Yellow-headed Blackbirds

Blackbirds

I look at this painting and hear the Beatles singing "Blackbird singing in the dead of night." This yellow-headed blackbird comes from a photo I took of a blackbird we saw walking on the sidewalk this spring. He was in kind of a dither, walking back and forth and making little clucking sounds like he was talking to himself. I knew when I looked at the photograph afterward he would become a star.

What's next? More birds, flowers, guitars. More color and energy escaping all the layers.

Crows and Blackbirds

Crows and Flowers

Lynn Whipple's class taught me the use of layers of charcoal, pastel and paint. The last assignment was a large painting 36"x48". Off I went with the techniques I learned from her, but adding my own elements.

Painting 2016

My guitars were coming along, but I began to want to go further. But, where to go?

Again, my friend suggested I take an on-line course, this time from an artist from Florida, Lynn Whipple. I went to her website and looked at her work and I wanted to dive into her paintings to see what layers she had covered up. So, I signed up and again my work took a new turn. I love all the layers upon layers of paint, pastel, charcoal. It really spoke to the way I want to work: intuitively, tempered with design principles and lots of color.

I really love looking at these flower paintings. They make my eye move and rest, move and rest and still are full of energy and color. Now, I needed to take the next step.

Studio Time 2014-2015

Where does one go when one feels the need to learn more?

I have a Bachelors Fine Art. My emphasis was ceramics. But, as time moved away from my graduation date, my life became more and more busy. I would start projects in clay and then not be able to get back to them for weeks. Finally, after acquiring buckets and buckets of dried up clay, I decided to turn my attention to painting. With Studio Time I began to produce a few paintings. But, I wasn't satisfied with what I was creating.

I began to buy a few books written by artists that painted in a more abstract way. A friend of mine had taken an on-line painting and suggested I check it out. The teacher was Karine Swanson and her class opened up an avenue for my painting.

For the first time, I found a series that I wanted to explore over and over. Abstracted guitars began to appear on canvases in oil. It felt free and using the bright colors that I love made me smile.

A little something started to change in Guitar 6...birds.

Cool Crows

2014-2015 Studio Time

Guitar 1

Guitar 2

Guitar 3

Guitar 4

Guitar 5

2013 Studio Time

Pumpkin with  Squash Bugs, Acrylic, 2013, 24"x36"

After years of feeling frustrated and even resentful that I had no time to create, I took a real good look at my schedule and asked myself a hard question: Do you really want to make art or do you just want to complain about not being able to?

I instituted Studio Time (yes, capitalized): setting aside one afternoon a week to spend in the Studio. Just think, I told myself, if you have one afternoon a week you will always know you can work on a project. If you have one afternoon a week, say even 3 hours a week, you will have 156 hours you don't have right now to work on your art. Since then I have painted 17 paintings for friends that I call "mug shots." I have painted 1-10"x36" painting, 4-18"x24" painting, 13 paintings (24"x36") and 1-36"x48". I have made 4 papier-mache chickens and 5 coat-hanger, paper and mixed media ladies. All while designing 15+ Christmas cards/year for my business Walton Laser Graphics. And, because energy begets energy, I have written 18 original songs and performed 12 of them.

Could having those extra hours set aside really make that much difference?

I think so. I immediately felt freedom that I didn't have to stew over never having any time. I had time. I was more excited about what I was working on even when it wasn't going well. I knew I had time to let it rest and I had time to get back to it.

Above was one of my first paintings made during Studio Time. It was an idea that had been rolling around in my head for a long time. Finding my garden infested with squash bugs gave me the last push to start and finish a whole project.