Printmaking

This semester I am learning the art of printmaking, I thought I would share some of the designs that I have made.

 The first print is made by an etching technique into a type of plastic, then ran through the press onto the paper, which has been treated with water, then the print is left to dry.
The second print is two toned, using blue and red. It was made by a relief technique into a type of stamp pad.

the actual picture is 4x6 black and white. Original design by Andrea Pace sold for 20$

The actual picture is 3x5. Original design by Andrea Pace sold for 15$

Amazing Grace

When I look at my artwork I see God's direct hand in my life.

People often ask me, (like once a week) what I plan on doing with my degree when I graduate. I do have 2 years left to decide this but at the same time, I should have some what of a plan right? Well I'm going to be really honest here, I don't have a plan. I am getting my degree in Art. I don't really know what I want to do after that. I do know, however, that this is exactly what I am supposed to be doing right now. I know without a doubt that this is where I am suppose to be. I know that this is the major that I should have and I know that soon enough I'll know what to do with my art degree.

I know that I am suppose to do art for the rest of my life. Every time I look at something that I have created I am overwhelmed with a feeling of satisfaction. A feeling that I just know that this is it. To help you understand how I feel:
               Imagine this, you are given one million dollars. You can do whatever you want to with this money. So you decide that you are finally going to buy that thing you have always wanted. You feel so right about it because you can finally complete the dream of doing or owning that one thing. You get this feeling of just happiness, and life feels complete.
That is how I feel after I finish every piece of art work. God has given me this amazing talent. Sometimes when I look at a painting or something that I did I'm amazed because I think oh wow that started blank and here it is this awesome piece of art.When people say to me "oh wow, great job." or "you are so talented." Yes, I say thank you, but then I quietly thank God. Sometimes I even tell whoever just complimented me that none of this would ever be possible without God's amazing grace and power.

My life has been incredibly blessed, and God continues to bless my life everyday. Even though I may not know what my future holds, I have faith that God knows and has a plan that is better than anything I could have ever hoped. I know this because so far I could have never imagined some of the amazing things that have happened in my life.

"God will lead you" Isaiah 58:11

 If you ask me what I came to do in this world, I an artist, will answer you:
          I am here to live out loud.

Why do I Paint?

Over the past couple of years I have been asked over and over Why do you do art? What made you start creating things? That my friends is a wonderful question. The answer is actually quite simple.

I do art because it is a piece of my soul. Every painting is an expression of my heart and of my soul. Over the past year my art has become very personal. It has become the only way that I can truly express how I feel. Happiness, Sadness and pure joy for me can only be shown through art. My skills have improved dramatically as I work my way to an art degree. I can only begin to express the appreciation that I have for my wonderful art professors.

I do art because I love it. People tell me "Oh you are so talented" or "You have a gift." Which not to sound big headed I agree with them. But I don't do art because I was gifted with an ability. I do art because it I love it, I enjoy it. Even if I was terrible and I had no artistic ability whatsoever or I suddenly lost my vision I know that I would still do art. I know that I would still lay awake at night waiting for inspiration to hit me. I know that I would still have what I call artistic visions, I know that color would still speak to me. I know that no matter what I will always have a desire to do art.

I paint because nothing makes me happier. I paint because it's my heart on a canvas. I draw because my hands were designed to create great things. I design because inspiration runs through my veins.

I am an artist.

Bark of Color

This weekend was the peak of the changing of the leaves. Looking up at the trees you could see beautiful color. Reds, yellows, oranges, and greens all blend together in perfect harmony.

Lately all I can think about is lying on the ground in the forest, looking up and seeing the sun glow through the leaves. Letting all of the color just pour into my soul. If you haven't ever just looked up and admired the beautiful trees you need to take 10 seconds to let the color run over your face.

When I saw this tree I thought it was pretty. The rough bark, and the multiple colors that show through the browns. Sometimes I get so caught up in what the leaves look like that I forget what holds them up in the air. The trunk of the tree is the most important part. It may be rough, and some may say it's ugly, but without it there would be no beauty. So in it's own way it is beautiful.

Without the rough tree trunk there would not be any colorful leaves to pour over my face. It's beautiful.

Wide Open

As I was sitting in class today my professor said something that just inspired me. We were discussing life and he was talking about taking life as it comes rather than stressing about everything. "Be Wide Open." This was the phrase that just hit me. To wake up everyday and except everything that comes. To be wide open to the things God has planned for you. To be wide open to the possibilities, opportunities and experiences that every day brings. Taking life in stride, to remember that the more open you are, the more you will enjoy life. Let people into your life, have intimate relationships with people and Be wide open.

