City Stroll

This is my first painting that ended up as a gift. About 7 years ago, I decided to teach myself to paint with oils. I bought a bunch of 'how to' books, followed the instructions, and this is what came out. Gotta love how much you can learn from books!

I still love it and it still hangs in my sister's house.

City Stroll (16x20)

Sunny Sunday

I had a wonderful week of holidays that was filled with art. Two paintings completed, Etsy set up, art chats with Erika, and yesterday, a day of music courtesy of the Youth Singers of Calgary, especially Kidazzle (with my friend's daughter) and OnCue (my friend's group).

All the groups are amazing and put on wonderful shows. OnCue even sang some Mraz, making it all the better for me.

And to top it all off, today is a gorgeous sunny day begging me to be outside. Nothing like a big glass of iced tea, a good book, the smell of flowers, and a little sunshine.

Happy Sunny Sunday!

Summer Reading

A friend from work moved back to Ontario about a month ago. It's been strange not having her as part of my morning 'check-in' routine or a friendly ear for when I need a movement break but I'm sure she'll be much more productive at her new job without me interrupting her and hovering in her office doorway!

Before she left, we had a team retreat at my place and she fell in love with Connemara Berries. Sadly (for her), I had already promised it to someone else. And so, I decided to paint her something as a going away gift. She chose this one from a photo by my friend Ky.

A little note about the lovely Ky. She's the most wonderful photographer. She has this uncanny ability to take something common and make it extraordinary. Things like a single rose, berries, leaves, a dew drop, a rusty fence, or a book. Makes for an abundance of options for painting!



Summer Reading (9x12)


Since my friend and I share a love of singer/songwriters & CBC Radio2 tunes, I HAD to make a playlist of my current favorites.

1. Early April Morning - Brendan James
2. Dreamcatcher - Elizabeth & The Catapult
3. Victoria - John Mayer
4. Tightrope - Green River Ordinance
5. When You Find Me - Joshua Radin
6. Awake My Soul - Mumford & Sons
7. Come Home - OneRepublic & Sara Bareilles
8. Forever & Always - Parachute
9. Winter Birds - Ray LaMontagne
10. Set the Fire to the Third Bar - Snow Patrol & Martha Wainwright
11. Perfect Heaven Space - Travis
12. Drifting - Tyrone Wells
13. Can't Go Back Now - The Weepies
14. Distance - Christina Perri
15. This = Love - The Script

ETSY!!!

I opened an Etsy shop! It's still 'under construction' but I'm super excited for it to be up and going.

Today, I visited with my friend Erika and we talked about our respective Etsy shops (among other things). We discussed banners, avatars, names of the shops, all the extra work involved (payments, return policies, how to list, what to list) and how to make our shops stand out against all the other art shops. So much to think about!

The plan, once I'm done all the promised paintings to friends and family (which are the next 5 or so), is to paint some small ones to sell and to use any money I make to travel. And then take pictures while
I travel to all those exotic places, paint them, list on Etsy, lather, rinse, repeat.

Erika's shop, The Passionate Pencil, is going to be awesome. She's an absolutely amazing artist and she'll have some fantastic art for sale soon. Go check it out!

Sprocket

Oh my goodness!! It's been almost 2 months since I posted anything and longer than that since I've finished a painting. Which also means I broke my New Year resolution 4 months in.

Fail. Major fail.

Except this is painting #6 since January, so if we average it out, I'm ahead of the game. Yeah. Let's do that.

Anyway. I finally finished Sprocket, the surprise dog painting I was commissioned to do. It really took forever to complete. Not because I didn't want to work on it, but because I was so absolutely exhausted from the rest of my life that I couldn't bring myself to work on it.

My friend took a picture of the almost finished product to reveal the surprise last weekend. It was hard for me to give her a picture when I wasn't done yet and couldn't stop myself from telling her to make sure Pat (the birthday girl) knew what I still needed to fix. My stomach was in knots and what little fingernails I had are now gone. And it was all for naught.

I just heard the surprise was a big hit and that there were happy tears & major excitement - especially because Pat just painted her basement and Sprocket matches perfectly. Big sigh of relief from over here.

Sprocket (20x24)

Now Sprocket strikes me as a Joss Stone & Amy Winehouse kind of girl, so I listened to Introducing Joss Stone, Mind, Body, & Soul, Color Me Free, and Back to Black while I painted. Lovely tunes

Work with No Results...

I painted and sketched practically all weekend and haven't finished a thing, so no pictures to post yet. I've got 4 different paintings on the go at the moment - the most I've tried to juggle so far. I don't think it's working. I have a hard time figuring out which one to work on when. The one I should be trying to finish first isn't the one I want to work on and so on and so forth.

I worked on the dog painting the most. It took forever to sketch out because she kept ending up looking like a hyena instead of a dog. I really need to vacuum up all the eraser bits all over my floor, but she looks like she's supposed to. I hope.

Fingers crossed I finish at least one this week!

Days Off

The best part of having a day off work is the hours and hours of uninterrupted (provided the on-call phone doesn't ring) time to whatever I want, whenever I want, for however long I want.

Today, I want to paint. I also want to read, watch movies, sleep, and ignore all housekeeping/errands that need to get done. Which is exactly what I'm going to do.

I've been missing my free time lately, since weekdays were full of over-time and weekends were more of the same. I may still have to be on-call this weekend, but the bright side of that is being required to stay within city limits. A reason to decline plans and stay home to paint some more. It's nicer than saying I'd rather be alone.

I've done a lot already today. Painted the outer border of Baby Clothes, Freud, and Connemara Berries (1/2 of it anyway), worked on Fall Leaves (that one is going to take FOREVER), and sketched out a couple new ones.

I'm sure there will be more to post soon!