"Slovakia" - Landscape Painting and the Beginning of a New Story as the New Year Unfolds

I recently stumbled across an amazing website called "The Virtual Paintout" and it's simply an ingenious idea created by a man named Bill Guffey. I strongly urge you to check it out - it won't disappoint! The premise is that each month Bill chooses a country or region to paint from and using images from Google maps streetview (which was approved by Google itself, so long as you only use the images from the street view and none from the little blue dots, which are all copyrighted) you choose a spot and set up your paints and well, do a virtual paintout. It kinda explains itself, right? Lol.

So for this month, the country was Slovakia, and after much perusing of Google maps and then having to re-peruse because the images I wanted to do were from the blue dots, which I found out was a big no-no, this is what I came up with. I changed the image considerably, substituting a concrete road with a wide dirt path and taking out a building that I wasn't a huge fan of, to name a few, and overall I like it much better this way. Perhaps it would have looked nice how the image was originally straight off of Google, but I liked adding my own artistic license to it - after all, it makes it feel a bit more like my own creation, straight from the heart.

"Slovakia"     4 x 5     Acrylic on Canvas Board

I've been feeling quite a bit better the last few days - no longer needing my cane or walker very often anymore unless I'm having a particularly bad day or am just plain exhausted, though I'm still using a walker or wheelchair when we go out. It's been kinda nice not having to feel like a 95 year old all the time anymore, especially since I'm just 28, even if I do still feel around 89 instead. But still, an improvement is an improvement and I'll take it!!! =0)

So because of this I've had the chance to get ahead for my other newest challenge which is painting 30 paintings in 30 days. I signed up to do this through Leslie Saeta's blog (she's an amazingly famous and gifted painter, and I couldn't be more excited to be doing this!!!) and will try to keep it going for the rest of the year, or as long as I'm able. The plus side about these two new "finds" as I would call them is that I can use my painting for the virtual paintout for the 30 day challenge, thereby killing two birds with one stone.

Honestly, I really desperately want to become a daily painter this year. It's my big, giant & honestly quite daunting dream right now, but I want it so bad that I think 2013 is the year! I wanted to get on dailypainters.com or in a gallery before I turn 30, and time is ticking away all too quickly. And most importantly, I really, REALLY want to start selling my work this year, so I've decided that I'm going to take one more giant step towards these goals, giving myself slack when I fail and picking myself up again when I fall flat on my face, and of course celebrating like crazy whenever I reach any one of my goals. It will mean I'll be working smaller than normal for most of the time, though I'll still going to do some larger paintings when I'm actually ahead for the week, if that ever happens! Lol. I'm guessing most of the time I'm going to be having to do multiple paintings a day just to catch up, but I've been wanting to try this for so many years now and even though medically speaking things look extremely bleak, I need something fun for myself that I can do so I can be the type of mommy, wife and friend I want to be. And for me, that something is this. So wish me luck in this new endeavor, because I sure am gonna need it! Feel free to share any of your New Years Resolutions here if you want - it's always fun to hear from you all! I hope you're having a fantastic New Years Eve and will see you all in the New Year!!! =D