Category Archives: Uncategorized

Wedding Season

I’ve been busy creating a lot of portrait pieces to celebrate weddings and other occasions. I even had the opportunity to paint some custom cornhole boards for a reception.

I love it when I’m asked to create portraits whether it’s for a wedding, anniversary, or other occasion. I truly believe that art is a ministry, so being able to paint something beautiful to be shared in the home of a family is really a blessing.

Many of the podcasts I have been listening to lately have discussed the theme of beauty. It is so important to be surrounded by beauty because it shapes our souls and it shapes our culture. I’m so thankful that I get asked to be a part of the process

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.

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.

Sarah

My new piece, “Sarah,” is an acrylic and watercolor painting I made as part of a new series of portraits I’m developing. Sarah and I first met our freshman year of high school while working on the school musical, “Singin’ in the Rain.” She is extremely generous and has a heart for adventure and being out in nature. We’ve been friends ever since.

I always love seeing what new adventures she’s on whether it’s snowshoeing with her adorable husky Mochi, climbing 14ers, paddling down the Amazon, swimming with sharks, or running races in Utah. I really liked this photo reference of Sarah because I felt like it was a good representation of her in her element. She also likes Elsa from Frozen, so y’know… snow ❄️

Sarah’s face is painted with acrylics, but everything else is watercolor. While working on this portrait, I struggled with the background. I ended up painting over the entire background with white acrylic and starting over. I recently started using a new product called Daniel Smith watercolor ground. You can paint it on any surface to make it watercolor friendly. I’ve used it a lot on Bible pages when Bible journaling. It’s not as great as real watercolor paper, but it definitely did the trick in this painting!

“Sarah.” Watercolor, acrylic, and mixed media, 8×10”.

Leggo My Eggo

When my husband and I first watched Netflix’s Stranger Things last year, I remember thinking it was one of the best new shows I had seen in years. There was that great mix of humor, suspense, nostalgia, etc that made it like a combination of my favorite Steven Spielberg films combined with The X-Files and Stephen King’s The Body.

I knew I wanted to create a piece to show my excitement for the premiere of Stranger Things 2, so I made this Eleven watercolor painting.

“Leggo My Ego.” 5×7″ watercolor and gouache painting of Eleven from Stranger Things.

Sunday Sketches

I had been struggling to find time to put time aside for art. Being a full-time mom as well as a painting instructor for Pinot’s Palette, it was a struggle finding time and motivation to work on art.

In the spring, I read a book called Resisting Happiness by Matthew Kelly. I read a chapter a day during Lent and it inspired me to make the time to create. One of the things Kelly suggested in the book was to keep something called a Mass Journal. The idea is that you bring a journal to mass every Sunday and write down one thing that connects to you during the service. This could be a line from a reading, a song, or something the priest says during the homily.

I liked the idea, but instead of using a journal I chose to do sketches. A friend had gifted me a set of artist tiles, like the kind used for zentangles, so I decided to use these to write and draw my mass reflections. Because the artist tile cards are small, they fit nicely in a small pouch with a couple of pens and pencils I bring along. I listen during mass, write down my connection, and illustrate my reflection.

I like doing these Sunday sketches because it not only because it makes me dedicate time every week to sketching, but it also has helped me connect during church and learn more about myself as well.

When you’re too busy to do art…

The last couple of months have been very busy months for me. November and December were filled with lots of holiday commissions for Christmas presents and weddings. Even though I didn’t have the time to work on getting my Etsy shop ready for the holidays and working on some holiday marketing and prep, I ended up having my busiest holiday sales season anyway. The popular items of the season were Colorado themed jewelry.

My favorite commission of the season, would have to be this pencil portrait I drew for a friend of the family. It was a present for his mother in-law depicting her dancing with her daughter, his bride.

Because of being busy with lots of commissions as well as my regular job working at Pinot’s and raising a toddler, I haven’t had time to work on my own artwork. I was able to do a fun watercolor and gouache painting at the very beginning of the year of my interpretation of Kim from the movie Edward Scissorhands. Tim Burton’s art and movies always connected with me growing up (though honestly, what middle/high schooler didn’t connect to his characters). I remember watching Edward Scissorhands at a friend’s house at a sleepover and feeling completely wrecked emotionally at the end of the film. It spoke to feelings I was experiencing being somewhat of a misfit high school student. This movie, as well as his other films, inspired a lot of the kinds of emotionally driven art I was creating during that stage of my life and I wanted to create a piece that honored that.

