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

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?

‘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!