Through the Fog

This painting of the lionsgate bridge was a Christmas commission for a friend of mine. It measures 36" by 48" and was painted with acrylic paint. I actually enjoyed the process of making this painting which is surprising since I have had a love hate relationship with landscapes in the past.
Landscapes have never really been my thing but because my father paints landscapes my first painting was of a calendar photo of autumn trees. I hated it from the moment I started and I think my dad actually threw it out when I was done. I painted a portrait shortly after (it was so much better) which I count as my first painting.

 I painted this painting in very distinct steps and layers which meant I was finishing off sections as I went instead of working on everything at once. I started with the sky across the top of the canvas and then painted the mountains over that. I was very concerned that I would at some point ruin the blue wash I had worked on but luckily I managed to make it all the way through the painting process with only a few small glitches.

The fog was tricky. I didn't want it to look like snow or like I had forgotten to paint half of my canvas so I did some sponge painting of various colours to give it some depth and then smoothed it out with thin layers of white.

 The bridge was another tricky thing to do without messing up my previous layers. For a brief but stressful moment I thought I would be starting over but it all worked out in the end and I covered my small error with the trees across the front.

The pine trees were tedious but easy to do, although they looked like shadows till I fogged some of them out. The final touch was the red and yellow leaves of the largest tree which really made the difference between the foreground and all the layers behind it.
I am very pleased with how this painting turned out and happy to add it to the collection of 2 other landscapes I have painted. lol
Now I have time to get back to my other paintings that have been laying dormant for the past stressful month!

Keep Dreaming

 Keep Dreaming

With every dream you dream

and every star you see

one more chance to become

who you want to be

Don't cry for every star

that falls from your sky

there's more where that came from

just dream big dreams and try!

Since I was on a deadline with this painting I had to make quick decisions...which I am not good at. Because of some of those quick decisions I feel unsettled about how this one turned out.
I took a bunch of reference photos over the summer at my cabin and luckily this one worked well in a square format. By the time I sketched it out and came up with the background half of my allotted month was gone. I dove into the project but because of my rush I feel like I missed many little things along the way but perhaps I am just paranoid. I prefer to sit and ponder a painting for hours/days/weeks sometimes before confidently moving on to the next step but there was not enough time for me to sit and stew about the concept/composition and small anatomy issues.
This painting is now for sale at the Oneft2 online Gallery. This gallery sells 12" by 12" paintings created by a handful of artists. I am very excited to be working with this gallery site and "Keep Dreaming" is my first contribution.

Holiday Tags

Despite the fact that I can be a little bit of a scrooge I have spent many hours hand painting holiday gift tags for my Etsy shop. I actually have two Etsy shops, one with my art and the other (Das Buch) that I fill with craftier things like journals, bookmarks and gift tags. Everything in this shop is handmade and hand painted by me.

Creating these items is time consuming and tedious but there is something really special about handmade items. Each set of gift tags is hand painted and some are decorated with gold leaf and glitter. My goal is to make gift giving more personal with these cute little tags!

I also create hand painted bookmarks and Journals for this Etsy shop. I create the Journals using a coptic stitch so that when open the pages lay flat. Every journal and bookmark is unique and one of a kind. A small handmade luxury and a great gift for creative writers and bookworms!

Check out my Etsy shop to see more of my handmade items!
Das Buch