Quetzalcoatl, WIP

I started a new painting this weekend and was progressing pretty quickly on her,and then got a cold today. I don't have a lot of energy to paint on her today so I thought I would post a WIP. She is a little bigger than my usual, 24x30, and I think I really like this size!

The first image is of my pencil sketch on the canvas. I do a pretty rough sketch just to know where everything is going to be. I was having a pretty hard time deciding where her back was going and if I should add butterflies or not. I erased a whole bunch at this stage.

Here she is with some color added. I have decided to change the way I had her orientated in the sketch and to get rid of the butterflies for now. I might add some at the end, but now I am thinking some kind of blackbirds flying in the distance added at the end.

Here is what she looks like right now. I have most of the elements painted in, and a whole lot of detailing to do and trying to de-sloppify some sloppy elements. I can be pretty impatient when I first start a painting. I want to get everything on the canvas quickly so I can get an idea of what it will look like. Then I go back and detail and fix my mistakes.
I am pretty happy with her so far. I know I am because I keep staring at her. Sometimes they just really captivate me, and that is when I know I am doing something right.
I am calling her Quetzalcoatl after the Mayan feathered serpent god. I will go into that more when I post the final painting. I am just really enjoying painting snakes lately. I also think the Slyvia Ji influence is even stronger in this work. I am just completely taken with her work. I know this painting has my own touch, but it is highly influenced by her amazing work.
Hopefully I will have this done within a week or two, but right now I think I just need to lay down. I worked at my daughter's preschool two days in a row last week, I am sure that is where I picked up this cold...dang it :)

New work and group show

I am almost done with a new painting. It really isn't extremely detailed, it just seems I haven't had a lot of time to work on it. I have been highly influenced by the work of Sylvia Ji lately. How can you not be inspired by her work? I think this latest piece shows some of her influence, but with my own touch of course. I should have it posted this week.
This weekend I will have a booth at Buster's bar for the Art in Motion Shakedown. It is Saturday from 7:30 until closing time. I will have one piece of art up for auction. You can read more about it here.
The weekend of May 22nd I have two exciting things to report. I will again be doing tarot readings and spirit guide drawings at the Inner Lights Festival in Lexington. I will also have two pieces, "Jezebel" and "Spirit of the West Wind" in a group show at Gallery 101 in Fort Lauderdale, Florida. I am very excited as I will be showing with many of my favorite artists from Red Bubble.

Here is the Press Release for the event:
"MASQUERADE": A Multi-Media Arts Event and Masquerade Ball!

Opening reception and "masked gathering"
SATURDAY MAY 22nd, 2010 From 7-10 PM

for those who may want to purchase a mask for this event, there will be a limited amount of masks available for sale at the door

Refreshments


This exhibit will include masks and other art works by artists responding to symbolic and concrete uses of masks related to carnival, ceremonial, spiritual, and other societal appearances of "masking". The exhibition will examine the mask as a wearable work of art, as a means of hiding or changing the identity of a person, as a protective device, literal and metaphoric meanings of"masking" in contemporary culture.

Historically, mask-makers have shown great resourcefulness in selecting and combining a wide array of materials. Artists in this exhibition also incorporate familiar and unexpected materials in their works.

Poetry by Mia Roman-Hernandez

A Special performance by Jean Minuchin from 8:30 pm till 8:45pm
BE SURE TO BE HERE FOR THIS VERY SPECIAL TREAT!!


EXHIBIT WILL INCLUDE WORKS BY THE FOLLOWING FEATURED ARTISTS;

Lily Fernandez, Adam White, Virginia Metayer, Elisabeta Hermann, Helene Ruiz, Sergio Cervantes,Lynnette Shelley, Mia Roman-Hernandez, kUrban, Janet Villasmil, Wahala Temi, Tammy Mae Moon, Patricia Ariel, Melissa Shawn Griffin, Jennifer Geiss, Damien Venditti, Rishona Cann, Judy Polstra, Jim Hammond, Jean Minuchin and Nadya of Dream Pieces and Outrageous Wear


this is a special event curated by Helene Ruiz, founder of The Urban Individualists in collaboration with Adam White, of The Gallery 101..this exhibit ends june 5th, 2010

Fragile, WIP

This is the latest piece. I am thinking it will be called "Fragile", or "I Feel Fragile Today". The above pic shows her with the graphite sketch and the first touches of color. I am painting her to symbolize what I think a lot of people are feeling right now. We are submersed in a bunch of Pisces energy right now, culminating during the next new moon when many planets including the Sun will be in Pisces. We are all feeling fragile and extra sensitive right now. We are also going through a major transition right now and trying to realign our systems to anchor in this new energy.
The butterflies are a symbol for this transition and they are going through her in a sense without her even realizing it. She is also submersed in water to her waist to symbolize the emotions of Pisces. Here is what she is looking like with a bit more color.



