My raspberries watercolor painting is nearing completion, and I'm a little stuck. I see a few problems with some of the elements of the painting, but I'm not sure whether more are lurking and I just haven't noticed them yet. Also, I'm not sure how to fix some of the flaws I see, so I'm setting it aside and out of sight for a few days. Maybe when I come back to it, with fresh eyes, I will be able to sort it all out.
Though there is no urgent painting business to complete at home, I put my three minions to work today and took these photos of my industrious trio while barking orders and sipping a mocha.
Anyone who has raised a preschooler or two will tell you that training them to do simple household tasks is much harder than simply doing them yourself...and is laughing at the idea of parental relaxation occurring while tots are "helping". My 20-month-old son was wielding the empty Swiffer WetJet and kept getting its' velcro strips hooked in the area rugs and screaming in frustration. And 5-year-old Rory insisted I remove each dish from the rinse pan as soon as it touched the water. Finally, it always takes some smooth talking to talk 3 1/2 year old Sam into any idea that didn't originate with her!

Found this post really encouraging, from the Illustration for Kids blog that I like to visit.

I don't buy a lot of magazines for artists, or spend a lot of time in galleries. I easily succumb to the discouragement of "I'll never be that good," and that's not exactly creativity-enhancing.

I think if I kept that quote in mind, I would relax a little more - put less pressure on myself and enjoy the creative journey.

"Use what talents you possess. The woods would be very silent if no birds sang there except those that sang best." Henry Van Dyke

I haven't posted any progress pics of my raspberry painting for a few days...I have been working on it, though. Yesterday after about an hour of painting, I felt like there was very little visible progress, though I was pleased that I solved the problem I'd been seeing in the pink berry (it just looked wrong! how's that for a concise description). Turns out it needed more shadow and a little more gradation in the shadows themselves.

Despite my impression last night of making little headway, I was surprised this morning when I viewed the painting and saw a leaf had grown up in the night! While working on that part of the painting, I was trying to express the underside of a raspberry leaf, but it wasn't until I looked at the painting some twelve hours later that I realized that I had achieved my objective! Often that happens - a painting just needs a step back and a fresh eye to see what more paint might have muddied and obscured.Before my painting session yesterday, my daughters and I had some fun warming up creatively by making a fifth birthday gift for one of their friends. We go to a lot of little girl parties, and I think it's original to make a gift - and I just love crafting with my girls. Even 20 month old Wesley got in on the fun and splashed some paint around. We used Rory's card from her birthday last month as the focal point of the poster, painted a background and embellished with glitter and my cherished scrapbooking supplies. Our Strawberry Shortcake poster turned out really cute, though a two year old got at it at the party and I had to rescue the buttons and bits of ribbon he gleefully ripped off. Next time I'll have to use the hot glue gun.

Today my article, "No-Brainer Art Marketing Tips" was featured on EmptyEasel.com. Dan did a great job of editing it - I tend to belabour my points!

Creation is so personal...and business is business. It's hard to reconcile the two. Pulling a number out of the air, let's say 2% as the number of people who are actually interested in art and purchasing original artwork. Then take that 2%, and (pulling another number at random), take the 10% of those who would be interested in your particular style. That makes two people out of every thousand who are potential buyers. That also means that 998 will reject your work. Again, I'm an artist, not a mathematician, and I have no idea if there are statistics about this and what they would be. My point is simply that artists face a lot of rejection, and this deters a lot of artists from pursuing marketing in any form. There are some incredible artists whose work has never left their basements.

There comes a time to put on the thick skin of a salesman. Believe in what you do, be passionate about it, but understand that not everyone is going to like (or even care about) your work. It's funny, because as artists, we see things that no one else sees, but in art marketing, we have to be selectively blind. Look too long at the apathy of the majority and you might stop believing in yourself.
Apathy. I joined the Apathy Society, but no one showed up for the meetings. Seriously, I would rather have my work hated by art lovers than ignored entirely. I had half a dozen friends over last week and I was excited to have company because I had a new painting hanging in my dining room that no one had seen yet. When everyone was leaving a couple of hours later, I finally pointed it out and the single comment I got was "That's cute." CUTE? You can't fight apathy, cause no one fights back.

