Creative Endeavors in Art

Ascending

I am coming to the realization that I prefer to do abstracts more than realistic painting.  I love the freedom of abstracts gives.  I love how a painting will intuitively lead me.  For instance in this painting, my intention from the get go was to painting something with to do with "Edges" and that is NOT how it turned out!  In fact, the numbers you see on the side represent the alphabet spelling out "edges"!  A ladder form appeared and I went with it.  I am really happy with how it turned out!

Lately, I've been busy teaching an art journaling class to highly at risk teenagers!  It is the same school that Steve teaches at.  My excuse for not doing much artwork lately is coming up with engaging lesson plans.  It has been a very humbling experience learning about the kids my husband teaches every day.  Their rough start to life is hard to comprehend let alone give them hope for a better future.  My hope is they learned more about expressing themselves in healthy, artistic ways.  

I hope to be more focused these next coming months on painting more!  Stay tuned!

 

ARTMA is coming this month!

I'm so excited for ARTMA this month!!  What is ARTMA?  It's a magical art event that raises money for pediatric cancer research.   Hundreds of artist, nationwide, donate artwork to the event.  It's basically a huge party and silent/live art auction!!  Live music and catered food add to the cool ambiance of the evening.  This year, ARTMA will be held at Denver's Glitterdome!!   How cool is that!  Here is a link for more information about the event and how to get tickets if you are interested.  We'll be there!!

ARTMA Information

Here is the painting I donated for ARTMA:

HIDDEN RADIANCE - cold wax and oils

Wabi-Sabi Poppy Field

I've been reading up on what wabi-sabi is:  it is a Japanese term that means finding beauty in the imperfect and weathered nature.  So to apply the wabi-sabi to my art, I wanted to use colors I see in nature and use a certain kind of intuition.  

While wondering what my next painting would be next, poppies kept coming to mind.  I vividly remember  the beautiful poppy fields in Spain.   There is something about poppies I just love.  With a photo for reference and keeping the wabi-sabi style in mind, this is what came of it.  I like how loose I was able to paint this way.

Underwater Dream

 

Playing with acrylic inks in an intuitive way, these crazy looking jellyfish appeared!  I am kind of fascinated with these translucent alien beings.  They are such interesting creatures.  Painting loosely like this is so out of my comfort zone, yet it was very meditative to paint.  It's actually my artistic goal this year to paint more intuitively.  Let's see where it takes me!

Chaos and Calm

I love to etch into a painting to create a story within a painting.  It's like unearthing something that wants to come to the surface.

This piece represents about choosing to be free of chaos/drama by observing it from your place of serenity.  

Evolving

Here is another painting I finished in March called "Evolving".  At first glance, it just looks like layers of different colors.  There is a story behind this:

Red layer represents my earlier life with Wiley, Morgan and Parker. Red had always been my favorite color.  Some of the collaged papers are of Wiley's aviation maps, Morgan's drawing of a race car and Parker's practice of writing "U"s.  When I would tell Morgan and Parker, "I love you", they would reply, "You!"

Black layer represents the devastating lose of Wiley, Morgan and Parker.  I etched in a heartbeat that stops along the way.

White layer represents a very deep period of grieving where all I knew of myself died along with my family.

Blue layer represents meeting Steve, the love of my life.  He brought color back to my life and feeling (hence the texture).

Purple layer represents where I am now in my life.  My past life and present life creates a new color for me, purple.  Dragonflies have always been special to me.  They symbolize change and self realization.  The dragonfly has the different colored chapters in my life on its wings.  The kanji symbol is for "evolve". 

Even though my painting looks simplistic to the unknowing eye, it has very deep meaning expressing more with colors, shapes and textures than words could ever convey.

Morgan the Fox

As the years move away from the last time I saw Morgan, Parker and Wiley, it is harder to imagine what they would look like now if they were alive.  What I can do is be aware of their presence in other objects and paint what I feel.  Happy Birthday, Morgan.  I love you so much.  His birthday is March 5th.  I finished this painting a week afterwards and just now getting around to posting.

Happy 2015!!

Snow's Clarity

Happy New Year, everyone!  I can't believe it's been over two months since I last posted!   I will have to put that on my goal list for this year - blog at least once a month.  One of my other goals is to shoot for completing four paintings a month.  Over the holidays, I have a hard time coming up with inspiration for an art piece.  I guess I'm kinda wrapped up in the season.  

After all the holiday celebrations, I took a moment to just sit outside in the sun.  My doctor recommened I get more vitamin D, so that's just what I did!  I took a moment to really enjoy the sunshine and the beautiful snow on the ground.  I contemplated why I love snow so much.  This is what I found;  I love how calming snow is to me.  When things get overwhelming for me, I can rest in the comfort of snow.  Snow simplifies and purifies everything.  It grounds me to reveal in it's beauty.  That is how I came with this painting.  This painting is for sale in my ETSY shop.  Just click on the link to the right that says "ETSY Shop".

 

 

 

Portraits of Loved Ones

As we all know, the holidays creep up on us rather quickly once school starts.  So, I wanted to put it out there I'm offering people a very personal and special gift to give-a portrait of a loved one.  I love painting in this monochromatic way and it is my hope the portraits reflect the loved one's personality.  Please contact me at [email protected] if you are interested.  One out of the first three orders has already been filled!  As I mentioned in this flyer, the first three orders will receive the framing free. 

Nisei, The Second Generation

Nisei, in japanese, means second generation.  That is what my mother and her siblings were-the second generation of Japanese-Americans.

I actually finished this piece before I did my first oil painting.  I took an old black and white photo of my mom, aunt and uncle when they were young and painted from that.  My grandfather was a portrait photographer and took the photo.  The background is of collage japanese papers and journaling that I did.  For me, it was a real milestone to capture  the essence of loved ones.