29 Years Later...

I first published this article on my new art website, ArdentReflections.com.

I was sitting in my math class. I don’t think I was working, I believe I was looking out the window. My school was an alternative school, we worked at our own pace on “contracts” for our credits, so the teachers didn’t hover a lot, they were just there incase you asked for help. The only classes that really worked more like a typical school were the hands on classes like science and art.

The science class down the hall was lucky that day, they were all watching a live newscast.
The door to the hall was open, that was typical. Suddenly we heard someone yelling something, then again, and again, as they got closer I was able to understand what they were saying, “It blew up!”

Kids got out of their desks and headed for the door, looking out in the hall, our teacher followed, telling us to sit down. A kid from the science class was going door to door to every classroom, “It blew up! The space shuttle. It blew up!”
Soon, the majority of our small continuation High School was attempting to crowd into the science class to see for themselves. Eventually the teachers succeeded in herding us all back to where we belonged and we continued the day. I remember feeling irritated that I couldn’t watch the news and find out what happened. This launch was special, a school teacher was on board.

Years earlier, in fifth grade I had taken part in a national campaign to nominate teachers for this mission, I had nominated my teacher Mr. Jensen. He wasn’t chosen, but I still vividly remembered him speaking about how much he would like to be chosen, and asking all of us kids to nominate him.

When I got home that day the newscast was playing again and again. The saddest part was seeing the spectators, many of them family members of those on board, as they watched the launch. I watched as their faces turned from happy excitement, to confusion, and then to absolute horror.

After seeing it for the probably the 15th time, I stopped watching. You’d think the tragedy of the situation would wear off after seeing it so much, but 29 years later, I still can’t talk about it without starting to cry. I know, because I tried to tell my son about it this morning.
One thing that played in mind over and over, was it could have been Mr. Jensen. Of all the teachers I had in school, there were only a small handful I really liked. One was my kindergarten teacher, the other was Mr. Jensen, the others were my journalism teacher in High school, and a teacher from my junior high. I don’t even remember the names of the others, but I do remember Mr. Jensen’s name, probably because I wrote an essay nominating him for the shuttle mission.

This article is dedicated to the memories of the following people:

• Francis R. Scobee
• Michael J. Smith
• Ronald McNair
• Ellison Onizuka
• Judith Resnik
• Greg Jarvis
• Christa McAuliffe

Short and Sweet...

Today’s post will be short and sweet, or short at least.

Today I worked at the job that buys my paints, which is cleaning houses. I had surgery exactly one week ago today, and maybe that is why today wore me out so much.

Click HERE to read more...

Monday Muse #1, View of Vetheuil in Summer, by Monet

I've decided that each Monday I should post about a "Muse".  For my purposes a Muse can be any thing or person that brings me inspiration. Today's Muse is this painting, by Claude Monet:

Claude Monet [Public domain], via Wikimedia Commons

Why did I pick this painting as my Monday Muse?

To read more Click HERE.

A Barrel of Monkeys, Well a Sketch of One Anyway!

Well, its Saturday again, time for my Saturday Six Minute Sketch. Today, I started off setting the timer on my phone, and trying to draw my dog who was lying at my feet. About 1 1/2 minutes into the sketch, he got up and wandered off.

Click HERE to read More.

Weeding

Sometimes for an artist, as with any other profession or lifestyle, one finds it necessary to do some gardening. 

What do I mean by that?

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Tell Me Why... Art Blog Part 2

Synopsis of part 1: My dear husband and I discussed what a blog was in general. I also began explaining what an art blog was specifically. The conversation ended with him asking why I needed a blog specifically for art, which I didn't answer at that time. I answer that question here, not just for him, but for anyone who wants to read.

Click here to read more.

A What? Art Blog.. Part One*

“You started a what?” He asked, looking confused, then turned his attention back to his cup of coffee.

“Another blog.” I said, wondering why it seemed like I was always repeating myself.

“Since when do you have a blog, and why do need another one, and what exactly is a blog anyway?”

“Well, a blog is kind of like a journal, except it’s on the internet, and usually anyone can read it. It comes from the words “web” and “log”, you know web, as in the world-wide web, and log… as in…”

“Captains log, Stardate 41855.2…” he interrupted in his best Captain Picard voice, “I know what a log is!”

At this point in the conversation, I felt like this:

Click HERE to Continue Reading...

It's Alive!!!

Sometimes a painting develops a life of its own, and changes, grows, almost evolves as progress continues. As if it's truly alive.