I always end my "believe in yourself" posts with a reminder that it is important to heed criticism. I appreciate the recent gentle criticisms I've received from artists Jerry Lebo and Paul Cato, and I will work on improving my technique without erasing my style.

I bought a card making magazine the other day, and I love the designs featuring swirls and flourishes - they seem to be everywhere, from paper patterns, to rub-ons, to rubber stamps. This morning while leafing through the Sears catalogue, I found lovely graphic flourishes on clothing, shoes and bedding.

The rubber stamps that I was thinking about buying were $32.95 for the set (Baroque Motifs from Stampin' Up!) and I only really liked the one stamp of the six in the set. So I decided to combine my artistic talents and love of crafting and try making my own stamp before I shelled out the cash.

My husband's cousin Matt is a teacher and we met in Home Depot recently. Matt was carrying an armful of styrofoam insulation chunks and explained that they carve them in his grade 4 class to do block printing. I immediately realized that that technique could have application for artists and have been looking for a good project to try it out on.

First, I drew my swirl pattern. I used a design on bedding as my guide, though I made the design unique. I drew it quite large and then photocopied it in three smaller sizes before I found the size that seemed right.

I found that the carbon paper didn't leave an impression on the styrofoam. In the end I used the stylus to lightly impress around the outside edges of my design. I tried not to impress the design itself as I needed it to be raised for stamping.

Carving the styrofoam was a big messy. I like that the styrofoam is soft enough that I didn't have to apply a lot of pressure to the blade. However, I found it hard to leave the crisp edge I wanted, and not squash the lines of the design with my hand or the edge of the blade.
I used the Chizzel-It to smooth the edges of the design, and remove some of the more jagged bits. By this point I had realized that the softness of the styro would make a really crisp design impossible, and I was likely to end up with a distressed-look image.

First stamp - to the right a bit of excess styro picked up the ink and left a mark. Carved it off for the second impression below.

I like the finished stamp. I think I will try stamp making again soon - more flourishes in different sizes. But I'm going to prowl the hardware store and see if they have something equally carvable but slightly denser and firmer. I'm thinking about trying some kind of texture medium, painted on wood for another option.

Every time I blog about inspiration , I get the same ditty running through my head...and an irresistible urge for a Doris Day-athon.

"You are my inspiration, Irene" - from the movie Pillow Talk - Rock Hudson, playing a songwriting playboy, serenaded his parade of girlfriends with the same tune and a clever name substitution. I'm not so fond of the line, after 24 hours of the wretched thing. Anyone have a different song featuring the word "inspiration" that I could try to replace it with?

Were I to give in to the impulse, included with Pillow Talk would be Send Me No Flowers, With Six You Get Eggroll, and Lover Come Back. Just fun, lighthearted comedy that I could watch with my mom (or grandma!) without blushing.

I've put my painting aside today and have started a new project, requiring a chunk of styrofoam insulation (had to crawl under the house to get it), carving tools (though I'm hoping the styro will be soft enough that I can compress, rather than cut it), and ink. I'll post pictures of the project and the results in a couple of hours.

I just finished my last piece of Valentine's chocolate. Lindt Dark, who will inspire me now? Some may use music to make their brush dance across the paper, I prefer chocolate! Perhaps I could settle for the eye candy of my favorite chocolatier's web site, Bernard Callebaut. Or the art of Duane Keiser, whose recent works have featured truffles, among many other yummy treats.

I'm something of a connoisseur - which sounds more refined than "consumer". I like knowing what products are the best, and that means sampling them all - and keeping up with new developments in the world of retail. I don't believe that everything worth inventing has been invented, as my husband likes to think - he never buys any of the newest Home Hardware gadget-laden tools. So I have my short-list of the best chocolate, the handiest home cleaning products and the coolest watercolor accessories.

