Lily of the Valley

                                                             

                                                                8"x10" acrylic on canvas

A recent painting I did of some Lily of the Valley. The florist at my day job was recently fired. He had been working at our establishment for many years and I was very sad to see him go. I decided that since he had been sharing his talents with us for so many years, that I would share mine with him. He had told me that his favorite flower was Lily of the Valley because of the memories he had of being a child staying at his grandmother's house. His grandmother was famous in the neighborhood for the many Lily of the Valley that she had growing alongside her home and he remembers keeping the windows open at night so that their sweet smell could lull him to sleep.

Such a sweet story was an easy inspiration for me and this piece came very quickly for me. :) 

My Winter Painting is Done!

I'm happy to announce that my Four Seasons series is FINALLY finished!! The final piece for this series is 'Winter' in all her icy glory.

 

'Winter'

acrylics on panel

                                                
                                                   detail of 'Winter'

This series has been ' in the works' for over four years! The final designs and paintings were started about a year and a half ago. Needless to say, I'm relieved to have them completed.

        

Poster design for 'The Four Season'

available at http://society6.com/phoenixartstudio/Four-Seasons-c79_Print

Do you have a favorite season? What are some of the things about that season that draws you to it?

Latest Painting and Exhibition!

My latest painting consisted of many firsts. Despite my close proximity to the ocean, this was my first and only time painting it. This was also my first time trying to paint with a palette knife. Lastly, it was my first time entering and being accepted into a professional exhibition. I have participated in school/alumni based shows in the past, but somehow this one felt more 'official' since I didn't know any of the judges or participants.

The theme of this exhibition was simply "Landscapes 2012".  As the gallery was specifically looking for Florida based landscapes this sort of narrowed things down for me a bit. I realized that I would have to paint something specifically for this show as I don't really have any Florida based landscapes that I've already painted. (Yes I do recognize the irony in this since I've lived here most of my life.) I just tend to find inspiration more easily in other locations, specifically North Carolina, but also Oregon, England, France, etc. As I began to peruse local artist hangouts for inspiration I inevitably came to the ocean and began to take lots of photographs. I took some pictures of the beaches, and the people and the vegetation and it wasn't really until I took everything home that I realized that I had taken more pictures of the people than anything else. Clearly, Florida landscapes (by themselves) weren't as interesting to me as the Florida landscape used as a background to the people who enjoy them.  Once I came to this realization, creating the painting itself came much easier.

                           My Florida "backdrop" in it's early stages.

                         Making waves with a palette knife.

                       Adding in some of the 'main characters'

12" x 24" Acrylic on Canvas

 

 

My painting "Conversations" is on exhibit at the Lighthouse Art Gallery in Tequesta, FL from now through Jan. 4th, 2013.

 

I'm working on many new things right now and will be sharing them with you very soon! Have a wonderful week!!

A Portrait Drawing and a Painting of Spring

Well I had yet another unexpected day off today. (a result of our tourist season being over with here) I'm sad to not be earning as much money, but grateful for the time to work on my artwork.
Today I worked on a portrait that I have been commissioned to do of a woman's grandson. She just wanted a simple drawing.
I must confess, I haven't done a portrait like this in a very long time. ( or a basic pencil drawing for that matter! )  It felt sort of weird at first, but then ( just as with all of my art) I felt the momentum growing and the interest in the piece as well. I still have a little bit more defining to do, but I'm pretty happy with him at this point.

                                     Something about his eyes hints at the mischievous don't they?

Once I got this far with him, I took the time to work on my painting of Spring for my four seasons series. ( to see Summer, go here) I still have about 2 hours worth of work to do on her, but she's also at a point that I'm pretty happy with. I've been enjoying the challenge of painting flowers like this. Next will be Autumn, where the challenge will be painting leaves. Fun!

      This particular photo was taken with my phone, so I apologize for the crappy photo quality! 
Hoping to have time to write another blog post tomorrow. Until then, have a wonderful night!

My Summer Painting is Finished!

                                                                Acrylic on Panel
Just like the title says, my newest painting, Summer, is complete! She's the first in my Four Seasons series. I'm really looking forward to working on Autumn, Winter and Spring! The orchids in my painting are all ones from my garden and the poppies are some that I saw in Monet's garden when I was in France this summer. I love incorporating things that I've seen in real life with the things that I see in my head.

                                                                       detail

Often when I paint, I'm either painting the things in the world around me, or I'm painting the things in the world inside my head. Typically I don't want the two worlds to meet too much, but it IS nice to be able to use things from the outside world to enhance my imaginary worlds.