This has been the case with my current work in progress, you may remember that it started off like this:

Then, morphed into this... click here to continue reading.

What's a Good Artist?

What does it take to be an artist? 
Well, it takes a desire to create art, and the initiative to act on that desire. If you've ever drawn a picture, molded clay into a form you've imagined, glued paper scraps into a collage, or in some other way have designed and assembled a creative work, then you ARE an artist. 

What does it take to be a good artist?

 Some would say it requires a Bachelors or a Master's degree in art, and yet one of the world's most well-known and best-loved artist, Van Gogh, attended several different art schools with sporadic attendance, and didn't actually graduate from any of them. He also disagreed with much of what he was taught. In spite of that, he produced a great number of treasured, works such as the two below... Click HERE to read the rest of this post

Trial, Error, Error, Repeat

Yesterday was another day of website building.  There are some things with WordPress that drives me crazy, such as when I post the link to my website on Facebook, it doesn't have a thumbnail image on it, and I've tried all the tutorials to fix the problem, but it persists.

Inspite of that, my website is coming along, I am making progress with it.  I've imported past blog posts there, and for a while I'll be posting on both, but soon I'll be moving.  I hope that those who have followed me on blogger will come over to my wordpress site and follow me there as well.  It can be found at http://ArdentReflections.com.

In addition to the website work, I've been adding up the cost of doing business as an artist over the past year, comparing that to what I've made in sales, just to find out how much money I've made lost as an artist, I won't share details, but I will say that I can see where the term starving artist comes from.  I didn't expect profit over this year, but I did expect a smaller deficit than I saw.  Oh well, there were a lot of expenses that I won't have to repeat any time soon, like buying a canopy for art shows, tables for the canopy, a cart to move supplies with at art shows, etc.

Last but not least, I actually got a little painting done, I'm still not happy with the clouds in my sky, but I'm getting closer to what I want.  One thing I am figuring out with this sunset though, is that I have to stop in between colors and let things dry, otherwise my oranges, and purples mix into brown, and my yellows and blues mix into green.  Here are two photos, neither one seems to really be right in color, the first one comes closer but is brighter than the painting really is I think...oh well,  what can you expect from a cell phone?

During my next session I will bring the purple and then blue up further in up in the sky, and cover those strange finger like projections I called clouds, then I will try puttin in some less finger like clouds, I can see it in my mind now, when before I couldn't, so hopefully I'll be able to translate that onto the canvas.    Then I'll bring more color into the darker blue water, the lighter blue area is actually going to be covered with land, as is the horizon line, so that the bay comes between where the viewer "stands" and the other side of the bay.  I'm not really concerned about how much experimentation this is taking, I mean after all, this is how I've learned EVERYTHING I know about painting so far, by trying, messing up, and trying again, until I get I get it right.

Thank you for reading! If you liked what you see, please consider following this blog with Google Friend connect, or follow me on Google+, or if you prefer, you can follow by email and get notified each time the blog is updated. See the right hand column to follow in any of these ways! I welcome your suggestions on how to make this blog more interesting to you!

Fine Art America is the place to go for Prints of all my Paintings.

 

My etsy shop is the place to go to buy my originals and request commissioned work. A few select prints are available here as well!

Saturday's Six Minute Sketch

I'm in the process of building a new website, after I finish it, I'll probably blog there as well, but for now it is just in its development state, yesterday I was working on it all day.  Registering a domain name, installing wordpress, picking a theme, and now trying to figure out how to integrate a pay pal shopping cart.  I also need to upload images of all my paintings.  Needless to say, I didn't have much time for painting.

So, for today I'll post this sketch I did a few days ago.  I timed myself at 6 minutes.  Its a sketch of my daughter, I feel like it would have looked a lot better with double the time, but I wanted to see what I could do in six minutes.  My daughter says she looks like a "Walker" (another name for Zombie, from The Walking Dead).

Thank you for reading! If you liked what you see, please consider following this blog with Google Friend connect, or follow me on Google+, or if you prefer, you can follow by email and get notified each time the blog is updated. See the right hand column to follow in any of these ways! I welcome your suggestions on how to make this blog more interesting to you!

Fine Art America is the place to go for Prints of all my Paintings.

 

My etsy shop is the place to go to buy my originals and request commissioned work. A few select prints are available here as well!

Teaching a SLOW Student!

