keep creating: watercolor sailboat

One of the toughest things about blogging, in my opinion, is the longing for everything you put out to the world to be amazingly wow-worthy... PIN-worthy... VIRAL-worthy. Unfortunately, I have piles of creative work that's anything but.  However, I'm forcing myself to keep going, keep practicing.. sketching... painting... sewing... because I'm not going to get any better if I don't do anything, right?  This article is an amazing inspiration and refreshes the way you think about talent. Serious motivation. 

So here's some of the work I did today. Not the most impressive sailboat... I think I actually like my paint mess photos a little bit more... but I think that proves you never know where things will go. Maybe I'll take my messy palettes and scrap paper and do some collage work - who knows? The point is to keep going.. keep creating. 

You can't use up creativity. The more you use, the more you have.

hidden eiffel

There's something about being able to take old unwanted things and create new art out of them that is deeply satisfying for me. One of the easiest ways I know how to do this is taking an old canvas - usually that I've found at a thrift store or possible garage sale - and repainting it. *When doing this, try to get past the god-awful dated painting on it and look to see if the frame has potential and if the canvas is in good shape and not warped.;)

Below is one of my favorites. I found an old painting of the Eiffel Tower, rotated it and painted, frame included. I love that you can still make out the structure of the tower. I think it adds interest and is kind of a fun story to tell, ya know? :)

pens, pencils & paintbrushes

I usually have 1 to 2 to 20 random art ideas brewin' in my head at all times. It's usually just a matter of finding the time to get into my design/sewing/art/storage room and see if what's in my head can translate on canvas or paper.

I'd had this pen/pencil/paintbrush art idea for close to a year. I've always loved collage work, repetition, and series art ... and I'm so inspired by people who take the most random object and create an amazing piece of art work. So anyways -– We've always had a large amount of almost-dried up pens, paintbrushes that are beyond help and pencils that just don't get used so I thought they'd be the perfect subject matter. This messy, drippy, multi-colored art was really fun to create and I'm loving the results. :)

 

wave collage

Last weekend I got the opportunity to meet up with 13 awesomely talented girls and for 4 days and 3 nights we illustrated, created, quilted, collaged, scraped, designed, photographed and wined & dined. We slept in, caught up on our books & mags, went running (or not ;), and took inCREDible uninterrupted showers. (for Mom's with little ones - this is as good as gold). 

Cherry on top is that you actually get a ton of stuff done during this weekend. I finally wrapped up a project that I've been working on and off for way way too long: filling some blank frames on my wall (See first initial brainstorm here). I ended up going in a different direction (with thanks to my RoXy and Quicksilver catalogs), but it was fun to collage and it's great to finally have a little more color up on the walls. 

adding color

My walls have been pretty bare and boring since we moved in so I was really happy/relieved to finally get to this project this weekend. I was lucky in that, I already had an old canvas that I had painted, that was framed and ready to go. It was just a matter of painting something new overtop. See some of my inspirations here. It feels SO SO good to get some color in the room. :)

Awesome pillow here. Great wood frame here. 

wall art inspirations

We moved in months ago, but there are still blank canvases and empty frames on the wall. All ready. in place. waiting for me to make some executive decisions on style, medium, colors, etc. I can't decide if I just have too MANY ideas or if I'm just a TAD indecisive. Probably a little of both. ;) Either way, I decided to hunt down some inspirations. Hopefully it will get me to finally put some paint on the palette.

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