...Concerned About Reality...

...Four Weeks and Counting Down...

Frazzled

   In 4 weeks I am hanging up my hat and stethoscope and taking the frightening leap into following my dream. Reality is scary...

I am blessed to have a supportive family. I think that has came about because I have proven myself somewhat with abilities that were never supported early on.
When I was young, art was folly. Surely, no one could ever make a living doing something you love and I believed that which is why I buried my dream of going to art school.
Twenty five years ago, I chose nursing school instead...
I must admit I love people and all their different temperaments and personalities. You have to be a chameleon in how you relate to people. You have to adapt your approach and tailor your responses and actions to fit their needs. I have always been able to do that with most people but not everyone. I am good at the details but I abhor regulations that stymy efficiency.

   With the new government mandates, I must say I am not going to miss the immense stress involved in caring for people. I will however miss the relationships and bonds created with some people. I will continue some of those bonds after I leave because true friendships and family have been created. The relationships with people is what I will miss the most...
My nursing career has been a gratifying run to say the least! :)

Lets make art!!

Current work in progress... Asparagus still life. Acrylic on panel.

   I do have a plan of sorts on how I hope to make a living from my creative nature.

I plan to do everything I enjoy and try and sell things that are not considered high art.

I will focus my work on my paintings roughly 2-3 days through the week and the other two days I will work on cutesy stuffs to sell and hold a class or two at the studio.

My plan is to start an morning/early afternoon beginning paintings class with 5-6 students and we will focus on the foundations of drawing, color, application, etc. We will also cover other topics such as surface, how to create panels, canvases and framing.

Last spring I held a class and we had a set project that we worked on and people came based on whether they liked the subject being painted so I want to change the class and focus more on teaching the basics so that they will have a good base of knowledge to take with them.

I just want to teach the joy of painting and spread that.

 

My plan is to work from a still life set up and teach how to scale and draw the subject on the surface, see color, recognize value, etcetera...

I am going to tailor this class towards people who are retired and those looking for a hobby.

I will also serve my scrumptious spread of home made snacks, good coffee and juice.

I will keep people posted on when the classes will start on my personal website as well as the 'Just paint It' Facebook page.

I also would like to offer a beginning airbrush lessons as well. Class size will be small and offered one evening a week for roughly 4-5 weeks and we'll cover lots of information during that time as well as hands on painting with every session. I will encourage much note taking as I will be talking and teaching lots of things. I will provide the airbrushes to use or you can bring your own. I will assemble a list of things required for students to bring, which won't be much. I have not decided on a set fee yet but it will cover the 4-5 weeks.

I hope that by doing all this, I will be able to eek out a meager living.

Gettin Crafty!!

Working on my Christmas card image

Christmas ornament production line

 Been getting quite crafty in hopes I can peddle some of my creative ideas and generate some sales. I have started an Etsy shop and will be promoting that and creating things to sell.

Birdhouses

Birdhouse from a gourd I grew

cute 'Foodie' earrings

'Naughty Nester' birdhouse

'Naughty Nester' birdhouse

Note cards featuring images of my paintings

Floor cloths I am making to sell.

So as you can see, I have been quite creative and busy.

I have been attempting to maximize my studio time and create some items to sell in hopes that when my steady nurse wages end, I will have a little bit to fall back on.

It's a start. I know it's an endeavor that will take much time and effort on my part to cultivate however I am willing to go the distance...it's just that reality is scary....

I hope I can make it all work.

With that, I need to throw some clothes on and head down to the studio to finish up some project and get them listed. More floor cloths need to be painted and I also need to work on my current painting.

Have a great day everyone!

Kath

The Art Hibernation begins!!!

Am digging in for the winter to fatten up the portfolio....

'Fall Kitty', acrylic on panel, 2013

   Hard to believe that the last time I updated this was in June.
I was so busy this past summer. Now that fall is here and winter is approaching quickly, my studio time has lengthened and my art hibernation begins.
Winter is the best time for most artists because we have a lot more free time to spend creating...  It's my favorite time of the year and it seems to be when I am the happiest.
My stress and my zen levels are balanced which makes me smile and feel at peace.
It's a good place to be....

Summer recap...

 This was the summer of gardening!!  I had decided this summer, I would trade much of my  studio time in order to dedicate it to home and garden projects. I had lots of things I wanted to do around the house this year and I was able to get many of them done. I am SO glad I did!!

This year, we broke ground and built this lovely garden!  We used to have these huge overgrown, thistle-y, evergreen bushes that I absolutely hated on this side of the house. There were also a couple tree saplings that insisted on growing all the time,  a defunct well and old pump for a sprinkling system that no longer worked and the huge steel post(which we had to cut down) from an old satellite dish tower... I had always wanted to put a garden here since it is the sunniest side of the property. So this is what we built! :)

I was able to hide the satellite post by putting the garden lady over it. I made the armature with chicken wire and a styrofoam head. Her basket held my gardening tools and also contained a couple empty beer bottles... Why the beer bottles? Well I am an organic gardener and slugs LOVE beer so hey...it was fitting for my lady to be a wee bit of a lush! ;)

In my garden this year, I grew two kinds of heirloom tomatoes. One I will grow again next year for sure, the other (Kellogg Gold), not so much...
My favorite was a Russian variety called 'Black Sea Man'. It is primarily a greenish purple tomato, when fully ripe and the flavor is just phenomenal!!! BEST tomato I have ever eaten! A close second is another heirloom variety called 'Hillbilly', which I have grown in years past. Both are a beefsteak variety. The picture on the left are the Black Sea Man tomatoes as they just started forming. They were so cute!!

