Remington

These are a few horse sketches I did from Remington paintings when I was figuring out the composition for Our Schizophrenic Present. I was trying to find the most expressive horse faces from the book I have on him. My painting was originally intended to be several horses coming out of the rose spiral, but I was having difficulty fitting them into the format. When I started playing with the idea of just the horse head/skull, it synced visually. I'll share more on the process for that painting soon, but for now the purple horses:

Relaunch

Hark, Dear Reader!
It has been a full year since my last update, but a very busy and productive year.  So here's what has happened:  After Spring semester of 2012 was over, so was my time illustrating for the Advocate.  That was a great experience for me and I made a lot of friends that I really miss working with and being around 3 times a week.  A lot of good work came out of that time, too.  It definitely improved my visual storytelling skills and developed my working methods.  After school was out, I got a job as a counselor at Rocky Mountain Day Camp, hanging out and playing games with kids Monday—Friday.  I was also coordinating arts and crafts, so it gave me a chance to have a dry run at teaching art to elementary-aged kids.  It was also loads of fun.  I will be returning there this summer.
In August I started my elementary student teaching at Whittier Elementary, and after 8 weeks moved on to Casey Middle School to do the rest of it.  It was a great experience and I am happy to say I'm now a licensed K-12 Art Educator for the state of Colorado.  Since finishing my teaching program in December I have been substitute teaching around Boulder.  The job hunt for next fall will really start soon as positions start posting in May.
At the beginning of 2013, I committed to making one painting a month to build my portfolio.  I am ahead of schedule at this point and am working on my sixth painting this year.  They have all been 24" x 20" so far, and four of them are displayed on bachamness.com.  May is going to be a busy month for me with a trip to New York planned, camp starting, moving, and visitors at the end of the month.  There will be more on that later as it develops.
My goal moving forward is to use this space to share my process of art making with you.  I want to include more writing and probably a lot of photos taken with my iPhone.  I'm going to keep on top of this blog more as I try to branch out and show my work to a public audience.  I would encourage you to follow me on instagram if you're into that sort of thing.  It acts as kind of a mini-blog of sketches and quirky things in my life I find amusing.  It may amuse you too.
I will probably also be sharing some of what I did in that undocumented time as well.  I just got back my artists books from my instructor at Metro—who used some of them in a display at school—so I'll probably post pictures of works like that sporadically.  Again, iPhones are incredibly useful that way.
Furthermore:  The big goal is that I get an art teaching position this fall, so I'd also like to use this blog to share what my students do.  Artwork by kids is often really inspiring and even sometimes mind-blowing.
A panoply of aspirations!  I'll start in the days to come with some process shots and insight to the paintings I've been working on lately.  I'm really excited about them and eager to share what I've explored through them.
At last:  Leaving you with a quote from Ralph Waldo Emerson.  From his essay, Experience:

In times when we thought ourselves indolent, we have afterward discovered that much was accomplished, and much was begun in us.

-Blake