Through the month of March, I’ve been working on the #indexcardartproject with two of my Instagram friends – @mishwooderson and @openfieldmercantile .  It’s been such a great exercise for me in a lot of ways and I thought I would share my thoughts and takeaways so far. First off, if you want to get into art in any capacity, a project like this is a great way to do it.  It’s a commitment to consistency, not to creating anything great or frame-worthy.  It’s about learning through putting pencil-to-paper so to speak.  And, with just 17 cards done, I have already learned a lot.   Here are five of the areas where I feel like I’ve grown the most. one | shapes I’m learning to focus on the larger shapes of a subject.  I seem to be able to do this with certain things, but I get bogged down with the details

My whole oil painting journey started with a challenge.  Michelle Wooderson, a watercolor artist I took a class from through Jeanne Oliver’s artist network, started the #100meadowsproject as a way to dive into oil painting.  I really wanted to learn and I figured the best way was to put paint to canvas, so I joined her. Another Instagram friend, Page Ellis, took on the challenge as well and the three of us encouraged each other and shared our research, trials, and victories.  I sent them so many pictures of bad paintings and they always found something nice to say!  Anyway, I learned a lot during that project…  everything from the discipline of creating daily to how to handle the paint better. I followed it with the #100oilstills challenge I set for myself.  And I learned even more from my mistakes and successes, as well as from online classes and art books. Lately,

In case you don’t follow me on Instagram (or you missed it), I wanted to share that I finished number 100 of my #100oilstills series!  It’s pretty amazing to think that I have painted over 200 oil paintings in the last year, especially since it’s just a side hobby. And, I was so pleased that number 100 turned out as well as it did and I could clearly see how all of the hours put in at the easel between numbers 1 and 100 have paid off. One of my followers on my art Instagram account said it was like a bouquet of yellow fireworks, celebrating the achievement.  I loved that description of it. As a comparison, here is number 1 and number 100 side by side. Since progress is my goal, I would say that goal has been met. I have continued doing still life paintings since I have

I really wanted to write this post on the one-year anniversary, but I was in Italy on that date and have been posting mostly about my trip, so I missed the boat.  I really didn’t want to let this milestone pass without a post about it, so better late than never.   After about a year of dabbling with watercolors and sketches, I started oil painting in earnest last September.  I had purchased most of the materials a few months earlier and they had been languishing in a drawer, mostly because I felt intimidated by using oils.  I didn’t know how to use them or even how to clean up after using them.  It is something I dreamed of doing, though.  I wanted to be an oil painter and it’s impossible to be an oil painter without painting with oils! An instructor I took a watercolor class from, Michelle Wooderson, wanted to

The last couple of days have been busy with birthday parties, Mayo Clinic visits, house keeping, and back to school shopping, so I haven’t had much time for home projects or for posting here on the blog!  I thought I would pop in, though, just to give an update on my oil painting. I started oil painting last September and the journey has been such a gift to my creative soul.  I don’t paint with any grand aspirations.  I paint because I love it and I’m thoroughly enjoying the progress I am seeing in my work.  The excitement at the visible progress keeps me coming back for more.  I still have so far to go, but I am “getting it” more and more with each painting and book and tutorial. I decided a few months ago that I would like to further nurture this new love and take an art