First Time...

Well then. It's been a bit since I've last posted. I'd give you all the excuses, but they're pretty much the same, just go check out any other post on this blog and you'll see why my posts aren't as often as they could/should be. Whatevs... apparently I am not as awesome as all the mommy bloggers who can raise 6 kids and blog 8 times a day about their perfect houses, organic home cooked meals, and hand made clothes. It's cool... I'll just be over here in the corner with my Taco Bell, my cats, and my once in a blue moon blogs. Fact is, I even started this post like three days ago and am just not getting to finishing it. :)

Anywho.... last Friday night (anyone else hear Katy Perry when they read that? Nope? Just me?) I participated in my very first art show. It was nuts. Fun, exciting, petrifying, exhausting, pretty much every emotion I could feel was felt that night. Over all, it was a great learning experience. I got quite a few nice compliments on my art, though I didn't hang around it too much to talk to people looking at it. It was cool to meet other artists and people in the art industry and very awesome to see so much great artwork all in one place. I even have proof that A) I was there and B) I was not hiding under a table :)

 So, there you go. The first is just me, second is the hubs and I in front of my pieces. Unfortunately, they weren't in the best place You can see they're on a half wall, behind which was the stairs, so people were constantly standing in front of my work, leaning against it, and setting drinks on that ledge. That sucked, but live and learn I guess. When you drop off work don't ask if you need to hang your own pieces (the answer was no) ask if you can hang your own pieces (answer to that was apparently yes). Regardless, it was quite the learning experience.

Other learning experiences this month? Well, I entered my first two art competitions: The Chelsea International Art Show and a competition to be exhibited at Cableland, the official residence of the Denver mayor. I did not get into the Chelsea show, which, while a bummer, I felt okay about. The pieces that were selected were radically different than anything that I've ever painted, so I can easily see why the judge would not choose my work.

 I still haven't heard about Cableland, which is infinitely more stressful. I hate waiting. I'd really like to just know, one way or the other, especially since it's been a month since the deadline. We shall see. I'm cautiously hopeful.

Those two entries, coupled with this show, and putting up a bunch of pieces for sale at the pilates studio I go to, have comprised all of my art life for the last month. It's definitely been stressful and anxiety inducing, and it's not my favorite part of being an artist, but it is a necessity. I'm hoping that I can get back to getting some paintings done over the next few weeks and be able to focus less on the business side and more on the creative side of my work.

So, there you go, all my firsts for the month. :) First contest entry. First contest rejection. First show. First show without any sales. First waiting forever to find out about an exhibition. It's been rough month of firsts. I'll leave you with the two pieces that I submitted to Cableland. I dig them... but I may be a little biased.

Rocky Mountain Columbine

Denver Sunset

Bouncing Up

Whew... thank you for your kind support after my sort of depressing post last week. Many of you reached out on Facebook and in real life to encourage me, and I really appreciate that. :) FYI- I have a link to my Facebook book page up now, over in the side bar there. So go "like" me if you want to stay caught up on my life even more.

So... as it is often said, the darkest time is always before the dawn. While I'm not sure that I'm actually at my dawn yet, I do have some exciting news. I'll be showing in my first art exhibit in April! It's an underground art show that a friend mentioned to me. So, April 26th I'll have 3 (maybe 4 if I can get another painting done) painting up for the Pancakes and Booze Art Show. :) It's really exciting. And really scary. Petrifying actually. But... I've got to just put on my big girl panties and get my butt out there. We shall see.

Anywho... here's the link to the Facebook event https://www.facebook.com/events/237779406354190/?ref=3 if you want more info. I'd love for you all to come if you're local. It looks like a lot of fun, and it involves pancakes so it really can't be bad. :) If you're not on Facebook and want to come here's their website with more info Pancakes and Booze Art Show.

In other news... I've been painting a bit. You've already seen them if you follow me on Twitter or Facebook, but here they are again, just for fun. :)



Nelly
11x14 pastel on paper

This one was a commissioned painting for my Uncle. (Yes, I do, in fact, do commissioned work.) His beloved dog, Nelly, passed away recently and he wanted something to commemorate her. He sent me a photograph of her running in her favorite field and asked me to paint that. I cannot even begin to tell you how nervous I was/am. I'm delivering it to him tomorrow and I really hope he loves it. I loved Nelly too; she was a really sweet dog and I hope I did her memory justice. We shall see.

Abstract Aspens
14x11 pastel on paper

Next up, Abstract Aspens. A bit of a departure from what I normally do, but I think it turned out all right. I like how the aspen leaves look a bit like birds, but I'm not sure I'm a huge fan of how the foliage on the ground looks. I may need to tweak that a bit... I don't know.

