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When I was a child I had a mural on my bedroom wall painted by my mother.  It was amazing, and every night I was able to say goodnight to the purple elephant (who ironically had a nice round preggo belly-mum was 9 months pregnant when she painted the mural) and pet the butterfly and caterpillar goodnight.   When I adjusted to the idea that we would be bringing a child into this world I thought… I want a mural for my child too!  Looking back I was totally insane, this is a fun but massive project. Throughout this series of blogs I’ll be highlighting the lessons I learned so you don’t have to re-learn the lessons!

I didn’t really understand what the project entailed when I decided to paint the mural and typical of my history I bit off a huge chunk when creating the project.  I decided to paint a wall about 10×12 with a mural based on the Pacific Northwest.  And unlike reasonable people I went for a quasi-realistic scene.  I don’t know how to create cutesy animals and scenes.  When I do try to create them they look ridiculous and unappealing… so I didn’t even try for this project.

The process started with planning, and sketching and then some more planning.  I opted to sketch on the wall as I considered composition.  This gave me a good perspective of where I wanted the horizon line.  Of course as a trained artist I couldn’t put the horizon line in the middle but neither did I want the whole piece to be all sky… I needed some room to paint the ocean creatures.

Lessons learned: I definitely would recommend using a charcoal pencil to do this.  Graphite pencil or red colored pencil would leach through the paint and then everyone would know about your pre-painting sketching.  I also recommend using either a black or a white charcoal pencil, red is a wonderful color but frankly it is more likely to bleed through than the white or black.

When I asked my guru art friends about murals they all suggested using professional grade Acrylic paint to paint the details on the mural.  But that much acrylic paint just wasn’t in my budget.  I used house paint to create the landscape and saved the acrylic paint to paint the creatures.  Now that I’ve completed the project I’d recommend using as much acrylic paint as you can afford.  It’s designed to handle layers on a vertical surface, won’t drip and the colors are sooo much better.  I definitely had to re-do areas where my landmass dripped into my ocean, and if I’d used acrylic I wouldn’t have had to redo a thing!  All that being said, house paint worked ok… just remember that house paint dries slightly darker than it’s wet color!

In college I discovered that painting with watercolor on linen was not only fun but created interesting and visually appealing paintings.   I painted these paintings in the wet on wet style and noticed several potential issues.

1)    I had to literally blow the paintings dry with a hair dryer to keep the pigment in the fabric.  When I didn’t blow it dry the paint seeped through the fabric and just went directly onto my painting board.  This left puny colors and unsatisfactory results.

2)    Watercolor is notoriously sensitive to light and I’m concerned that painting watercolor onto linen fabric would make it more sensitive to light.

Pros… it looks really awesome!  I loved the feel and look of it.  And when I showed these pieces they received a ton of interest.

Despite these negatives I thought painting with watercolor on linen was super fun.  It created a very different look and with a clean bucket of water you can somewhat control your white spaces.  I have a big show coming up in August and thought I’d do a series of watercolor on linen paintings… but I thought Golden Acrylics has come out with a new line of liquid acrylics and maybe those would work with the linen paintings?

I found that they flowed fairly well but definitely less than watercolor.  I was able to create ‘lighter’ spaces dropping clear water onto the linen but am still undecided if this medium is where I want to head with wet paint on wet fabric.  I’d love your comments and reviews.

As I talked with a friend recently I was thinking about angels, wings and what they all represent.  I also was giving thought to how we lift ourselves out of trouble, angst or general unhappiness.

All of us are presented with different challenges as we grow up, and it’s up to us to determine how we react to these challenges.  Too bad we never get to pick what challenges come our way!  I believe we can each be our own angel it’s just a lot of work and really hard.  I suppose most things worth having are hard work and difficult (excluding chocolate mousse, that’s easy and really good).

In preparing for this blog I did a tiny bit of research into the definition of angels.   Apparently there are a wide range of definitions but I consistently found several similar concepts.  The first is that angels are either superior humans working for the greater good or superior beings created by God.  The second is that with a few exceptions, angels are associated with good.   Thirdly, they are regularly associated with messengers.  My question for this process is, do the wings make the angel or to visually represent an angelic thought should I go with something else.

