It Takes A Village

I have received so much encouragement this week! It so easy to get down and discouraged especially when working on your own. Sometimes I can't believe I left a very good paying job to create art! Are you crazy or what?! and did you hear about the economy? When these times happen it always seems like the encouragers come out from sometimes the most unexpected places.
This last week from a student I now teach at home. It was as if the roles were reversed and she taught me. "You've got to do what you enjoy." My daughter who has found success in doing what she enjoys encouraged me with you've got to keep pushing through, keep working! My friend Dina who reminds me from time to time that she believes in what I'm doing. The occasional sale that occurs and then my wonderful husband. And most of all I thank God, creator and the master Artist. Thank you for encouraging!
And hey I got this watercolor painting done today- no title yet- you can see how it progressed from Saturday's blog.
Pretty excited about tonight we are going to a Jeremy Larson concert at the Randy Bacon studio in Springfield. I love his music! Perfect for the abstract painting.
I've started a new little shop with fun abstract paintings that I do. If your interested these can be found in my Etsy shop. I've been selling my flowers on E-bay. I need to get back to painting the abstracts on canvas, as well continuing with the watercolors. Maybe a new series with this flower. Any way my fun abstracts can be found on:
http://colorsplashes.etsy.com  SOLD

What's Up!

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This week I finished painting and posting most all the abstracts I've painted for the new Etsy shop. I ended the week with this little abstract (not posted yet) and then I began another watercolor realistic painting. (posted on the far left. Not completed yet) What's up with that?! Two styles of painting that seem to be on opposite sides of each other.
I'm inspired by Georgia O'keefe and have been reading a biography of hers lately. This perhaps is helping to make some sense of it. At one point in her life she had given up on painting, when she was inspired by a certain teacher, that taught her it's more about making a beautiful space. It's how shapes are placed within a picture that express an idea. So, maybe more importantly is not style but design.
Last weeks abstracts are on Etsy. http://colorsplashes.etsy.com

Fractal

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Fractal- mixed up color in a garden. That's me!! A bit late on keeping up my post. I've been meaning to post once a week. Anyways I am back to working on abstracts- at least I was last week and will be finishing up this week. Although, I painted a red spotted tiger lily this morning. I can post this on E-bay.

I thought I would post one of my dotted abstracts "Fractal" on here today. I've completed ten of these and will be starting up a new shop on Etsy with these. Will see how these go. They really have been alot of fun to create- don't ask me about the dots I somehow got into dots. It all started with stencils, watercolors and gouache. Almost as much fun was coming up with the names! Enjoy!

It's Friday!

There at times when it seems as if everything is running smoothly and under control and then suddenly it begins to pour. There have been so many changes occur this week as well as many ups and downs emotionally. Just as I was feeling as if I had my time management under control, and was disciplining myself to spend so many hours a week, I've had a week in which I completed only one small painting. So, sorry not much that way, but..., it has been an packed full eventful week.

On Monday, we were asked to become foster parents in a unique situation that had arisen. We were more than happy to accept this responsibility, adding one more to what we thought was becoming our empty nest ! This required many changes, paper work, moving, transferring of schools etc., that needed to be taken care of immediately. After taking care of all these matters, we do feel like we are finally becoming a bit more settled here on Friday.

Tuesday, I had the opportunity to take and show art work of mine to a local gallery in the downtown area. This was a totally new experience for me so I was quite nervous, but felt as if it went quite well. They were quite sure they wanted to take my abstracts and watercolor collages in, but needed to talk to the owner. Thursday, I got a call from Hawthorne's Gallery, the owner was interested! Hawthorne's is a very nice gallery so I'm pretty excited about it, and feeling as if I'm going to enjoy working with them very much. We connected very well-

And so here we are on Friday, which is my husband's birthday! I haven't gotten but one little painting done, and just as I thought I was becoming disciplined it all got blown away this week. Next week, I hope to be back to work on art. God is good and we feel blessed.

First Blog "Purple Fall Iris"

Well here I am posting my very first blog. If you have happened to come across this by chance I hope that you will add me to your list to follow. I am new at this and a bit technology challenged, but I am learning. So please be patient as I learn how to manipulate and navigate through all this.

I've been painting seriously for several months now. When I say seriously I mean that I left(resigned) my position as a teacher in order to pursue a professional career in art. I know probably a not so smart thing to do given the present economy, but I had to follow my heart. So I took a big step in moving out in faith. I love to paint and create!

I've been working realistically and abstractly in acrylics and watercolors. I always seem to come back to watercolors though. I never thought flowers would be something that I would be interested in as subject matter. But after several mentions from others, I decided to work on a few flowers. In fact I thought it might be a bit boring, but I have really taken up a passion to work with them. I've been taking my own photos to work with, so that I genuinely can call my paintings original. I also wondered how this interest in abstract and realism would come together, and I am finding that I can bring the abstraction into the realistic process.

I love zooming in on the flowers to where they become abstract, but yet you can still recognized them as being a part of a flower. A Georgia O'Keefe type of thing. She began painting these huge flowers on canvases, because she believed that New Yorkers needed to take some time and notice the beauty around that was being missed by such a fast pace life. By making them so big they couldn't help but notice, and they became abstract. So, I've been working with this as well.

I'm working on a professional resume. I've raised a family and taught as a Art Educator for over a decade. I am beginning this blog in order to journal this new journey and to encourage others. I have sold a few pieces and it has totally blessed my heart to hear from those people about how much they like and appreciate my work.

This painting that I have posted is titled "Purple Fall Iris". I recently took this photo on an excursion to a nearby park here in Missouri the last few days in September. ( I now have enough photos to last all winter!) This purple iris was in full bloom and was absolutely gorgeous. This week I spent a few days on this painting. I was attracted to the background in this photo because it had these circles which were actually flowers in the background that were out of focus.

I would love to hear any comments you might have!