Of course, sometimes all this product "research" gets in the way of actually doing any creating - so for today my raspberries painting will have to satiate my hungry eyes, despite doing nothing for my tastebuds...oh, for the days when I used to suck my brushes...

This is the stage where things seem to progress slowly. I'm working mainly on the far left berry, and when it is closer to completion, I will be better able to tell what is needed to complete the background. Though I feel like I'm stalled out, a quick look back shows me just how far I've come.
First Progress Post
Second Progress Post
Third Progress Post
Fourth Progress Post
I updated my web site today and completely changed my painting gallery setup. I'd love your feedback - how does it work, how does it look?

This weekend my husband and I went to my brother's birthday party. We left the kids with a sitter and joined Ross and his friends for indoor soccer, pizza and XBox rock band. I relished the feeling of being 25 again, and just hanging out.

It's a 90 minute drive to his place and I was surprised when we got home to realize my jaw was sore...I had talked the whole way home! My husband is an incredible listener, and since I am rather verbose, we complement each other quite well. We talked a lot about my art as a business, my goals and plans, and dreams for that part of my life. He hadn't seen my web site since I revamped it in the fall, either, so I gave him a tour and he had some good feedback...I'll be making a few more small changes to reflect his input.

One of the things that I said on that moonlit drive was just how easy it is to get frustrated when things aren't progressing as I would like. I so much want to make things happen, see tangible evidence of progress. But the recent issue of The Artist's Magazine featured an article titled Splendid Over 60, and the painters profiled were all over 60, and several were octogenarians! Reading their profiles, and seeing their incredible work makes me excited for my own future. I hope to be painting well into my own golden years, and I am curious and excited to imagine what my creative journey will look like with thirty-plus years of experience behind me.

Creativity is a well that doesn't dry up - the depths are never completely plumbed. I'm only sipping at the surface, and time, training and passion will allow me to drink more deeply, though this thirst to create and express myself will never be quenched.

I was just reading Jerry Lebo's blog, Sixty Minute Artist and this post scared me at first. Jerry's talking about the limitations of photographs for expressing middle values, and the subtlety that is lost - and how painting from a photograph can be so third-hand - it loses something in the repeated translations.

But this paragraph encouraged me again:
a good painting has to convey something to the viewer--and a direct reproduction of photo is unlikely to provide the necessary information to convey that sensation. Another way to think about this is to consider paintings that you like--and compare them to photos you have seen of the same thing. For instance, would you prefer to see a Manet painting of a bowl of peaches—or a photo? What would it take to make a photo of peaches as interesting, or better, than a painting? As Edgar Payne says, "A pictorial representation (painting or photo) is always a translation." The art is thus in the translation. So, if you are going to paint from photos—don’t rely entirely on the photo—think about the translation.

I paint from photographs. I have to. The climate and my lifestyle as a mom of three preschoolers makes 15-30 minute painting sessions all I can manage, and so painting indoors means I can paint whether it is snowing or dark, or both. The criticism of using reference photos has always bothered me, because at this point I don't have a choice.

Recently however, I've come to the same conclusion as Jerry, and that is, if I am going to paint from reference photos, it should not be to copy them and strive for photorealism. My approach is to exaggerate the photograph - strengthen focal details, amp up the colors, and play to the strengths of the watercolor medium - lots of wet-in-wet and transparency.

My husband is away until tomorrow night and so I've had my evenings free to paint (and work on his Valentine's Day gift). I am tentatively done the red raspberry - I will probably fiddle with it some more after the background is in a more finished state, and I can evaluate it better.
It's funny, when I paint a large detailed area like this, the best way is to (after making sure you have a strong sketch) paint small areas at a time, and after slogging away with tunnel vision, I step back and am always amazed at how those bits and pieces come together to make a believable whole. On the berry, painting one reflection at a time is tedious, and the most satisfying part of my painting session is stepping back and drinking it in again.My five-year-old daughter took these photos of me working on this painting. Slightly blurry, but I'm not as critical of my photographed self that way! We just moved the office area into the larger bonus room (it was in the north half of the loft) and I love my view. The window is eight feet wide and I can see Dawson Creek, the airport, the Pouce Coupe river between us, Bear Mountain to the southwest and the farmers' fields of Rolla to the north. My reference photo is on the computer, which is why I'm parked in front of the keyboard. While I wait for a glaze to dry, I take a turn on my Facebook Scrabulous!