Umm.... horse?
14x11 pastel on paper

And finally... a total departure from anything I've done before. Not sure what to call it at all... Horse? Rainbow Horse? Something not as sucky as either of those two? Meh... I have no title. But anyway, I saw a painting similar to this in a magazine (though it was oils and much runnier...) and I thought it was really interesting so I decided to give it a shot. It was definitely a challenge. I had a hard time with the face not looking lumpy and weird, and the legs... though sort of nonexistent, it was still difficult to get a bit of a hint in the shaping. So, a very different piece for me. I think I'd like to try a buffalo in this same style, but I've got a couple of other things to finish first. :)

Carry on...

So, I haven't blogged since I made my big announcement about all of my artwork being for sale and available as prints and what not. Now, part of this is because it's been a little busy around here. It was the holidays, and then Monday, and well... let's just say I was taking a lot of naps too. But, the real part of why I haven't been blogging, and also why I hadn't been painting either was a wounded ego.

Ugh. I like to think of myself as a strong confident woman, but honestly? I'm really not. I have terrible self esteem and putting myself out there is just petrifying. (See my previous post) But, I put on my big girl panties and did it. I got my artwork out there. I sent out a mass email, posted a big thing on Facebook and promoted it as much as I could. And you know what happened? Nothing. Well, I shouldn't be rude, that's not entirely true. Plenty of people sent me kind notes, encouraged me, and offered to help in many ways, but did I focus on that? No. I focused on the fact that I the only thing I sold from that whole push (and the only thing I've sold period) is one greeting card. (Thanks, Linda!)
Now, is my art all about making money? No. Definitely not. If I was into jobs that make money I obvsiously wouldn't have chosen teaching as my first career. But, I wanted to believe that my artwork was great and that people would want it and it would fly off the proverbial shelves. But it didn't. And that really, really stung.

So, I kind of hid from it. I didn't paint. I didn't promote. I didn't blog. I didn't do anything related to what, in my mind, felt like an epic failure. I just stopped. This little bump in the road stopped me in my tracks.

For those of you who know me in real life, this might seem surprising. I'm always pressing on, and always encouraging other people to do the same. I always tell people their failures don't matter. Pick yourself up and carry on, but it was something that I couldn't do myself. It took me a while to realize that the reason I wasn't painting wasn't that I was so busy, it was that my ego was bruised and I wasn't sure I could still paint. I didn't know if my work was "good enough". And honestly, I was also wrestling with whether that mattered to me or not. I don't sell my knitting, but I still knit. If I don't sell my paintings, can I still paint?

I'm still not sure. I love to paint. It's fun; it feels easy and I love taking lessons. I would love to keep painting as a hobby for sure. But there is still this nagging feeling that I want to sell my work. Get it out there to people. Have others enjoy the things that I have created. I don't know if that will ever happen, and if I can be okay with it if I never do sell a painting. We shall see. It's a tough road for sure. Not selling anything feels like a rejection of me as a person. It feels like all those people who told me my stuff was pretty were just lieing and paying me lip service. I know in my head that neither of those things are true... but in my heart. Well, that's a different matter.

So, we'll see. I've painted a couple of things in the last few weeks, and I have another class tonight. I'll try to share those pictures with you soon (though if you follow me on Twitter or Facebook you've already seen them). And I'll continue to wrestle with my feelings of inadequacy and disappointment. It's always a battle isn't it?

Forgive me while I hide under my chair.

Hooboy... it's been a crazy few weeks. I had a bit of a health scare, which turned out all right, but zapped a lot of my energy before Thanksgiving. Since then, I've been busting my butt trying to get my artwork ready for sale. I got the digital images of my artwork back from the photographer and then set to the task of making sure it was all color corrected, cropped properly, edited and packaged for uploading to various printing websites and to my etsy store.

Now, I'll be the first to admit that I'm not a business person. I've never worked in an office, and only worked in a business as a retail clerk for a summer in high school. All of my professional experience has been in education, which is definitely not run for a business. So, this whole experience has been really eye-opening and completely terrifying. It was a lot of sweat and tears trying to determine where to share my art, how to price things, what to frame, and whether I want to even sell everything. But really, despite my complete lack of business know-how, none of that was the hardest part.

The hardest part, is just getting it out there.

This may seem silly to some of you, and maybe even surprising to those of you who know me in real life. For me, however, it is absolutely petrifying. I'm an introvert, through and through. Now, I've learned how to act extroverted to function in the world because in general, the world is not kind to introverts, but putting myself out there is super scary ya'll. In general, people have been amazingly supportive of my art, which has helped immensely, but I still worry.

