Sunflowers

With everyone doing paintings of Sunflowers for the Children of the Ukraine, I decided it was time for me to do one too! So, off to Farmer’s Market last weekend, where they were selling beautiful Sunflowers. My husband bought two bundles for me, and I put them in one of my favorite vases. I do not paint very many flowers, so this was a new challenge for me.

When I put it on my page on Facebook, one of my friends said to “ditch” the arms on the vase. I am glad I did not, as I think they add character to the painting. Everyone has an opinion about art, whether intellectual or just a gut feeling. At this point in my life I only trust an opinion from an artist I consider better than myself. Everyone thinks you should listen to their opinion, but if they don’t have a background in art/color why would think how they feel is more important than how you feel about the piece. I have stopped asking the opinions of family and friends, as in most cases I do not agree with them. My sons grew up surrounded by art and design, so luckily they do have a good eye. My youngest son has made many suggestions that truly worked in art and in design. At the moment he works for a company designing furniture.

The other thing people almost always ask, is how long did it take to paint that piece. One of my dear friends, and another artist explained to me to always tell them it took years. That is indeed the truth, as you are working for years to perfect your skill. So this painting probably took thirty years and two hours!

Sunflowers

Taking Art Classes

I took an art class this Sunday for the first time in the area. I admire the work of the artist, although quite different than my normal style, and I did learn some new color mixtures, which I enjoyed. The work is a little darker than my usual style, but I had fun.

One of things that I have learned from taking art classes over many years is that even if you really like their art and style, it is not your style. Every class I have ever taken the teacher thinks their style is the only good one. I do always learn something, but I am not about the confidence that comes with it. Maybe I wish I had more confidence in what I do, so I could feel that way too!

I learned some “sweet” color combinations, but think I am back to vignettes of my own choosing, or scenes I select. I just can’t get excited about either of the paintings, and I can’t sell them (legally) as his paintbrush touched my canvas?

The picture below is part of the setup:

I might have to try to do it again with a little lighter hand and see what I think. I won’t mention the instructor’s name, as I do really respect his work and he did the following in less than an hour.

I would love to know what you think of what I have posted?

So I decided to add my own personal view to the vase scene and this is what I came up with in about an hour. Would love input on what look you like best!
Taking Art Classes

Art Classes

This summer I took quite a few Art Workshops with different painters. From some, I discovered new ways of seeing art. From others, I had a good review of the basics of art, something all artists should think about from time to time.   As would be expected, I enjoyed a couple of my classes better than others.

I am not a floral artist, but I took a studio with Stanley Bielen where we painted small florals, vegies or anything we selected from a table full of fun objects.  My first was a copy of the demo he did for the class. Stanley 1.jpg

Being happy with that, I found a small white teapot and put together a rather whimsical painting with the teapot.  All of these pieces are 6″ x 8″ or 8″ x 10″, a size I had not done much work in before, so small was a little challenging to me.

Tea Pot.jpg

The class lasted three days and each day I discovered something new or different. Stanley is a funny and intelligent instructor that kept the class laughing with stories and kept our interest by sharing facts and information about other current artists that he has met.  The class had students from all over the United States and Canada. It was fun being in a class with such dedicated artists.

Turnip  & Pepper Waiting.jpg

Going searching the table for the next object or objects to paint I spotted this beautiful turnip and loved the contrast of the bright orange peppers next to it.  Purple and orange are two of my favorite colors, so this was fun to paint and I was pleased with the composition.

Day three and a lot of the flowers on the table were starting to look a little limp, and having had such fun painting the turnip, I decided to do another vegetable – a Bok Choy. Bok Choy.jpg

I loved the floppy character of the Bok Choy and felt I “captured” the essence in this little painting.  By the last day in the afternoon, I was getting tired.  I was enjoying the class, but my energy level was down a bit.  I often think I am better in a two-day class. The last painting of the class was my worst of the series. yellow.jpg

I started too high on the canvas so I was not happy with the composition and composition, even of small paintings make or break the work.  I think I finally just cut off the bottom and repainted shortening the stems.

Being inspired by painting small, I took the concept to a slightly larger canvas and painted plants with pots from our local nursery.  I am pleased with the result and hope to do a few more of these in the future.  Pink flowers.jpg

Orange flowers.jpg

Stanely Bielen’s class at The Winslow Art Center was informative, fun and made me look at smaller objects in a new way.  This was not the first of my Summer Classes, but one I truly tried something I had not attempted before and was quite happy with the result.