                                                                     detail

I love how the colors pop in this piece! She will especially make a nice statement when hung next to the other three. I think that I'll begin work on Spring next. I really enjoyed painting the flowers and don't want to stop. :)

                                                                            detail

In other news, my appointment with the rheumatologist is this Tuesday. I've been killing myself with "what ifs" despite my best efforts to avoid doing that. Oh well. It will be nice to get it over with. I'll be sure to let everyone know what's going on as soon as I know.

Until then, have a blessed and creative day!! 

Keeping a Positive Attitude

Lately I have been having some soreness in my hands and joints and recently had some blood work done. My doctor has sent me to see a rheumatologist and I am, of course, pretty nervous about what the end results might be. It just hasn't been a good year, health wise for me! I can't stand the thought of there being anything wrong with me that might affect my hands. I'm trying to stay positive and have been making a lot of jokes about having to go to an old person's doctor. The new patient paperwork asked questions like "Can you get dressed by yourself (including doing buttons)? Can you go up 5 steps? Can you feed yourself? Do you use a specialty device to help you do any of these? etc... It's not really funny because as you get older, you definitely begin to have problems with these things; but at my age without any sort of accident to have caused it, it's just laughable.I keep joking with my mom about her 70 yr old daughter and such. I suppose that there is nothing else that one can do but find ways to laugh when faced with something like this.

I have to admit that this has sort of stunted my ability to create, but I am still pushing myself to do things. I'm working on finishing up another video as well as a couple of new paintings, including my Four Season series. I have only begun work on Summer at the moment, but will begin work on the other three very soon. Here is a work in progress photo of Summer so far.

There is some really beautiful work that I have been coming across. The FAE Team (Fantasy Artists of Etsy) has just released a new exhibition called Siren Song. It has quite a lot of really beautiful pieces and I recommend you taking a look.

Thank you for following my blog and for always supporting my endeavors and for supporting handmade! ♥

How to Varnish an Acrylic Painting

Good morning everyone!
I have finally finished up my video on how to varnish an acrylic painting. This is a final step that a lot of artists skip and they really shouldn't. The final varnish coat is meant to protect your artwork for many years to come. Often we don't think about the environmental elements that are wreaking havoc on our paintings. Dust, dirt, UV rays, etc. The final varnish coat protects your work from all of this. When you purchase a varnish I would make sure to choose one that won't yellow over time and is removable with mineral spirits or some other medium. You want the varnish to be removable in case someone in the future needs to touch something up on it. (say it is damaged somehow and needs repair) Also, this is handy in case you find that you need to add something else to the painting.

Varnish is also a wonderful way to bring out all of the rich colors in a painting. Sometimes certain paints will have more gloss while other colors remain matte. Adding a final varnish will help to unify the texture and gloss of the entire piece.

When choosing a varnish you can choose matte or gloss. I usually prefer gloss because I like that "wet paint" look, but matte varnish works just as well.

Anyway, here is my video demonstration. Enjoy!

Creative Concepts and Sketches

Some days it seems like my creative well is dry as a bone and then some days I can't seem to keep up with all of the ideas pouring in. I currently have over 30 sketches that I've made for future paintings. I also have another 20 sketches done for random jewelry pieces. Often I do these sketches at work, but it's pretty much whenever I feel the need to jot an idea down. I'm so very grateful to have this many ideas floating about, but it's sort of overwhelming at times! 

The first sketches that I am going to be creating the final paintings for were done almost a year ago and are my versions of the Four Seasons. 

 Since we're in summer right now, I've decided to start Summer first. I had a lot of fun working on a quick color study with watercolors. 

When you are creating something, do you do mock ups? Or put together a practice run? Or do you just jump in headfirst? I have to be honest that with me it sort of depends on the piece. I always will do a quick pencil or pen sketch, but as for the color studies, it sort of depends on how detailed the piece is. In these small seasonal pieces, there are so many components that I feel compelled to play around with the color a bit. For simpler compositions I will often just jump immediately to canvas. 

Here are a few sneak peeks of some other upcoming projects that I will be working on in the future...

Hope that everyone has an amazing week!!

Painting a Butterfly

For the past week, I've been hard at work painting a portrait of a butterfly fairy. She loves to lay down and let the butterflies fly about her and land in her long, beautiful hair. They have such wonderful stories to tell!

I have always loved butterflies. They seem to live two lives. One as a caterpillar and one as a beautiful, free and majestic butterfly. I always associate them with rebirth, much like a phoenix.

Each of the five butterfly families (papilionidae, pieridae, nymphalidae, lycaenidae and riodindae) have been represented in this piece. There is still quite a bit of work to do on this painting before it will be complete, but I wanted to share what I have done so far. I also wanted to share my latest video installment on youtube, "Painting a Butterfly". I still have some work to do on my video skills, but I'm not too terribly disappointed with this one. :)



Enjoy and have a wonderful day!!!

