Outside of the realm of art for children, I do like to find time to dabble in personal projects and occasional commissions for paintings that don't involve jungle animals or fairies.
A few years back I had a small one night show with a couple friends of mine.. we called it '3 dumb blondes'; brunette and brainy as we were. It was fun and I gave myself permission to do a series of abstract paintings, an area I wasn't altogether accomplished in but I felt the rumblings of some good ideas...I do think, in completion, they ended up being more of a 'stepping stone' of an idea that I would like to explore further. I wish I had been looser in the execution and grander in scale. But hey, that's the art journey. Trying things. Evolving ideas. Learning. Failing. Throwing stuff out there.
I also recently competed a mountain landscape painting that had a very specific brief- a photograph in fact. And specific size instructions. Making it true to the photo in colour and scale was challenging, while still sort of trying to put a little bit of my own stamp on it. I layered this one up a lot, using modelling paste for texture. I enjoy the energy in the detailed pics I took of this one.
I also have been looking at Native American culture, having been born in Canada and discovering I may have a small amount of Lakota blood in my ancestry. I am humbled and inspired by their story, their art and their dancing- particularly hoop dancing. The hoop representing the earth and the cycle of life. The tension and the struggle and the beauty of life.