One other lesson from taking many classes in too short a period of time is that every successful artist believes their paint color choices, canvas finish, and style is the best way to paint. What you should take away is that there is no one style of painting and that you can incorporate, some but not all that you gather from each professional.  Take too many classes and it becomes confusing.  Take classes from too few instructors and will realize that your paintings start to look like theirs.

I took art class once a week from the same instructor for twelve years.  One day after they opened a small local gallery and I was taking a hiatus from painting I walked by the gallery and my youngest son (in his thirties) said to me: Why do all the paintings shown here look the same, even though there were four or five artists represented?”  It was at that moment I decided to take classes from a variety of different professional artists.

Art Classes

Catching Up

Postcard for Weed

Sold this gorgeous waterfront home the first part of December and just sent out “Sold Postcards” yesterday with the hope someone out there would love for me to list their home.

Fred's New Home

Sold this home on two acres to my youngest son last month too.  Has a water and mountain view.  1934 home with lots of land to build a new home someday in the future.  So proud of my sons.  All of them are now home owners.

 

repeat Flowers

Did another version of the flower painting shown below, as the first one sold and a second one was requested by another client. Similar but different.

Flower Buddies

Happy New Years to everyone.  Hope every year is better than the last year!

Catching Up

Abstracting Flowers

Flower Buddies

It is so nice to have the time to paint once again.  I think as you go through life you have to make choices of what is really important to you at that point in time.  I went back into real estate a few months ago, to supplement our income a little.  I didn’t have to make a lot to be happy, just a little.  I missed the interaction with people since I retired and thought this would be a great way to interact, help people and add a little more interest to my life.  I chose a company that found many of the clients by “chasing” lead generation.  So a person signs on to look at a home, and immediately you were to call them.  It seemed a little like “Big Brother” is watching you, if you remember the movie from the book “1984”, and could not be comfortable disturbing peoples’ privacy, so decided to just work on my own.  That being said, I now have time to also do the things I love.

My garden is flourishing, by art is growing, and my life is much more relaxed and happy.  Find what you love and do it.  Don’t think about doing it, just go do it.

Yesterday I bought a second 12 foot kayak too, so my husband could enjoy the relaxing pleasure of being out on the water.  I did not want to order one, wait another week or two, miss another weaker two of this glorious summer.   I wanted it yesterday and I found a beautiful yellow one and they delivered and we kayaked at sunset.

Glorious!

Life is not about what you are going to do tomorrow, it is what you are doing to day.

Abstracting Flowers

The Choice of Direction is always yours.

Looking up to Pink

Picked up my paint brushes for the first time in six months.  It felt glorious.  This painting has been sitting on the canvas half done for over six months.  Life got in the way, and that should never happen to an artist.  I truly enjoy selling real estate, but was with a team that wanted you to work 7/24 and cold call people whenever they signed online to look at houses.  It made me feel like I was “Big Brother” watching what people were doing.  I don’t like it when I get email for months when I was interested for a short amount of time, or now on Facebook anything that you have viewed online or in Amazon shows up on the side bar, till your next choice of searches.

Pink & White FriendsWhen I finished this painting tonight and photographed it, I could not decide which I liked it best.  Horizontal or Vertical.  That is when I started thinking we all have choices to make every day of our life.  Today I chose to paint after having a wonderful lunch with my beautiful God daughter.  She inspired me to get back to what I love doing.

Not that I am not going to help people buy and sell houses, I am just going to take some time for me to do the things I love.

So you choose, which way do you like it better?  Vertical or Horizontal? Life is so full of wonderful choices, just take one and get on with it.

The Choice of Direction is always yours.

T-Shirt Dress with Flower Applique

Today I worked on three T-shirt dress and this was my last one and now I have to take a little break as I attempted to cut off the end of my finger with a rotary cutter.  Time for a glass of wine!   But I did photograph my hats using my drawing head.  Pretty funny use for it.  T-Shirt dress with flowers

T-Shirt Dress with Flower Applique

There is a War in my Garden

There is a War in my Garden

Todays count is 124 less slugs living in my garden. Eight were on one plant the other night. No wonder my beautiful plants were having such a bad time. They were breakfast, dinner, lunch and a midnight snack for a large population of slugs.

I have declared a War Zone in my yard, and have gone through two big containers from Costco of salt.

I never loved Salt this much, but am finding a whole new admiration for it.

Image