First Sale :)

As I finished a painting the other day and put it on top of our entertainment center, I realized that I'm running out of room for finished paintings.  So I took an armload of them to Fragrant Mushroom Gallery on Wednesday.  I was really excited when Cherri told me Thursday that this one had sold... my first sold painting :)

I have still not had much time to paint this week.  I went and started allergy shots on Friday, and one thing or another seems to get in the way, although I worked on my lorikeet a couple of times this week.  I hope to get back into the groove on Monday and start painting every day, or close to it.  I've had some kind of new inspiration and a series of paintings I want to work on, and two that I want to get done.

Consummate V's

Chinese Dragon done in henna impasto technique, with Swarovski crystal eyes. He's headed for an art contest this weekend :). This is 6x6 panel and he will be for sale after the contest.

Personal Power

Dragons and flame keep coming up in my art and meditation lately... for me these are potent symbols of raw power.

Women often tend to give away their personal power, taught to remain silent when they are in pain.  I certainly tend that way myself.  Whenever they turn up in my psyche, it's a sure sign that I need to reclaim some of that power for myself... and remind myself that I possess it.

This is a 6 x 9 watercolor painting that you can buy on the For Sale page of this site.

Six more hands today for the 50 Hands/Feet challenge.  I had a good bit of difficulty settling in today; I'm still a bit out of sorts.  I almost didn't fill this page but here they are.  They're still a pain in the butt :)

Dreams

Another Dreamscapes exercise. I love the meditative quality of it, and I"m really happy with the way the wings came out.  On the other hand, there's lots of room for improvement in my watercolor technique... it's SO different from oil painting.  In watercolor you have to leave the highlights light and build the shadows, whereas when I oil paint I tend to do the opposite, and build highlights on top of shadows.

Day 30, Painting 30

Well, here I am at the end of my challenge.  You know what's cool?  I didn't feel like I had to close the month with an amazing piece of art that will blow your mind.  In fact, this isn't even anything that's out of my own head, it's my second exercise out of Stephanie Pui-Mun Law's Dreamscapes.  I went to Michael's last night and picked up a hodgepodge of goodies... watecolor paper, a new palette knife, Liquin medium to make my oils dry more quickly, and iridescent medium for my watercolors. 

Out of all that stuff, of course, I wanted to play with the sparkles.  You probably can't see the medium in my photo here, but her wings and hair have a bit of silvery shimmer that you can see in person.  I'm not sure the green scribbles in the background work for me, but it doesn't really matter.  It does give me some information on what I want to do with backgrounds in the future.

So this is why it's cool that I feel no need to blow your mind today.  Because, I will be here tomorrow, and I will try another experiment, and it might come out great, and it might not, and I may not even paint, I may sketch.  I may have a work in progress to show you instead of something finished . But I'll be here. 

My friend from Cleveland left yesterday afternoon (it was an awesome visit and over too soon!), and I didn't get into the studio at all while she was here, but I'd painted just enough to cover that time period so that I only had to produce one painting today to meet my 30.  But I couldn't WAIT to get into the studio this morning.  Art has become part of my life.

In reality I started this challenge some time around the second week in December.  I decided I wasn't going to pressure myself to finish anything because of my painting style in December, but then, not only did I not finish a painting a day in December... I didn't finish anything in December.  So I thought this January challenge would be a good kick in the butt to stop being timid and wrap things up.  It was, it was great.  Some of the experiments I tried, I would not consider a huge success and I wouldn't even dream of showing them to anyone, at one time.  But I did.  Everything's there on my January 30/30 Challenge page, all in one place so you can see it all, my successes and ... let's call them learning experiences.  Because that's what they are.  When you show up at the canvas every day, there's no pressure to make THIS painting perfect, because even if it disappoints you, tomorrow's painting might exceed all expectations, and every one of them will teach you something about who you are, what you enjoy, what speaks to your artist's soul, and what you want to try next.

So here you have it, not a painting to knock your socks off, but just one more day, one more painting, one more step on my path that I hope does not have a destination.  I'm certainly not focused on a destination right now, although I hope that by the end of this year I can call myself a professional artist.

