High Contrast - Paintings for Sale

Hi everybody! I would first like to take a moment to thank everyone for their views and their shares. I'm so proud of my work and I'm so excited to get it into your eyeballs and get you talking about it, it makes me immeasurably excited. It amazes me to realize how little of my art I have shared over the years, and I guess it shouldn't surprise me, since I hide it while I paint it then I hide it when it's done. But thank you for being such a generous audience and for allowing me a part of your day to show you what I've been up to these last few years.

So without further ado, let me introduce you to the next couple contestants. Today both paintings are of a similar theme but were completed maybe a year and a half to two years apart. I have not taken professional photos of either of them yet but these are what I do have and I hope you enjoy :)

I would like to make a quick mention before you continue, most of these paintings you can find in smaller print forms at my mom's Giftshop in Rosebud. Should you like one of my paintings but the vastness of the beauty is just too much for you to handle, stop in at the shop and grab a couple prints of your favorite pieces! Okay, shameless self-advertising aside..

I present to you:

Small Round Tree (SOLD)

Dimensions of 16" x 20",  less than 3/4" thick, and acrylic on canvas. It is moody, it is colourful, it is textured, and it is marvelous.

Here you have:

Blue Root

Dimensions of 16" x 20",  less than 3/4" thick, acrylic on canvas. Again, I don't have a professional photo as of yet, but I will, I may even post it on here, and you can find the prints in my mom's shop. Again with the contrast and strong use of colour, and I went a bit overboard with the boarder but I absolutely love the effect. I may have to make more intense boarders as I sell my art and make more!

Both pieces I'm selling for a negotiable $150.00, should someone feel compelled to get them as a set, I would love to give you a great deal :) Let me know, please share if you know someone who may need these in their life, and thanks, as ever, for viewing!!

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.

Painting Venting - 2 More Paintings

I remember one afternoon at school I was feeling extra inspired and had to get some painting venting out before I could get started on my 'real' project. So out came these two, pop pop. I didn't plan what either of them were going to be before I got started, and as the images started to emerge I went with it, and out came these babies.

This is my Cityscape in Red and Blue, it reminds me of a really industrialized city, but then again it could be a forest, and it could be a forest that's being cleared, hence all the red. I don't know, it is what you make it out to be, but that is what I love about my paintings. Who am I to tell you what you're supposed to see in my abstract paint splatter of a painting?

Cityscape in Red and Blue (SOLD)

The next painting I blurted out of my brushes was this lovely lade below. The canvas is primed with a loadful of texture, so going back and forth with my colours over said texture left a lot of really interesting patterns and details beneath the surface. Then the icy blue tree is just so striking, I really do love the colours in this one.

Icy Blue

Both of these paintings are done on 16 inch x 1 foot canvas and I actually have no starting price for these two. They were never really something I ever intended to make and I would be most delighted to see them go to a loving home. Make me an offer and I'll consider it.

 Thank you for taking the time today to read some more about my art. It means a lot and I really appreciate your time and your shares.

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.