I chose this picture to represent this phrase because if you look hard enough you will see that this log has a hole through it. The log, normally a solid mass of wood is wide open, taking in animals, snow and leaves.

Be Wide Open. Let Inspiration take you. Take Life in Stride.

Today is the Day!

Today, I begin the journey into a new painting. The inspiration came quickly, and I have been dying to paint all summer, and today is the day I will start.

If anyone is interested in buying any art work of mine posted on the blog, please let me know!

Overwhelming Inspiration

Sometimes as an artist you just have this need inside of you to draw, paint or whatever. That your artistic ability is just spilling over. Your mind is overwhelmed and the only way to fix it is to draw. Lately this has been happening to me alot. I wake up with drawings in my mind, and when that happens the picture never goes away. Sometimes I don't even know what the picture means until I draw it.

I had forgotten a sketch book and all I had was the book that I was reading. So I grabbed a pen and let my mind do the rest. This is what happened. At first it was a squiggly circle and then it became a tree. I didn't have a plan. I just let the inspiration and thoughts fill the page.

Sometimes when I get in periods like this when I have pictures in my mind going all the time of good ideas, I just get headaches. I can't stop seeing it. My mind is full of color and thoughts and inspiration and without anywhere to put it my mind overloads. Because I can't forget a picture until I draw it.

The Beginning

Everyday is an adventure. But no day is finished till I do some sort of art work. Today I painted my first set of TOMS for a paying customer!! Business started.

Nothing gives me more joy than painting, let alone someone thinking you are good enough to paint something for them and they pay you! When someone tells you "You are talented" or "I would love to buy your painting." Its like a rush. When they tell you that you have a gift and they want to invest in you.

Finally I am starting to become what I have dreamed of my whole life. An Artist. Professionally. The older I get and the more I practice and learn the closer I become to what I have always dreamed of.

This may be only a little step, but a little step is the beginning of a great journey.

These are two pairs of TOMS that I have painted. Palm Trees and SunFlowers. If you are interested in purchasing some please email me, or comment below.

Good Day

Things always have a funny way of working out. Everyday I learn something new. Everyday is like a little adventure.
I started a painting the other day and I haven't had the desire to finish it. I'm not sure why that is really. I think it will be really cool once it's completed but it's getting the finished product that can be the battle.
Isn't life like that sometimes. Some days you just have to "get through" in order to get to the "good" days again. But I'm tired of looking at life like that. Everyday has good in it, sometimes it's just a little harder to find.

God didn't promise days without pain, laughter without sorrow nor sun without rain, but he did promise strength for the day, comfort for the tears and light for the way.

Colors of My Mind.

I know I haven't posted in awhile. But I'm back! I have some art work I'm going to share. And I'm going to be posting more of just my art and photos from now on. Explaining why I did them. My inspiration and such.

This is a self portrait believe it or not. I did this painting in about two hours. The inspiration would be myself. As I am reflecting on who I am I wanted a painting to show who I was. I always paint nature, but I wanted to paint something that meant something to someone. I wanted to show me. My hair shows all that makes up who I am. The colors and creativity, certain things that are important, and certain things that have made me who I am. When I go through life day by day I see things in colors. Like every person has a certain color and all my feelings have a color. Most of those colors are shown here in my hair.
That's the inspiration, now to how I did the painting. The background was done first. I mixed acrylic paint with water to make it thinner and to make it splatter better, and also run. I then mixed a color that looked like my skin tone that is under the figure, then I added all the colors of the hair. It was painting in 5 sections each their own color and then slowly it all mixed. Last I painted my face black. I painted my face black to show that I wasn't the focus. That the focus was on my hair, my world.

I hope you like it!

Growing Like the Colors

Thursday, today was a good day! Tomorrow is friday I can't wait. This week of art work week is coming to an end! But I am going to start posting art work more I think. Thanks everyone for reading it! You are all amazing.

I did this painting last year. This is my view on the light spectrum. You can probably tell this is a light bulb, but the colors are suppose to be growing out of it. This was a really fun painting to do! I learned a lot about how much shading and highlighting can really make a painting come alive! I like this painting a lot! I really struggled because of how abstract this painting is but It helped me grow along with the color.

Every painting or piece of work helps me grow.

Humans and Trees

Wednesday, pat yourself on the back because you made it half way through the first half of the week! Just think we are that much closer to Friday and the weekend. This week is art work week! Hope you are liking it!

