Category Archives: Artistry

Mayumi

A goal of mine had been to paint close-to-lifesize portrait paintings of my two daughters, Holly and Mayumi. In 2018, the completed painting of my daughter Holly was finished and was accepted into a regional fine art show. I started working on the painting of my youngest, Mayumi, a little over a month ago.

The painting depicts 18 month old Mayumi in her velvet and tulle Christmas dress. You can practically hear her saying “Cheese” as you look at her toothy toddler grin. A lot of nights were spent painting chubby toddler fingers, her sweet little face, and the different textures of her dress.

Even when the painting was in the early stages, just a sketch on a piece of paper, Mayumi recognized herself. She would proudly point to the painting and say, “Me” throughout the process. She was excited to see the finished product which I will be hanging up on the wall next to Holly’s portrait. I’m hoping to enter it into the National Fine Art Show at the same gallery later this season.

Mommy and Mayumi
“Mayumi.” Watercolor, 16×20”

Holly

Two things I’ve always known: I’ve always wanted to be an artist and I’ve always felt called to be a mom. I’m very blessed that I have been able to be both as my vocation. To date, this is the largest watercolor painting I’ve ever worked on. It’s a slightly larger than life-size portrait of my daughter, Holly, just shy of her 4th birthday. The final painting measures 24×36″.

I started off by sketching Holly on a separate piece of paper before transferring the final drawing to a hand stretched watercolor canvas I made. Because I’m on-duty mom during the day, I could only work on the painting after the girls went to bed (and after getting some “veg out” Netflix time with the husband). Most nights felt like chipping away at an iceberg, but I actually finished what I set out to accomplish.

Holly with an in-progress painting of herself.

There were lots of late nights after the girls went to bed, lots of tears throughout the painting process, lots of prayers, and a whole lot of love for my sweet daughter…

Two days before finishing this painting, I was in tears because I was struggling with part of the painting. I started to tell myself the lie that I’m not “good enough.” I struggle with anxiety and depression, and since things had been a little hectic over the last few months, I felt a little more on edge. My kind husband suggested that I take a “night off” from the painting and return to it with fresh eyes. When I picked up the brushes again, I painted feverishly while the baby napped. It was like my hand couldn’t stop moving. I told Holly she could watch all the TV she wanted while I worked and then I was done within the hour!

“Holly.” Watercolor, 24×36”.

Lots of people ask what Holly thinks of her portrait. In the early stages when I would show it to her, she was always excited that I was painting her, but she would point out things like, “Mom, you still need to paint my eyes” or “I need hair.” Four year olds… ha ha. The day I finished, she told me, “That looks great, Mom” and wanted to take a picture with the painting.

Kevin and I posing in front of Holly’s portrait.

I finished the painting a couple days before a call for entries for a regional art show at the Lincoln Gallery in Loveland that I had been eyeing. The painting was accepted into the 2018 Regional Fine Art Show. Though the opening reception was a little bit rocky, it was a very positive experience. I was honored to be featured with all of the other INCREDIBLE artists. All of the pieces in the show were truly top notch. I felt really honored to be featured among such great talent.

My dad and grandpa standing next to Holly’s portrait.

We took Holly and Mayumi to the gallery to see the painting on display. Holly was acting really bashful, but enjoyed seeing the art and perked up a little bit when our family was offered candy by the gallery attendant.

Holly and Mayumi sitting on the gallery floor.

The experience has been a really emotional one for me. This is the first year that I ever dared to submit artwork to call for entries. There was a part of me that feared rejection and another part of me that would try to tell me, “You’re not good enough. Why even bother?” My inner voice isn’t always very kind, but I’ve learned a lot over this past year on how to quiet that voice and listen to God’s encouraging voice. I felt called to paint Holly in this simple moment in time, I felt called to enter this particular call for entries, and I was accepted. It was a big accomplishment for many reasons.

The closing reception was a few days ago, and when I went to pick up my painting, I received nothing but encouragement. The two staff members helping artists sign-out their paintings were very kind. When I entered the gallery, they said, “We were just talking about you! We loved having your painting. Everyone who stopped by loved looking at it and talked about how sweet the little girl and her pose was.” They proceeded to tell me that they would love to have my work in their gallery again and encouraged me to apply for the National Fine Art Show next spring. I can’t wait to make some new artwork, so I can hopefully experience this gallery adventure again.

Here’s some more details of the painting:

Mr. + Mrs. Lowry

Happy one month anniversary to Hannah and Zach Lowry who were married on November 1st at a beautiful ceremony at the Tapestry House. Hannah was a stunning fall bride. It was fun attending and seeing a bunch of my former co-workers and celebrating their marriage.

