First (and possibly last) DIY Post

Last week was amazing. My mom, sister and her little guy were in town, and I've officially decided that you shouldn't live far away from nice family. It's way too hard to say goodbye! Rowan worships his cousin; love the way this picture captures the adoring look he gave him all week!

And now...on to my project! There is a wall in our living room that used to have a charming wood burning stove attached to it. Thankfully (the not so kid-friendly)  stove is no longer there, and the wall was just asking for some lovin'.

Now, because I paint, you might think that I knew what I was doing. But the truth is, I only paint things that you put on a wall...not the wall. In fact, my only other experience was painting a kitchen that ending up a hideous lime green instead of Lemongrass, or whatever it was supposed to be. 

A visit to this site and two trips to Lowe's later, things were looking up. 

But...what good is a beautiful blank wall without something lovely to hang on it? 

I've been hanging on to any old maps I find for collaging..amazing how current technology has made them obsolete.  And what beautiful and meaningful collage material! I wanted to incorporate an Arkansas map, since it's where Ro and I met. I also had other tibits I was excited to use.

'Patchwork quilting' the pieces.

I sketched over the collaged pieces, and then went to town with my paints. 

Incorporated artwork from Masha Dyans, love how whimsical her paintings are. 

You know I have a thing about trees :) Love the way collage pieces can tell a story. 

Limited Palette

In the most awesome painting class ever (thank you Professor Miko!), we did a project using a limited palette. This guy (the author and illustrator of Dinotopia! Please tell me that book was in your childhood) does a great job of explaining what that is. I blogged about it a while back here. I was inspired to try it again, after having experimented with lots of different colors over the past months. I am always drawn to blue, and love the way that red compliments it ( though I did cheat, and used some browns, yellows and white. But still less than usual!). I also experimented with different levels of complexity, based on the same photographs; was fun to see how differently they all turned out. 

These leaves are collaged to the wood, similar to the technique I explained in this post, here.

In the handsome handyman department; the website is almost finished! Holy crap, it's beautiful, I can't WAIT to show you. 

Annnnnd...

 Each card has a different painting on them, and I just LOVE it. Don't know why little pieces of paper make you feel legit, but works for me. Excited to have them available for the upcoming show at Lillie's; if you stop by during the month of October, don't forget to enter your name for a drawing to win a painting! 

And I am so happy to have heard back from the North Beaches Art Walk today. The first juried thing I have ever entered; I'm in! If you know of a vendor that's participating, and would like a girl that paints flowers to sit in front of their shop, you just let me know. Hopefully the first time I participate will be October 20, which is the walk's fourth anniversary celebration. You know you wanna go. :)

This Week's Finds

Recent projects inspired by my 'nature walks' with Rowan; so good to unplug from the computer, phone, tv etc etc and just look.  Lots of butterflies out, but the monarchs always catch my eye. And even though we don't have a legitimate fall here in Florida, I collaged these in a 'falling' fashion...think I may be slightly nostalgic about season changes. 

A Painting in Rewind

Commission from beginning to end! I don't really love showing every step, because, let's face it, it looks pretty horrible in the beginning. So this is for you Esther! ha:) I'm learning that painting takes faith that something beautiful is going to emerge from all those layers of underpainting. I also met an artist in Penticton, Grace Shaw, who said, 'When I paint, I just take a deep breath and go for it!'. I love that! You can't over think it; you just have to go where it leads you. 

Done for lovely, lovely friends out in California, the Ebners! Based on a photograph taken by their  talented photographer son, Jeff ( check out his blog here!).

A Couple New Ones

I really don't know what happened over the last year. It's like taking that painting class unleashed an inner person I didn't know I had, with one idea not coming out complete before another one tries to push it out of the way. I'm kind of scared!  My plan is to not over think it, and just keep being inspired by the beauty in God's creation; it's endless! 

Continuing to 'stock pile' in an effort to have enough for the show in October (thank you, Megan Thomas! I MISS you!), and enough to have a (hopefully) decent looking etsy shop soon. Any other artists have suggestions on how to have a body of work for showing, and still have enough to sell?

Went back to one of my first ideas. There was a cherry tree in the background of a car ad, and the striking white against the solid color background will probably have me playing with versions of this for a long time to come. Fun to paint partially from photo inspiration and part from imagination. 

 A sweet neighbor and friend commissioned these for her beach loving husband's birthday, and I've been waiting to put up pictures until she gave it to him ( not that I think he reads my blog, but you can never be to careful! ha) Thanks so much Anna and Dallas! 

Evolution of a Painting

Loved having Esther here. And loved throwing paint around with her! I'd bought a large canvas before she came ( half off at Crafts and More, woot!) to play on. As we were talking about ideas for it, we decided that we would take turns layering and just see where it ended. There are some pretty hilarious layers.

First layer. Chuck supervising. Esther starts her paintings with silhouettes of people, and abstract shapes...

Maybe a horizon line? Some blooms? Little detail? What on earth. Have no idea where this is going. But having a splendid time. 

Patchwork quilt phase. Sensory overload. Scary green blob attacks female figure's head. Yellow and white fairies wander into top right. 

Both decided it needed three things: simplify, simplify, simplify. 

 Esther added super vibrant colors, and collage elements. She called this the Salvador Dali stage (potentially because of the half face on the flower).  

Bright colors toned down, more collaging (the profile's back!) and some whispy flowers...think we're done! Sometimes doing whatever you want without thinking about the end product at all is delightfully refreshing.