The other thing I love to grow are hot peppers! These are Caribbean Red Habanero peppers. I had a bumper crop this year! I also grew jalapeno's as always and Chiltepin(extremely hot)  peppers.  This habanero is a scoth bonnet variety and it is SMOKING HOT!!! I dried them all but a small bag of them. I am going to make some hot sauce with what is left and the rest we will grind up to use to season foods with.
Capsaicin , the active component in peppers that makes them hot, is actually very good for you if you can stand it! When ingested, it causes your body to release endorphins which help to alleviate lots of ailments such as pain from arthritis, shingles and diabetic neuropathy. I have to say that it DOES work for neuropathy, as I suffer from that myself.

How lovely these peppers were this year!! Very few were eaten by insects and it was a warm summer so they thrived in the heat and the new garden bed they were planted in.
Chiles tend to like being ignored and will become hotter if not over watered. Now I did water my garden well this year but these chiles certainly didn't lose any of their potency!!

House projects!!

Now I also wanted to use this summer to complete a couple long awaited projects....

I had scrimped and saved for a VERY long time(about 10+ years) in order to save up enough money to replace my old 1970's white electric stove for a newer modern (but not very expensive) gas stove with 5 burners. This was the year! Summer began by shopping around for that.

Once we purchased it, I installed it myself because the husband was taking waaaaaay too long and I could not stand it anymore! Thank goodness I purchased that adjustable furniture dolly a couple years back. I just rolled it right in and used a minimum of 'shemale' brute force.  The new stove would NOT be complete without ripping out the old white tile backslash from the 1970's as well so that was my next project.

Now I didn't want, nor could I afford to replace the old laminate counter top so that forced me to coordinate the tile I chose. I wanted something with a higher end look so I settled on a darker, variegated color tile and a grout that matched the color of the counter top.

Ripping down the tile was a royal pain in the back side but it did alleviate some pent up frustrations because I could essentially beat the crap out of the wall with a hammer!

HOWEVER.....that causes a couple minor problems...see pic on the left...

Now some might panic over this but not me...I am always a 'I can fix that' kind of gal. I knew I had some scrap wallboard out in the garage so I decided I would just cut a piece to fit, mud it in and problem solved.

 VOILA!! Problem solved!!  Who say's chicks have to be all girly and act all ignorant and helpless...ppssfffttt....
I LOVE getting my hands dirty on a good home project!! Its fun to me! It's like creating art...the finished project can be seen in your head even before you start. When you can see it in your head, you map out how to get to the finished project so the plan is in place.

 I decided to lay the tile on a diagonal because laying it traditionally just looked stupid...so we had to buy a tile saw. Now that thing, albeit messy, was cool as hell!!
I had to wear a rain coat and a face shield but man, it makes short work of tile! These were thick tiles too so it took a wee bit of time cutting them all.

Finished!! Now one of my friends, there is always ONE, pointed out 2 errors...can you see them???? I surely didn't. He told me now that I know about them, it would bug the crap out of me...it did for about 2 days and then I said forget about it...nothing in lef is perfect and almost every great masterpiece has a few flaws so I am alright living with this very minor flaw...

Where is Waldo???  Do you see it??

 

Summer art show

This year I entered for the very first time, The Elkhart Showcase of art, which is one of our biggest regional shows.  I entered 'The Spanish Market'. This piece took me 3 years to complete and it quite large, 42"x30". It was very well received however I exempted myself from any 'purchase awards' because the highest 'purchase award' was $900.00 and the Best of Show Award was $1,200.00. Had I made myself available, I would have had to forfeit my painting and I am not ready to do that. A large chunk of my life went into creating that painting and I value you it much more than that...I just could not give it away.

Now I will enter next year and paint something smaller and valued more appropriately for those award amounts.

I was happy that my high-school art teacher, Pam Smith-Hellwege, a person that greatly influenced to my creativity, drove from St.Louis and attended the event. I was most happy to see her there! Here is Pam and myself in front of my painting.
I wish I had not worn that blouse because it made me look like convict or a referee..one of the two...

Cindy Marks, another of my former teachers, was in the show as well. Her entire family won purchase awards for their art.

It was a great show and there certainly were some STUNNING pieces of art there...

Great experience to be in the show...

Getting crafty!!

Cherry Pie a la Mode earrings

Most of my friends know, I like to create stuff...be is sculpting, baking, growing, sewing, building stuff...I just like doing it!  So, at the end of the year, I am trading in my nurses uniform for paint covered cloths and scruffy hair and will be creating full time.

Now most of my artist friends know that making a living selling paintings can be tricky so there are more than one way for artistic creativity to earn an income.

I will be making some fun things to sell at the gallery I am affiliated with and online. Will try my hand at whatever floats my boat. I have made several pairs of foodie inspired earrings and am also designing and painting some one of a kind floor cloths I will sell...I must say, it sure if fun creating these items! :)

This is a custom floor cloth I designed and created. It was a whole lot of fun making this because it also included sewing which is something else I love to do as well!  All the designs I will be making will be completely unique one of a kind creations.   They are easy to care for, if they get foot prints on them, just wipe them off.  I have always loved the look of these things and have wanted to make one for a long time. So here they are!!! I have a lot of exciting designs that I will be creating..

Here is a sneak peek at my current project. It looks quite a bit different now however...                                                                             Stay tuned for the progress on this one! I am loving creating this little painting!! :)

 So lets wrap this thing up...

Well....this was long winded! It's been months since I have blogged so lots to catch up on...

Keep watching me in the future because I am about to get really funky and creative in the very near future!!

Have a great day all!!

 

Kath