"Sunburst on the Isle" - A Landscape Painting

"Sunburst on the Isle"     5" x 7"     Acrylic on Museum Quality Claybord

Here's my second submission for the month of January for the Virtual Paintout. You can see my first one for this month here. We went to the Isle of Man, and as I said earlier, it is one of the most beautiful places on this planet, and I didn't even know it existed. Granted, I always say let's go up to LA and down to San Francisco, so I clearly don't have the best geographical sense or knowledge, but still... =P

I have loved painting along the coast of this Isle, and when I stumbled upon this particular spot I just knew I had to put it down in paint! I can't take all the credit though! I had one of my dearest friends over, Megan, who's son was in the NICU both at Walnut Creek and at Antioch with Levi, and who Tyler actually drove home from their high school graduation (what are the odds we would both have our sons two months early in the same place, especially considering she lived in Sacramento at the time?), and she played the PERFECT art critic today. She was amazing! Helping me to see what should go here, what shouldn't go there, and where to make highlights stronger or less obtrusive, and this painting is all the better for her incredible feedback. Thank you SOOO much Megan, you were an incredible helper and my work is so much better because you were here! You're totally gonna have to come over while I paint more often because I think I've honestly tapped Tyler's patience out with asking him constantly what he thinks. Poor guy!

So, I have some majorly good news today! One of my paintings got selected today for the DPW Facebook picks of the day!!! (You can see it as it is on their page for Jan. 29th if you click here - they picked "Misty Mountains Majesty and it seems to be right next to a painting of little nakie kiddos running through the water, if that helps you find it. Hahaha, so great...) Anyways, I am so thrilled I could just explode! I mean, little ole me has one of my paintings up there with FAMOUS artists - I just can't believe it. And I know some people probably think it's silly for me to be so excited, but I am just thrilled with the fact that other people actually thought my work was good. MY WORK! Woo-hoo!!! I couldn't be happier for this little step in the right direction, as it confirms for me in my heart that I'm going the right direction with my art, and I'm just hoping and praying this leads someday to even more paintings up there on that special little wall. How cool would that be? But even if I only get this one, I don't care, I'm just happy for my name being up there with all those fabulous artists!

Here's the screen shot of my painting as it appeared on their blog page. Sorry, just wanted this on here for my own personal records. =)

MY TIP FOR THE DAY:
I can't tell you just how important it can be to find someone who you can show your work to that will GENTLY tell you the truth about it, without causing you to get hurt. Sometimes those closest to you are the best people to go to, and sometimes they're not, but it should be someone who knows at least a little bit about art, even if they don't make any themselves. And it can sometimes be best to not have it be someone you are personally competitive with, because that can cause problems in and of itself. So, do you have a muse or a critic that helps make your work better than it would be without their help? Do you have someone you can turn to that will lovingly help you see where you can grow? I know I have more than one, and I love each and every one of them for being so honest and helpful, even when it hurts. So, as Levi says, "If you don't have one, get one!" (Lol, sorry, he just watches WAY too much Toy Story - it's his all time favorite!)

"Misty Mountains Majesty" - An Expressionist Painting

"Misty Mountains Majesty"     5" x 7"      Acrylic on Museum Quality Claybord

Not For Sale

PRINTS will be available soon from Fine Art America

Only 4 more days left for this challenge, meaning only 4 more days for you to follow my blog as a member and enter yourself to win one of my paintings from my "30 Paintings in 30 Days" Collection. Time is going way too fast for me right now!!!


Oh man, this is the third painting in a row that I've gotten in by the skin of my teeth, where as soon as it published the submission link for Leslie's Blog Post for Day 25 closed. This is craziness!!! But here it is, and I rather like how this one turned out. Actually, to be quite honest, I like it A LOT - it's one of my very favorites from this month! =) It's from our trip to Montana back in 2011, from which I have an extensive wealth of gorgeous photographs that not only need to be made into prints, but also that are just begging for me to paint them. I seriously can't wait to spend more and more time delving deeper and deeper into the possibilities of all the works I can create from just that trip alone. It's a bit overwhelming, but in a good way. =)

MY TIP FOR THE DAY
So this is actually a rather silly tip, but I'll put it up here none-the-less. It's the exact opposite of my last tip, in which I explained that you can indeed use a brush to blend pastels into beautifully soft gradations of color, and keep yourself clean in the process. So, for today, I would love to encourage you to do the opposite with your paints. Put your brush down, scoop up some paint on your finger, and revert back to your childhood for a moment and finger paint with me - trust me, you won't regret it! Your finger is a fantastic blending tool for just about anything, and you can use it to achieve beautiful, painterly strokes in both acrylic and oils, as well as lovely gradients where the foreground fades into the background in an almost seamless manner. And the very best part about it - it makes you feel like a kid again!!! =D I love the feeling I get when I blend with my fingers, for it's a feeling of continuous youth, where the possibilities are endless and where your imagination soars as it did when you were young. It's a wonderful feeling! So, if you're feeling bold and don't mind getting a little (or a lot!) of paint on your hands, I say you should give this a shot. =0)