I wanted to get a bit more done today than I did on this painting. But I did get more than 15 minutes, so I can't complain. And my husband is away for a couple of days so I might just stay up a little later than usual and paint. Not too late...my kids still wake up by 7 a.m. - despite the fact that it's dark out till after 8:00!

I'm going to paint the first layer on the other two berries before I go over the red one again.

I've been working on catching up with my scrapbooking this year. It's a great way to start a new year, as I've mentioned before, and I'm on the home stretch. I've finished my 2006 album, most of my son's first year album, and have started on 2007. I'm kind of a "less-is-more" scrapbooker - I don't spend a ton on materials and I don't like an excessively cluttered page. My favorite pages are the simple ones, as you can see. The two pages I'm posting are from Wesley's 1 year album. It's got 6" pages so I usually am lucky to get 3 pictures on a page - and with these two, a single picture says it all.
I love Close to My Heart's whitecore cardstock and on the Opa page I used my Chizzel-It tool to sand the edges, and distress the photo edges as well. It was my first time distressing a photo - fun! I thought this page looked complete without any accent accessories.

On Sunday I attended a card-making workshop at my neighbour's. In addition to making two fun Valentine cards, I was introduced to Cricut. While it's completely outside my budget (I've already spent far too much on scrapbooking this year), I love the idea of being able to cut out lettering for my pages, rather than continually buying stickers and then running out of the letters that I need. So...my birthday is coming up...if you are reading this and feel that you owe me a gift to the tune of $200 or so...well, I won't outright ask but I think my ellipses are pretty explanatory.

My oldest daughter turned five last month, and yesterday I managed to make my annual entry into her birthday book. I have one for each of my three children, and my goal is to journal in it after each birthday my thoughts on their past year.

One of the things I wrote about was Rory's tendency to plan everything. Her frequent end-of-day question is, "What are we going to do tomorrow, Mom?" And now that she is a little older, she has lots of ideas as to where we can go and what we can do. She's happy to plan a picnic for summer, though summer is months away. It drives me a little bit crazy, though, when this trait means that every trip to town includes the suggestion, "We should pick up some lunch, Mom." If I was intending to do so as a special treat, her vocalizing of my intention means that we usually go home for lunch instead. I don't like to give her the idea that she gets everything she asks for, and it dampens my enthusiasm for the surprise when the cat's out of the bag! I'm cooking lunch a lot more than I did before she could talk!

I realized that however it irks me, Rory's instinctual planning is an inherited trait, and I was probably exactly the same as a child. One of the skills I am most proud of is my ability to achieve my goals, and I accomplish this because I do carefully manage my time. I want to raise children who set their own goals and reach them, and her personality may make that job a lot easier.

My current favourite organization tip is just to take advantage of every minute. Why did I waste so many years telling myself I didn't have time to wash the dishes before I left the house? Why did I think that I needed an entire afternoon free of obligations so that I could paint? Now I am amazed at how much I can get done in 15 minutes!

I've tried a few organization helpers geared toward moms. These are usually short-lived but I always glean some good ideas and streamline my routine a little further.
Flylady - I love her advice, "Housework done incorrectly still blesses your family," though I'm not a big fan of catchy acronyms.
Motivated Moms Chore Planner - I'm doing this planner this year. Each week I highlight all the chores that apply to me and do a few every day. Next year I will design my own that's a bit more personal. The price is right for this one though ($8.00) and it saves me a good deal of time. They also have a good page about homeschooling curriculae including the one I'm using with my kids this year, Sonlight.

While this may not seem art-related, it is! I frequently get asked how it is I manage to get so much done, and organization is the answer. Plus I just hate being bored. I've got to go work on my Raspberries painting and I'll have some progress photos to post tomorrow.