Have you ever tried to teach anyone something?  It can be difficult!  Its even more difficult if the student you are teaching is just NOT getting it, now imagine you are doing all that, WHILE you are trying to teach something you don't know!

That is the struggle of the self taught artist, trial, and error, and more error.

Lots of error.  I am trying to get the sky in a painting just right, that is how I am seeing it in my mind, it is taking a lot of error.

Here are some of my practice sheets where I practiced different techniques to try to get the results I wanted:

Real quality art there, right?

But its all part of learning without a teacher.

Eventually I moved back onto my canvas, and its not perfect yet, but I feel like I know what needs happen now, its just that the paint I already put down needs to dry before I can do more, otherwise my colors will mix and I will end up with a green sky.  I also keep reminding myself that it won't just be a sky, there will be land and a bridge, and water, the sky will end up being only a backdrop for everything else.  I keep telling myself that, but I want to get the sky perfect anyway. It is getting close to what I see in my head, and I think I'll be able to bring it around to that point in t the next painting session.

Thank you for reading! If you liked what you see, please consider following this blog with Google Friend connect, or follow me on Google+, or if you prefer, you can follow by email and get notified each time the blog is updated. See the right hand column to follow in any of these ways! I welcome your suggestions on how to make this blog more interesting to you!

Fine Art America is the place to go for Prints of all my Paintings.

 

My etsy shop is the place to go to buy my originals and request commissioned work. A few select prints are available here as well!

A Throwback on Thursday

What does an artist post on her blog when she hasn't had time for making art? Old Art!

Well, its not that old, I believe I did this one at some point in 2014, it might have 2013 though....  hmmm...

I haven't decided on a title for this abstract piece yet, in fact, I had forgotten all about it until I started looking through my mixed media sketch book. This was done with sharpies.  You probably recognize the similar style between this one and Inlets to Illusion, all of the pieces done in this style are intuitive, in that there isn't a set plan other than to do something different in each little section of the painting, just whatever feels right. The smaller ones, like this, that I can hold in my lap and work on, are quite relaxing, almost meditative to work on.  Inlets to Illusion wasn't as relaxing because it was too big to carry with me and work on when I had a minute, instead, I had to set aside time, pull out my easel, and dedicate myself to working on it. But this smaller piece just came with me to various places and I worked on it while I talked to people, while I waited at the doctors office, or whenever.  This picture of it is lower resolution than what I use for prints, I just used my scanner for this, I'll get better images and upload it to Fine Art America soon.   If anyone has a title idea, let me know!

Thank you for reading! If you liked what you see, please consider following this blog with Google Friend connect, or follow me on Google+, or if you prefer, you can follow by email and get notified each time the blog is updated. See the right hand column to follow in any of these ways! I welcome your suggestions on how to make this blog more interesting to you!


Fine Art America is the place to go for Prints of all my Paintings.

 

My etsy shop is the place to go to buy my originals and request commissioned work. A few select prints are available here as well!

Putting it All Out There

Desires, wishes, wants, we have so many of them.

Yesterday, my desires were fairly simple, I wanted to go to work, and after work I wanted to come home and color my hair, and then practice painting clouds on paper until I was either happy with them, or until I became too frustrated to continue.

Well I went to work.

After work I felt really tired, and so none of the other stuff happened.  That was okay, I accomplished something else, you see, I've really been thinking about how to get my art "out there" more.  I mean, I am still learning, still improving, and I'm sure in time my art will be better and attract even more buyers, but much of my the work I've already created is perfectly saleable.  The only reason sales have dropped is that the people who are interested in buying are not seeing it.  So I've been thinking a lot about what to do about that.  Somehow I have to get my work "out there" in the right places so people who buy art will see it.

I felt that perhaps advertising would provide the answer, so on Wednesday January 7th  I started promoting listings on etsy.  Then yesterday, since the promotions had been running seven days, I decided to see what the results were, here is what I saw.  Thanks to the ads, my work had 3000 impressions on etsy, but only 14 of the 3000 impressions resulted in clicks, which ended up costing me $4.70,  and none of those clicks translated into sales.

Okay, it was only a week, but still, 3000 people saw my work, and only 14 of those 3000 were interested enough to even take a closer look, none of them were interested enough to buy.  To me that means if I am going to advertise, I need more targeted advertising, something that would be seen by the people interested in buying art.  I mean, a lot of etsy shoppers are looking for purses, hats, and things like that.  I need some way to target those who are wanting to buy art.  But what kind of advertising would do this?  I asked myself this question, and replied to myself that I really didn't have any idea.

