My First Ralire Experience

Yesterday, I stumbled upon a couple of new posts on Facebook by Milliande Demetriu, that led me to her new blog Random Linear Remnants, where she shares her study.

Being a thinker and explorer myself, I wanted to dive into the posts on that blog right away. But it was too late for that.

Today, although, I had a new translation project to work at, I couldn't help, but read them all in my first break. :)

I really love marks and patterns, that appear random and organic, so those posts really resonated with me and triggered quite some pondering in me.

Especially, about the marks left by human beings and the potential of their randomness.

• Conscious drawing must be one of the most controlled ways of mark making per se.

• Drawings by small children and people with particular brain damage often are very random.

• The brain is controlling the drawing process by coordinating the motion of the hand through the eyes.

• There are ways to loosen up the drawing process, f.e., to close ones eyes, to take some alcohol or some other substance dampening the control centers of the brain.

• Although, there are laws and regularities behind seemingly chaotic natural lines and patterns, they must differ pretty much form the ones created by a fully developed control center of a human brain. :)

I even tried to "draw" a couple of sound patterns inspired by Milliande's latest post.

Thoughts that emerged from that experience:

The lines seem to resemble the motion of the object creating the sound. When I closed my eyes, it was much easier to merge with the sound and the motion of its source, but it was hard to stay in the frame of the 2 D surface.

You know I always love to hear from you, right?

Please, feel free to leave a comment here or contact me at ritajc(at)inbox(dot)lv

Playing with Circles

The last couple of days have been pretty intense for me, and I'll try to tell you about the most important events in a little series of posts. One thing I have done a lot, was playing with circles and bubbles, as "Full Circle" was the theme for a bunch of assignments in the CAPI course with Milliande. This is, what came out of the first exercise

Sorry for the bad quality of the images: my camera obviously has hard time focusing on such kind of objects. :)

Stay tuned for more!

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My Creative Space

Creative Every Day

My Creative Space - A Breakthrough

Last week, I was really busy with translation jobs until Monday afternoon, but, then, Tuesday happened, and made me take a pretty sharp turn back to my path as visual artist. For the last couple of months, I was pondering, how to use all my gifts and experience the best way to serve and fulfill my life's purpose in the next future. I have always known I am an artist, but I have so many other talents and such a rich human experience, that I could never stay "just" with the art. There are so many other things I have learned and shared with others and really enjoyed the process. I haven't even attended any art schools or courses off-line. So, for the past couple of weeks, I was even considering to give up on trying to develop myself as a selling artist and to start something new as a speaker, teacher, and facilitator. But, like I said, Tuesday happened :)

Firstly, I woke up knowing, what to do with 3 paintings I had been agonizing over for months.

This one could be finished.

It's hard to believe these are some of the phases it went through in the process :)

Secondly, my both youngest kids are showing interest in attending an art school for the last couple of weeks. So we gathered some information about the one next to us and, on Tuesday, I brought my son to what we thought would be a preparatory course for the entrance exams. It turned out to be an evening studio open to everybody. I felt a strong connection to the artist/art teacher Guntis Otaņķis right away, so I stayed as well :) Everybody was working at something different. As we had never met and he had never seen any of my works, Guntis gave me the task to draw some flowers "to see, if you are an impressionist, expressionist, romantic or something else". I sketched them, and, then, IT happened.  He said: "You are most definitely an artist."  And this must have been the first time I REALLY BELIEVED IT. (My eyes still get teary every time I think back to THAT MOMENT...) After 2 hours in a wonderful creative atmosphere the sheet looks like this.

It's far from a finished drawing, but that has never been the point of it, right? Guntis expects me back with my paints next time. I feel like the Universe has finally given me the answer to all the questions I struggled to find for 5 decades because of all the different talents and gifts I have. Or had I just refused to believe, what I have always known? Anyway, every piece seems to fall in place right now and I'm just over the moon! Everything feels so easy! Even my son is happy he can do this together with me, although he isn't even sure he wants to enter the art school next summer. And my daughter can't wait to join us :) It feels huge, almost unbelievable, but no doubt to be the right thing for the next future. I might still end up not earning most of my income selling my art, but I'm sure my place is in that evening studio at least for one more time :)

To see more creative spaces visit this site and be inspired

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Faces - # 28 of 29

Today, I didn't find time and energy to paint, so my face for today is just a quick graphite sketch.