This is a tree done in watercolor. I did a whole segment in a watercolor pad of trees doing different things. This one the sun is setting, in one it is going through a storm, in another it is starting to grow leaves again after the long winter. I did this segment or study on trees one because I really like trees and two because I think that a tree is a good representation of a human. Because when you just a tree down you see the ripples in the trunk, and you can see everything that the tree went through. You can see when the tree went through a drought, or when it would get hit by lightening, or even when it would go through a good season and it would grow. Humans are like that, we each have a core and when we look at that we can see everything that we have been through. We can see how everything has effected us. I did this little series because I wanted to represent the different things that people go through.

Remembering the Plan

Tuesday, and man has it been a long day. I'm ready for the weekend! Well this week is art work week! Hope you enjoy!

This is also one of the first paintings I ever did. I started with just the yellow flower and then had the thought of just doing a whole flower! To me this represents the different things in life you go through. And the different parts of your life. Of my life really. Like the four seasons of the year, life has seasons. As you look at the different flowers you see difference obviously, but the hardest part is sometimes seeing the whole picture, seeing how one day it will all fit together. As I move through different seasons of life I change, but someday it will all fit together and I will be the woman that God has called me to be. Just like this painting. When you look at the canvas apart it won't be whole, it won't make sense. But when you put it together you see what the creator had in mind. And you see why you went through all the seasons and changes that you did. It just may be difficult sometimes to turn over a new leaf, or change the color of your flower. And see things through a new lens. But God has a plan.

You may only see a small part now, but someday you will see the whole picture, and you will see that God had a plan all along.

Painting My Heart

Monday, the start of the work week, or school week depending on how old you are. This week is Art Work week, every day I will post a photo of my artwork and I will write about it.

This is one of my favorite paintings I have ever done. This painting is very special to me because it is the painting that called me to be a painter really. It was the painting that was actually good. This painting took me about 4 days to complete. When I look at this piece I think of the story of how I became an artist. I see myself as a kid drawing cartoons on the back of my spelling tests. I would fail the test but the teacher would always comment and say nice drawing. When I finally took my first art class freshman year of high school, I learned who I was. I learned I could express every emotion I felt through a pen and paper, which later turned into a brush and paint. I see myself. I know it is actually a flower, but this is my heart. It is big and red. It has layers, but in the middle when you get to the deepest part you see who I am. The more you look at me, or the flower the more you learn about who I am as a person.

My heart is in my paintings.

A Painters Story

Sunday, the start of a new week. A new fresh week. I need one of those for sure, last week was very rough. I forgot to mention this yesterday but this week has a theme since last week didn't! This week is going to be Art Work Week. Get excited! I am going to post a photo of a painting everyday, and tell you why I did it and how I did it. Every painting has a story. Every painter has a reason to paint.

I painted this today actually. Since I had such a rough week and I was full of weird different emotions so I paint. The things at the top are all different colored blue, purple, gray and black crayons that I melted onto a canvas. I choose a red umbrella to represent my heart. The melting crayons are rain. I was completely heart broken when I did this. So upset that on the top I go the lighter too close to the canvas and burned  a whole. I guess that shows more of my heart and how upset I am or was. Every painting has a story, This paintings story is I am heart broken, and there is only one person in the world that can fix it and that is why there is only one umbrella.

Remember every painting has a story, and every painter has an expression and reason to paint.

Learning to Love

Saturday, today was another rough day. I don't even know how to describe it. A roller coaster of emotion for sure. My family had practice Thanksgiving today, to practice all the food we are going to make for Thanksgiving. Really I just think that they all wanted to eat a bunch of food today and they came up with Practice Thanksgiving.

We all have those moments when we say something we don't mean or do something stupid we regret later. And normally I feel like we regret it within like 10 min of when we say it. But then we realize something, we realize how much we really care. Because we regret what we said, whether its mean or whatever we realize why we shouldn't have said it and why we care so much. I did this today. And it almost cost me the one I love most. But I think it's a good thing, I think I learned alot. I learned a lot about myself, and I learned a lot about him. I'm going to share some of what I learned.
About me: I never knew I could love someone this much, I never knew my body could take the amount of physical and emotional pain that I went through today. I never knew I could all the things I do. I can be a pushy person, and I like to get my way. I need to be more understanding, and I need to think before I talk.
About someone else: I never knew I could feel the way I do about them. He has changed my life. Helped me become who I am today. He is more than I could ever hope for in a friend and in a person and I don't tell him that enough. He keeps me in line, letting me know when I'm wrong, even though I hate hearing it and never react well to it. He loves me and I will always love him.
Now when I say love I mean it. I mean, forever, never changing for real love. And a verse that comes to mind is the one that describes love.
"Love is patient, love is kind. It does not envy, it does not boast, it is not proud. It does not dishonor others, it is not self-seeking, it is not easily angered, it keeps no record of wrongs. Love does not delight in evil but rejoices with the truth. It always protects, always trusts, always hopes, always perseveres. Love never fails." 1 Corinthians 13:4-8 NIV
I like the way another version says it. 