(Yes I talk to myself, and answer myself, sometimes, I even argue with myself!)

This was all in the back of my mind as I looked at other blogs, and as if in answer to this question I ran across this video on Her Online World:

Well, in case you didn't have time to watch, the main points of the video were that the best sources of traffic had to  be paid for.  (That one I had kind of already figured out, organic reach is nice, but it is limited).  The next thing was that Facebook ads, TARGETED facebook ads and promoted posts are some of the best kinds of promotion.

So I decided to try an experiment.  My etsy ads ran for 7 days, I went ahead and stopped them.  I wrote a post on my Facebook Art Page announcing that one of paintings was now available in my etsy shop, and I linked to that listing in my shop, I targeted this promotion to people who were interested in collecting art and who had an interest in home decor, as well as the specific style of the painting shown in the listing.  I decided to run this ad for 7 days, and keep track of the results.  By results, I mean that I am going to be examining my etsy stats for shop views and listing views.  After the 7 days are up, I'll run more etsy based ads, then after 7 days of that I'll switch back to another facebook ad or promoted listing.  I'll record the results.

I printed up the following calendar to keep track of such things, as you can see, the first 6 days of the month are with no ads of any kind, I am also keeping track of what etsy calls "events" which is new listings or renewals, to see if they have any significant impact.   I'll be sure to update after completing this cycle a few times, so probably around the end of March, I'll update and blog my findings.

See the key up on the top of the calendar.

Thank you for reading! If you liked what you see, please consider following this blog with Google Friend connect, or follow me on Google+, or if you prefer, you can follow by email and get notified each time the blog is updated. See the right hand column to follow in any of these ways! I welcome your suggestions on how to make this blog more interesting to you!

Fine Art America is the place to go for Prints of all my Paintings.

 

My etsy shop is the place to go to buy my originals and request commissioned work. A few select prints are available here as well!

I'll Let You in on a Secret

As an artist I have a secret.  It haunts me with every landscape painting I do.  I don't know how to paint clouds.  I mean, yeah, I try... but they never come out realistic enough for me.  I do acceptably with small wispy white clouds in a blue sky, but big puffy clouds, or storm clouds I'm just never happy with.  I've gotten lucky on  a few paintings and had reasonably satisfying results, but usually its a wrestling match to get there.

For example, my recent work in progress.  I first painted the whole canvas blue, because it is going to have water and sky.  I wasn't really concerned with coating the entire canvas evenly, because I had in my minds eye some spectacular clouds that would cover most of the sky portion.So here is what it looked like after that first coat of paint:

Well, I proceeded to try to produce my vision of these clouds, and I came very close.

This was almost exactly what I wanted, I was thoroughly pleased with the lower left section of sky, but moving away from that area, I felt it looked worse and worse, until finally up in the right hand corner I felt I was looking at blue camo rather than clouds. I posted it to my facebook page, and to several art groups asking for advice, and was assured by everyone the clouds looked fine, but I couldn't shake the impression of looking at blue camo.

Maybe I should have listened to everyone, but NO, not Mrs. Perfectionist Vicki!

I tried to fix it, but only made it worse, and finally, in frustration, I did this:

So, I spent most yesterday evening painting, and the net result so far is a blue canvas.  NICE!

Some day, I'm going to figure this cloud thing out.  I think I should start practicing on paper for a bit, until I get it, so I don't have to paint over a canvas.

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Thank you for reading! If you liked what you see, please consider following this blog with Google Friend connect, or follow me on Google+, or if you prefer, you can follow by email and get notified each time the blog is updated. See the right hand column to follow in any of these ways! I welcome your suggestions on how to make this blog more interesting to you!

Fine Art America is the place to go for Prints of all my Paintings.

 

My etsy shop is the place to go to buy my originals and request commissioned work. A few select prints are available here as well!

The Future of Art

Art has been around as long as human beings, from the time the first person picked up a charred stick and began drawing that day's hunt onto the rock wall of the cave that was home, and all along through the years, art has changed.  There have been times when it was respected, times when it was ridiculed, times when it was valued, and times when it was taken for granted. It has continued to exist through all times because it is part of being human.  That little spark of creativity, is in my mind, the thing that lets us know we are made in the image of the Master Artist and Creator.