Working on my Raspberries painting, I am starting to realize that my plethora of brushes is sadly inadequate for the larger format I've been painting in. A #6 round just doesn't cover the page in the speed I need, and so I need to start shopping for some big guns for my arsenal.

I bought my first ever kolinsky sable brush last year. These are supposed to be the brush of choice for watercolorists, and command prices that aren't exactly in "starving artist" range. Winsor & Newton's "Series 7" brushes range from $20.00 (I think that brush contains about 3 hairs!) to nearly $300.00, based on size. The brush I bought wasn't quite so prestigious, running just over $20. But I don't really like it - it doesn't come to a point the way I would like, and it's kind of getting split ends already. Maybe I'm too hard on brushes...

When I got my Cheap Joe's order, they had included a free 20th anniversary brush. I love free stuff, and I love this brush! It's a synthetic brush, interlocked nylon, and comes to a lovely point. It's sturdy and my only complaint is that I wish it was bigger...it's a size 6. I tried to find it on the web site, but couldn't identify it, so I contacted customer service and they helped me out. It's the American Journey Interlocked Synthetic and the size 6 is under $9.00 US! They even have size 32 which means that I should have no trouble increasing my stroke area while using a brush I can afford and enjoy. And when you use more affordable brushes, you don't suffer from nearly as much buyer's remorse if it doesn't perform up to expectations.

My kitchen window almost makes up for not having a dishwasher. While standing at my sink, I have met the quizzical gaze of a small herd of deer, and seen a cow moose and her calf enjoy a dessert of my small apple tree. I even once looked up to see a fox streaking across the dry fall grass, with my cat in hot pursuit! Mostly, though, I enjoy the birds at the feeder that hangs from my porch. In summer, I hang a hummingbird feeder from a wire, which is mostly wishful thinking since I have only had a half-dozen sightings in the last three years.

Winter's birds are mostly chickadees and juncos, though today I saw a woodpecker (downy, I think) and purple finch enjoying the seeds. I love seeing both pine and evening grosbeaks with their bright colors, and the orioles that nest nearby in the spring are bashful but melodious.

Today as the girls and I ate our lunch, we were surprised to see one of the chickadees swinging from the hummingbird feeder wire. He'd dip back to the feeder, then swing from the bottom loop of the wire again. His antics were very entertaining, and it wasn't until I got the camera out and zoomed in that I realized that he wasn't playing, he was stuck. I guess -20C (-5F) isn't really playful weather, but when I'd originally seen him there, I'd dismissed the idea that he could be stuck because his feet were free, and he was twisting around in all directions. But as he perched on the feeder, little body trembling, I could see that the wire had followed his body and was indeed attached to him somehow.

To tell the truth, I was tempted for a moment to wait to rescue him cause I didn't yet have my photo, but I didn't know how long he had been struggling, and couldn't let him suffer. So I grabbed my boots, mitts and a chair to stand on and went out on my mission of mercy. My daughters watched the whole thing from their lunchtime seats at the kitchen table.

When he saw me, he tried to flee with all his might, flying in arcs as far as the wire's limits. Which made me a little nervous about my task - he could have easily been injured by his attempts to escape my assistance. His movement made it clear where he was trapped - he had ducked his head into the large loop of wire and his feathers acted like a barbed fishhook when he tried to back out - and without hands, he couldn't widen the loop to fly forward from his prison. Fortunately I have a couple of them, and even with mittens on, it was a simple matter of holding the wire slightly wider - and he was gone, off into the trees to nurse his (physchological) wounds - he seemed otherwise unhurt. I removed the wire so that eating at the Fehr feeder carries a lower element of risk from now on. (I drew a yellow line on the photo approximately where the wire was.)

