walk softly with your dreams

TITLE: Walk Softly With Your Dreams.
Prints available in my etsy shop

with this painting, i had so much fun with color! i really let the character come out of the background, while being conscious of allowing some of the background to remain showing underneath parts of her body and face.

this piece is all about imagination and thought. i've always thought it would be amazing to actually have thought bubbles fly from our heads to capture a visual of what we imagine. and this girl is sort of walking timeless. she could exist at any point in history. yet her connection to all of humanity still remains. and so much of that connection exists in her balance between the material and immaterial world, and the ability to imagine just what she truly desires and bring it into life.

TITLE: Walk Softly With Your Dreams.
Prints available in my etsy shop

this piece was created using all sorts of materials...acrylic paints, india ink, pastel, charcoal, pencil and origami paper and vintage gold origami paper from my Great Aunt June's collection. on top, i applied an antique decoupage finish to add extra softness and protect the painting from the elements


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ps. coming up in the next few weeks i'll be making another BIG SHOP UPDATE with all of the originals I've been painting! if you're interested in any originals you see before then, just let me know! best wishes!

a new painting!

TITLE: Footsteps On Quiet Ground.
Prints available in my etsy shop

i've been having a tricky time with my paintings. i hadn't been giving my creative self enough time to really play and have fun. every time i got out my paints, i felt i had to create something good. and that just wasn't working.

so last week, i finally set aside some painting time. i also took the time to really set myself up outside. i love painting in my backyard, but i'd gotten lazy and just laid out my canvases in the grass to paint. but this time, i made sure to do it right and set up my sawhorses with a sheet of drywall for my table on top. then i put out all of my supplies, with my little cart on wheels to keep me organized. and i remembered the thing i'd most been forgetting...music. 

setting up this space and making it just perfect for myself made all of the creativity flow. this painting was one that happily evolved without lots of painting over again and again. it's a piece that as i painted, i just cleared my head and followed my instincts without ever second guessing. 

TITLE: Footsteps On Quiet Ground. 
Prints available in my etsy shop

as soon as she was finished, i knew her story. but it never occurred to me before. she's all about imagination and playing as a child...making up magical worlds and pretending they exist after you've been tucked in for bed at night. that freedom of not holding back...just letting your imagination go and feeling happy.

this piece was created using all sorts of materials...acrylic paints, spray paint, india ink, pastel, charcoal, pencil and origami paper. on top, i applied an antique decoupage finish to add extra softness and protect the painting from the elements

a painting in progress

this painting has evolved so many times. and i just can't seem to finish it.

image by Yoshitoma Nara, taken from Yoshitomo Nara: Nobody's Fool

lately i've been especially inspired by artist, yoshitomo nara. i saw a wonderful documentary on him, his art and exhibitions called Traveling With Yoshitomo Nara. 

image by Yoshitoma Nara, taken from Yoshitomo Nara: Nobody's Fool

Then I picked up the book Yoshitomo Nara: Nobody's Fool. 

And ever since, I've had it on my mind to paint close-up self-portraits inspired by Nara's artwork., especially now that I'm painting larger pieces.

I've been photographing them along the way too... and this one started out as this girl in a sweet red dress (inspired by a red velvet dress I wanted to wear every day when I was little).

And looking at this in-progress photo now, I love this piece...and i wonder why on earth didn't i stick with that girl?

And then she evolved into this blond girl...and I have to say, especially since I'm having trouble finding and keeping this girl's eyes, I'm loving her now too.

But with this girl, I just haven't been able to stop. 

And when she finally got this crazy hair...I really fell in love with her!

She currently looks pretty much like this. i hate to white out her eyes again, but something just isn't speaking to me. So I've been looking at her every day...standing back and wondering. i'm happy to be giving it all a bit of time, because i know she will come into herself...but i am just wondering what this painting will turn into next. 

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once she's finished, i'll share with you all of the in-progress shots...quite a story behind this piece too.

this is your life.

one of the seriously most fun things about my class with flora bowley was the moment after we had been working on our paintings all morning and she had us pass them to the person on our left...for good.

i was just starting to like my painting when i got this one from my lovely friend, Pam. she had used a cap from one of our paint tubes to stamp all of these white circles everywhere. it was a move i never would have thought of, and as soon as she gifted me with her painting, i started filling in all of the circles with bright paint!

there were plenty of times when i decided to flip it around and work from the other side.

 Pam had a metal piece from her coffee maker that i used as a stamp to add all of the little yellow-green polka dots. And flora turned me on to using a wide foam brush and i had a ton of fun creating texture and line with it...

and i just kept on painting and adding lots of layers!

this is how the painting looked when i showed it for gallery night at the do what you love retreat.

but once i got to my hotel room in york, i simply had to add a character. 

i tried all sorts of animals and girls, and then decided to make it easy on myself and just sketched in an owl. i'd been resisting painting an owl, but i had no attachment to my painting without a character in there. i felt i have to see the eyes of something so that the piece reflects something of an emotion...something that i feel to then convey a story to the viewer.

so i painted in my owl, leaving some of the background i loved to show through.

and when i wasn't too happy with my owl's shape anymore, i gave him a new character by filling in some blue to the background.

