Gathering Creative Inspiration

There are few things more frustrating than wanting to create, but feeling like you have a dearth of ideas.  Sometimes, it feels like if you've got the time and the inclination, that you should be able to work, but it doesn't work that way.  When you try your brain just dries up and ideas fly out of the window, away with the fairies.  Luckily, I've worked through this peril more than a few times, and can share some of my tips.

Grey Vines

Happy Friday all!

This is a painting that I finished about a month ago, maybe a little bit more, for my best friend.  I really loved the finished product, and am so glad that it's going to be hanging in her lovely home!  It's always such an honor to see my work hanging up, or on a iphone case or anything really.

I called this piece 'Grey Vines' for lack of a better name.  That big flower got repainted SEVERAL times before I liked it, and the last time with just a palette knife and some heavy body paint.  I started painting this at the beginning of my painting class with Flora Bowley, and I liked the way that it changed the way I made this piece, even mid-process.  This piece definitely has more texture and some of the techniques I learned from her class.

Grey Vines on Society6

My paintings will become available on Society6 as they are finished and photographed.  I hope to find a printer that I love and also put them up in my etsy shop as giclee prints, but until then, they're exclusive to my S6 shop.

Slush Pile: Sunrise over Niagara

Hi friends!

I have a lot of projects going on right now that I am super excited about, but I won't lie, I am also very tired.  So here's a picture of sunrise over the city of Niagara in Ontario.  I got up one morning in a hotel to see the sunrise, and really it was the only lovely part of the day - it grew very rainy after that and I don't think the sun was seen again that day.  I always enjoy going to Canada, and it's doubly fun for me now because my husband hasn't seen as much of it as I have.  Like me he has the heart of an explorer, but less chance to indulge it as a child.  It's fun to get to make up for it now - and I never turn down a chance to take more photos!

Niagara photography for sale

Cabin Fever

It's always in March that I start to get cabin fever.  The urge to go out and do something, anything outside is great, but the weather is not always obliging.  This is the time of year when I start to dream about a vacation to a sunny and far away island paradise, but alas, aside from my honeymoon, I haven't gotten one of those trips yet.  Does anyone else feel this way in March?  Every year it rolls around again and I start dreaming of places to go and cloudless skies with warm sunshine.

So here I am in March, thoroughly ready for a vacation.  I'm not going to the islands yet, but I've got a new fabric to share.

This is Victory Coral, a revision of one of my older prints for the weekly challenge on Spoonflower.  This challenge was to use a limited color palette, coral, black, white and mint to make a design.  When I redid this, I went in and cleaned up some of the design itself while putting down the new color.  I really like how it came out, though I wish I had made the mint a little more prominent.  Regardless, the heart motif in the design is nicely brought out by the dark background and works well with the coral and white. Victory Coral will be available for purchase in April (probably) after I receive a sample to confirm it looks as good in print as it does on my screen.

Paint, Paint, Paint

I've been on a painting kick lately.  It's been all paint and organizing around here.  I've been painting both watercolors and with acrylics.  These acrylic paintings are getting pretty big in here, and I hope to finish three more by the end of March.  You can see my progress with them on my instagram.

My watercolors are a little more modest, but no less satisfying.  Here's a beautiful floral print that I made into fabric (and is available on Society6 as a print and accessories) called Petals and Joy.  Click on the image to go to my spoonflower page.

As for the organizing part, I've made no secret that I want to sell my house and move someplace closer to my family.  This is the year, I hope.  Organizing and cleaning are the first steps in packing, at least it is for me.  I'm determined to make this move a much less hectic move than the last two I endured.  The memory of them linger even though we've been in this house for almost six years.

Where will we go?  Where the wind blows us, I suspect.  A lot has to do with timing this year, and jobs, of course.  I also need to have surgery on my other eye and my last wisdom tooth removed, so there's going to be a lot of outside issues demanding my time this year.  But I am ever positive, these things are for the best for my health, as is my prospective move closer to home.  

For the time being, my etsy shop is closed so I can work on organization and my new painting projects.  My etsy shop demands the most attention of all my shops, because I have to handle the printing and packaging.  However my spoonflower and society6 stores are still open and are getting new items added as I make them.  Please check them out!