Creative Every Day February Home Theme

Okay, so my last post with the link from the Creative Every Day site, I didn't really describe anything about home. I kinda forgot that people can't read my mind. The portrait of my brother that I will be starting is part of my family portraits that I want to do. They are everything that home embodies in the end, and also portraits can hang in the home. Double whammy. Too bad I hadn't said that in the first place.
Anyway, I finally got the courage to post what my process has been for purely the idea of home. When the subject was posted I felt stumped at first. So I began by brainstorming.
First a little chart to help determine the multiple things I think of, however faintly unrelated, when I think of "home":

Then, when that wasn't quite enough,
I tried just simple word association lists:










After this, I kind of fooled around and sketched simplistic things that in my twisted head, made some sort of sense.
The first sketch was my mother & daughter idea, but I can't think of anyway I could elaborate on this to do a piece that I would truly be happy with. Strangely enough, this idea came to me from the way a piece of hair was stuck to the wall in the shower. I have a thing for seeing things that aren't truly or barely there. Too bad I can't translate half of what I see. Here is that first sketch.
The second sketch was my "literal" translation...only it isn't really a depiction of any home I've ever lived in. I guess in a way it is my new house that I am in now. This is my first 2 story, it sometimes feels isolated from the real world, and baby trees are more frequent and likely than real babies in my neighborhood. It's desolate, but in the works. Here is my goofy sketch of home:Ah yes, I forgot to mention that it's completely made up of layering squares. A few years back I had this habit of doodling by overlapping squares and then randomly shading in bits of squares to make it seem that the squares made up some kind of being or robot. This is yet another example of ideas I have had and never worked on.
Okay, so after I went through an emotional/relationship and a literal translation, I went to my version of some one else's home, but it's a little cutesy for me. I was watcing TV more than really trying to be creative at this point. So here's the cheeziness. See what I mean. haha. I just like the idea and lines of wood grain.
And I love the soft-ish lead I was using too.

Now, weeks after all this, I started working on an actual painting. I based it off the literal home sketch, but took it a bit further. I made it about my grandmother's house on her farm that I visited and worked (& played) in every summer. Now, bear in mind, the only actual resemblence to my grandmother's home is that it is pink, and there were skinny tall trees near the front door. Other than that...not at all like this. BUT there are elements that went into it and the emotion that went into it that reside on that farm, and likewise in this painting. It is my way of looking at the past, seeing what I want to see, remembering too much at once and loving it regardless of who/what/where it is. There are a lot of layers on this piece that I do not think show up in this picture. AND this picture is only the central part of the piece, which is the most complete. Here it is.

And so, as the week comes to its beginning, and the month upon its end, I say here is my "home" more aptly than before.