Week 6 Project of Paint Your Heart and Soul 2017

I am enjoying Olga Furman's year long painting course (online)  It is just what I needed to get motivated to learn more and do more!  This was our lesson for week 6.

"Butterfly Dream'

I love the out of proportion whimsical girl faces but learning to paint more realism  (or attempting to) in the portraits is a great challenge for me and I'm so glad I've taken this step.

The Online Course

is still available if you'd like to join me!

Actually, I'm not sure I'm even talking to anyone but myself (and maybe Ryan...Hi Ryan!).  So many of the people I used to follow are not active on their blogs anymore.  Not sure if many of my artist friends blog anymore.  Hopefully they're just too busy creating beautiful art!!

 For now, this is probably going to be an online journal for me to track my life and that's ok too.  

You're more than welcome to tag along if you are here :)

Want to win a spot in this fab workshop??

Great news!  Olga Furman is giving away 2 spots in this great class!

Please check it out here!

I'm taking a class from her and other artists right now and am enjoying it so much!!

How the brushes flowed this week and a giveaway announcement!

This week I was able to spend some nice time painting during the evenings.  Our third class in Olga Furman's Paint your Heart & Soul class was from Nikol Wikman and we learned how to do some fun techniques.  Here is the project we completed:

It got a little dark and I didn't have the proper sponge to get the sky clouds soft like I wanted, but it is what it is :)

Here is a colorful little happiness bird 8 x 10 canvas

I thought I'd try and make a few 'lovey dovey' Valentine pieces :)  

Here's one, 8 x 10 canvas:

Here's the start of four 6 x 6 chunky canvases:

Here's where they ended up last night.  Hope to finish and even add a couple more!

CHECK THIS OUT!!

Carolyn Dube has 7 new stencils and is having a giveaway!   This is just a quick post to let you know too because it ends on Tuesday, Jan 31st!
Click here to enter!!

GOOD LUCK and have a great weekend!!

Mixed Media Abstract play day!

 Today I played on 9 x 12 mixed media paper to see what kind of backgrounds I could create and what I could do with them.  All started out pretty similar to this.....

Then this happened to one:

And this happened to another:

ALL three were very fun, messy and   a little therapuetic  to create!!  At times when I start on a canvas or any other substrate I can be more nervous and scared of messing up.  And about 95% of the time when I'm painting for a particular event or person, that is when I WILL mess up!   I mean, I create 'HAPPY ACCIDENTS', right Bob?

Have a great week!

Darla ;)

Recent activities!

It's been a busy couple of weeks!  There are two local benefit auctions here that I was asked to donate to.  I decided to go with some mixed media image transfer pieces.  I made a couple for my granddaughters at Christmas so I thought I'd try again.

One is for a local hockey club family so this is a photo transfer of one of the team players on a 12x16 wooden canvas:

This second one is for an auction in the Grand Forks area so I went with  a UND Hockey player with a Ralph Englestad quote, also on a 12 x 16 wooden canvas:

I've also started a 24 x 30 canvas for my office at work!  It's intimidating to do something so big but this is what I have so far :)

I have no clue where it will end up, but I'm going with the whole 'intuitive painting' plan and we'll just have to see!!

I also am taking advantage of Roben Marie-Smith's free 'Organize Your Creative Space'  series.  Today I listened to her live Q & A chat while cleaning mine!  She has some excellent tips!

I love that I have the space to create, but I'm not gonna lie, someday I'd love to be upstairs with windows and sunshine ;)

You'll find out more about her series Here

I'm off to babysit my sweet little granddaughter tonight, take care!

5 YEARS! Anybody here?

I'm lost .....don't know how or where to even begin again :(

Job loss, ending of long term relationship, new and rather stressful new job, my beautiful dog Mieko passed away, goofy new dog Remi (pictured above) keeps me busy!....anyway, enough of my excuses!!

I'm painting again....for ME!  For FUN!  For REAL!  All I've done these past few years is paint for charity auctions or requests.  I let my Etsy store sit dormant for way too long.

I spent most of today filling it up!  It's really hard and time consuming when you haven't done it for years!

https://www.etsy.com/shop/ArtisticAccents?ref=listing-shop2-all-items-count#items

I'm also taking a couple of classes this year!  A year long class hosted by Olga Furman (online) with many other teachers.  It's going to be so fun!

I'm going to California in June to take a class with Kelly Berkey too!  Can't hardly wait for that!

I hope you all are doing well.....if any of you are still out there.  Seems as if Instagram, Facebook and Pinterest have taken over for ways to share our art with the world but I thought I'd just pop in and see if anyone is still reading blogs.

I might just start a whole new blog...new year...new dreams...fresh start!

Happy New Year!!  May you all have a blessed year!
Darla

Will you?

There are so many areas of my life I want to improve on…..I know I can.  I know I will