I have found it especially useful to actually pick up a little extra paint with your fingertip and start your blending from there, so that you don't just pull up the existing paint from the surface you are working on. Then you softly blend it in, swirling your finger around gently on the surface, picking up colors from here and there and adding more paint with your fingertip as you start to run dry, which you will know is happening by the amount of friction created. Try to make sure that your paint is running smoothly, and not dragging and catching or you'll get what I call "skips" where the paint not only pulls up but also jumps around without adhering to certain places where you want it to. Or if you want that to happen, just go for it. That's the joy of creating isn't it - that the sky's the limit?!

Well, I wish you the best of luck with this and hope that if you try it, you would find the little kid inside of you, just waiting around hoping and hopping impatiently to be set free. Because when your inner-child has been set free and you can look at the world from a child's perspective, you will see things completely differently, with great joy and wonder, and you might even be able to find joy in situations you never could have possibly imagined before.

Even the Lord prompts us to be more like little children, to have faith like them for the kingdom of heaven belongs to those like them. It makes perfect sense if you think about it - children are so pure and unspoiled (though they are definitely not without sin just like we aren't, let me tell ya! I definitely have a two year old running wildly about my house every day... =/ Lol!). But the way that they see the world and how they can trust with great abundance and unwavering faith makes it so obvious why God would want us to be more like them. How great would it be to trust without holding anything back? To jump blindly into our Father's arms, knowing beyond a shadow of a doubt that He WILL catch us and protect us from harm. To be completely devoted to Him and love Him and others without reservation. Oh how I wish I could be like that! Someday when I see Him face to face I know that I won't be able to do anything but that, but oh how I wish that I could be that way now...

"Then little children were brought to Jesus for him to place his hands on them and pray for them. But the disciples rebuked those who brought them. Jesus said, 'Let the little children come to me, and do not hinder them, for the kingdom of heaven belongs to such as these.' " (Matthew 19:13-14)
 "He called a little child and had him stand among them. And he said: 'I tell you the truth, unless you change and become like little children, you will never enter the kingdom of heaven. Therefore, whoever humbles himself like this child is the greatest in the kingdom of heaven." (Matthew 18:2-4)

"Stylized Self Portrait" - An Expressionist Painting with Pastel and Graphite

"Stylized Self Portrait"     8.5" x 11"     Pastel and Graphite on Paper

SOLD

PRINTS will be available soon from Fine Art America

I decided that now that I'm 29 and all (yup, only one year left until the infamous 3-0!), that I wanted to try out something a little different today. I mean, for me, that's what this 30 Day Challenge is all about - trying out new styles, new tools, new techniques, and of course, new subject matter. So, that led to this... Me. Stylized. I hope you like it, because just like me, it's a little different and not quite perfect, was quite challenging to work with, a bit overstated, and yet soft and sweet as well. I don't know, half the time I find myself to be this annoyingly loud, overwhelming and energetic person, and the rest of the time I find myself to be gentle, soft, calming and sensitive (though I wonder if other people ever see me that way?). If I could only see and know how other people perceived me, I imagine that would be quite interesting... Although interesting usually isn't that great of a thing, depending on how people say it, am I right?! Lol! Oh man, anyways, as a little side note, I worked with what I thought to be a very limited palette of yellow, yellow ochre, orange, salmon, red, brown, white, black and aqua, (limited in the sense that so many of the colors were on the yellow, orange, and red spectrum of the color wheel) which was not only quite a challenge but was also an awesome learning experience as well. I think I shall be testing out trying to work with more and more limited palettes a bit more often from here on out, because I know that in doing so one can create amazing harmony within their paintings, if they can learn the tricks of how to use and mix colors to their fullest potential.

