Water Lily

I'm back! I finally finished a painting, can you believe it? It felt so great to be painting again today. This painting is called "Water Lily" and it's another 5 by 7 on Ampersand Pastelbord. It was completed with a combination of soft pastels and pastel pencils.

I have been so busy, with my family visiting, with school, and with the recent news that I will be represented by my first gallery in 2 months. I have so much to do in preparation for it, and finding time to paint has been difficult. But today I decided I would give myself the entire day to finally sit down and do some painting.

I'm going to hold on to this painting and maybe it will end up framed in the gallery. :) I have to choose about 6-8 paintings to start. I know that I want to use some that I already have, and I wanted to paint a couple of new ones.

Well I hope you all have a great weekend!

Exciting News!!

Well I have some very exciting news!! As of November 1st I will be represented by the Stillwater Art Guild Gallery in Stillwater Minnesota! This gallery has always been my favorite in the area, and to have the chance to show my art there is a dream come true! I haven't been represented by a gallery before, so this is very exciting for me. I will have a relatively small wall space, but it will be a great start. Plus most of my paintings are small, so it will be perfect.

I have a lot of work to do in preparation for this. I believe that I will select a few paintings that I've already done, that I have listed on Etsy, to start. I think I'll do a few new ones too. I have a little more than 2 months to get everything ready, so that should be plenty of time.

I'm so excited!!!! :)

I hope you all have a great weekend!

Holiday Quilts

I thought it was about time I got a jump on my holiday quilts for Etsy and I can't believe people are purchasing them already! I thought for sure that I had a couple of months before I needed to put them in my Etsy shop. I've sold 3 holiday table runners in the past 24 hours. The worst part is that I haven't assembled them yet! Oops! I bought doubles of the panels above and never got around to putting them together. I thought I could list them, and assemble them as soon as I received the order. I didn't expect that to happen so soon.

So anyway, I wanted to let you all know that I think I'm going to be spending most of my free time quilting, at least for a while. I've already stocked up on my holiday fabric, and since people seem to be interested in it now, I think I will continue quilting. I really miss painting though! It's been weeks since I've painted.... Ahh.. I'll get back to it as soon as I get a jump on these quilts.

If you're interested, check out my Etsy shop. And get them quick! They're going fast! :)

Visit With Family

I thought I would share some pictures with you from this past week. My brother and sister came to visit me from Michigan and we had such a fun time! They left this morning, and I'm already missing them!

My twin sister and I in Stillwater, Mn.
My Fiance, Chuck, and I on a hike in Taylors Falls, Mn.

My sister, Christina, and I on a hike in Taylors Falls, Mn.

My sister, brother and I on a hike.

My sister and brother in Hudson, Wi.

I wish that our visit could have been longer but I suppose we all needed to get back to reality. This was my sisters 3rd visit here and my brothers 1st. We only get to see eachother about once a year and I always look forward to it with great anticipation.

I hope to return to painting within the next couple days!

Sunset Beach

"Sunset Beach" 11 by 14, Pastel Painting

"Sunset Beach" is the 2nd painting that I painted for my living room. It will hang along side my "Sunset Pier" painting. I think they are a great match! :) Usually I feel guilty about painting for myself, but I didn't when I was completing these 2 paintings. I've been wanting to do something like this for a while now.

I completed this painting with a combination of Mount Vision and Sennelier soft pastels (no pencils). It's different going from smaller more realistic paintings, to these. But I love being loose with my strokes, and I just love these water/sky paintings. To me, a sunset is one of the most beautiful natural wonders.

This is probably going to be the last painting that I put up for a while. My brother and sister are coming to visit in less than a week, and I have a lot to do in preparation for their visit. I will also be unable to paint while they are here. I'm missing it already! :)

I hope you all have a great weekend!!!

Sunset Pier - Complete

"Sunset Pier" 11 by 14, Pastel Painting

Well here is the completed painting! I didn't have to add too much today. I just darkened some of the darks and added a little more color to the water. I decided on the name "Sunset Pier" - I think it fits pretty well :). I wasn't sure I was even going to include the pier in the painting, but I'm glad I did.

Now I have to begin the second one. It will be similar to this one, as they will eventually be hung up together in my living room. It feels really nice just to paint for me for a change! :)

Untitled - Work In Progress

I thought I would share a picture with you today of a painting I'm working on.

This isn't the greatest picture of it. The colors look rather muted and dull, but you get the idea. I bought these two frames for my living room and had the perfect idea of the paintings that I could do for them. So this is the first one. I don't have too much more to do with it. I just need to add some lights, darks and other details (the size is 11 by 14).
I thought you might like to see my little work area. It's kinda messy and cramped, but I like it. :) I will post a picture when I complete the painting. Hopefully that will be tomorrow :)

Framed Paintings

You guessed it, I decided to keep my latest painting ("When Life Gives You Lemons") for myself. I really had no intention of doing so when I was working on it, but once it was completed I realized that it went really well with my other painting, "Fruit Tea" (which I also decided to keep for myself). I had these adorable white frames that I thought would be a perfect fit for these paintings and I think I was right! I hung them up in my studio today. :)

I now have 5 by 7 prints available of these two paintings in my Etsy Shop.

When Life Gives You Lemons

"When Life Gives You Lemons" 5 by 7, Pastel Painting

When life gives you lemons, make lemonade! I don't know where that saying came from, but I like it, and I was thinking about it as I was painting these lemons today. This was such a fun little still life to paint. It's on Ampersand Pastelbord, and was completed with pastel pencils.

I'm not quite sure if I want to sell this painting, or keep it for myself :). If I decide to keep the original, I will make prints available in my Etsy shop.