Desperately Seeking Inspiration

*big movie voice* And now, Ladies and Gentleman, the long-awaited sequel to Inspiration Lost.

Fortunately, I'm not so hopeless or dramatic as the title sounds!

As I wrote before, I hit a period at the beginning of this summer of deep introspective about my life and art. Chaos was reigning in my personal life and I think I simply put art on a "business" auto pilot.

Although I painted subjects I was fond of (nature), I leaned everything towards "what people like" and "what people will buy." Needless to say, the "people" were a step behind in my agenda! I had decent yet disappointing sales this spring. I didn't understand..I did all the "right" things. I painted what "they" wanted, I painted smaller and created different "price points." I invested heavily into creating a set of prints from my most popular pieces. I marketed, I followed up, etc, etc.

Somewhere in the middle of all my business books and marketing plans, I lost site of my vision. In fact, I wasn't sure what my vision was or should be. I've done a lot of decent paintings over the past year and a some good paintings, but few great paintings. I'm capable of it, I have a few in my inventory, but as a long-time friend wrote to me one time, she can tell the paintings that I wanted to do and the ones I felt I needed to do.

So..how to create great painting? I, like many, many, many artists, can draw or paint about anything you put in front of me (in several mediums!), but can I make it a work of art? a breath taker? something you'll stop and stare at and say , "Wow!"? So in walks my "vision" or "inspiration." How do I paint what means the most to me?

I took a look at other artists..other wildlife artists. Many are animal rights advocates or work to increase for endangered species. Other coastal artists..many are environmental activists or, at the very least, LIVE at the beach!

So, I thought, where can I join in? Where can I throw my time, talent and money to what I love? Sheesh..how am I supposed to have time to take on a "cause"? I'm really busy all the time. I teach art classes to kids in my studio, I run my own kids to sports and Scouting. I volunteer up at the school and am active in the PTA. How can I possibly fit another activity into my schedule? Will I have to wait until my kids are grown and gone to have time for my "artistic vision?"

Now, normally I'm a pretty sharp gal and a quick learner. I have to admit that it took most of the summer for me to figure out this conundrum. How can I fit in time "create" an artistic vision in the middle of all my CHILD oriented activities. I LOVE my KIDS and all the work and volunteering I do around other KIDS too much to cut out any more time from them and the activities I do with them. Hmm..see a pattern?

I didn't need to create a vision or go looking for it. It was there all along. I'm first a stay-at-home mom, and then an artist. My user name on many forums is "mommyartist." I think I've been living my vision day in and day out. My favorite (and possibly my best) paintings include kids.

So..I'm heading down a middle path between my coastal art and my animal art. Some may argue (mainly moms and teachers) that animal art and child art is no different. They are probably right and may be why I love painting animals! I can guarantee you are going to see paintings of kids on the beach or kids with animals..but that makes sense, doesn't it?

On The Easel:
Reflections - I'm trying this painting with only 4 colors...Cobalt Blue, Cadmium Orange, Payne's Gray, & Titanium White. It is a play on warm and cool colors and the texture in the water. I'm still working on the direction lines of the incoming waves, but I'm pleased with how it's shaping out. There is a poem somewhere I started to go with this painting. Hopefully, I'll find it and finish it before thepainting is complete.

Broken Conch

I didn't do quite one a day last week, but I'm right on target this week. I need to download some pictures from my camera from last week.

This is Monday's PAD. It is a 4"x6" acrylic painting. The broken conch shell is a subject I've done many times in pastel. I really struggled with the paint to get the look I was trying to create. I kept thinking, "I can do this so much faster in pastel! I keep trying with the paints because I can't always achieve the richness of color that I want in pastels. So even though the paint is a challenge for me, I'll keep going until I feel more confident with that medium. Besides, if it was easy it wouldn't be fun, would it?

Waay behind!!

Ok..blogger followers have gently pointed out to me that I've not had any updates in a while. Sorry, sometimes real life kicks in detours me from my career path. A combination of a canceled class for my eldest child, snow days for my younger two, out of country traveling for my husband, and out of state visitors here (yay!) have left me a little..well..dizzy!

But I have been painting! Not quite a painting a day, but I'm not giving up yet. Here is a large watercolor I was inspired to create last week. These are the moments that an artist lives for. I was doing some art related paperwork one evening and just decided it was time to paint! It probably helped that my usual distractions were either in bed or Portugal but I didn't take time to analyze..I just searched through my box of photos, grabbed some paper, and completed most of this in less than 2 hours. The next morning I spent about an hour touching it up. It measures about 17" x 29" and when matted will fit into a 24" x 36" frame. It is titled Currituck and those North Carolina natives will recognize it as one of their coastal lighthouses.

I have a couple more paintings I finished last week I'll upload later. I'll also be doing a big web update over the next month so keep hitting "refresh" and see what I and my students have been up to!

Won't be 365 but close enough

Well, after 4 days I slipped. No PADs Friday, Saturday or Sunday. I think it will be rare that I will be able to paint on weekends but I don't have a good excuse for Friday (I have excuses..just not good ones!)

Today was my first day back full-time to the studio since the holiday break. I got 3 hours of painting in and some lesson planning. My classes start today with an Elementary class and an Adult Pastel class.

Painting wise I worked on a cat portrait I've been commissioned to do. I've been taking photos during the process in hopes of a doing a post of how I paint but I've been working so slow that I'll wait till closer to completion.

I did get my PAD done. I stepped up the size to a 5"x7" The 4"x6" is very, very small to me, especially with acrylic paint! The background to this lighthouse was done with a small palette knife. I really like the texture the knives create. The lighthouse and seagrass were done with a brush, but in a loose, impressionistic style to complement the sky.