Art as business though... when did that start?  Was the man in the cave considered the community historian, and given an extra share of the hunt in exchange for his services, or did the rest of the tribe look on with bemusement at his strange pastime?  We will likely never know the answer, however at some point, artists began being paid for their skill and talent, and a few were brave enough to try to make their living at it.

There have been times when the art business was doing well, when people have had the extra money to buy something if they liked it, and times when it was doing poorly, and the artist struggles for food and shelter.
Where is it now? Somewhere in between those extremes, at somewhat of a crossroads.  Various societal trends are impacting the art market, and will shape it in the future.

So, here are a few developments I predict in the art business, some of which are already happening.

1. More wearable art.  Art on T-shirts, art on shoes, art on necklace pendants, purses, and coats.  This is both printed art, and art that it is hand painted right on the products.

2. Smaller pieces.  Mini canvases that can be made into Christmas ornaments and refrigerator magnets, this is art that those in the downsizing movement can still embrace.

3. Street art that is created fast, in front of the buyer, providing both entertainment and an inexpensive piece of art.  Such as seen in this video.

4. Related to the above, but a little different,  is visual art AS performance art, as seen in these videos (though not all of us artist have the ability or desire to do this):

5. Art for the plugged-in generation.  Something similar to itunes, but for visual art. What do I mean? Well perhaps a purchase of a specific brand of digital picture frame, and then a library of digital files of artwork that could be downloaded onto that frame, with the artist getting a small royalty for each download.  I think something like that would be nice for those in smaller spaces also, since they could download several "pieces" and then rotate which one would show, providing them with changeable art.  It would also be more affordable than buying several original paintings or prints.

6. More "art classes as social time", such as "art parties" where people gather and an artist takes them step by step through how to create a painting, or make a mosaic, or some other project.  These are already gaining popularity, and I predict more growth in that area as people are looking for an alternative then dinner or a movie when wanting to get out.

7. More commissioned work.  For those people who do have their own home with room for art, often, they have something specific in mind, a specific color scheme or subject matter that they want for their home, what better way than to hire an artist to make it just for them?

Most of all though, I see art just simply continuing on, as it has since the times of the cave-paintings.


Thank you for reading! If you liked what you see, please consider following this blog with Google Friend connect, or follow me on Google+, or if you prefer, you can follow by email and get notified each time the blog is updated. See the right hand column to follow in any of these ways! I welcome your suggestions on how to make this blog more interesting to you!

Fine Art America is the place to go for Prints of all my Paintings.

 

My etsy shop is the place to go to buy my originals and request commissioned work. A few select prints are available here as well!

Finally Decent Photos!

Way back LAST YEAR or a week and half ago, however you look at it, I posted a cellphone photo of my painting, "Inlets to Illusion" and promised that I would soon have a quality photo of it to share.  Well, my setup for photographing my paintings is not ideal, I have to rely on outdoor weather to be just right, namely, it must be overcast over the entire sky, but not raining, not windy, etc.  So, I've been biding my time, waiting, and yesterday the weather was perfect for photography of fine art!

So finally I get to share with you not only my "Inlets to Illusion", but also the painting that I finished on Friday and posted cellphone photos of on Saturday.

First things first, here is "Inlets to Illusion", if you'd like to see it bigger, which I highly recommend to fully appreciate the optical art qualities, click on it, it will take you the website where I sell prints of my fine art paintings, but there is no obligation to buy just because you looked!

And now, for the impressionist and intuitive "No-Brush Painting" which I ended up titling "Sky Ablaze".

So that's all for today, Happy Sunday!

Thank you for reading! If you liked what you see, please consider following this blog with Google Friend connect, or follow me on Google+, or if you prefer, you can follow by email and get notified each time the blog is updated. See the right hand column to follow in any of these ways! I welcome your suggestions on how to make this blog more interesting to you!

Fine Art America is the place to go for Prints of all my Paintings.

 

My etsy shop is the place to go to buy my originals and request commissioned work. A few select prints are available here as well!

A Brushless Painting

Tonight,  I began a painting.  I was feeling like I wanted a break from tight details like my last painting consisted of, I wanted to do something loose and free.  So I grabbed a canvas and my paints, and a couple of pieces of sponge, and I began to randomly paint a background. I didn't really have a plan for where it was going at this point, so I took some time to just look at it and wait for it to "suggest" something.  I got several ideas, depending on which way I oriented the canvas.

Finally something came to mind, and I decided that I wanted to continue working without brushes, I decided that the entire painting, with the exception my signature when I was finished, would be finished without brushes, using only sponges, palette knives, and fingers.