I keep a page of fancy scrapbooking paper around near my desk.  Sometimes words and phrases will come into my own head that I scribble down on this paper, and sometimes I run across some quote or inspiration that I want to remember.  When I do, I scribble it into one of hte spaces on this page.  I have a few of these tucked away and I recently ran across an old one with this quote on it:

Writing is like driving at night.  You cannot see beyond the headlights... but you can make the whole trip like that.     -- E.L. Doctorow

It occurred to me when I ran across that little snippet that I scribbled down years ago that art is that way too... not that you shouldn't have goals, just that you should remember to savor every bit of the journey.  The great thing about art, and writing, and blogs, is that it'll be here, years from now, and you can go back and see where you've been and how far you've come.

So if you did this challenge this month, whether you did 30 paintings or not, congratulations!  And thanks for following this journey and inspiring me.  And I hope that, like me, you'll be in the studio tomorrow, sorting out where the next turn in your path might take you.  More about that tomorrow. 

If you DIDN'T do this challenge this month, but you either are an artist or you'd love to be an artist (even if you are telling yourself you don't have the talent), I hope that today holds a few minutes of art for you, even if it's a doodle on a scrap sheet of paper while you're talking on the phone. 

Safe travels :)

P.S. If you stop by this blog and take the time to read it, do me a huge favor and drop by that 30/30 page and let me know which of my efforts you like the best... I'd love to hear a little feedback !

Smaug's Eye

Original ACEO watercolor/pen and ink. Click to purchase.

This one's inspired by that tantalizing shot of Smaug's eye at the end of the Hobbit.  I expected it, didn't you?  they weren't going to blow the surprise and show you the beast in the first of three movies, but there was that foreboding shadow as he attacked the village in the history part, and of course at the end he wakes amid his piles of gold...

Dragons completely fascinate me, and i suspect they'll frequently be the subject of the challenge I've set myself for next month when the 30 Paintings in 30 Days challenge ends... I plan do do a lot of sketching with an eye (pun intended) toward painting.  So you'll be seeing a lot more dragons from me, but for now, just like the movie, you get a tantalizing glimpse of an eye.  ;)

Fairy Exercises

Once upon a time, an elfling who wanted to be a writer discovered roleplaying games online (MUDD's... the anceint forerunner to today's MMORPG's like World of Warcraft.  They're completely text-based).  In that environment, she used to create cooperative tales with other online roleplayers. 

Nerdy, I know.

Anyway, it was during this chapter of her life that she discovered a site called Elfwood, and there found an artist named Stephanie Pui-Mun Law whose worlds in watercolor would enchant her.  While our elfling was building a website, Stephanie was even gracious enough to let her use one of these luminous works as its cover.   This was maybe 15 years ago, maybe a little less.

Fast forward.  About three years ago, after the elfling had mostly given up on actual writing (plot is not her forte, and there is not a lot of market for poetry these days) and found an outlet for creativity in other ways, like painting pewter miniatures and making wire and chainmaille jewelry (there is a nerdy thread running through this whole thing, yes).

Then she met her fairy godmother, Karen, who taught her how to paint, and more importantly, gave her the most important words an artist can know:  "Don't be afraid."  So the elfling learned to wield a paintbrush herself.

She was enchanted to discover that her favorite painter, Stephanie Pui-Mun Law, had published a book on how to paint the ethereal words that she created.  She was given this book, Dreamscapes, as a gift, but it sat on the shelf for several years (she forgot that advice from her fairy godmother).

When she finally resolved not to be afraid anymore, about a month into the Journey, she finally pulled out that book, and tried her wings.

Another page in my watercolor sketchbook, an exercise from Stephanie's book Dreamscapes:  Creating Magical Angel, Faery & Mermaid Worlds in Watercolor.  The fairy, that is.  The knotwork took at least as long and is completely my own addition, and even though it has some issues, I'm fairly pleased with it... although I think maybe I should have chosen some subtler shades so as not to overwhelm the delicate fairy.  But hey, it's a sketchbook and it's my first painting that's anything like this.

Knotwork, I can tell you now, is very meditative, almost like a zentangle once you get into the rhythm.  I drew this on graph paper and transferred it with graphite paper to the watercolor page.  transferring knotwork is not meditative and is sort of a pain in the butt.

Stephanie has been one of  my favorite artists for ages, and I own this book, her Shadowscapes tarot deck, and a calendar she did a few years ago (I really wish she'd do another one!!).  There are now two more books in the Dreamscapes series, and I want them badly, but I told myself I'd have to commit to doing a few exercises out of this one, at the least, before I can buy them. :)  Besides, painting a fairy is on the list of things to try this month.