Lightness

Lightness

I've been working with an interior designer lately, she found me after feeling a real response to my work after seeing it featured on the cover of our church's Advent season bulletin back in the winter. Its interesting the way connections are made. She has started directing clients to my website, where they look for pieces that will go with their decor that the designer is working on. Recently, one of her clients purchased this painting, Lightness. Its a large piece that I did a few years ago, actually right before I became pregnant for the first time.

I was feeling light and joyful, but also hesitant and a little afraid of what the journey towards parenthood would hold.

As I am in another place of uncertainty, with our move looming, right now I see lots of things that I still relate to in this piece.

Overall there is a positive, buoyant energy that really speaks to me!

This one is new to my shop, I've just made prints available right here.

Additionally, with our big show around the corner, only one week away, I have been having lots of inquiries from people wanting to buy my originals. I have just updated my website, and in the painting gallery section there you will find all of my pieces that are available. If you are interested in a particular piece please let me know as soon as possible, so that I can set it aside for you before our big show. I sell originals by request as a custom listing in my Etsy shop.

xo

Still life

This is "the one", my first love. While making this painting, in my intro to painting class in college, I fell hard for the delicious process of putting paint and brush to canvas.

My professor had set up a huge still life of fabrics and fruits in the middle of our painting classroom, and I was immediately drawn to the relationship between the gourd and the pear. When I began to paint them everything else fell away around me, and it was just me and my painting. The calm that descended upon my mind as I painted was a sensation that I could not get enough of, I came at all hours to the studio to work on this painting. The colors and the texture of the paint transfixed me, but the most amazing thing to me was the magic of it...the way I could squeeze a blob of paint from a tube onto my palette and through just using my brush to smear it onto a canvas I could create anything that I wanted. Here, so many years later, the satisfaction that I felt as I painted the orange skin of the gourd is still palpable to me, and I still can't get enough of painting.

Today my still life adorns one of the nooks in my parent's lovely living room. Whenever I am there I take some time for a little visit, sometimes just a glance, sometimes a longer gaze or an up-close study. This still life will always be one of my most precious paintings...serving as a reminder of the discovery of first love.

Awakening

Declaring an intention is almost always a bold act, not something without thought and definitely something with action behind it. That is how I felt when I declared my intention, back in September, to work on my affirmation series, a group of paintings that I saw in my mind and was really excited about bringing to life.
Well, the painting fates had other ideas because I was surprised at just how much I struggled with the second painting in that series. The first painting was about the affirmation Strength and Beauty Surround You, and this second painting was going to be called Dream in Color.


For some reason I just didn't feel "right" about this painting and while I finished other pieces with ease this piece sat in my studio, I worked on it in starts and fits, adding pattern and color, but it wasn't until I realized that the bird needed to be different that the painting really started to come together.
She's not dreaming you see. She is awake, and bright eyed to the color around her!

So, this painting is now called Awakening.

It is part of larger lesson that I have taken here, I can't make a painting or a situation different than it is meant to be. All I can do is be truly awake and alive to the color, the life, the ideas all around me.

Cards and inspiration

Five note card set

I am so excited that my cards are finally in stock over at my Etsy shop! I had cards made of five of my most popular images; Hope, Seasons, Longing, Solstice and Beginning. I'm so pleased with how they turned out and I can't wait to give them as holiday gifts!
They will be for sale alone and also in 3 or 5 card sets. My favorite is the set of five cards with one of each image pictured above.

Thinking more and more about visual process makes me want to share more of my way of working with you! One of the ways that I stay inspired is through constantly collecting images. I always have my camera with me to capture inspiration in my daily life (photographing birds anyone?) and when ever I read I am looking for images that grab me. I love to read design magazines (oh I miss domino magazine). I have even been known to pour over wallpaper catalogues, spend hours in fabric stores, and lounge around with botanical illustration books. Since having children I have discovered a world of inspiring children's book illustrations.

I keep all of my collected images in file folders in my studio. When I am online and see an image that I love I drag it into a file that I keep on my desktop labeled "inspiration". Since I'm still a paper kind of girl, every so often I go through that file and print out the ones that still sing to me.

These are images that I refer to whenever I am feeling stuck, uninspired, looking for pattern or color scheme ideas or just need to rev-up my creative engines. I keep my current favorites pinned up on an inspiration wire next to my studio table. I really do find them every where...

This butterfly poster from the Museum of Natural History has been calling to me lately. Nature is endlessly inspiring.

I make an effort never to copy any of the images directly, rather I use them as a jumping off point. So often I am surprised where the ideas generated from one image will take me! Isn't that the excitement of the creative process!
How do you get inspired and keep your inspirational tools at hand? I'd love to know.