After the art festival

So I think my next steps after the art festival on May 5th is to begin working with other blogs to be a sponsor. My work will be featured, I could give away prints or originals and I think this would really increase traffic to my blog.

The blues

I'm fascinated with dark blues right now, which is odd, because I have nothing dark blue in my house...it's not one of my favorite colors. I just love how the paint color sits on the canvas. Here's a few I've been working on recently for Oak Groove.

12x12 canvas board, paper, acrylic, marker. I used a doilie as a stencil to make the tree. for sale

The red series

I’ve been accepted as a vendor in the Oak Groove Art Festival on May 5, 2013. yay! This is extremely exciting for me. And as a result, I’ve been painting up a storm. Here’s a few of a series of deep red paintings I’ve been working on. Please forgive the iphone photos.

One of my favorite sayings. 12x12, acrylic paint, paper, letters are actually stickers. for sale.

You are more beautiful than you think.

This is incredibly inspiring and hits home for me. It’s the latest Dove campaign using an FBI artist and women describing their faces to the artist.

Identity as an artist

"Of course there's a fish in a tree." In-progress shot.

I’ve been thinking today about these next steps I’m taking and how excited I am. And there’s a niggle of doubt and a not-so-nice voice in my head that says:

Leap and the net will appear.

It’s a leap of faith. An understanding that while you know this is the way you want to go, and you don’t know exactly how it will happen, that things will come together to catch you. The universe will provide.

A study in intuition

12x12 canvas board

"Listen to that still, small voice."

It's something I've heard a lot over these last few years of spirituality and seeking my truth.

It means that your intuition knows what is best, heart-centered for you, and not to ignore the small voice.

How much you grow is your choice.

You can choose to grow or wilt, fly or fall ~Amy Carden. 12x12 stretched canvas

This one started out looking completely different than how it looks now.

I started with paper as the first layer, then painted over it with a couple of different drawings, then finally stopped thinking.

Galileo and stars painting

12x12 stretched canvas

This painting was done in about a day and a half, only because I had to wait for some parts to dry before I could continue.

A different method was used than the previous paintings — I only used paint, stamps and stencils, no paper.

a painting or two

The following are iphone photos of a couple of my paintings (so the quality leaves a lot to be desired). These are 12x12" canvas or canvas board.

12x12 stretched canvas. I love this Isadora Duncan quote: You were once wild here, don't let them tame you.

A brief history in my art

photo credit: flickr

A friend commissioned a piece for her daughter to reflect their Japanese heritage in 2009. And I worked my butt off for that project. And I am proud of the pieces I made for my friend.   

I have painted a few more pieces since that first commission. Mostly pieces for my apartment, or for family gifts. But slowly over the course of 2-3 years, my paints dried up, my supplies got dusty, and I went on to other craft projects.

In January 2013, I decided I wanted to paint again. So I bought canvas and began to love putting paint to a blank space again. But something wasn’t working. I wasn’t happy with what I was producing. It wasn’t intuitive.

There were definitely great quotes I wanted to work with and was inspired by, but the ideas weren’t flowing. So after a few days, I put it all away.

Then in February, I saw a print of a painting that another friend had purchased and was in awe. I asked her who painted the beautiful, inspiring multi-media piece and she said Kelly Rae Roberts. 

Front door decor

To the left is a piece that marks the beginning of this season of creativity. I made this in the first part of February to replace the door décor I had up for winter. Bought the “C” at a craft store, along with scrapbook paper, and some stencils and stamps.

It has the elements of my new creative voice – paper, paint, depth.

This “season of creativity” is a reconnecting, re-emerging, re-imagining of what I have done previously.

Goings-on

I am working toward photographing the multi-media paintings I have been creating over the past month so that I can have more than just copy up on this blog. In addition, I'm wrapping my mind around selling these pieces on etsy, and a local art house that does consignment. They hang the paintings, and you pay them if they are sold. Seems like a great way to sell some things.

I also want to do more commissions for friends/family, etc. I'd really like to get things going word-of-mouth like. And it doesn't take me that long to do a painting and I usually have more than one going at a time, which keeps things interesting.