So... I had to take a deep breath and thicken my skin and send my work out into the world. I don't expect everyone to love what I do, nor do I expect people to only lavish praise on me, (though that would be nice), but taking criticism is difficult.

I've had some people criticize me, pretty harshly, for actions that I've taken in the last year with my family and some of the struggles that we've gone though. The criticisms have made me think about my actions and whether I stand by them, or if I would have done things differently. Ultimately, I realized that despite people calling me selfish, cold, heartless or any other manner of terrible things (mostly behind my back), I still did the best that I could with the information that I had. And honestly, the same thing is going to apply to my art. Will I be a better artist 5 years from now? Sure. Will my early works look like early works. Sure. But, I'll have done the best I can with what I've got right now. Some people will hate my art. Some people will hate me and my actions. But... I'm okay with me and that's all that really matters right now.

So... that being said... go check out my artwork page (tab at the top). I've got links to all of the places that I'm selling my works and pictures of all my pieces.

Thank you all for your support, whether it was through kind words or even nasty criticism. It's all necessary to forming me as an artist and a person. So thanks.

Hey Jealousy...

It is giving away too much about my age to quote the Gin Blossoms? Probably so, but I wore my flannel proudly in the early 90s. Why can't grunge come back instead of crappy 80s styles and neon? Le Sigh... the fashion gods never listen.

At any rate, I have been thinking a lot lately. This is not entirely unusual for me, I do tend to think a lot, but lately I've been thinking a lot about jealousy. Yes, jealousy, that old green-eyed monster. It's not something that people talk about much, because it isn't the best emotion and I think all of us would like to pretend that we moved far past jealousy after being envious of someone in high school. Well, I'll be the first to admit my emotional stuntedness in this respect. I still get jealous, and I'm not sure what to do about it. So, I thought I would ask you dear readers... how do you handle jealousy?

I suppose I should clarify. I'm not jealous of celebrities or people with awesome hair (well, maybe the hair). I'm jealous of regular people. I'm jealous of people who didn't have to pay for their own bachelor's and master's degree and will now be in student loan debt for the rest of eternity. Jealous of people who got to go to their first choice school, and didn't have to change their plans because of money and a sick parent. Jealous of people who still have their parents and whose parents weren't insane. Jealous of people who haven't had to deal with the massive amount of shit that I've been dealt. Jealous of people who don't have to see 8 different doctors to try to make sure that they catch the cancer they'll inevitably get early. Jealous of people who don't have to worry about money, or their health, or their families. Jealous of people who have great relationships with their families. Jealous of people who can eat carbs like gangbusters and not gain a pound. Jealous of people who are doing what they absolutely love and are amazing at and making a living from it. Jealous of people with fewer responsibilities than me. Ugh... the list goes on and on and one.

Now... I don't want to be a whiner (despite that very long, whiney list) My logical side reminds me that I am very, very lucky, and there are plenty of people who are jealous of me, and my life (though probably not my hair). I woke up this morning... which is WAY ahead of a lot of people. I have an amazing husband, great kitties, and some of the best friends a girl can ask for. I have a house, food, clothes, and many, many many blessings that are not afforded to far too many in the world.

That's what my logical side says. It tells me, rather sternly I might add, that I should count my blessings and not look to others to fulfill my own happiness. It rages at me that we are all fighting our own battles, and just because someone outwardly looks to have everything that you've ever wished for, does not mean that they are not struggling even more than you are.  My logical side is rather smart. Unfortunately, my poor logical side has to deal with my illogical side on a regular basis.

My illogical side kicks and screams and throws a giant temper-tantrum when I see someone else getting what I wanted. Succeeding where I have failed. Gliding through life with all the help in the world that I have always wished to have. Falling ass backwards into amazing things without working hard at all, while I toil and slave and get no recognition or respect. I really don't like my illogical side. I glare at it like the toddler throwing a tantrum next to me in a quiet museum. But, much like the long-suffering mother of that toddler, I can't just throw out my illogical side. It's with me, for better or worse.

What I can't quite seem to place is how to balance these two sides. How to make my illogical side behave and while I'm sure it'll still pout at least get it to take it down a notch. So, I ask you my dearest readers... all, what... four of you? :) What makes you jealous? How do you deal with these envious feelings? Or just tell me that you feel the same way and that I'm not totally crazy. :)

In the Beginning...

I wrote a post a little while ago that explained how I got started painting... well, I wasn't completely honest with you guys. I started painting long before last March. I'm sorry... I know I should have been honest.

