Ever since I started painting again, my kids, my niece and my niece’s best friend have been asking me to teach them to paint. I’m not actually very patient as a teacher in most things, and have sent my 9-year-old to both a sewing and cupcake decorating class because I knew I’d want to throttle her before it was done due to my lack of patience. For some reason though, I don’t have that issue with painting. Read More

The ‘Daily Artisan Spotlight’ is a regular feature on Mindless Pursuits intended to provide insight and exposure to the tons of talented artisans working today. Please comment and give them some encouragement and check out their work! If you would like to be considered for the Spotlight, click on the ‘Free Press’ link above!

What is your shop?
Creations by KazeSeka (http://kazeseka.etsy.com)

What is your art/craft?
The main addiction is ACEO (Art Cards Editions & Originals). These little cards (3-1/2″x2-1/2″) are so much fun to paint (and collect). But I also have a passion for painting larger piece, and sewing, knitting, woodworking…ooh and the list goes on. You can say I’m a crafty person (but never sly!)

Describe your style in 2 words:
Freestyle…

What is your favorite piece and why?
That’s a hard question. I guess I’d have to say two pieces are my favorites: “Purple Orchid Ghost Butterfly” for now. It’s an ACEO done in acrylics. My husband bought me these orchids for my birthday. They are beautiful!! And I knew right away that they had to be painted. The ghost butterflies “just happened”. Maybe in my subconscience I knew the beauty of the flower will not last forever. And the other favorite is “Tropical Fruit” because it looks so delicious!

What is the most memorable piece of advice you’ve ever received?
From my dear daughter, who has inspired me. “Look” She has advised me to “really look and see” at what I’m drawing/painting. And it’s amazing when you spot an object that you know you “gotta paint”, the image you see comes through in vivid colors and contours.

What is the one piece of advice you’d give?
Paint what you love. Because when you actually feel it, it will be portrayed in the artwork. And others will feel it too

As others have become familiar with this blog and with my art and crafting interests, I’ve begun being asked more and more what the secret is to prioritizing so that I can paint every day, do multiple blog posts, work on other crafts and still have a life. The sad answer for everybody is that I have no secret. I just do it! See the calendar above? I put that up when I moved into my apartment in July of last year. As you can see, it’s never been changed. I must have at least 4 separate calendars around the apartment and of them all, only the ‘Art of Star Wars’ day calendar on my desk gets updated and that’s even hit-or-miss. I don’t even wear a watch! That said, I do have some guidelines I try to stick to for myself, and two golden rules, so let’s talk about those. Read More

At some point, I suspect everyone has heard the familiar idiom: ‘practice makes perfect.’ It’s a mantra thrown about frequently for anyone attempting to learn a new skill. Frankly, I think it’s a crock, and I’ll tell you why: if you ever think your work is perfect, then give up and go home as you’ll stop growing as an artisan or worse yet, become complacent and your quality will suffer while the world passes you by. Thus, I prefer the simple statement that practice brings improvement.

When I set about to begin painting again after not having touched them in twenty years, I knew my meager skills from high school had completely fallen aside and that I would have work to do to get even those back. When I left high school, my most accomplished piece of art was painting one of those little bears with hats that used to be in the art school ads in the TV Guide so I knew I had a lot of room to grow!  Thus it was with a bit of hesitation that I invested the dollars needed to purchase my first supplies. Even harder was getting over the fear of how badly it might turn out and touching brush to canvas.

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I was watching TV with my little girls, and while they were enjoying ‘Sydney White’ I was playing with my oil paints. The use and blending of color fascinates me and I am trying to find better ways of using it. That’s actually the primary reason why I moved to oils from acrylics. So as a quick project, I painted this 5×7″ canvas of dreamscape clouds. I over-blended while softening and killed some of the vibrancy, but I still think it’s pretty. My nine-year-old has decided that it’s hers when it’s fully cured so I guess I might need to do more! What do YOU think?

Completed this morning and now listed in my fine art shop are these two 5″ x 7″ gallery-wrapped original canvas paintings of cherry blossoms. They are listed at $20 USD each, including free shipping to the U.S. and Canada as I received a very good deal on a number of these canvases so want to pass along the savings. It shouldn’t only be the wealthy who can afford nice decorative art for their homes and I think these will find very nice homes in someone’s kitchen, breakfast nook or even bathroom!

‘Peaceful Mountain River - The Oil and Oval Edition!’
Oils on Canvas - 16″ x 20″

Much as I’d love to have written about my first, it’s destruction was mentioned in the last post! After the loss of my first painting immediately after painting it and before I had a picture (I was going to take one when it was in it’s drying location), I wasn’t going to worry about painting anymore tonight. However, lying on the couch watching TV, it began to nag at me that I had promised myself that I’d have an oil painting to show at the end of the weekend and I still didn’t have one! So I got set up again and was going to repaint the original but decided I didn’t want to do that again since I had spent plenty of time earlier doing it. Instead, I decided to revisit my current favorite view: the peaceful mountain river. I thought it would be a good exercise to see how well I could do in oils what I had already done in acrylics. I am very pleased with the results.

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‘Peaceful Mountain River Two’
Acrylic on Canvas Board - 8″ x 10″

Another take on the Peaceful Mountain River, this time using bolder colors. I painted this on a canvas board as I wasn’t expecting to like it but I actually like it more than the first version I painted so now I regret not going larger! I also prefer my reflection of the colors in the sky into the water.

I submited this painting to DeviantArt and Zazzle today as a postcard and it won a ‘Today’s Best Award,’ making it my second ‘Today’s Best Award’ in two weeks! I certainly won’t complain about that!

The question is: do I sell this on Etsy or not? Since it’s an 8″ x10″ on canvas board as opposed to stretched canvas, i would imagine the interest would be even less. I also think it would have to be framed and I don’t have the money at the moment to frame it before I would try to sell it. What are the thoughts of my readers? Let me know!

‘Peaceful Mountain River’
Acrylic on Canvas - 22″ x 28″

I had a productive day of painting yesterday. I’ve been working on refining my technique to include more color and to get away from my standard oval pond shapes. LOL! Part of doing so has been to work with Canvas Gel by DecoArt or FolkArt Blending Gel so that I can blend colors better.  This is also my largest painting to date and while I was hesitant to use it for an experiment, I had a good feeling it would turn out well so I forged ahead. I must say that I am happy with the results!

This afternoon I am going to work on taking the appropriate photographs to list this on Etsy, so I hope that I get the same great natural light that I had while I was painting it.  As this is my largest and most intricate painting yet, I’m planning on setting the price at $200. I’d be honored to hear some feedback from my readers!

Well, thanks to some great sunlight (finally), I felt energized to finish my first painting aimed at kids. As you can see, I made some additions from my last post and covered my larger, fancy star with a big sun! Here’s the description I am using on Etsy and DeviantArt:

The creator has gotten tired and decided to start anew… or the universe is building up to the next big bang… or maybe some cosmic entity is draining the universal pool. Whatever your take, this bright and colorful painting is perfect for a child’s room or in anyplace a little whimsy is desired!

Painted using glow-in-the-dark additives, it takes on a soft glow when the lights go out!

We’ll see if it catches anyone’s interest but I definitely had fun painting it!