Day 4 and 5

Yesterday I was getting ready to write my blog post, and my head starting hurting horribly and I couldn't look at the computer screen anymore.

I worked on my painting a little bit more, but it's still not done yet. My goal is just to have it finished by this weekend. I really like how it's looking so far though, and I really love Adam's. His is pretty much finished, so I'll post a picture of it tomorrow.

Today did not go as I had planned. Our house is a complete mess, and my plan was to wake up and start cleaning. However when I woke up I found that my puppy had eaten one of my favorite shoes. Then I went out for maybe 30 minutes and came home to find that she had pooped in the house. Later in the day I had to go with my dad to the doctor, and when I got home from that she had gotten a paint brush from the utility closet and eaten the wooden handle. I'm not sure what her deal was today. She doesn't normally do things like this. So as you can imagine my day was a little frustrating, and I didn't get any work done. At least not so far. Hopefully I'll get a little done before bed.

I'm trying to get more done with our new facebook page, Shackle Designs. Please check us out on Facebook when  you have time. I would really appreciate it. I'm realizing just how hard it is to really get going with selling art, and even just getting people to look at it online. A lot of people "like" it, but they don't really want to spend the money to own it. So that is a bit frustrating, but I'm sure all artists have gone through that. I would love to be a full time artist someday, but I'm not sure how realistic that is. It seems that there are few people who can actually make a living doing art. But if I could do anything in the world that's what it would be. Well to be an art therapist actually, but it's still being an artist. So I would love that. The problem is that involves college, and right now we really don't have the money to be able to do that. Things are really tough right now, but hopefully one day it will get at least a little easier. Until then, I'll just keep creating, and hoping that other  people invest in my creativity.

Day 3

Today has been a pretty good day. Adam and I decided to paint together today. We really had no idea what we were going to do, but then he decided we should both paint a tree. So we set out on our quest for inspiration, and we both arrived at our ideas. They are totally different, and not quite done yet, but I love them both. It's so fun to see how two people can paint the same subject but it turns out so differently. Just yesterday I saw Roben-Marie Smith's video on youtube about her and Samantha Kira Harding doing a challenge called "points of two". Basically it was where they had prompts or techniques to try out each week, and they would each create an art journal page based on that, and then they got to see how different their work was. I thought it was really cool, and would to do that sometime. Maybe one day I'll find a partner to do that with.
Well that's all for now. Tomorrow I'll post a picture of our paintings for you to see.

Day 2

Today I didn't do anything creative because my family has a big picnic/reunion type thing every year at Labor Day. So we were there all day. Tomorrow I'll try to do something more creative to post for you all. All one or two of you who will read this. :)

Day 1

So since I'm not very good at keeping up with my blog I decided to take on a challenge to blog every day in September. I'm not sure what I'll talk about all the time, but I just want to have something posted every day to start a habit of doing it.

So today I thought I'd take you through the process of my latest painting, Paint the World.

Here's the first stage. I just spread some paint on the canvas with no real rhyme or reason. 

Next I used some stencils I had lying on my desk to add a little more color.

On to finger painting. This part was just fun and messy.

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A final touch of some metallic paint.

Now I just picked out some parts of the background that I really liked and I painted around them.

I added an alphabet stencil to the large circle, and then painted the leaves and flower. 

Here I used a stencil again to create the dots and i added some ink dripage to the flower stem.

Here's my final painting. The words painted on were just something I came up with when working in my journal one day. 

Well that's it for today. I hope you enjoyed that little trip through my creative process. 

A Little Stress

So I have been trying to sell some of my art for a while now, and I have managed to sell a few things. I love being able to sell something, and just getting to share my work with other people. I post all of my art on facebook and so many people comment on it, and say how awesome it is. But, when I say that something is for sale, no one is interested. I just really don't understand it. What's the deal? If you really like something why wouldn't you purchase it when it's available? I'm not trying to sell things for hundreds of dollars... I think the most expensive is $20 right now. I really hope something changes, and I can actually start selling things.

Hope is Found in Love

So I decided to start posting about my art. This is a piece that I actually made a while back, but I decided to write about it now because I really like it. It's titled Hope is Found in Love obviously by the text on the canvas. I painted it when I was just meditating on the Lord, and things about my life. There were so many times when I felt as if there was no hope for things to change, but then I would remember that there is hope in love, and there is a verse that says "God is love" so essentially there is hope in God. I know not everyone believes in the same thing, but really the only way to have hope no matter what the circumstance is to look to God. He already know what's happening, and he knows how you can overcome it and be able to stand again. So this painting is very simply a face looking up toward God for hope to get through all of life's struggles.

This painting is available for purchase. Leave a comment if you are interested. I can simply make a print of it, or I can sell you an original. You can also let me know what size you would like. Thank you so much for your support. All money I make from my art will go toward creating more art, and also part of it will be set aside in a missions fund, for my husband and I to be able to go on a mission trip together in the future. Right now I don't know where we will go, but I'll let you know when we decide. 

Devotions for the Artist

So a while back I had the idea to create a devotional series specifically for artists. It would be a devotion based upon a picture or graphic of some sort. Of course there would be scripture involved as well, but it is mainly an image that invokes deep feelings or thoughts and then I would write about something to think about for the day, or a verse to meditate on.
I'm not quite sure how I will go about creating this, but I'd like to get some input. Do you think it would be a good idea? Would people actually buy it? or am I just wasting my time? I'd really like your opinions, please leave a comment. Thank you!