Finished Painting- Fairy Kisses

Well after weeks of working on and off, I have finally finished my mother/ daughter painting entitled Fairy Kisses. You first saw initial sketches and the early stages of this painting on my blog post Painting in Progress. It's come a long way since then!

A mother gives her daughter a kiss amongst sweet smelling lavender. I chose lavender because I have been itching to paint it again ever since my trip to England about 4 yrs ago. The color of lavender by itself is almost ordinary, but when you have a field of them the color simply takes your breath away.

                           " Fairy Kisses"  16 x 20 mixed media on wood

                                Detail

Fine quality art prints are already available at Society6 .

 I've already begun sketches for my next projects and am looking forward to sharing those with you next!
Thanks so much for stopping by and I hope to see you soon!

Painting in Progress

I leave tomorrow to go to France with my family. I have never been and am excited to immerse myself completely in all that art and culture! I'm also grateful that I've been given this amazing opportunity to be with my family. It will be wonderful to be able to share all of this with them.

I am hoping to be able to keep up with this blog while I'm gone,but as I'm not sure about the internet/computer situation over there, I felt that it would be smart to post something now before I leave. This is the current painting that I am working on. Perhaps it is because of my little sister having a little girl of her own, but I've definitely been finding myself drawn towards the pure, beautiful love that a mother has for her child. Either that or my "biological clock" is finally ticking.... yeah, right! Hahahaha! Anyway, I've been doing a lot of mother/child related sketches in my sketchbook and have finally taken one of them and am bringing it to fruition. I have always wanted to work on wood, but never really gave it a chance. This is my first time working on it and I'm really loving it! It feels so much more natural to me than painting on canvas.

Here are some quick mother/daughter sketches that I have done in my sketchbook.

Here are some images from the painting I am currently working on.

 I'm having a lot of fun with this one and am sort of sad to be going on my trip right now, only because it's inevitably going to effect the momentum that I've worked up with this piece. C'est la vie!

I wish everyone the very best and hope that you have a wonderful June! See you again in two weeks! (sooner if I can.... )

New Works

Busy as usual. I've finally finished my painting "Isabelle". This is the first in a series of masquerade paintings that I'll be doing.

                                                                        The Beginning

                                                                     The Finished Piece

                                                                                 Detail

I'm always working on several projects at once so I a mother/daughter painting I'm working on (photos to come soon) and some wedding accessories that I'm doing for an online wedding fair.

This is a barrette that I recently finished. Photos of other pieces will follow soon.


If you'd like more information about this fair, check out this blog. It has great tips for brides and gives information about this upcoming event from Jan. 17th thru Jan. 31st..

It's a great way to have a uniquely handmade wedding!

Catching Up on Artwork

With the holidays here I've been quite busy between my "real job" and my artwork. So much so that I haven't been very good about keeping up with my blog. I've been producing so much work and haven't been able to really share any of it with you. So here are a few new items that I have recently made for my shop. I am especially pleased with some of my new hair accessories. I recently ordered more supplies and am hoping to do quite a few of them. I have some really great bridal ideas for the upcoming spring season.

                                                        I really love the headbands a lot.

A medium sized barrette that sold at my show. I really love the colors in this one and will probably try to reproduce it once I get my supplies.

Some smaller barrettes that I've been working on.

I have also been reading a lot of fairy tales from around the world. Some of them were from India and as I imagined the lush iridescent silks, brilliant colors and beautiful embroidery I created these pendants.

I had a personal goal to list 100 items on my etsy shop and recently reached it! I'm so proud of myself! It's been extremely hard getting that many pieces up while working full-time. As a reward for my perseverance (something I've struggled with in the past) I have begun working on some pieces that I've wanted to do for awhile. One of them is a series of masquerade paintings. I LOVE masks and have always wanted to do some illustrations/paintings of them. I have just begun my first one. It feels like I haven't done a painting in forever so I'm feeling a bit rusty. I'm just so happy to be painting again though that I don't really care about the end result. So far I am decently happy with how it's going. I'll definitely share the end result once it's done.

This is the inital sketch that I did in my sketchbook.

Still lots of work to go...

Illustration vs Painting

During his lifetime, N.C.Wyeth created over 3,000 paintings and illustrated 112 books!





Wyeth, who was both a painter and an illustrator, understood the difference, said in 1908, "Painting and illustration cannot be mixed—one cannot merge from one into the other."





This is an interesting idea and I'm curious to hear what people think about it. I have to agree that my paintings and my illustrations usually have two different styles as well as different intentions behind them. However I don't always see such a separation in other artist's work. Are illustration and painting truly two different things? I certainly see the pre-raphaelites as illustrators and painters both. I'm just not sure if I fully agree with this statement. Do you?