I wish I could describe what is going on in my studio right now. The sparkle in these three is so captivating. But I can’t capture it in a photo or video! Frustrating. These pieces really need to be seen in person. I think it’s time for another exhibition. I just don’t know where. Or how. Or when. I’ll figure it out. Let me know if you have any suggestions!

Today’s #MarchMeetTheMaker promt is “how you started”. My compulsion to make things started very young, and just never went away. I was just thinking about this the other day— I got really, REALLY serious about art when I was 15. I was so depressed and lonely as a teenager. Art helped me focus on something other than my misery. There are a lot of reasons why I am an artist, but that is one of the big ones. Around that time I started collecting books and taking classes. It became an obsession. It became therapy for me. It helped me occupy my mind and focus on something beautiful.

Ugh, Rose and and I got Jason’s cold from last week. We are miserable. Rose, especially. She does not handle colds well, and it always blows up into a nasty respiratory thing. Poor girl.

Anyway, I am thoroughly overwhelmed again. I am in the process of moving my studio. I know, what a surprise! I just talked about my tiny, happy space a couple weeks ago, and here I am moving! I am adding a couple art fairs this summer, and when I realized how much inventory I need, I started to up my production. Anyway, my tiny studio is officially too tiny. I am moving into the finished basement, where we previously had a room for the kids. I am so excited at the potential. But for now, my life is a mess and it is frustrating. And now that I am sick, everything is put on pause. Ugh!

Thanks for sticking with me. I had a successful shop update over the weekend. I will have another one in March. I am also working on two other secret projects that I can’t wait to share with you!

Painting is not just jumping in and painting, and voila!, it is a masterpiece. Any artist will tell you, there is a lot of prep involved in each project before it is made.

I start by finding a subject. I have a collection of specimens, and if I don’t have an actual specimen, I will spend days scouring the internet and looking through my book collection. I also take a lot of photographs for source material. I need to have a good feel for the subject, and I need to be able to visualize what the subject will look like in the painting. This takes research.

I like to say that I am a little like Larry David. I don’t like to write the script down before I start. An important aspect of my process is improvisation. I have to be able to visualize the subject of my painting before I start. But once I start, I respond to the piece with intuition to create the external composition.

Then the fun starts. Painting and adornment with 23k gold leaf. I will do some process videos in the near future and go into more detail about that soon!