How did my funny faces come about
I walk for my health; I have been walking for years, but I find it boring so I try and have a purpose for my walks… and I’ve gone through a lot of purposes instituting nature into my art…. The faces I came up with was one of idea one of the first examples of my incorporating nature into my artwork.
Where I am, in Texas, there aren’t the nice smooth rocks like there are at the seashore or in rivers. I know people paint on those all of the time, sometimes faces, others with realism or design, which I could see doing if those kinds of rocks were available to me…
So I used what I had available. I’d go on a walk and come back with my pockets or fanny-pack bulging with all kinds of jagged rocks. I took them home, cleaned them off and would just look at them until the remnants of some sort of character would appear. Some rock features are especially good for this – a protrusion that could be made into a nose or a chin, a hole could be a mouth or an eye socket. I am amazed how frequently the face in its entirety will just appear to me – almost as if it draws itself!
So I started painting in the faces as I saw them, not ONE face per rock (that I’ve been told I SHOULD do) but many faces on a single rock – wherever the face would appear to me. I’ve had a few with as one (though rare) and as many as 20-30 faces, but usually I’d say the average is 5 or so.
But for the purposes of this sample canvas, I started drawing the faces from my rocks (which are all unique to the particular rock I’ve drawn out) onto canvases, into repeat designs, onto lampshades – wherever...until it became a regular thing I do (though one of many original processes I have developed).
And when I say original, I hasten to add that it doesn’t mean others haven’t evolved their art also into similar techniques, though thus far I haven’t seen any, but I have seen people copy others of my techniques (one artist was someone I even was supposed too be interning for to learn about the art business-which I didn't!) but that is another story however… But this describes how I came up with my process.
Having been a technical writer, and a writer otherwise all of my life I take seriously the idea of never ever plagiarizing someone else's work. I also wouldn't have to, because I knew I had more ideas than I could do in a lifetime at age 18 -- so I go to great lengths to never copy another artists' work.