When I think of winged beings I generally imagine something lifting up, maybe lifting me up.  Historically angels have usually been depicted as winged beings though oddly enough they are not described as winged beings in the bible.  In times of trouble I have often found the image of an angel lifting me up or wrapping me in the comfort of his/her wings very soothing.  As I grew up, I realized that no matter how soothing that image may be the responsibility is mine to raise myself out of the dark or out of a difficult situation.   I believe we are all given the tools to do so or given access to the tools do lift ourselves out of difficulty.  And this is where wings come into play.  My friend has a tattoo of some wings on her back and I thought it was such a beautiful symbol of self-saving that I had to write about it and think about art projects/paintings I could do based on wings.

My initial plan is to sketch out some wings then I intend to go to some more figure drawing sessions on Tuesday nights and work through my rustiness with human figures.  Too bad a course for figure drawing isn’t in the books!

I was raised on the East Coast near Washington, DC and for the most part was blessed with a fun and happy life.  I had one of those remarkable early childhoods my parents were in love, I had security and although we never had much money I never felt the lack.  I believe that my entire world started changing around 5th grade, maybe I should blame my increasing awareness of the world but I somehow became aware that I was different.  I was raised to think different is good, but in school different isn’t always as fun.  It didn’t help that I was in my awkward phase of life.  I was gangly, I had huge glasses and a very unfortunate perm.  I think of the awkward phases as ‘character building’.  I might sum it up by saying I built a lot of character during my last years of elementary school.

In Junior High my parents were still in love but they were starting their own company and working most of the time.  Money was still tight but we definitely had more than we did when my dad worked for the Air Force.  By the time High School came around I realized that I wasn’t normal for the DC area.  I never really partied hard, I was into every sport I could play and I was in some of the advanced academic classes (not math though!).  So looking at myself stereotypically, I was a geeky jock who managed to be relatively clean cut at the same time.  In my grade this was not cool, I may not have been on the bottom of the high school totem pole but I definitely wasn’t at the top.  That being said, I made good friends, to whom I’m still grateful.  I believe that I continued to build character in high school and as an adult I’m grateful for the sensitivity and awareness that I developed in High School.

By the time I graduated from college I was still a geek who thoroughly enjoyed sports and international relations.  This diversity of thought got me a wonderful career with the government.  I have never worked so hard or been so challenged intellectually by a job.  I loved it!  I was finally in a community of people that were like me, we were all a little nerdy, all intellectually curious and most of us had a good sense of adventure.  It was like a dream come true.  But it is still the DC area and politics infuses everything.  I was never really suited for politics and it began to take it’s toll.   Soon after I began pulling my resume together our country was hit by Al Qa’ida.  This day changed many people’s lives and I am no different.  After we were hit I could no longer leave my job, so I stayed on.

I’ve done my best to serve my country but after a year in Afghanistan I decided it was enough.  I looked for other jobs in the service industry and applied for a bunch but just had a hard time getting a job that was a good fit.  When I came home I opted to take some time off and drive around the country.  I’m so grateful I had the opportunity to drive around the country by myself because it was cathartic, therapeutic and frankly a lot of fun!  I realized as I was driving around that I felt lighter and happier but I felt the best when I reached Seattle.   So, when I finished my drive around the country I packed up everything I owned, put it in storage, put my house up for rent and drove back across the country for a new adventure.

It sounds simple but it was by far and away the scariest moment of my life.  I knew one person when I arrived in Seattle and although he was nice I needed to make friends, find a place to live, find a job and generally figure out how to live in the Pacific Northwest.  It was still scary, intimidating and generally a wild ride but I have found more friends, met my now husband and now we will have a little boy in June.  I keep asking can it get any better?  I can’t believe that it can get better but life is full of surprises so who knows!

And finally my happy place…

Leaving the Corner Gallery and Studio and getting the hang of this whole blog thing.