But, hey, there are some really good news: many of my new online friends like my art and some of them even want to buy some of my originals and prints. Really thrilled about that and starting to believe in me as an artist more and more. Had my last classes of this school year today, have to accomplish some really big tasks in the next couple of weeks, and than the exciting art summer can start! The Bloom True e-course with Flora Bowley starts at the 11th of June and thanks to the lovers of my art I'm in!!! I have the feeling it could be a real break through for me as an artist and person and really can't wait for it to start!

Faces - #26 of 29

Actually, I had pretty big plans for today, but my body decided not to cooperate. It's not a big deal with me, but I have to take it easy, as I still have to perform with my line dance group at an event tonight. Thank goodness, it's just one dance, and I really hope we are one of the first performers, so I can do it and leave: a loud crowd is something I need the least tonight.


Please, bear with me, as my face for today is just a quick charcoal sketch of a girl with somewhat displaced features :)

Faces - #24 of 29 etc.

My face for today is another drawing reflecting my feeling of Frida Kahlo as a woman with a short and hard life done in a soft black color pencil (found in my kids' stash).

Although I'm still pretty busy, I have worked a bit at the portrait in pink as well and, as you can see, it starts to step out of the given pallet, but, who knows, how it develops :) There's still some hope, I can have a piece for this month's Creative Color Challenge :)


As Thursday is the day of Creative Spaces jump over to this site and be ready for an inspirational blast!

Faces - #18 of 29

Today, I felt pretty lethargic and absolutely not like drawing or painting, so my face is just a quick sketch using a thick charcoal stick and my fingers

Faces - #15 of 29

As I was pretty busy today with a commission - 20 head wreaths for a children dance group - so my face for today is a pretty quick sketch of a grey cat :)
Actually, while working at the wreaths, I watched a couple of Life Book videos by Tamara Laporte. Usually, they are much too long for me, so I never seem to find time for them or get bored too soon. But this was the perfect combination, as making 20 similar wreaths is as boring, as it can be, but provides enough occupation for my body not to get sleepy watching long videos. Inspired by Tam's arting I started another face - a young girl and am quite pleased with how it looks so far. It's too dark to shoot a pic of it though. So stay tuned and you'll see her soon-ish, if I don't completely ruin the portrait :)

Face #10 of 29

As some of you know, I'm participating in the 29 Faces in May challenge and working on some kind of a face since the 1st of May every day. But today was pretty full with other things: a couple of Etsy sales to pack, a workshop at school, line dance practice and shopping in the evening besides of the daily care for my 2 youngest kids and 6 animals plus I slept in after watching some great videos last night. So my face for today is a graphite sketch from a photograph of my daughter I did a couple of days ago. I don't like it much, as it feels completely out of proportion and a bit of spooky, but she likes it :)

As Thursday is the day of Creative Spaces jump over to this site and be ready for an inspirational blast!

Faces - #4 of 29

My face #4 for the 29 Faces Challenge is a tiny graphite drawing in my sketch book. This young beautiful nun was the last one I worked at last night. This morning, I woke up from an extremely vivid dream, in which I was a nun :)

Faces - #3 of 29

Face #3 for the 29 Faces Challenge is a pretty quick sketch with two dry water color pastels  :)

Thursday is the day for creative spaces. So jump over to Our creative spaces to see more of them :) 

Faces - #2 of 29

Face #2 for the 29 Faces Challenge is a pretty quick small sketch with a thick charcoal stick and a piece of school chalk :)

Faces - 1 of 29

Yeee-haaaa! A new month, a new challenge! I spent half of the day drawing my first face for the 29 Faces' challenge! Sun is shining, daffodils are blooming, life's good!