Here is the painting nearly finished. 

There were some dark marks left in the upper right hand corner from when I painted the background with no idea what the painting would be, they looked out of place in the sky. So when I went to put the grasses int the foreground, I decided to also put in some tree branches up in that corner, and here is the finished product.  The only place a paint brush was used was for my signature.  The only thing remaining  to be done is to paint the bottom of the canvas black, after the painting dries enough to be turned over.

The colors aren't quite true in this phone photo, but a better photo will be coming soon.

So, all in all it was a productive night!

Thank you for reading! If you like what you see, please consider following this blog with Google Friend connect, or follow me on Google+, or if you prefer, you can follow by email and get notified each time the blog is updated. See the right hand column to follow in any of these ways! I welcome your suggestions on how to make this blog more interesting to you!

Fine Art America is the place to go for Prints of all my Paintings.

 

My etsy shop is the place to go to buy my originals and request commissioned work. A few select prints are available here as well!

Artist's Life, Heaven or Hell?

Have you ever heard an artist describe creating art as hell?

Well, that certainly isn't how I think of it!  My satisfaction with my life has increased exponentially since giving myself permission to "be an artist".   In general I am happiest and most fulfilled when I am creating art.

So what did author Steven Pressfield mean when he said, "The artist committing himself to his calling has volunteered for hell.”?

I'm not sure I agree with him about that, but I do see that not everything about being an artist is romantic, joyous, free, vibrant, carefree, and exciting. Especially if one really fully commits oneself to being an artist as a vocation.

Then, one finds that:

Sometimes, being an artist can be tedious, like when you set up a booth an art show and sit ALL DAY waiting for people to come by, and hopefully buy something.

Sometimes being an artist is melancholic, such as when a gallery owner says he likes your work, but doesn't have room for it, or worse yet, when he says it doesn't fit the style of his gallery (another way of saying he hates it.)

Sometimes being an artist is restricting, such as when a gallery owner tells you he will only accept landscapes, or animal paintings, or still lifes... or whatever.

Sometimes being an artist is dull, not so much while creating, but while taking care of all of the other tasks of marketing, showing, contacting galleries, keeping inventory of prints and supplies, etc.

Sometimes being an artist is worrisome, like when you look over your receipts for supplies and realize you spent 70 times more on equipment and supplies than what you made in sales over the past year.

But being an artist is not hell... its just that its not always heaven either.

Being an artist today, in this world, in this economy, is hard. Not that its ever been easy, but there have been times when it was easier than today.

You see, today not as many people in America own their own homes, instead they rent. When a person is in a rental, and they know they may have to move, they aren't as likely to invest in art. After all, that painting might look great over the mantel in this house, but the next house might not have the wall space for it.

People in America today have less disposable income than they had ten years ago before the housing market tumbled, and no matter how much a person likes art, when they are choosing between putting food on the table, and buying a painting, they buy food!

So, for an artist to have a chance at supporting themselves today, they often must look into other options aside from simply making great art for people's walls.

One thing that many of us artists do, is to look into having our art put on usable or useful items. Items like T-shirts, cups, or pillows.

I haven't taken full advantage of this alternate market so far, but I am beginning to. For example, much of my work can be ordered on throw pillows.

In addition, I've had some of art put on T-shirts, and Greeting Cards, and Notecards. I've also printed images of my paintings and put them in 1 inch bottle cap necklaces, and soon I will begin doing hand painting on wine glasses and candle holders. I may also have tote bags other items made available for order.

However, even if none of this took off, even if nobody ever bought a thing, I'd still be an artist, and being an artist would still be worth it. Because being an artist isn't about being in hell, and it isn't about being in heaven, it isn't about money or galleries or pillows or totebags or paintings on canvas.

Being an artist, is about seeing the world, in all its pain, sorrow, comfort, joy, loneliness and community, and reflecting those things in a way that is beautiful. Being an artist is about taking those feelings and emotions that are bottled inside and letting them pour forth into the created work. To be an artist is to let one's passion and, in fact one's very soul, be open and bare before the world for all to see.

As Van Gogh, the man I see as the world's greatest artist of all time, said, “I would rather die of passion than of boredom.”

To be an artist, is to be passionate.

And in the end, even if I didn't want to be an artist, I couldn't stop being one, if I put down my paints my artistic self will scream for expression until it finds another outlet.

