Artistic Endeavors Archives | Page 43 of 58

Artistic Endeavors

sketching

I know that many of you come to my blog for furniture makeovers, tutorials, antique finds, and home decorating inspiration, but I couldn’t take a piece of furniture or my sewing machine with me on the plane to China! What I could take, though, was my sketch book. I was painting a portrait a couple of weeks before I went on my trip and the thought occurred to me that time completely slips away when I’m engrossed in a sketch or painting. Well, that sounds like a perfect activity to bring on a 14 hours flight – just the kind of place you want time to run away from you. So, I brought along my sketch pad and some inspiration pictures to work off of. I actually got overly ambitious and even brought watercolors, but I never had the chance to pull those out. I had an “art afternoon” with

March 28, 2017 34 Comments

a slice of life

I’ve created a monster

My boys were really little when I started my business, both in diapers, in fact. As a stay-at-home mom and new entrepreneur, one of the things I enjoyed most was getting out of the house and going to Hobby Lobby. I would just meander, usually pushing one cart and pulling another (one kid in each cart or two kids in one cart and the other cart for purchases.) I know it was a spectacle, but I had to find a way to make it all work. It was that point when my boys began disliking Hobby Lobby. Even before they could read, they could recognize those capital orange letters. So, we’ve made a joke out of it. Every time we drive by, I’ll ask if I can stop in there for about an hour to look around and they’ll throw their heads back and sigh out a big, “Nooooooo!” Well,

March 20, 2017 41 Comments

Art

barn quilt coloring book & art journaling

I have been working on several projects over the past few months and one of them has finally hit the market! The Barn Quilt Coloring Book is now available. This project was something totally different for me. First of all, it involved drawing instead of writing! But it felt like a project that worked nicely with my brand, despite the fact that it wasn’t like anything I’d done before. I never even thought of doing a coloring book! But, the company who is publishing the Home Design Doodle Book presented this project and we developed the idea together. I first had to do a ton of research on barn quilts and traditional quilt squares. Since I live in Pennsylvania, a place where barn quilts are pretty commonly seen, I was familiar with them, but I didn’t know the history. (For those who don’t know what a barn quilt is, it’s a

March 3, 2017 26 Comments

Art

the discipline of art

As someone with a degree in Musical Theatre, you would think I’ve known for a long time that art is a discipline. I really never thought about that as I was signing into the studio for an hour of vocal scales or filling notebooks with the “inner monologue” of the latest part I was playing. At the time, I just loved every minute of it and figured, since I was studying musical theatre, it made sense that I was doing things musical and theatre-y! I never really viewed it as work or practice, but then again, I had loved it since I was four. Even though I worked hard and I took practices very seriously, I didn’t really put the connection between art and discipline together until recent years. Discipline can be an “ugh” kind of word, but in this case, it should be an encouragement. It means that anyone

February 27, 2017 30 Comments

Art

box easel & studio happenings

I hope you had a great weekend! We had beautiful warm and sunny weather that was beckoning us to a family hike, but we really needed rest and had some chores that needed to be done, so we threw open the windows, pressed through our work, and then just chilled. It’s amazing how much energy a dose of sunshine and some warmth can bring in mid-February! Anyway, I received some questions on my blog and Instagram about the box easel used as a prop in the landscape wardrobe shoot, so I thought I would share. I actually looked at vintage and antique easels, but opted to buy a new one that was made in the traditional French box-easel style. I ordered the Martin Julian full-sized French box easel from Amazon. I would like to get a full-sized studio easel soon, but I liked the idea of getting a smaller, portable

February 20, 2017 22 Comments

All Things Home

the counter, portraits, and color wheels

Thanks so much for all of the feedback on my craigslist counter. I know when I ask about painting or not painting a piece, I will always get a lot of comments and opinions! I usually have a clear idea of what I’m going to do with a piece, but I just knew I loved this one and I would figure it all out later. And your input has been helpful. I agree that it has some amazing charm, but there are a lot of issues that you can’t see in the pictures. First off, here is what the missing side looks like… Obviously, something has to happen there and it’s not as simple as slapping on a piece of wood. It looks like it was sawed off of whatever it was attached to, without a lot of precision, so some finagling is going to have to happen to make

February 15, 2017 23 Comments

Artistic Endeavors

portrait sketches on the iPad

I shared last week that I signed up for the Radiant Watercolor Portraits class offered through Jeanne Oliver’s Creative Network. I signed up for it because I found the watercolor examples by the instructor appealing and I would like more instruction on watercolor, but I also signed up because the idea of drawing people scares the snot out of me. Well, spiders scare the snot out of me… Drawing a person is just reeeeeeally intimidating. The human face is so recognizable to us that even when little nuances are off, the whole piece looks off. …unless it’s deliberately abstract, but even then, I haven’t figured out how to determine if something is an artistic masterpiece or a amateur disaster. Anyone else there with me?! But, I’m never going to grow if I don’t do things that are intimidating and seem out of reach. So, to portrait painting I go! First of all,

February 9, 2017 50 Comments

Artistic Endeavors

loosen up

I haven’t had much of a chance to paint recently and I found I was really missing it, so last week, I set aside some time to put brush to paper. I picked blueberries as my subject and started. I got to an “almost finished” place and realized I just hated it! It was too stiff, structured, and boring. It just wasn’t working. On a whim, I filled the brush with water and smeared it all over the small painting. It looked like self-sabotage for a moment, but the pigments started to run and bleed, blurring all of my stiffness and amateur strokes. Once it dried, I added a little detail back in, but I learned my lesson from the first “draft”. I loosened my choke hold on the brush and let the strokes be more suggestive and less literal. I’m so happy I stuck with this one and saw

February 1, 2017 33 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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