Loosening Up

With all of these pastel paintings that I've been doing lately I've been longing for my watercolors! Needless to say I put the pastels away this morning and pulled out my watercolor palette. It was so great being able to loosen up with this painting. I love to paint intuitively with watercolor, and I haven't done it in quite a while.

But I have to say that doing this painting really got me thinking this morning. I've been feeling slightly pressured to pick one medium and one painting style. Other artists suggest that you cannot be taken seriously if your paintings are not done in the same style and with the same medium. I am kind of all over the place as far as mediums and styles go. I don't think that I could just choose one. I love what they all have to offer.

So I decided that I'm just going to keep doing what I'm doing. Art is supposed to be fun, and it wouldn't be if I couldn't try new things all of the time. I suspect that after a while I will get comfortable with one medium or style, but until then I'm going to continue with my creative journey the way I have been. Hopefully you'll come along for the ride! :)

Flint Institute of Arts Exhibit

I was recently contacted by a manager of the Flint Institute of Arts who was interested in my work, more specifically, my hand painted cigar boxes. He is in charge of booking artists for upcoming exhibits, and thought my painted boxes would be great for an upcoming Cuban exhibit. The title of the exhibit is: Unbroken Ties: Dialogues in Cuban Art. I am so honored and humbled that he would be interested in my cigar boxes, and that I am able to have this incredible opportunity.

He has chosen six boxes from my Etsy shop, and I will do six more custom boxes for the exhibit. This will run from September 12th, 2010 until January 2, 2011 in the Hodge Gallery of the Flint Institute of Arts in Flint, Michigan. I will share more details as I get them.

This is actually the 2nd time that my hand painted cigar boxes have been purchased for a big event. Some of my cigar boxes were purchased by Columbia Pictures earlier this year to be used as part of the set of a major motion film. This movie will hit the theatres next year. I will also share more details about this as the movie release gets closer.

When I first started painting these boxes, I never could have dreamed that these wonderful opportunities would have been presented to me and I couldn't be more appreciative.