I’ve been saying it’s almost time and living in denial for a while but it’s true I am leaving the Corner Gallery and Studio. It’s been a wonderful time to work with and around Janet and I enjoyed being around Janet during the short time we shared a space. However, it is time for me to spend some effort on different aspects of my art career, my second job and most importantly our growing little family.

In the last year and a half I’ve worked at getting involved in the Everett community and have spent some energy on a couple of shows, but it’s not enough. I need to try and get into additional galleries and to spend some time working on things like this update or increasing my online presence. Additionally, although I’m lucky enough to have a second job I need to spend some time dedicated to it! All these things should keep me pretty busy for the next few months but hopefully this means you’ll be hearing more about interesting projects and new ideas.

The Jewelry extravaganza starts tomorrow… a lot of fabulousness will be happening at the corner gallery and studio!

Linda Huffman is an incredibly talented jewelry artist who creates memory pendents and amazing lampwork jewelry.

This is what Linda has to say about herself!

Linda Huffman’s work can be seen in oil paintings, cartoons, glass wall art and glass and silver jewelry. For almost 8 years, Linda has been specializing in making memorial jewelry, which consists of fusing cremation ash into each piece of custom glass jewelry. Her clients consist of a broad audience both in the USA and abroad with customers are far away as Austria, England, Spain, the Cayman Islands and Australia. Her custom memorial jewelry can be viewed on her web site at www.memorypendants.com and her dichroic glass and silver jewelry can be seen at www.huffmanstudios.com.

Hello fun friends.  I’m sorry to say that Monica has elected to remove herself from the jewelry extravaganza…

today I’m going to highlight another talented artist that is coming to the show this weekend.  Monica is talented on many fronts and until now has focused on raising children and running a small business.   We’re glad she’s decided to join the show with all her talents.

This is what she says about herself:

When I was going to high school my favorite class was always art.  So much so, that in my Senior year I took three art classes in a row.  My teacher would say “Monica you can do anything you want,”  she knew I would busy myself and stay out of trouble.  As an adult I have dabbled in everything from making my own glass beads, creating jewelry, scrapbooking, photography, and sewing, just to name a few.

hello all,

We have some fabulous artists coming in this weekend and I’m going to post some information about them throughout the week.   Then next week I’ll be posting about my new tiny treasures!  I’m going to be making wee paintings for x-mas presents and ornaments.   Can’t wait for the holidays!

Let’s start with fabulous Roxy.  She’s incredibly talented and a wonderful person. This is what she has to say about herself!

Hello, my name is Roxanne Beckman and I am 34 years old. I am originally from Havre,

Montana, but I have been an Everett resident for several years now. Everett has a charming population with a nice community outlook and I am proud to be part of it.

At about the age of 16 or so, I set out in the world to be and artist. I have spent every year since, doing just that. For many of those years I was a bartender to pay for my art habit. Now, I primarily do art work. I am not even a little medium specific. I try to be open to try anything at least once. Nothing is more exciting to me than a new substance, style, or process. Drawing, acrylic painting, sculpture and pastel work are my most commonly known works.  Lately I have been experimenting with, metal work mono-printing, the ancient art of mosaic and jewelry. Jewelry has always been a hobby of mine, but lately I have been focused more on it- and what a blast it is! I hope you will pop by to take a look-see at all the shiny new trinkets.

Thank you for your continued support of the arts in Everett.

Hello all!

I just wanted you to know that the Corner Studio and Gallery is hosting a fabulous jewelry show this weekend!   come see what it’s all about from 11-7 Friday and Saturday at the corner of Wetmore and Hewitt.

The piano I painted with Josie Wise has been on the street and is being enjoyed by many who come by to have a mini jam session. The other day I was treated to a wonderful concert by a young but very talented pianist named Devin. He’s young and is super talented. Apparently when he’s worried about life or otherwise distracted he sits down and plays. If only this worked so well for the rest of us we’d have a symphony on the streets of Downtown Everett.

Check out Devin jamming.