A Landscape of Rosebud and a Dripping Tree

Small Blue Drip Tree (SOLD)

Today I would like to introduce to you to one of my favourites (I know, I say that about all of my paintings). I was inspired for the leaves and the branches by a friend I was painting with that day who uses a lot of swiggly wiggly lines and I really love the effect it gave. I used masking tape around the edges as I was painting it so as it developed you would still be able to see the initial colours I chose to put down. I really enjoy layering in my paintings, so when you stop to look at one part of the canvas, your eye isn't sure what colour it's looking at.

It's done in acrylic and on your average canvas, about 20 inches x 16 inches, 3/4 inch thick. Right now it's just hanging out on the side wall of our game room, just waiting to be owned by a lover of colour.  am asking $150.00 for this painting, but I understand if the size might bring it's value down slightly. Just slightly though. I sold this bottom one for $150.00, same size, about the same amount of effort to create, and I think it was a fair sale:

Twin Trees (SOLD)

Reminder: This painting is sold.

Next on the agenda we have my Rosebud landscape. If you've ever visited the tiny hamlet of Rosebud, Alberta, you may recognize this windy river and hillscape. I may have represented the hills more like mountains, but tiny rolling hills just aren't that interesting to me. I like grandiose, I like nature in it's most awe-filled moments. So here we have my Rosebud landscape.

Rosebud Landscape (SOLD)

I am very proud of this piece. Rarely when I use such a detailed reference material it very rarely turns out how I wanted it to, but perhaps it's because I grew up looking at this landscape, but it just wasn't difficult for me to get down. I'm impressed with the reflections in the water and my depth and perspective, while remaining true to my abstract and colourful ways. This is another piece that I would not be that heart broken if I never got rid of, and as such I am asking $150.00 for this 18 inch x 14 inch canvas.

It's happy living in my hallway.

Please feel free to give this post a share if you think you might know someone who would like a Grace original in their life. I would be more than happy to share a piece. <3 Thank you.

I Went to Nicaragua and Painted a Volcano

This one's easy because I only have one photograph. February 2016 I went with my best friend Hannah to Ometepe Island in Nicaragua. We spent a grueling 6 days there, filled with food poisoning and a troublesome guide, and I was so thankful to arrive home, luggage safely lost in Houston, Texas. Fantastic.

But the entire trip was not lost on me. I had a good 700 photos or so on my camera to filter through in the months after the trip. One particular photo was taken my first night there, just hours before I was hit with the worst (and only) food poisoning of my entire life. I was better two days later.

Anyways, too much information aside, I thought it was really cool that where I was currently standing, in that location, I was directly between two volcanoes. One of them was an active volcano too. So that is what inspired this painting. The red background, the gold all over the horizon, the blue tropical water. The colours there were amazing, and the heat was intense, and the bugs and animals were all sorts of whacked. But the scenery, man I could look at that scenery forever.

Nica Volcano

So this is my Volcano. It is 4 feet wide x 2 feet tall, 1.5 inches thick, and entirely acrylic paints and medium. Loads of texture, because I know there's some texture fiends out there, and the same boarder effect you see in my Blue and Purple Trees. I just think it's a neat way to frame a painting without actually putting it in a frame. Plus, what the function of a frame is for, is to focus the viewers eye inwards. If you have a hard line around the edge, the viewer will instinctively look further inwards, towards the center of the painting, instead of just wandering off the edge and onto the next one. It's important to me to keep my viewer looking, because there is always so much more to see under the surface.

I'm asking $350.00 for this one.

Thanks for reading :) Feel free to share this post if you or someone you know is in the market for some new art. I'm ready to deliver.

Acid Tree - My Plunge Into the Abstract

This tree is what did it for me. I painted for 12 hours, layers upon layers upon layers, just acrylic paint, water, and my brushes. And sometimes my fingers. I had an epiphany while painting this tree about how I can layer colours over each other in such a way that when you look at any one spot on the canvas (it's actually a board, but that's besides the point) you will be able to notice a myriad of colours underneath. How can that splotch of blue also be red and green and purple? I love it. I love it so much.