Since then, all of my artwork has been work related. It’s good to be busy and earning money, but it’s been a little bit creatively draining. However, yesterday I was able to create some art for fun. My friend Conni, has been hosting “Inspiration” art gatherings. These gatherings are opportunities to be surrounded by other artists and art lovers and exercise our creativity. One of the things I miss most about college studio art is being surrounded by people who are constantly creating. These Inspiration get togethers are a way to put aside time to be creative, but in a fun and relaxed environment. It also provides people an opportunity to try new things and get to know new people.

At our get together in February, we had a “Wine Women and Watercolors” night where we had a flower still life and all played with different watercolors and water media while drinking wine. Yesterday, we drove to a natural area and hiked. We took pictures and sketched and then drove back to Conni’s house and created artwork based off of our sketches and photos using the media of our choice.

Conni took this photo showing the view of the natural area we hiked around for our March “Inspiration” get together.

I had no clue what I was going to create, especially since I don’t normally create art that’s nature inspired, so I walked around with my camera phone looking for inspiration. I took a couple photos of some dried up plants by a lake and sketched them in my multimedia sketchbook. I masked off my drawing with a new masking fluid pen I got and filled in each negative space with a variety of bright colors instead of the gloomy grays and blues of the actual sky. After I finished with watercolors, I removed the masking fluid, used pencil to re-draw the plants, and added some light gel pen branches to add more layers.

It was a lot of fun just to be sitting down and creating a project “just because” and reinforced the importance of creating my own art. Sometimes I don’t work in my studio because I don’t have an idea for a project of importance. I forget that the little sketches and doodles are just as important to do because art is just as much about the process as it is the final product.

New Colorado Jewelry

I’m excited to announce my new Colorado jewelry pieces! I now offer square pendant necklaces and beautiful quick release cuff bracelets featuring Colorado Columbines and our Colorado Flag. Simply click on a photo to be brought to the item in my Etsy shop:

Need more Colorado love? There’s also Colorado greeting cards available in my shop:

A Peek in the New Sketchbook

When I was in middle and high school, I used to draw in my sketchbook daily. My sketchbook went with me everywhere I went. It was a good icebreaker for meeting new friends, a good way to pass the time during class (don’t worry, I was a good student 98% of the time), and a good way to practice and create. I was constantly making up my own characters and stories. My sketchbook was almost like a diary or creative journal.

Sometime during college, I stopped keeping sketchbooks. Yes, we often had to have a designated sketchbook for each individual art course we took, but I didn’t really use them in the same way that I had before.

For my birthday, I asked my husband to get me a sketchbook for my birthday. He got me two different mixed media sketchbooks. The one I started to use is a Strathmore multimedia sketchbook that has a cover similar to a Moleskin sketchbook. I love it and have been trying to get back into the habit of working on art in the studio every night. Having a nice sketchbook definitely helps!

A couple months ago, and before I got my new sketchbook, I started trying to branch out and try new things with watercolor. For some reason, having a wash of color helps me figure out what I want to draw. Doing art this way kind of reminds me of doing a charcoal or conte drawing on toned paper.

I recently have been trying to get more portrait practice in. I do a lot of portraits in my personal work as well as commissions, so I wanted to make sure that I was staying in practice. I decided to get back into gouache and add it on top of watercolor washes to see what would happen. This was my first practice:

I remember finishing it and thinking, “This was a ‘practice’ piece? It’s better than some of the finished pieces I’ve done lately.” But maybe that’s the thing… When you work in a sketchbook, you take more chances and you allow yourself to experiment more. I think sometimes the pressure gets to you when you’re trying to do a finished “final” piece of art.

So right now, I’m going to continue sketching and practicing. Hopefully more of my sketches will turn out as nice as this piece. I’m hoping that over time, my new theme and style will start to show itself in my sketchbook pages.

Amy Heyse

Catholic Artist