my work.

what's odd about organizing my own work for other's eyes, I realize my work style is pretty far flung-- or it seems to me. I like to be consistent because that always looks stronger, but it is just my nature to swing back and forth between diverse styles. in reality I can be very prolific and sticking to one style would feel like prison. really I have so many ideas and follow so many trains of thought that it would be hard to just do the same thing over and over in the name of exploring a concept. I wonder if other artists face the same thing.

Self-Portrait in progress...

I just wanted to post a painting I am working on right now. It's in progress but I thought it would be fun to post and re-post as I work on it and change it. It's a self portrait about 16x20, in oil.

Collage-podge

Lately I have been playing with collage. I have several big ideas floating around in my head but when it comes down to executing them somehow the ideas get a little lost. One of the things that draws me to collage is using found items combined with mixing a variety of media, and the complete freedom to abandon being faithful to a certain world paint sets up. I can paint a figure, or just cut one out of a magazine, and then scribble over it, paint it out, cover it with tissue paper, paint or paste words in, and cover that with something else. Anything goes, and I find myself not holding back. The trouble I have is when I want to plan my collages. I am much stronger just going on intuition generally-- but I want to be able to plan ahead and take responsibility for the finished product. But this week-- after feeling like I was going nowhere really-- I decided to just do collage for collage sake. And above is some of the results. I don't know that it's brilliant, but it's interesting, and nothing like I planned. Maybe that's better anyway. I like the ambiguity of it, and how it's mysterious. Like most of my stuff right after it's done, i don't really know what to make of it yet and that's probably why I'm posting it. In case anybody is curious (because it's not real clear in my shoddy digital camera photo) it's made with bits of plastic bag and tissue paper. Plastic bags are my new favorite item ever since I saw a show of huge quilt-like collages of plastic bags. I don't remember the artist off hand but I'll look it up sometime in my gallery journal and note it here. But since then I've been saving every interesting plastic bag possible for something like this. (It has been a struggle to do so since my roommate is a compulsive cleaner and many of the things I put aside for my art like glass bottles, wine bottles, plastic bags, etc. get thrown out if I don't pack rat them away.)

welcome! my 1st entry

this is my first entry of my art blog... don't know what it will become yet. this is sort of an experiment i guess, so i don't know how often i will write or what i will write. but often i find when i paint it helps to keep a journal since often it inspires more ideas or crystalizes what i am thinking about in my work. though i don't know if anyone will actually want to read my ramblings but we'll see. i doubt this will have any real relation to anyone but me, but maybe now and then i'll write about shows i see and artists who's work i love or hate. but i am not a critic so all my opinions will only be in relation to my own art and aspirations so none if it should be taken seriously out of context of this blog and my work. i am really just one who knows what i like and what i don't and steals what ideas i can for my own work. if you would like to see my art, it will soon be posted at www.bekkateerlink.com. currently the site is under construction and i am in the middle of collecting and organizing all my stuff for web viewing, but hopefully something will be up soon in some sort of temporary state while i perfect it. and in the meantime i will hopefully get this blog going.