i was liking the way my owl seemed to just be floating there, sleeping in mid-air. and i'd added in these bright colored dots for trees that reminded me of gumdrops on either side (a technique inspired by flora bowley's class and paintings). i loved the dots so much, i thought my owl needed some inside its belly too.

i was having loads of trouble feeling like i needed to define something in the backgrounds, but not knowing what i'd like it to be and not seeing much in what was already there. in my hotel, i found a photo of an arched window in a train station and added that. and it seemed like my owl needed a little egg shape to rest on...

i was liking all of my new shapes, so i decided to add in a bit more of my favorite colors.

but then i got to a point where i'd added too much definition and shape...my owl stood out too much. so i blended it back in to my surrounding by adding white texture with my wide foam brush.

now i was at a point where i really didn't like my painting. i thought i'd really messed it up, covering up all of that gorgeous blue and dot pattern. but i was happy i'd tried something and taken a chance. i knew there was no sense in keeping that original painting that i felt no attachment to.

so i went for a walk and wandered around york, england for a bit.

and when i returned, i added a new face to my owl...and i really disliked that!

so i went ahead and completely changed everything!

i disliked that even more...and i knew i'd become way too attached to my owl, so i got rid of it too!

and brought back some of that blue dot pattern i'd loved so much at the start.

i felt so much better about that blue! i kept on asking myself...who is this character that i need to appear in this painting? i got so frustrated, i made this terrible black muddy mess...

and from that, i etched in this girl with the end of my paintbrush. it all happened so quick. and when i had my girl with all of the curly-cues on top of her head..i knew i wanted her to have her hands pressed together at the center of her chest. and since my hands were all crazy full of paint at that point...i realized her hands should be my hands. so i pressed the sides of my painted hands in place...

and let the painting dry.

when i came back to it, i knew i was liking her more again. i still wasn't sure just who this character was...and in a way, i couldn't stand her...she'd given me so much trouble. i just wanted her to be beautiful. 

but i knew i just had to keep going with what i felt. i added some orange to her hair and lightened her up. then i walked away again.

when i came back, i thought, "maybe those curly-cues aren't actually her hair, but the air around her." and so she got a bit more definition in her body...and i kept those hands.

then i walked away. i went for a long walk and listened to my favorite Andrew Bird album on my headphones. So often, I thought, "What else can I do to that character? Who is that girl?" 

i thought..."okay, fine. stop resisting." i knew she had to be an owl. and i ran back into my hotel room and without thinking pulled out my white paint and a brush and in seconds i'd painted in my owl.

to me, she's really a girl wearing an owl suit. it's not a costume, it's really part of who she is. yet, it's still something she wears, adorned on the outside. 

now i felt attached to the painting. i loved her just as much as i hated her. but i knew she had to be. i already knew her name too. and when i hopped onto my place home i left her this way.

and my entire trip home i kept thinking i'd love to color in the background with dark blue. i didn't want to ruin it though, but after leaving the painting and then coming back to it when i got home and still wanting the dark background...i went for it.

i kept covering up more and more. and then i wanted to add in some more white to help my owl fit in again. so i painted in a few white circles with my fingertips. and gradually i painted in more of the dark until it all felt like it was fitting together again.

and then i remembered the one tube of paint i was able to bring back with me on the plane was copper! so i added in what flora calls FROSTING! i've never used metallics before, but i think i'm getting addicted to this copper! i started with just a few dots and soon my white circles became floating flowers!

and then i went back in with my dark and happened to have a bit of pink on my foam brush from another painting i'm working on...and that pink just worked perfectly and oh so subtly added a bit of lightness here and there!

i really loved the circle in the top left. that was a part of the background i knew i didn't want to cover up. but it just wasn't fitting. so, i took a part of it i adored...small white dots...and added them in to the rest of my painting! 

i've been reading PATTERN by Orla Kiely and so wanted to add in some pattern! so these dots were perfect!

TITLE: This Is Your Life. Prints available in my etsy shop. 

and her name? well, while at the do what you love retreat, they'd set out tiny envelopes on each table. we each choose an envelope and inside was a note...just for you! and mine read REMEMBER, THIS IS YOUR LIFE.

this is a phrase I keep coming back to. after travelling to england and being a part of the retreat, i feel so incredibly lucky and cannot believe this is my life! and for so long, i had people telling me my dreams were unrealistic and too idealistic. 

now i always remember...THIS IS YOUR LIFE! 

rest with your dreams

TITLE: rest with your dreams. prints available in my etsy shop.

there's just something about this girl that i so absolutely love. i kept her simple.

i just cleaned out my art closet and found all sorts of new fabric that i used to use for embellishing t-shirts and bags. now i'm finding they're absolutely perfect to use as stencils in my paintings!

for this piece, i knew i wanted a girl with long braids. and as i kept painting, i played a lot with not only keeping her simple, but maintaining a minimal black and white color palette so she'd stay standing out.

TITLE: rest with your dreams. prints available in my etsy shop.

i reached a point where i adored her expression and hair, but i had no idea what was going on with the background and scene. 

so i went with the not knowing and smudged a patch of white paint across the bottom. then i got the idea that she seemed to be waking up from a dream and i wasn't certain whether she was getting out of bed or heading into that dream, so i defined a few shapes in the background to look like bedposts and left the rest just filter and be.

she'd definitely all about dreaming and imagination, knowing that it's alright to be at REST WITH YOUR DREAMS!