follow your glitter star + favorite inspirations

 TITLE: Follow Your Glitter Star. Original Painting (SOLD). Prints are available in my etsy shop.

I am so excited that my ART SAVES story is featured on crescendoh.com today! AND it will be up all week long!

If you're interested in a little bit about bravery and following your intuition, you can read it right here! And I'll have two new links to some of my absolute favorite inspirations featured on the crescendoh home page each day.

And, well, I love them so much, I might as well post them right here for you too! 

  TITLE: Be, Phenomenally. The Original Painting + Prints available in my etsy shop.

Today, I chose one of my biggest all-time inspirations, Natalie (Alabama) Chanin! She's the inspiration behind this painting, BE, PHENOMENALLY, where I used a bit of Natalie's applique technique for this girl's dress (I talk more about it in this post here). 

The Alabama Chanin website features some of the finest recipes, especially if you're a lover of comfort food, and super inspiring articles and links on sustainable living and DIY projects. I've been in absolute awe of her clothing ever since I saw her featured in a magazine when she started her first clothing line. I picked up the magazine and it just happened to be one of those days where I was browsing my favorite bookstore for inspiration after work. I think I sat and read her article over and over until they had to kick me out at closing time. It was love at first sight!

For my second crescendoh link, I've mentioned Elizabeth Gilbert (author of Eat, Pray, Love) and her talk on TED. It was one of those things I watched and got tears. It hit my heart so deep. And made me feel not so weird about being an artist and creative. If you haven't seen it, it's inspirational and here.

 TITLE: Follow Your Glitter Star. Original Painting (SOLD). Prints are available in my etsy shop.

 And this is a new painting I just finished! I tried so hard to stop painting owls and birds, but then realized, "Why am I trying so hard to stop my inspiration?" So, this weekend I painted a few more owls and birds. While the rest are drying, I thought I'd share this one with you!

For this piece, I was inspired by the glittery feeling I have inside whenever I follow my passion and inspiration. To me, it's like this gorgeous shining star that exists on the inside and right there over your shoulder too. Whenever you choose to turn around and look for it, it's there. As a bit of a reminder to FOLLOW YOUR GLITTER STAR. 

This painting was created on a 5x5 inch wood block. I outlined the owl in pen and then filled in the belly with journal pages from vintage notebooks. I added more pages as half rounds like a theater curtain at the top. Then I layered on all sorts of other materials found in my studio-acrylics, ink, pastels, pencil, and glitter. 

I am just loving using glitter these days!