So, honestly, I started with pastels when I was in first grade. I was an award winning artist by the time I was 6. So, if I'd shattered your impression of me as an up and comer in the art world, I'm sorry. :)

Without further ado.... here is my first, award winning, pastel painting.

I know, the lines, the colors.... it's obvious that I was an artist from a very early age. :)

For those of you who haven't met me in person and can't hear my sarcastic voice in your heads as I say all of this, I'm being sarcastic. Though... this was the beginning of my art career.

This lovely little frog won the art show when I was in first grade. Part of the prize of winning the show was that my piece was framed and hung in the school office.

I actually didn't remember winning this art show until late in the spring of my Senior year in high school. Now, I grew up in a very small town, so I was one of two Danas in the entire school system. A few weeks before I graduated, I got a call from the elementary school office, asking if I was the Dana who painted the green frog. They were remodeling the office, and wanted to return my painting to me. And so, my very first pastel painting was returned to its owner. :)

I got it reframed with some new matts and it now hangs in the entry of my house. I know it's not actually the most amazing painting ever, but I really love it nonetheless. It's so interesting to me how my life is starting to come full circle. I loved art as a kid, but stopped taking art classes in fifth grade, because I started taking band, and those classes were mutually exclusive. So, through middle school, high school and college, I was a music geek, concert band, marching band, choir, vocal jazz... all of it. It's nice now, finally in my 30s, to get back to my apparent roots, pastels.

So... there you go, my first, award-winning painting. :) I plan on sharing more of my journey into my artistic life in the coming months, but I'd also love to know what you all would like to hear about. More painting as they go? my history? just shut up and go away?

Let me know what you'd like. :)

Picture Perfect Process

Hahaa..... I'm back! It's been crazy busy 'round here, but I'm finally trying to get back into the groove of some reading, knitting, writing and painting.

A couple of weekends ago, a good friend and I were talking about her upcoming fundraiser gala for her work. I, being my overachieving self, promptly volunteered to paint a couple of things to donate to their silent auction. Brilliant right? Well... that remains to be see. :) But, when I started on the first painting, I did have the thought to take pictures of the painting as it progressed so I should share my painting process with you all.

So... without further ado, here is the painting from start to finish. It is quite different than anything else I've ever painted, but it was a lot of fun and quite the challenge. My friend works at The Butterfly Pavilion, hence the butterflies. :)

So, painting for me generally start with an image of some kind. I have done a few paintings that were purely from my head, but I like to start with some inspiration. When I volunteered myself to do some paintings for the Gala, I immediately took to Pinterest (you can follow me here) After futzing around for a while, I finally settled on this image as my base inspiration.

 

Source: google.com via Dana on Pinterest

I really liked the colors ad the variety. Plus, it was unlike anything that I'd attempted before and I'm always looking for a new challenge in my painting. :)

So, from there, I chose my paper (9x12" Wallis), taped it up to my little board and got started.

First, I sketched out a rough outline of shapes.
I forgot to take a picture before I started adding color... hence the green. :)

Then, I just filled in the shapes with some base colors. You can sort of see the butterflies taking shape here.

Next up, I started adding details to each individual butterfly. I like to rotate my pieces as I work on them, so that I don't get lots of pastel dust falling down onto parts I have already worked on. Here I started in the upper right corner (which been the lower right corner in the previous photos) with the green butterfly. I tried to mix up the types of butterfly and the level of detail. One thing I've learned is that your eye does need a little bit of a place to rest, otherwise a piece looks too convoluted and busy. So, at this stage I've completed the green, peach, turquoise, blue and orange butterflies.

Now, I've completed the pink zebra butterfly, and started working on the other pink wing next to it. This project was very different for me because it required A LOT of detail work. Normally, my paintings are very smooth, blended and a little impressionistic. This one required lots of precision. I used many of my pastel pencils, tortillions and loads of Q-tips to make sure that every piece was precise and as sharp as could be.

 

And... there's the final image! :) It's back in the same orientation that it was at the start. As you can see, I filled in the detail for all of the full butterflies and the parts that could be seen behind them. I also went back and made the body on the peachy-pink butterfly smaller. I didn't like how "moth-like" it was looking before. Nice thing about pastels though is that you can always change things later. I also pinked up that peach butterfly, as it wasn't quite working with the rest of the colors.

 

So, there you go. Now I just have to spray it with fixative and get it photographed for prints and then it'll be off to the auction! I should have all of the paintings that I've done so far available as prints soon. I'll let you all know when that happens.!