Both Hannah and Zach have ridiculously kind families (no wonder they both turned out to be such great people). It was really nice meeting everybody.

My go-to wedding gift in always a handmade portrait of the couple. This little watercolor of the happy couple measures 4×6” and I’m glad that the bride and groom said I did them justice! Below is also a start-to-finish time lapse video of the painting process. Enjoy!

“Hannah and Zach.” Watercolor, 4×6”.

Transformer Box: Complete!

It took a little over a month, but I finally did end up finishing my koi transformer cabinet for the city. I’m really happy with how it turned out and I’m thankful that the weather cooperated during the last few weeks.

When I first started the project, it was incredibly hot. So hot that I got sick one of the days I was working on it. The following week, it was so cold that I had to wear long underwear and two coats for shorter painting sessions. That’s Colorado for ya!

I’m so thankful that I had this opportunity to create art for the city and the friends/family who supported me by visiting, bringing me cookies, and helping assist. You can see photos from the process below!

Transformer Cabinet Week 1: Some Like It Hot

I started working on my transformer cabinet mural for the city of Fort Collins on Friday and worked through Sunday. The box is located by the Burger King drive thru on the north end of College and I made pretty good progress on my koi fish mural.

Unlike the Pianos About Town Project, I don’t see too many people. I see everyone who goes around the drive thru and I’ve talked to some of the Burger King staff. They’ve all been super nice (one of them upgraded my drink and said I could stop in for free refills to beat the heat).

The largest side of the box is about 4ftx6ft. I’ve painted large-scale paintings before (pianos for Pianos About Town and my daughters’ nursery mural), but you never quite realize how long a painting is going to take until you start it. I like to mentally visualize what I plan on accomplishing everyday, and I’m definitely not as far as I imagined. That being said, I’m still making good progress and ended in a satisfactory place at the end of my Sunday shift.

The cabinet starts off pre-primed, so it’s ready for paint. I taped off the concrete at the base of the box, grabbed my can of blue house paint, and started rolling the paint on. I was hoping that one coat would be enough for a base coat, but I needed to add a second layer. Setback #1.

Next, I sketched out the design on 3 of the 5 sides with chalk. This took longer than anticipated too because it needs to be identical to the concept sketch. Setback #2.

Setback #3 was definitely the heat. The weather was in the 90s the whole weekend, so it made for interesting painting conditions. There’s a large wall behind the box where the Burger King garbage cans are, so this helped create some nice shady spots but only during certain times of the day (and sometimes only for a few moments at a time). On the second day when I was working on the shading for the crests of the waves, the heat would make the paint dry within seconds. This made for some really interesting “beat the clock” painting sprints.

2 of the 3 days I worked, I also had shifts at Pinot’s Palette. After putting in time Saturday morning on the box and working a class at Pinot’s Palette afterwards, I ended up getting sick. I thought I was going to pass out, my legs felt like I had competed in a cycling race, and I felt slightly nauseous. I collapsed on the couch when I got home, fell asleep for about 3 hours, and finally started to feel better after dropping some electrolyte tablets into my drinking water and taking a bath. Even though I had been taking regular water breaks and wearing my big sun hat while working, the heat still really took it out of me!

On my last day of work for the weekend, I vowed I would head home if I felt heat exhaustion coming on, packed a bunch of electrolyte tablets (“it’s what artists need”), and brought some beef jerky to snack on. I got caught up on all of my podcasts and started listening to an audiobook of The Disaster Artist (hilarious so far).

I’ll be back at it again next weekend! I’m hoping I can finish all the shading on the waves next time, but we’ll see.

You can learn more about Art in Public Places and check out my concept sketch (and the other boxes for the city) here at the FCGov website.

Erin and Darin

A little over a year ago, my sister-in-law and brother-in-law asked if we wanted their dining room table set. It was a high quality table with matching chairs in great condition. Our set at the time was completely mismatched, so we agreed to exchange their dining room set for a portrait painting. Originally, Erin and Darin were interested in getting a portrait of my nieces and nephew, but it was hard finding a picture they liked. Over a year went by, and they finally decided on a picture from their trip to Hawaii.

Building up all of the layers of colors.

It was a challenging painting because of all of the different textures (blowing hair, hat mesh, beard stubble, detailed sunglasses, ocean, etc), but it was a lot of fun to work on. Life got busy, so I had to work on it in small chunks of time over the course of a couple of months. You can see in the in-progress photo how gradual the build-up of layers was (another reason why it took a long time).

I’m beyond excited over the final results! I can’t wait to see what it looks like displayed in their new house.

