I have spent the last month complaining about the multitude of Christmas commercials and extra early holiday promotions. I have heard so many Christmas songs I cant believe the holidays aren't over yet, but since American Thanksgiving has now arrived I guess I should embrace the Holiday Season. This year I am offering a 20% off coupon code ( RADXMAS13 ) that can be used for anything in my Etsy shop! My shop is filled with art of many different price points. Prints are a cheap and easy way to share art with your friends and family. All of my prints are printed with my professional Epson printer with archival ink on 100% cotton cold press watercolour paper. Each print has a border for easy framing and matting. I offer prints in a variety of sizes; 5" by 7", 8" by 10" and 11" by 14". My shop is also filled with my original paintings which come in all shapes and sizes.
Good luck to everyone on your Holiday shopping! Feel free to shoot me a message if you are interested in a print that is unlisted or have any questions about my artwork!
Every once and awhile I feel the need to put down the paints and get in some pencil practice. It is always good to take the time to step away from my current work and do some quick (sometimes slow and tedious) sketching! Portraits and getting a good likeness can be really tricky so I try to get in some regular practice to keep improving my skills.
This first girl is just a practice sketch that is definitely less than perfect. Adding colour to the background is possibly a distraction from this as well as just a random experiment.
I really enjoy drawing my good friend Clayton, partly because I have done it so often his face is very familiar to me. In this particular instance I enhanced the pencil drawing with watercolour to give it a little more life!
I like how it turned out so I will likely be applying this technique in the future! :)
Every once and awhile I feel compelled to create something reasonably useful. I have always been obsessed with books and journals and find a certain sense of satisfaction in creating my own. It's a lot of work but the end product is pretty fancy. This journal started off with an abstract watercolour painting which served as the background for the covers as well as a matching bookmark. I painted the floral design in gold leaf and adhered the paintings to my cover boards which I also painted gold. The paintings are sealed with varnish and somewhat water resistant. I cut all of the inside paper to size and fold it into signatures and then glue some fancy paper to the outside of the fold to create a colourful spine for my journal. Then I stitched it all together and glued in my end papers.The coptic binding stitch allows the journal to open flat without damaging the spine. I probably spent about 4 hours total creating this journal from start to finish. I was at my cabin this last weekend and sat in front of a roaring fire stitching it together. The process is rather cathartic and relaxing, much like writing in a journal. I sell these journals in my second Etsy shop: Das Buch and hope that they will be appreciated as tangible useful art, or at least give someone a fancy book to scribble notes in!
September is a crazy month filled with confusing schedules, erratic weather and tired children. The dance season started up again and I've been back in the studio teaching five days a week which has left me exhausted and feeling less artistic than usual. There is always an adjustment period as I get back in shape and back into my teaching routine. The first week my calves were so sore I could barely walk and the second week my back began to ache. I'm hoping this week things even out a bit and I will be able to walk like a normal person! :) Teaching and choreographing is creative and I love every minute of it but unfortunately my sketchbooks have been neglected in the meantime. I'm hoping to get back to them this week and create some fun things to share with everyone. I have a few half finished sketches on the go that I'm hoping to complete this week. In the meantime I have a video of me dancing. This is from June 2013.
I am honored to be participating in Canada's first RAW art event in Vancouver. I have spent the last three weeks painting, browsing hardware stores, working out my display and selling tickets. Selling tickets in the summer is hard enough because everyone is on vacation but selling tickets to an art show is even harder because most people dont get too excited about art shows. This never really occurred to me since I spent most of my childhood summer vacations browsing art galleries and museums and loved every minute of it.
RAW is a different kind of show that does not include old ladies painting flowers (not that there is anything wrong with that!) and landscapes in a quiet library type setting. On Friday night Gossip nightclub will be filled with 40 different artist displays that you can browse through in between the fashion shows, live bands, pole dancer and comedian performances. Then at midnight the art comes down and the after party begins. This is an Art show for people who hate Art shows! There is nothing stuffy and boring about this event and there will be a lot of weird, I mean creative people there to connect with. So if you are free Friday August 23 and want to do something different with your evening grab a $15 ticket to the premier RAW Vancouver event! http://www.rawartists.org/radyer
It is less than two weeks till RAW Vancouver and I am super excited but drowning in half finished paintings. Six paintings to be exact and I still need to start one more. This
art show is unique as it celebrates all types of art and the artists
behind it There is live entertainment in the form of a fashion show,
musicians, hair and make-up artists and a film showing as well as 40
exhibiting fine artists. The event is about artists coming together,
sharing and connecting.
The show is being held at Gossip nightclub on August 23 and promises to be an entertaining night! There is something for everyone at this event and it promises to be an entertaining night! I have $15 tickets for sale on my RAW profile, they will be $20 at the door! I am also excited to be collaborating with Sebastian and bringing colour to some of his drawings. There is always a somewhat abstract hidden story in his work and I enjoy retelling it with colour in different mediums. Although, that said some of the details (the bees) can be very tedious!!!
I will have another update on my progressing work at the end of the week!
June was a crazy month filled with end of the year rehearsals, photos and dance shows. The dance season starts in September and our June shows showcase the hard work that the students and their teachers have put in throughout the past ten months. The stress and work all paid off and to my great relief my little ballerinas (3-4 years old) even stood in a straight line on stage! As June comes to a close and dance takes a two month break I have found myself with a lot of spare time. I enjoy this break because it gives me time to really focus on my art but sometimes I miss the busyness of my regular schedule. For the first few days I felt like I couldn't create. There was no vision or inspiration to push me to paint so I not so patiently waited it out with some silly doodles till my muse reappeared.
'A Moment For Thought' was partially sketched out a few months ago but jumped out at me last week as I was flipping through my sketchbook. I spent the last week thinking about the direction of my art, where I want it to go and the bigger vision I have for it so this is a small representation of that process. Since I have so much spare time you can expect regular blog updates and art for the next few months as I intend to paint the summer days away! Happy Canada Day :)
I have spent the last month complaining about the multitude of Christmas commercials and extra early holiday promotions. I have heard so many Christmas songs I cant believe the holidays aren't over yet, but since American Thanksgiving has now arrived I guess I should embrace the Holiday Season. 
This year I am offering a 20% off coupon code ( RADXMAS13 ) that can be used for anything in my Etsy shop! 
Prints are a cheap and easy way to share art with your friends and family. All of my prints are printed with my professional Epson printer with archival ink on 100% cotton cold press watercolour paper. Each print has a border for easy framing and matting. I offer prints in a variety of sizes; 5" by 7", 8" by 10" and 11" by 14".
