new acquisitions

While on my bird painting kick...I found this cute poofy fat hummingbird and I couldn't resist painting him...or her. And I finally finished a painting for my friend Rachael who I have yet to give it too. Rach when you gonna come get it?? It's been sitting in my living room! I got my two paintings back from the Springville museum so now I have 2 more pieces that I do not know what to do with, my walls may be the most covered of any apartment in our complex. My brother is going to help me get a website going sometime in the future to sell my stuff. He is a stud and I love that he knows how to do that kind of stuff.

Painting for Rachael

Hummingbird close up

Hummingbird

And here is mom and dad's painting of the manti temple which is in the works....

Birds

I have a ton of small wood panels that I'm gessoing today and I'm gonna try to pump out a painting a day. I have time now and I'd love to start selling some things on Etsy but I want to have enough to put on there first. Here is what I made yesterday:
I love birds. They are so beautiful! I'll probably paint some more.

i love pomegranates!

this is the season of many pomegranates at the store and I love to eat them! As I was peeling open my last snack, I couldn't help but admire the little seeds! They're so beautiful! So I painted them. This is in my kitchen now =) Sorry for the crappy image, I need a new camera!!!!!!

fed ex day

So my mentor teacher has his students do "fed ex" days where they have one day to deliver an artwork and they can make whatever they want. It's been really successful and they have made some awesome stuff. I want to do it in my own classroom. Today while they worked, I made something too. I have decided I LOVE watercolor and ink.

oh and my two paintings i submitted got into the springville museum exhibition. =)

Wax museum

At the high school, we have a heat gun that blows really hot air. You can use it to melt wax like crayons and such. I have been playing around with it and I love melting wax! As a kid I think I got crayons for christmas ten years in a row. I wish I had all of them now to melt and make things out of. I've made these two things so far:

On both I used a sharpie to go back and outline all the cool swirls that happened. The second one I went over it with watercolor.

Transfers

In student teaching, I've taught the students how to do gesso and gloss/varnish transfers. I made some examples to show the class and am really LOVING doing transfers. It is SOOO fun and easy. If you yourself would like to do a gesso transfer, there are lots of online tutorials on how to do it. This next painting is acrylic. I started with a gesso transfer as the ground base and painted over it. I'm still going to paint some more, it's not totally finished. The assignment I gave the students was to paint a memory. This is my memory.

Treehouse, Acrylic on board, 11" x 14"

This image makes the transfer above look really crappy cause of the reflection. But it's actually really cool! Instead of having white behind your image, if you use acrylic gloss medium and varnish, it will dry clear! The saying "happiness is a journey, not a destination" has been on my mind a lot and I wanted a place to see it all the time. I'm all about being happy now and not waiting til some other stage of your life to be happy.

The above painting is having some growing pains. I love it but also am struggling with it. My husband is not fond of the colors, which happens to be my favorite part. I'm not sure what to do it. Any suggestions? I notice now that all of my paintings have that BRIGHT blue. I just love it. After living in the caribbean blue waters for a year and a half, I just really really love that color. I reminds me of good people and the most beautiful places on earth.

Exploring....

I have a done a little bit more on my earth/body painting. I also had a day off this week and wandered around provo taking pictures of cool corners on the old buildings in downtown. I combined a few and hope to paint them soon. I'm thinking about a theme of turning points...