Garden Perch

This week I finished off "Garden Perch" ....... I decided to go for a colorful and vibrant background of blue with touches of white and purple. Below (in the previous post) is the same painting, minus the background. My garden irises have just finished blooming for the year so I'm moving on to paint another willing subject now. I think I will pick up a nice 10" x 10" canvas, just like this piece was painted on and get to work today on another painting. 

A New Year

HAPPY NEW YEAR!!!! I cannot believe it is here already. Where did the holidays go by the way? Come to think of it, my brain is still on summer and here it is winter already. At any rate, I often find I'm in denial when it comes to the seasons as my mind likes to imagine it lives in the warm weather. Actually, in a couple of years, that will probably be a reality for us and it is something I'm very excited about.

I do have some cheerful, beautiful Amaryllis to keep me from falling too deeply into the winter blahs.

Last year I think I was in a really bad place with blogging, I've been doing it for years and I guess I got bored with it, annoyed at times and yes, even put pressure on myself to blog.....that's just not right. I think for a while, I was on the path to shutting my blog down but since then, have changed my mind.

Why can't I after all, just blog the way I want too? What if I just sit down to write and post pictures every 2 or 3 weeks if thats what I feel like? I kind of realized I was self-imposing rules onto my internet existence that just didn't make sense. This is the new me, blog when I want to/can etc, no pressure, just fun.

I've been painting some new pieces over my break, lots of butterflies. These are 3 of the paintings but I have a 4th and final (for now anyway) butterfly triptych I'm going to be finishing up this week. These paintings are so far at least, un-named. I'll have to work on solving that in the upcoming weeks.

This new year's day also brings a brand new website for me....Chris has been working on it for months and finally it is mostly done and ready to go. A brand new, crisp, clean look that focuses strictly on the artwork is what I was looking for in my new site. With a few minor changes/additions in the upcoming weeks, it is for the most part, DONE!!! www.artfulcreations.biz .

I hope everyone had a lovely holiday....I hope to be back in a couple of weeks, no pressure, just for fun.

Two Custom Acrylic Nature Paintings.......

Recently I completed 2 custom orders for one of my very sweetest customers....2 - 6" x 8" paintings on gallery canvas. The first piece is "Monarch Butterfly & White Lilacs".

This piece is named "Bluebird & Peach Roses". Both paintings are set against a black background with colors surrounding the subjects done with an abstract technique. A cheerful set of paintings to have worked on recently, especially with all the rain we've had in the northeast. www.artfulcreations.etsy.com

Butterfly Photos, Inspirations & Nature Scape Paintings

I was just speaking with someone recently about how ideas and inspirations for paintings come along. The kind of ideas that take seed in your mind, even through the course of years and end up being something you feel, as an artist, you have to paint, you cannot help yourself. That got me focused on butterflies and this lead me to think of the different inspirations for some of my favorite butterfly paintings that I've done.

I started getting fascinated by butterflies, I think, when I first took this series of photos back in the fall of 2009. We were at Mohonk Mountain House for our anniversary and these gorgeous Monarchs (I admit, they are my favorite butterfly) were drawn to the Verbena patch and I in turn, was drawn to them.

I took so many photos of these beauties over the course of the couple of days that we were there and then, like so many other photos, I filed them away for possible use in the future.

Fast forward to the summer of 2010 (at least, that is about when I think it was) that patch chuck full of butterflies from the year before , became the painting above "Monarch".

Believe it or not, those photos inspired these paintings as well. True, for these I left the Verbena behind and instead wanted to incorporate my favorite butterflies into my new obsession, trees. I was particularly fascinated with Apple Blossoms at the time and so, I created "Monarchy" above.

When Monarchy left my house, believe it or not, I was a bit sad, as it cheered me up each day that I looked at it. I had hung it in my studio and so, I could see it while I was working and really enjoyed it's happy presence . Because I missed that painting, I wanted another one with my favorite butterflies and Apples Blossoms but this time, with a bit of a different background and I wanted a multi-canvas piece and ended so up creating "Monarchs Emerging". This one hung in my dining room until it flew away so at least I did get to see it for a while.

Back in 2007, I spent quite a lot of time photographing this Swallowtail that was hanging around the front of my house to be near my Impatiens. I was out there constantly because pretty much every afternoon that I walked the dogs, there he was, back again, waiting for me to photograph him.

Actually, this particular butterfly was not very cooperative and did lead me on a merry chase throughout the yard. For this reason, I ended up with lots of blurry photos but, I did get some that came out well, the few times I could get him to sit still that is.

In 2008 I took photos of one of my spring time favorites....Lilacs. They grow on the side of my house and I love cutting them to bring inside each year.

A couple of months ago, I was on the phone with someone and for whatever reason, the idea came to me like a light bulb going on, I wanted to paint lilacs and a Swallowtail butterfly together. I'm not sure why this idea occured to me at the time it did but I immediately wanted to get started on "Awakening" below.

With 3 new paintings that I've just finished, now is the hard tiime for me, deciding what to do next. Last night I was awake for some time trying to think of the next subject for the next painting. I think I know what I"ll do but I'm never totally sure until I start work on the next piece. I'm wondering, what inspires you?? What kind of thought process goes into creating some beauty in your life? www.artfulcreations.etsy.com

Kaleidoscope Dragonflies Diptych On Gallery Canvas

The latest painting to sprout wings and fly out of my sunroom studio is called "Kaleidoscope Dragonflies". When I envisioned working on this painting, I wanted to create a piece of art that was brimming with lots of colors, which lead me to start thinking about all the colors and shapes you would see if you looked through a kaleidoscope. As you turn it in your hands, the images you see in the kaleidoscope keep continuously changing. That was the inspiration for this latest painting.

Each panel is painted in acrylics on 1 1/2" deep gallery wrap canvas. Each piece measures 18" h x 6" w. Although they are displayed as a diptych, they can also stand alone as the design wraps around the sides of each canvas.

The total measurements for the display I have shown are: 24" h x 14 1/2" w. They could be displayed any way the heart desires though....it is up to the person hanging this set, how they wish to arrange them.

This painting is available at Celebrations Gallery.... www.artfulcreations.etsy.com . I hope everybody has a wonderful week that is full of beautiful, ever changing colors.

In The Treetop & A Winged Beauty

This week I have been working on some smaller paintings......8" x 8" , 1 1/2" deep gallery canvases.

This little guy on the colorful and very happy background is "In The Treetop" which I think fits him just perfectly. I had a blast working on the background and loved the technique so much that I'm considering using it on a larger painting in the future.

"Winged Beauty" is of course another Monarch butterfly. I seem to be on a roll with these floating beauties lately, I'm really enjoying painting them.

For this background my goal was "earthy" and I think the colors and textures worked out just great for what I was tryiing to achieve. I would consider using this on a larger painting as well but I'm not sure yet, it was a tough background to achieve and even more so to paint on. Time will tell I suppose!

I hope you like the newest nature inspired paintings..........ENJOY!!!

www.artfulcreations.etsy.com