Well, it just so happens that I took yesterday off for my birthday, not so much by choice but by necessity really (I guess I'll be doing twice the work today to make up for it, because I am WAY too much of a perfectionist to let one of these days slip by without at least trying to get a painting in during this challenge, not to mention I just really want to have all 30 on Leslie's wall by the end so I can say I truly did it!).  So today I had my 6 hr. weekly commitment for my chronic pain class over in Martinez, and oh boy, was that ever exciting... =(  And when I got home from that, we had to go pick up a prescription, but had to transfer it first and then had to wait around for it and then... You get the picture. Anyways, I barely had the chance to even see my family today, and even when I did my pain was a little too intense to do very much with them. However, I did have two particularly sweet moments that I will treasure forever! The first was waking up to my husband and my boys, huddled around my bed singing "Happy Birthday" with a cupcake flavored pop-tart in one hand, and a tray of good ole fashioned plastic cupcakes in the other, that Levi had baked up in his oven specially just for me. Apparently, he couldn't wait, and "ate" one on the way up the stairs, but it was so adorable my heart melted right out of my body into a little puddle on the floor. I LOVED every second of that special moment, and will treasure it forever!

The second memorable moment was after the boys went down to bed and I got out the fine china, decorated the table, and ate take-home Chili's that was a gift of some good friends, Rachel and Jeffrey, (complete with cheesecake too - oh yum, yum!) by candlelight with the man who has stolen my heart time and time again. We sipped tea and talked, and it was beautiful.

So I guess my birthday wasn't too bad of a bust after all, if I focus on the sweet little moments rather than dwell on all that didn't happen today. I love my family and friends, and was shown so much love by them all today and that is what truly matters. And the simple yet astounding fact that God even allowed me to merely just wake up one more day, and to have these sacred little moments to treasure with those I love, for that is truly something never to be taken for granted!

MY TIP FOR THE DAY:
So today's tip is that you can actually use a paint brush to blend soft pastels (maybe everybody on earth knew that except me already, but I just found that out and had to try it immediately!)! My take on it is this: what was once a very frustrating medium, (cough, cough... Pastels, those messy little stinkers!) is now loads of fun so I thought I'd pass the info on to you just in case you didn't know about it either. Of course you can always use your handy-dandy finger, but for some reason the brush lends to some gorgeous blending that I couldn't have possibly achieved without it, so it's worth a shot. Well, unless you're like one of those majorly impressive professional pastel artists, and then I'm sure you can do a ridiculous amount more than I could possibly even ever dream of, in which case you're probably laughing at this tip anyways. =0)  But, if you're like me and have seldom ever used this medium before, I found this method to be so much more fun than I even expected that I could hardly believe I was even using pastels in the first place! So next time you're fussing around with pastels and possibly getting all irritated with the fact that you're entirely covered in them from head to toe, like I tend to be, grab a paint brush and get to work. It sure is less messy this way, that's for sure, and I just absolutely loved the results! I will definitely be trying this again with some other styles of pastel painting as well as pastel forms, like oil and crayon (who knew they had pastel crayons?! So excited over here!!!), and I seriously can't wait to get to work on more of them! And this coming from someone who normally hates working with pastels, so that should say a lot right there! =D

"Early Morning Wake-Up Call for Tyler" - An Abstract Painting

"Early Morning Wake-Up Call for Tyler"     5" x 7"     Acrylic on Museum Quality Claybord

Not For Sale

No, no, I wasn't lazy today by just posting the same piece again as yesterday. This one is new. Let me explain... So yesterday morning when Ty saw my piece "Early Morning Wake-Up Call" on the computer,  he loved it so much he was actually really excited about it and even said it was his absolute favorite abstract of mine yet up to date, but then was rather disappointed when he realized I had done it on such a small scale. So today's piece is my attempt at recreating it for him, still small mind you (5" x 7" per Tyler's request), but much bigger than before. I'm actually really happy with how it turned out! After all, it's really, REALLY hard to recreate an abstract, or any piece of art for that matter, exactly as it appeared before, which is why that was one of the main practices masters used to teach their apprentices how to paint. I know this painting's not even close to spot-on, but I like it and it turned out pretty stinkin' close to the original. So now I just have to play the waiting game and see later today what Tyler thinks about it, after he wakes up that is. I'm a little nervous, but after I wake up (I guess I need to sleep first) I'll let you know what he thought. Yup, yesterday I woke up at 3:30am, tonight I'll be going to bed after 4am. Wow. My schedule is ALL messed up! Ha, I sooo have to try to get back on track, but I'm starting to loose track of what being "on track" looks like... Yikes! =P

Well, I really hope you all are having a great day today! Sorry for any of you who signed up for the contest and like this piece - unless Tyler ends up hating it, I obviously made it for him so it's spoken for already. But there's plenty of other works to choose from, so no worries I hope. Plus there's the little baby version of this one too, and it looks awful cute in a frame, let me tell ya! Sorry if there are any guys reading this - that was probably a little too girly for you... Anyways, speaking of this contest, I can't believe there's only 8 more days left to sign up! Seriously, this month has flown by crazy fast!