“Erin and Darin.” Watercolor, 11×14”

Becca

It just kind of worked out that I finished my portrait of Becca the week leading up to her birthday. It’s a little crazy realizing we’ve been friends for almost two decades. We met in the lunch line the first day of sixth grade but didn’t see each other again until 7th grade. She has always had a great and offbeat sense of humor, a listening ear, and a generous heart.

Years later, I can still depend on her to make me laugh and offer an encouraging word. A lot of great memories come to mind: hot man lists, writing stories together, making mix CDs, hanging out in the basement making or watching movies, hours long conversations at sleepovers, learning that we’re “soulmates,” rooming together in college, hilarious postcards in the mail, escape room outings… I could go on and on.

The photo reference for this painting is from one of her many hiking adventures. As of late, she’s been tackling many 14ers, taking beautiful photographs from her adventures, and offering that great listening ear and empathy to the students she works with. I wanted to capture a sense of her adventurous spirit and optimism.

Watercolor and acrylic, 8×10”

Becca was painted using watercolors and white ink was used for some of the hair and highlights. The background originally was watercolor, but I ended up painting over it with acrylics. You can see a time lapse video of my process below.

The Portrait Project

Back in December, I was wanting to start a new series of artwork. The goal was to create a consistent body of work to build up my portfolio with the intent to eventually apply for a local gallery opportunity. I had a couple of ideas for potential themes to explore, but wasn’t sure which idea to follow. I brought it to prayer, and the word “ordinary” kept banging around in my head.

I was in need of models for my artwork and asked my friends and family on Facebook if any of them would be willing to let me use their photos or likenesses for future artwork. I honestly thought that I would be lucky if five people volunteered, but I ended up with over thirty people who were interested. As I went through the list, I thought about the different ways each person came into my life and how they are all unique, albeit ordinary, women. I knew I wanted to create a series of portraits featuring ordinary (but extraordinary) women.

I’ll admit that I always get an urge to add something to the portraits to make them more surreal or like a fantasy illustration. Though this wouldn’t be uncommon, especially in my previous portrait work, I knew I wanted to be true to the spirit of the subject. I don’t need to add anything to their portraits to make the individual more unique or interesting.

So far, I have done five portraits (Raven, Sarah, Lauren, Rachael, and Chelsea) and there are many more to come. As I work on the portrait, I try to use the process of painting as a form of prayer. I try to pray for their intentions and thank God for the way he has brought these individuals into my life and how they have influenced me. It’s been very special for me to hear the feedback from the people who I’ve painted. I always hope that I do them justice.

All of the portraits are done primarily with watercolors, though occasionally I use acrylic or other mixed media to finish the pieces. You’ll be seeing many more portraits to come over the next few months!

From the sketchbook…

Last week, I got the chance to meet up with two of my art friends from college. We met for coffee and sketching, but ended up just talking. My friend Liz, recently started a 30 day sketchbook challenge for herself. The purpose is to challenge herself to create artwork on a daily basis. She has an hourglass that she flips and when the last grain of sand filters out of the top, she stops. The point isn’t to create something amazing, the point is to develop a habit and put aside time to do something for fun on a daily basis.

The three of us all work as artists (an art teacher, a graphic designer, and a SAHM/paint and sip instructor), and when you do art for other people as a job, it’s hard to want to go home and work on more art no matter how fulfilling it is. I really was inspired by Liz’s dedication and wanted to do something similar to develop a habit. I recently started a routine of cleaning the house on a daily basis, and 15 minutes here and there make a big difference. I decided the same would be true if I set time aside nightly to work on personal art projects.

I’ve been spending time every night working on art. The husband and I put the girls to bed, we watch some iZombie on Netflix, and then I go upstairs and work on art. I usually turn on a podcast and start drawing or painting. I’ve been working on some commission and work projects, but while one project is drying, I’ll work on another piece that’s just mine.

After doing this for almost two weeks, I can feel the positive effects. I no longer dread going up to the studio. Everything is set up and ready to go at my desk. It’s scheduled, so I’m almost programmed to just do it. It’s enjoyable because I accomplish a lot (even if it’s just a little at a time), and I can see an improvement in my technical drawing skills.

When I don’t know what to draw, I do an exercise from my eBooks by Cuong Nguyen. They’re a great resource and a little bit of instruction, even when you enjoy art, goes a long way.

Here’s some sketches from the last few weeks:

Soccer Field

I was recently asked to paint some concept artwork of the different uses of a soccer field. The images show the field being used by a soccer team, lacrosse players, and picnickers.

I painted the field by itself using watercolors and painted the players and people separately. They were later digitally composited using Photoshop.

The original soccer field painted in watercolor.

The field with the soccer players.

The field with picnickers.

The field with lacrosse players.