"Love never gives up. Love cares more for others than for self. Love doesn’t want what it doesn’t have. Love doesn’t strut, Doesn’t have a swelled head, Doesn’t force itself on others, Isn’t always “me first,” Doesn’t fly off the handle, Doesn’t keep score of the sins of others, Doesn’t revel when others grovel, Takes pleasure in the flowering of truth, Puts up with anything, Trusts God always, Always looks for the best, Never looks back, But keeps going to the end. Love never dies."

I would really like to love like this and I think from now on I'm going to try my best to love like this. 

Because I feel like if I don't love like this, it isn't love. 

I can promise you that my love will never fail, and I will always do my best to follow this. 

Because real true love never fails, and neither will we.

Hard Times

Friday, today didn't even feel like much of a Friday, in fact most of the day I couldn't remember what day it was. I'm glad it is finally the weekend, I need rest. It has been a rough week.

You know those moments when you just don't understand things. Like when you don't understand why someone said what they said, or why this is happening to you. It seems like we always feel this way when things aren't going our way, when things are going poorly. I seem to understand people less the worse things get. I seem to stop understanding why they say the things they say. And why they do what they do. It's odd.

When things go bad, be you. When things aren't going well hold on tight to the ones you love because they are the ones that will help you through.

Sickness

Thursday, Today is not any normal Thursday it is the start of a new month! How exciting. I hope you guys like the artwork from yesterday!

Those oh so special days that turn into those oh so horrible days. It's always a bummer when you are sick. You just can't be yourself when you are sick. Today's blog will be short because I need rest.

I would like to thank everyone who has been following the blog so carefully! I hope you are enjoying it! I'm glad that at least one person cares to hear my thoughts that just go out into the abyss we call the internet. Tomorrow will be better but I feel very sick tonight. I'm sorry! 

A Little Taste of Painting

Happy Halloween! I hope you had a wonderful day. I had a great night with friends. I'll post a picture tomorrow! Well today is Wednesday and it is the first Wednesday of many where I am going to post a photo, either a photo I took or a picture of my art work and share it with you! Enjoy

I took this picture and also painted the flower. They are plain canvas shoes. The flower is a Picasso Calla Lily. It was for one of my friends wedding shoes. I'll tell you how I did it. I primed the flower shape in white and then painted over that. I used a blend of two purples and white to create the color blend. I would really like to make some of my own but with sunflowers instead. I think they are really cool. This gives you an idea of how I paint a little bit. Keep looking forward to seeing my art!

Be creative, be yourself.

Don't be a Potato

Today is Tuesday. I hope you all liked my idea's I had yesterday! So tomorrow I will post a photo either of my artwork or just a regular picture. So get excited about that! I'm excited! Tomorrow is Halloween!!! Is anyone dressing up? I am! I'll tell you tomorrow what I'm gonna be, maybe I'll even post a photo! If you would like to share what you are doing for your Halloween leave a comment tomorrow, or send me a picture! The most creative costume will get posted on my blog on Thursday! Lets do this! Be creative.

I'm a very lazy person I realized today. Actually I have known this forever so its really no surprise. I wish I had the motivation to study for my upcoming tests, and I wish I had the motivation to actually go to class. I just love sleep so much! And don't think I'm some lazy couch potato, cause I'm not! I am no potato, I am a wonderful lazy person that just likes to sit and eat. Only some of the time do I sit on the couch and eat a potato. But I am no potato. People who are potatoes are lame, they do nothing, they have no life, no personality. And I have a life and a personality, I just enjoy relaxing and doing nothing! But does that make me a potato no it doesn't! And if you are like me, don't believe it when people say you are a potato because you are so much more! But if you aren't like me and you are really a potato, get out of house. Get up off your couch and stop being a potato! Be that man or woman you were destined to be, don't let a potato get in your way.

Potatoes are not fun, so be a Person not a Potato.