MY TIP FOR THE DAY:
Did you know that you can actually use plastic wrap and those little thin sandwich baggies to make cool effects with your paint. It's a great tool for creating texture in your works, and you should totally give it a try! You can create multiple effects, such as splattery-ish looks (wow, that was an awful made-up word. Again, sorry. Lol!), tree bark, beautiful smudges and dappling to name a few. I used both "plastic tools" in different areas all over these last two paintings, and I have to admit, it's quite a blast to do! It's super easy too. All you have to do is apply your paint somewhat thick, or even really thick if you like, crumple up the food packaging of your choice, and dab and smear and scrunch it up into the paint, moving around the piece as you go. You can also pick up the paint with the plastic directly and apply it that way, and you can use more than one color as well to get an even more mottled effect. I think I shall be painting an entire abstract soon with only those two tools - it could be pretty cool! Can you imagine trying to do a realistic painting with only those as well - I imagine the effect would be slightly similar to knife painting, though really totally different. I'm not so sure that made much sense, but hey, it's almost 4am, so yeah... Haha, oh bother, I really need to go to bed now. So, if you feel like painting and can't remember where your brushes are at 3am, or if you just want to try something different and exciting, I highly suggest you try this out! It's a blast to do and it can add so much to your painting if you're willing to give it a shot. Either way, I hope you have a great day and have the chance to be creative, whatever that may look like for you in your life! As for me, it's nigh-night time as we call it in our house, and the kids are probably going to wake up soon, so it's off to bed for me. Talk to you later! =)

"Early Morning Wake-Up Call" - An Abstract Painting (ACEO)

"Early Morning Wake-Up Call"     2.5" x 3.5"     Acrylic on Bristol Board (ACEO)

SOLD

I am SO not a morning person, so any of you who know me will know just how crazy it is that last night I went to bed at 9:30 and woke up at 3:30am. And I mean, wide-awake! So, might as well get out the paintbrushes, right?

I had a rough night's sleep last night - woke up with the most painful stiff armed cramp I've ever had. I cried out as I was waking up, scaring the living daylights out of Ty, who had to get up and help me straighten out my arm because I couldn't do it on my own. It hurt like the dickens. Definitely a result of over-doing it yesterday. But I can't complain, you know why? Because it was sooo totally worth it! Ty and I got to go on the sweetest little date yesterday curtesy of Joleen, who watched our kids from 9:30 to 4. It was A-MAZE-ING!!! Thank you so much Joleen!

So what, pray tell, did we do? Well... First off we went to Carl's Jr, because for months now, actually years if I remember correctly, we have both been dying to try out their breakfast menu, but have never been up and out with nothing to do early enough to try them. Oh man, so good! I got the Country Style Burrito, or whatever it's called. Yummy! Then we went shopping at World Market, one of our favorite date stores, because the stuff in there is just so random. And I found quite the find of this little potpourri collection of seashells and oddly large nutshells and other various accompaniments in the colors of tan and teal blue - oh so pretty! It's supposed to be for our house but I honestly bought it because I saw so much potential within it for painting subjects. I'm so excited! And then, as usual on our dates, we went to Barnes and Noble and browsed for a bit, got a Starbucks, and then headed home to relax, and of course cuddle. "Great date,"you're  probably thinking sarcastically to yourself I'm sure, but it actually really was. It was so refreshing and beautiful for our relationship, and I loved it and I love him so very much. Okay, enough of the mushy stuff now.

I hope you're all having a great day out there and that hopefully you're nice and rested, even if you did end up getting an early morning wake-up call like I did. (Do you like how I did that?! =D Like how they do it in the movies where they drop the title in there somewhere amongst the dialogue... I'm such a rock-star! Oh yeah! Lol.) Oh man, I'm sorry, I'm such a nerd, but you know you love me. Or at least I'm gonna pretend you do... Once again, ANYWAYS... Well, have a great day all! =D

MY TIP FOR THE DAY:
Oh, wait, before I leave, I actually have a painting tip today for any of you out there wanting to try to paint on Bristol Board, which is actually quite fun and economical as well. To keep the paper from warping and curling up on you, paint an X on the back to stabilize it. You can even add an extra T over that, to give it extra support like I do. I do this before I ever even start painting on it, and then if I notice it starting to try to warp at the end when I'm all done, I repaint the X & T all over again, which will get it to stop warping all over again. Oh, and make sure you do this in a light color like white or cream if your painting is going to end up on a light ground, or really even if it's not, so it doesn't end up showing through on your final work. It should look something like this:

How to Keep Bristol Board from Warping & Curling

Umm... Except maybe a touch cleaner. Hmm... I never have been know to keep my workspace free from splatter, so I guess that's true of the back of my paintings too. Oops. Let's just say it gives it extra character. Lol!

Good luck! =)