Artistic Endeavors Archives | Page 24 of 55

Artistic Endeavors

design

creating a book cover | feels like home

If you missed it, I have a that is all about customizing your house (or apartment, condo, townhouse) so that it feels like home. I would definitely consider writing a book a labor of love, but this book wasn’t a slog or a tiring push to the finish line. It wasn’t, as they say, like “cutting myself open to let the words bleed out.” It did demand a lot of me, but it came easily and I thoroughly enjoyed the work and the process. I overshot my word target by a mile and we had more pictures than we had room for! In my creative joy, I was able to produce an overabundance of what we needed and I hope the result is a book that is enjoyed by many. One of the places where I got a little stuck, though, was shooting the cover of the book. I wasn’t

May 12, 2021 25 Comments

Artistic Endeavors

may 12 art sale preview

Despite putting a focus on custom paintings over the past 2-3 weeks, I also accumulated enough paintings to have an art sale before I work on the next round of commissions and the next series. We’ll be going to the beach for my parent’s 50th (now 51st) anniversary, so I am planning on focusing my next sale specifically around inspiration I pick up from that trip. Of course, there will be lots of beaches and skies, but I hope to get some pictures of sailboats, lighthouses, and beautiful buildings and street scenes from around Charleston. I’m really excited about creating a collection around one specific theme. Aside from the 100 meadows and 100 still lifes, I am sort of all over the place! I paint whatever inspires me, which could be people, landscapes, still life, a master copy. I don’t want to box myself in too much, but it’s also

May 11, 2021 26 Comments

Creative Play

creative play | customizing a sketchbook

I’ve been spending a lot of time with my Kitchin sketchbooks, reading them, doing pencil studies of the sketches, and scanning each page. Handling them has made me think about my own sketchbooks and how I approach keeping a record of how I see the world. Beyond admiring the artistry, I love how the sketchbooks are a uniform collection. Aside from one that is a little larger, all of the books are the same size and covered in linen. He signed the interior and put his address in addition to labeling the cover and spine with the year(s) the book was filled. It inspired me to go through my sketchbooks and be more intentional about seeing them as a part of a larger collection instead of as individual books. I still like to have separate books for different mediums and purposes, but I want to be mindful of how they

May 7, 2021 16 Comments

Artistic Endeavors

lessons from queen victoria’s sketchbooks

A few weeks ago, I was searching around for something short and inspiring to watch. Maybe a documentary on an artist? Or a short art lesson? My curiosity was piqued when I spotted The Royal Paintbox on my Masterpiece Subscription. I mean, anything about paintboxes these days is interesting to me! So, I started the documentary. In it, HRH Prince Charles shares his own artwork as well as art from various royals, kings, and queens, who showed varying levels of proficiency. The work I was most interested in, though, was the sketchbooks of Queen Victoria. I figured she painted since I have seen that portrayed in movies and series on Victoria, but I never imagined she sketched and painted extensively using different mediums. As I watched Prince Charles slowly flip through some of her sketchbooks, I had to pause the documentary to see if they had ever been published. And

May 6, 2021 24 Comments

Artistic Endeavors

Creative play | making a cyanometer

Have you ever heard of a cyanometer? I hadn’t either until I was doing a random search for vintage color wheels and came across one. It’s a device that measures the blueness of the sky! How perfect is that for someone like me who 1.) loves blue, 2.) loves studying color, and 3.) loves painting skies? Pretty darn perfect. The picture above is the original cyanometer that was invented by Horace-Bénédict de Saussure and Alexander von Humboldt in 1789. It’s a circle with 53 colored sections ranging from light to dark. Isn’t it just beautiful? I feel like it’s a work of art in and of itself. I looked around online to see if I could find any information about making a cyanometer. What specific blue should be used? Or what colors should be mixed? I didn’t find any tutorials that were helpful. (One used paint chips from a hardware

April 30, 2021 20 Comments

Art

the atelier | working with a limited palette

Through February and March, I was working on creating and filming and it is now open for preregistration! The course is The Atelier | Creating with a Limited Palette. Here is what Jeanne Oliver says about the course… And this is the synopsis I wrote for the course… In this class, Marian Parsons, a paint enthusiast and lover of color, will show you how to mix beautiful shades for landscapes, still lifes, and portraits with just four colors. Together, we’ll create color studies, sketches, and finished, frameable works in several paint mediums – oils, water-soluble oils, acrylics, and watercolors/gouache to discover harmony in your work when transitioning from one medium to another (or working in your favorite mediums.) This class is about the discovery and exploration of mediums and limited colors to include in your palette for the purpose of clarifying your aesthetic as an artist. Techniques Taught in this

April 22, 2021 27 Comments

Art Supplies

antique drafting box

Before I get into today’s post, the winner of the Feels Like Home Giveaway is Joanne B. (Joanne81931)! I loved reading through all of your comments about what feels like home to you. Seriously, it was a pleasure and they all made me smile. Lots of references to family, pets, coffee, books, and comfy chairs by the fire. I will be having more giveaways as we get closer to the book launch date. About the same time I found the Victorian Reeves watercolor box, I found this beautiful box of drafting/architect’s tools and I decided to spend my birthday money on both. After learning lessons about buying things on impulse, I let both sit in my digital shopping cart for a couple of days. Would I use these? Would I love them more than something I already have? The answer to both was yes and I had butterflies in my

April 21, 2021 12 Comments

Antiques

back home & another antique watercolor box

Despite a trip to the ER after a day in the car (my youngest son has a stomach bug or severe car sickness and needed fluids), we had a wonderful trip out east to visit our family. We made our first stop in North Carolina to visit Jeff’s parents and his sister’s family before we drive up to Pennsylvania to visit my parents. We spent a ton of time in the car, but it was all worth it so we could see family. We hadn’t seen Jeff’s parents since December 2019 and my parents since last summer. I took a break from writing here on the blog, but I did sneak some painting in. Painting outdoors from life (known as plein air painting) is such a challenge for me compared to painting in the studio. I struggled through this one and didn’t love the end result, but it was a

April 5, 2021 58 Comments

I’m Marian, a painter, writer, and lover of all things creative. From art and antiques to home projects and everyday life, I share my journey in hopes of inspiring you to embrace your own creativity and make beauty in the spaces you live.

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