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Thank you for reading! If you liked what you see, please consider following this blog with Google Friend connect, or follow me on Google+, or if you prefer, you can follow by email and get notified each time the blog is updated. See the right hand column to follow in any of these ways! I welcome your suggestions on how to make this blog more interesting to you!


Fine Art America is the place to go for Prints of all my Paintings.

 

My etsy shop is the place to go to buy my originals and request commissioned work. A few select prints are available here as well!

Mushroom from My Mind

Practice makes perfect, so they say.  I'm not so sure that's true with art, since in a sense art is never really perfect, there is always some room for improvement.  So lets just say practice makes better.

So anyway, yesterday I had an off day, I spent most of time updating information on various websites and such, and didn't make time to do art in the morning.  I told myself it was okay because I was going to go to an artist league meeting and would start a new painting there.  Then a friend dropped by unexpectedly and stayed and talked for a long time, and soon it was too late for the meeting.

Still, I wanted to at least do a quick sketch, I started sketching my tea kettle, but wasn't really inspired by that so I stopped before I got finished with it.

I decided that it was a good day to do a pencil sketch from my imagination instead of drawing from life, but I didn't have much time left, I had only a few minutes before it was time to leave with the family for church.

So I ended up doing this quick sketch of a mushroom, or is it a toadstool, or a fairy hut?  Well, mine was pretty plain looking, just a basic sketch, no dots on it, no colors, no frogs sitting on it or butterflies hovering nearby, but it was still a little touch of practice on a day when I would otherwise have not exercised my artistic muscle at all. So here is today's sketch, more of just a little doodle.

Thank you for reading! If you liked what you see, please consider following this blog with Google Friend connect, or follow me on Google+, or if you prefer, you can follow by email and get notified each time the blog is updated. See the right hand column to follow in any of these ways! I welcome your suggestions on how to make this blog more interesting to you!

Fine Art America is the place to go for Prints of all my Paintings.

 

My etsy shop is the place to go to buy my originals and request commissioned work. A few select prints are available here as well!

Furry Friends

Who is always glad to see you when you come home?

Who doesn't care if you forgot to brush your hair?

Who would still lavish love upon you if didn't bother to bathe for a month?

The answer of course is your pets!

There is nothing like the love of an animal to set the world right, and make your day seem brighter.

I know I love my pets, and I miss the ones I've lost.  I was privileged to have a little dog named Daisy in my life for a few years, but about a year ago she vanished.  We suspect she met her end at the jaws of the coyotes that frequent our property.

I was very heart broken over her loss, and not even being able to bury her or have her cremated made it even harder, but one thing that made it easier was that before she passed on I had immortalized her in a portrait which hangs in an honored place in my home, I feel its a fitting memorial to the little dog who brought our family so much joy.

I've also painted a portrait of my other dog, Spunky.  It hangs directly on the other side of the window from Daisy's portrait.

In addition I've had the privilege of painting portraits for other pet owners, some who have lost their pets, and some who simply want to honor their living pets with a custom painted portrait.  Most of these commissions have been arranged in person, either with friends, or with people who come by my booth at art walks and outdoor markets.  But I also arrange these special works through my Etsy Store.  The basset hound you see below is another example of one of my pet portraits.  I also do other commissions, following the basic price list of the pet portraits.

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Somewhere in Another Universe...

Somewhere, in another universe, under a yellow sky...  strange creatures drift by over the rooftops.

Watercolor pencil on Vellum the color on this phone photo doesn't do it justice.

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She Sells Seashells...

Can you say the following poem five times fast?

She sells seashells by the seashore.
The shells she sells are surely seashells.
So if she sells shells on the seashore,
I'm sure she sells seashore shells.

Honestly, I stumble when I try to say that quickly, fortunately though, this blog is about my art, not my verbal gymnastics.  So I don't need to recite rhymes about seashells, I just need to sketch said seashells from the seashore.  So, this was last night's seashell from the seashore sketch.

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Turn Up the Heat

Oh well!  Things don't always turn out the way we want.  Yesterday I wanted to finish my "Inlets to Illusion" painting and photograph it.  I did manage to finish it, but I didn't get the picture taken while I had good light. You see, I don't have studio lights for my art, but my porch just so happens to get perfect lighting for photographing a painting, but only for about an hour or two a day.  So I have my porch set up for it, with nails in several places on the front door so that I can hang the paintings there, set up my tripod, and take the picture.  Well, yesterday I let that "golden hour" pass, today I'll be at church during the "golden hour", so I'll have to try tomorrow.

