Another whimsical painting - I started this in an Estabrooks class and finished later at home. It started with oil pastels, then I collaged and added acrylic paint. Matted and framed and gave to my daughter, Esme, for Christmas, because she loves mermaids so much.

Happy New Year! I have many resolutions this year, but my biggest ones are to make more art, and to invite more people to my home to make art with me. I love seeing other people work and getting inspiration from my friends.
Toward the end of 2009 I really enjoyed taking classes with Donna Estabrooks and hope to continue. I'd like to take some other kinds of classes too, especially printmaking. The piece above is a picture of Donna I did during one of her classes. It's a mix of drawing with oil pastels, painting with acrylics, and collaging. It is one of the first abstract portraits I ever did and very fun.

I recently had an interesting conversation about the "preciousness" of really nice, quality, and often expensive art supplies. Do you really want to use that pricey canvas for a project you're not so sure about?? It's hard for me to loosen up and experiment when I know how much these nice, big, extra-nicely-wrapped canvases cost. Donna Estabrooks had a great idea on how to loosen up with some things not-so-precious. She'd heard about people painting grocery bags to repurpose them as gift bags, so we gave it a try as part of warming up for a class. These photos show the two sides of my Whole Foods bag. This was soooo fun and freeing!! I highly recommend giving it a try if you're having trouble breaking out and letting loose! There are so many possibilities for these. Plus, even though my friends and family do enjoy passing the same gift bags around year after year, I know most of them would be excited to receive a gift in packaging I'd made just for them.

Welcome!

Thank you for visiting my new blog!! I plan to share my new pieces here, and thoughts about the process. To start, I'd like to share a quick portrait I did of my husband, Ethan, after learning some new techniques in a class with one of my favorite artists, Donna Estabrooks. Ethan is my biggest supporter and has encouraged me to create from the very start. This abstract piece is a mix of oil pastel and acrylic paint and was initially started with my non-dominant, left hand.