Acid Tree

This is what my tree looks like right now hanging on my wall. I used flash on my camera so it's not a streak-less photo, but that is what the first photo is for - a perfect display of what my piece really looks like, camera and technology flaws aside. This is how non-empty your wall would look:

Here is my tree just a few hours after I had finally put the last paint stroke on (my final stroke was Alizarin, in case you were wondering):

 And here's a little something for the kids. Below left I am taking a photo with my painting to be in an article in my local paper about my art scholarship I had been awarded at the end of my second year of school. Below right I am taking a photo in front of my painting because I noticed my hair matched.

More about the painting: It is 3 feet by 3 feet, 1 3/4 inches thick, and made of the same type of chemically treated wood as my Blue and Purple Tree from my previous post. I made a frame all around the back of the board so it can hang on a couple of screws/nails. I am asking $400.00 for this piece though I would like 5. And it fits beautifully in between my Blue and Purple Trees, so if you want all three, I'm willing to discuss numbers. They work mighty fine together as a feature item.

Thanks for reading, and please give this a share if you know someone needing a spruce in their decor.

My New Year Art Expo - Selling My Art

The time has come, the Walrus said.

I'm going to put myself on display! And in a much more vulnerable way than when I nude model.

I'm going to show you my art. And not just show it to you. I'm going to sell it to you. Well, try.

There's nothing I want more than to pay off my student loans so I can, shocker, go back to school! I need my degree, I need to study art, I need to teach it! I need to design, to inspire others to design, to teach others and myself what it means to be a creator, not a destroyer, especially in this world. I will achieve my goals, and this is my first step. I need to let the people know I exist.

So here we go. The next van Gogh/Monet/Turner (My dreams are big):

My first two paintings I would like to introduce to you today are two of my greatest loves, my prides, my joys. And it will be incredibly difficult to give them up, yet I need to relinquish them in order to prove to myself I can do it again. I'm so afraid of making the perfect piece and not being able to make anything after that, and I can't keep limiting myself with stunted thoughts like that. It's not going to get my dreams achieved. So, I am pleased to introduce to you my Blue Tree and Purple Tree, oh so cleverly named.

Blue Tree

Purple Tree

This is what they look like currently on my wall, and what they could look like on YOUR wall:

And this is what they looked like when they were only a few days old, still in the paint-speckled art studio:

More about the paintings: My Blue Tree is 3 feet long, 21 inches wide (so almost 2 feet) and 2 inches thick, and my Purple Tree is 3 feet by 2 feet exactly, 2 inches thick. Both are painted on a chemically treated recycled wooded board, primed and with an all-around frame on the back, all made by yours truly. Acrylic paint and spackling paste for the background texture, which there is a little bit of.

I start my paintings abstract, primarily focusing on what colours I'm choosing to use and how they're interacting with each other, and what I can do with that. The painting progresses and eventually pulls itself together, and  I tape around the edges, giving these two paintings the boarder look you see.

Both trees are inspired by two particular trees I could see looking out of my kitchen and dining room windows back home. The blue one used to have a blue rope swing on it, and the purple one is in the middle of our backyard. And then, as always, my paintings are inspired by the colour and beauty found in nature.

Ideally I'd like to sell these two paintings together as a set, but I understand given the size and weight, you might just want one. I'd like $400.00 for each one, maybe a deal if you want both, but I'm willing to talk numbers.

I might not even be that sad if I never sold these two; they liven up any blank wall I stick them on, and seem to match any and all of my house decorations. But I know, I just know, there is a blank neutral wall out there that has been looking for a masterpiece to bring it to life.

:) Thanks for reading. Feel free to share if you have a friend who collects or is maybe in need of something hand-made, beautiful, and ever so original. More to come.