Now, that painting took months to finish, and it didn't require a lot of realistic drawing because it was mostly abstract op-art.  So I have been feeling out of practice on my drawing.  I decided to sketch something, I looked around my house for something to set in front of me and sketch.  I decided to sketch my space heater.  Now bear in mind that I didn't use any rulers or vanishing points, I just looked at the heather and drew freehand.  I also didn't spend a lot of time at it, it was just a quick sketch, for practice at drawing what I see. The heater has wood casing, and a decoratively curved lip in front on the top and bottom I struggled with that lip, I think I cane closer to getting it right with the bottom.  I realize I should have cleaned up my eraser lines more, but as I said, it was just for practice.

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Don't Leave Me Hanging!

Don't you hate it when people leave you hanging? They start to tell you about something, and then never finish, or never let you know the outcome to something they were excited about?

So do I, but sometimes I still end up doing just that.  An example would be that way back in May of 2014 I showed my readers a painting from start to finish, and told them it was going to be entered into a juried show.  Then I neglected to let anyone know if the painting had been accepted to the show or not.

Well, better late than never right?  To refresh your memory, this was the painting:

And it was one of three that I was going to enter into a juried show.  Well, it did get accepted, it was the only one of my paintings that did get accepted.  Now, this show gets hundreds of submissions, and rejects most of them, only showing a handful of what is submitted.  So even being accepted is a huge honor, especially for a completely self-taught artist like myself.  However that wasn't the end of the honor.  When I went to the exhibit, I noticed this attached to the wall next to my painting.

It turns out that in the category of paintings they gave three prizes, and I didn't win one, but each Juror also got to select ONE work from ALL categories that he personally felt should have been awarded the prize, and give it an honorable mention.  So juror Venker chose my painting from every single work in the show, and he personally told me that he had voted for it to win in the painting category.

Okay, so sure, I'd have liked to have won a prize, but to get accepted was a big deal, then to get an honorable mention out of all the works there.  I was very pleased.

I will soon be adding this painting to my etsy shop, I have to photograph it in the frame as well as the photo above so people can see how it will look in their home.  However prints of it are available right now, the photograph below is the print quality one, that best shows the true colors and values of the original.  Click on it to see a much larger version on Fine Art America.

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Somewhere, in the Far Reaches of Space

OH NO!!!  Somewhere on a distant planet, in the far of reaches of outer space, there's an Alien swimmer who forgot their towel on the branch of sphere tree.

Okay, okay, its not outer space, its just the space between my ears, and the planet exists only in my mixed media sketch book... but still...

Alien Landscape, by Vicki Maheu
Watercolor pencils on vellum.  Copyright Vicki Maheu, all rights reserved.

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Word for the Year

Have you noticed the trend on blogs of selecting a word for the year?  I have been debating what word I want for my year, it could be "create", it could be "vibrancy", both of those struck me as worthy of being selected... but instead, I am choosing a word that might come as surprise to many.

That's right, my word is discipline.  Why? Because its what I need in so many parts of my life.  I need it in the area of health and nutrition, I need it in the area of housekeeping, I need it in the area of spirituality, and I desperately need it in the areas of art.

If I am going to improve my art and see my life as an artist grow, I simply must discipline myself to work on it regularly.  I love doing it, but so often I put it off, and don't start.  I need to at least sketch four or five times a week, but preferably be working on more than just simple sketches and putting in time on my paintings, try new mediums, and learn new techniques.

So my word for 2015 is Discipline.

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Something Old for the First Day of the New Year

Well, I was glancing through my sketchbook earlier, and I found a sketch I completed over a year ago, when Al, the man who facilitates an art group I was part of challenged me to do my best to draw him in no more than two minutes.  Well, I don't have a photograph of him to show you by comparison, but I can tell you that my daughter, who hasn't seen the gentleman for a very long time, saw it and right away asked, "Is that Al?"

Sketch of Al Mulkey, by Vicki Maheu

This reminds me that I need to get back into frequent sketching, and sometimes putting a time limit on it doesn't hurt anything, after all, by limiting the time spent so severely, it forces the artist to pick the important features that identify the subject, it kind of trains your mind what is important to create a general likeness.

Of course, this is just a sketch, if I was trying to do a real portrait I would take more time, use more details and do some shading, but for just a quick sketch, I think it turned out pretty good.

Thank you for reading! I welcome your suggestions on how to make this blog more interesting to you!