I need to work on a commission now and won't be able to finish her for a few days. That is going to be incredibly hard for me, but she will just have to wait.

My new Pseudo name

So I have been thinking for awhile that I need a different professional name. I often go by Moon Spiral as a username on many of the artist sites I am on like Red Bubble. This is very symbolic of me and my consiousness, but more like a nickname than what I want to go by professionally. It also has to do with the way I sign my paintings with a moon and a spiral. I love symbols and have always preferred to sign my paintings with a symbol rather than my name.
I am very into numerology and have felt that the vibration of my married name, Tammy Wampler, feels a little off. Nothing against my husband's name, it just does not fit me in a professional sense.
I believe there is a lot of power in your name. For years now I have given professional intuitive readings and I use a person's name to research into their past lives. This is called lexigramming and you wouldn't believe the shocking things you can find in your name.
I think most of my friends would think I am flakey if I told them they have to start calling me a different name now, although most of them probably think I am slightly flakey anyway. I have decided to keep Tammy, but change my last name. I wanted it to have a ring to it that is memorable and a little bit like my style of painting; a little pop surrealish I suppose. So my new "arteest" name is Tammy Mae Moon. The numerology of this full name equals a 2 which vibrates to the moon which is completely my vibration. My moon itself in my natal birth chart is in Cancer(which vibrates to the moon). The vibration of Mae Moon is a 6, which vibrates to Venus. I think the moon and Venus vibration is really the whole vibration of my art itself. It is feminine, intuitive, with a strong focus on beauty(Venus) and the unconscious mind(the moon).
So I am introducing my new self, luckily you can still call me Tammy or Moon.

I have not been keeping this blog very up to date. I keep forgetting about it; guess I am not the best blogger around. Sometimes I feel like I have so many thoughts in my head it would just take too much time to blog about it. Well anyway, here is the latest completed piece "Jezebel".



I rather like the way she turned out. Jezebel had about the worst treatment of a woman in the Bible and one of the most horiffic deaths. Basically she was flung out of a window and left to be torn apart by wild dogs. Recent archeaological finds have proven that she was a very powerful woman in the ancient world (as it seems that in the Bible the word whore is a code word for "really powerful woman"). Also her name was most likely not Jezebel but this was a corrupted spelling of her real name, I mean who would name their daughter whore of god in the first place. We probably will never know the truth of who Jezebel was as her story was written by her murderers as they were trying to justify their killing of a woman.
I wanted to paint Jezebel in honor of all women who have been born to be the ones that we could blame.
I must have listened to Iron and Wine's Jezebel about a thousand times while I painted this. I really do feel like a painting can take on the vibration of the music you listen to while painting.http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ghBJhGIcneU

Dragonfly WIP

This is a very rough sketch to the piece I am currently working on. I am almost done with her now and she looks a little different than this sketch, but this gives you a rough idea as to what she will look like. I am working on refining my style. Being the Libra that I am, my art often reflects my indecisiveness. Sometimes I only want to do highly spiritual, symbolic, and mystical art and other times I just want to paint big eyed girlies. I am noticing that the artists that I am the most drawn to all fall under the catagory of Pop Surrealism. I like the idea of slightly distorting reality, and focussing on our vanity and messed up self-image constructs.
A friend of mine showed me this link It is for a Digital Retouch website that shows before and after shots of all the models. It is amazing how much they do to give us a false view of what beauty is. I guess that is what I want to explore. How beauty can be seen in the absurd and how we can easily distort our vision of beauty.
I think even the big eyed girlies can be spiritual art. With my work it is the eyes that convey the story of each soul I paint. They look back at you and hopefully speak to you. At least that is what I hope they do. Anyway, that is what I am wanting to paint for now. I could change my mind tomorrow.

Showing at Common Grounds

I have seven paintings being shown at Common Grounds coffeehouse and cafe http://www.commongroundsoflexington.com/ in Lexington, Ky right now. They will be there until March 6th. It is a great little coffee shop with a lot of atmosphere and local traffic, so hopefully it will be a good spot to get some exposure in the area.
It is actually a little hard to not have my babies at home with me. It's funny, how you get use to having them around and then they are gone, you actually miss them. It is a lot like when my son first went to kindergarten all day. It is hard to think of them there without me. I know they are just inanimate objects, but to me I breathed life into them just like I did my real children.
So if you happen to be in Lexington in the next two months please drop by Common Grounds and check on my babies. They are hanging in the backroom on the first floor.