Day 12

Wow, I'm really not doing so hot with blogging every day. But oh well, I'm still blogging more than I ever have before.
So I really haven't done anything creative or artistic since last weekend when Adam and I painted the trees, and I'm still not done with that project. But this past weekend was pretty busy. Friday we went to the Hannibal Arts Council Gallery and I submitted to pieces of artwork to the Originale Exhibit. The reception is Friday where they will announce awards. That part makes me nervous, but oh well. Then Saturday was the Fall Fling at church so we helped out with that. We worked at the inflatable bounce house slide thingy. So that was fun. I had to go in and rescue a couple kids, one that kind of had a panic attack, and one that just didn't want to come out. Then we went to my parents house for dinner. Sunday we had church in the morning, then grocery shopping right after, and youth group that night. So it was a full weekend, with no time for art sadly. But I really enjoyed myself. Sometimes it's nice to be busy like that especially since I'm just home all day.
Also this past weekend we went into another gallery downtown, Gallery 310, and talked to them about having some of our displayed there. So now I just have to paint some things that I'm willing to part with and take them in for the artists to look at and decide if they want to display them. So it sounds pretty promising. I would absolutely love it, and just getting to be a part of a group of artists will be great. So Adam and I are both pretty excited about that.
Well I think that's about all I have to say for now. Hopefully we'll do some more paintings or something this weekend and I'll have something more interesting to blog about.

Day 9

This weekend was pretty busy. There's lot to write about, but right now I'm really tired and about to go to bed. So I'll tell you all about my weekend tomorrow, but now I'll just say that after this past week I finally know that we really are in the right place right now and I just need to seek the Lord for what I'm suppose to do here.

Day 7

So I'm still not done with my painting, but I've been promising a picture. So here we go...
 

                               

Well there they are. Adam's is on the left and mine is on the right. I still have more to work on, and Adam has to touch it up a bit. But, you get the gist of it. Our only plan was to paint a tree, and I really love the way they both look. I think we're going to put them up in our bedroom.

So in other news, I just submitted to pieces to the Originale exhibit here in town at the Hannibal Arts Council Gallery. I'm excited about it, but also really nervous. I hope people like them. There's a reception next Friday where they will announce the awards. So I'll probably be really nervous for that. I just think it will be cool to have people actually get to see my artwork instead of just a picture of it on Facebook. I'm just glad I have this opportunity. I would love to be able to show my art in other galleries here in town, but I'm not really sure how to go about doing that. So we'll just see what happens, maybe this exhibit will open up new opportunities.

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.