When I got back into the house, the girls and I had a nice little talk about how God made the birds and loves them, and so it's our job to love and care for the animals too. Which is the basic reason why every Christian should care about the environment.I've posted a photo of my Raspberries painting as it stood at the end of last night's session. I know I said that I would do the berries last, but I've changed my mind. I'm going to do them next, and then see how complete the background looks - might be it's basically done and to continue would be to overwork it. And I don't want to lose the spontaneity. And, a detail shot of my current favorite spot in the incomplete painting. I can just see the leaves hiding in the washes, waiting to be born!

Here's the first shot of the second draft of my Raspberries watercolor painting. I decided that I would feel a little more comfortable working on a half sheet of paper (15" x 22") for this, rather than the full sheet I used for my first attempt. I used a lot of Arylide Yellow mixed with Hooker's Green Deep for the lightest yellow-green leaves - they need to just glow with light. And I mixed together 3 different blues, two greens, and a gray for my shadows. I wanted to use mostly Ultramarine Blue for my main blue shade, despite the fact that I actually prefer Cobalt Blue, because Ultramarine is a granulating color, which means it dries with little flecks of pigment instead of a smooth wash, and I liked the idea of using that quality of the paint to add texture to this painting. Even if no one can tell but me!

After these washes are dry (you probably can't tell, but this photo was taken when there were still puddles of pigment on the paper), I will work on defining the major shapes in the painting. I'm going to work around the berries until I feel I have a good handle on the background.

I'm excited about my in-progress "Raspberries" painting. This is why I'm a little sad that I've decided to start the painting over. I do a lot of thinking about painting while I'm driving, whether it's because the scenery inspires me, or I'm working through a painting in my mind. Today is was the latter, and I started thinking about my "Expressly Clematis" painting. It's still one of my proudest watercolor achievements. In fact, I used it as the focal piece in my solo show at the Dawson Creek Art Gallery in 2002, featured on the invitation. I loved the freedom I felt when I was creating "Expressly Clematis". I wasn't attempting to copy a photo, or achieve realism. I felt instead that I was plumbing my creative soul and exploring the essence of my subject, not just a flower, but a season of life, and the result is what makes me different from any other watercolor artist, what I have to offer that is unique and unavailable from anyone else.

So I am going to start again with my raspberries painting. I will continue my mantra "Be Brave" but use my courage to look deeper than my reference photo, to delve again into my creative well. I have little doubt that if I continued on the painting as it stands now, it would finish beautifully. But it would also look a lot like something that any competent watercolorist could have painted, and I want my art to be about more than technique.

I've been pretty true to my "15 minutes a day" painting goal this week. It helps that it's still -30C outside (that's -20F for you Americans). I keep reminding myself "Be brave, be brave," as I lay down blocks of solid color. I started on the half-ripe berry today, I just needed to break away from green for a little while. After a second trip to the glass place to get the corners "dimed" (I had no idea that not all frames came with 90 degree corners!) so that they would fit, I have all the materials I need to finish framing my "Secrets of the Muskeg" series. Or I thought I did - somehow, I came back with one less piece of glass...so I'll have to stop by the glass place again tomorrow. It's been really slow getting this series framed, but they look wonderful when assembled with mat and frame. The photo gray and black mats are simple, but wide, and the weathered wood suits the theme so perfectly. The guy who I hired to make the frames really did an excellent job. And I had just enough matboard in just the right colors to do all three. About matting...when I started ordering mats in colors to suit the pictures I wanted to frame, I had no idea how I was going to use up all that matboard. A sheet of 32" x 40" is huge, and so I knew I'd have a lot of excess. But I've actually been able to be really efficient with the leftovers. Since I tend to gravitate toward similar colors and painting subjects, I can always find a piece of matboard from my stock that not only fits a finished painting but suits it really well. But with these final three paintings, I've exhausted my stock and will have to place a new order soon. I don't mind - it's fun to sort through my sample mat corners and pick colors that make a painting glow. I will wait until my frame order comes before I order mats though. I tried out this online frame store and I'm hoping that the frames will look as great as they did on the web site, and that the shipping cost won't be too frightening for my address in Canada. I do get so tired of trying to order from a web site, and then finding that either they won't ship to a non-US address at all, or they demand a small fortune in shipping.