Vacation

Here's a picture of Aspen chillin' in my studio. Check out those chubby cheeks - I couldn't think of a cuter studio companion. I can't wait until she's old enough to have her own little easel!

She's standing in front of my huge pile of gold picture frames, which I just organized last week. Nate's been bugging me about how many frames I have sitting in my studio ever since he walked in and saw how much wall space they're taking up. I really shouldn't buy any more gold frames until I use all of these - my work just doesn't look good in them. The painting in this picture is in a "silver" frame, which isn't really silver at all, but more of a cool gold. This color of metal leaf does my paintings more justice than yellow-gold.

I've been spending as much time as possible in my studio lately, so I'm making some progress in finishing enough paintings to fill all of those extra frames!

Tomorrow morning we're heading down to Telluride for a week's vacation. We're renting a condo and we'll have friends stopping by on the weekend. I'm planning to do a lot of hiking and relaxing in the lodge, and gathering a ton of reference material for my show at the end of the year. I'm taking my pochade box so I can do some plein air painting while we're there - I haven't painted outdoors since last fall, and I've got Estes Park Plein Air coming up in August, so I'd better get back into it!!

If You Knew You Couldn't Fail?

"Moraine Park"
Oil on Birch Panel
16x20"
2007




When I was out yesterday I saw a sign that said, "What would you attempt if you knew you couldn't fail?"

What a great question.

What would YOU attempt if you knew you couldn't fail?

I would attempt to make a living being an artist. And being as that's what I'm doing right now, I feel good about my answer to this question, and the direction I'm taking my life right now.

I like security, so I've spent a lot of years doing things I didn't want to do because I feared failing at what I really wanted to do. Now that I'm doing what I've always wanted to do, I feel like a huge weight has been lifted off of my shoulders.

I feel free.

That's not to say that there haven't been scary moments in the past few months. Nate officially quit his job to work full-time at his house-building business, which means we're both self-employed, and that I have a bit of pressure to provide some income with my art. And between moving and traveling and Nate quitting his job, I've had a few moments where I've woken up at 3 am and wondered what the heck we're doing. But every morning I wake up and feel reassured that we're both doing what we're supposed to be doing right now, and that it will work out how it's supposed to work out.

It's nice to finally let go of that fear of failure, and jump right in!

Belated

"Study - Trinchera Sunrise"
Oil on Canvas
12x16"
2007




I was tagged by Tracy over a month ago, and with all the craziness of moving and traveling, I never got around to responding. So now that things are chilling out a little bit, I'm finally getting around to it - better late than never, right?

So here are seven things y'all don't know about me, in no particular order:

1. I'm not a party girl, and I never have been. I hate going to bars and staying out late, and I really don't care to drink too much. In college, my friends thought that I didn't go out a lot because I wanted to hang out with my boyfriend all the time. Truth is, (as much as I love Nate) it's just that I'd rather be relaxing at home, or chatting at a restaurant, or enjoying the outdoors, than hanging out at a loud bar. I'm just kind of a loser that way. Luckily I find that a lot more people share this preference as I get older!

2. Speaking of going out and partying brings me to another big thing - I'm naturally very shy. Working a corporate job and managing people for a few years taught me how to small talk with the best and appear to be fairly outgoing with people I don't know, but I'm still pretty reserved at heart. I don't like hanging out in large crowds or groups of people - I'm much happier connecting with friends in small groups or one on one (another reason I don't do the bar scene). And despite the fact that I've learned to be fairly outgoing and social, I'm still an introvert and I require lots of "me" time to recharge (thank God I'm a painter!).

3. I have bizarre eating habits. I'm picky, and I have weird issues with certain foods. For instance, I've never eaten a cheeseburger, ever - the whole thought of putting cheese on a burger just grosses me out. I don't like to mix too many foods together, and I don't like things to touch on my plate. I do weird things like order pepperoni pizza and remove the pepperoni, just because I like the taste of the pepperoni but not the texture. I do the same with my Chipotle chicken burrito - I remove the chicken.

4. I love John Denver. This probably makes me the only person in the world under age 30 who likes the music of John Denver, but I don't care. Nothing like a little "Rocky Mountain High" to get me in the mood for painting mountains! For the record, I'm a bit of a music junkie, and I don't normally listen to soft folk rock from the 70s - I'm just a sucker for a guy who loved Colorado as much as I do.

5. I suck at sports. I always have - just ask my mom about the one season I played soccer growing up, and she'll tell you how I ran the opposite direction everytime the ball came toward me. I swam in high school and did all right, but I never had much of a competitive side. I don't think I was ever able to run a mile until college. Despite this, I got into triathlons a few years ago as a means to get into shape. Since I'm not athletic, doing triathlons gives me a boost confidence - it's good to be able to do something that I think I'm not good at, and better yet, do better than average at it. I'm totally out of shape now that I've had Aspen, but I'm hoping to do a sprint tri this Fall - just dusted off the road bike two weeks ago!

6. Even though I've never been competitive with sports, I'm very competitive about my art. I push myself pretty hard when it comes to the quality of my work - I always feel like I need to improve. Nothing can ruin my day more quickly than a painting going wrong, or not going the way I intended.

7. If you asked me when I was eight years old what I wanted to be when I grew up, I would have told you I wanted to be an artist. I took a big detour into engineering school and a career in environmental engineering, but now I'm twenty-eight and I'm finally spending my days doing what I've always wanted to do. On a typical day lately, I might only manage to paint for 2-3 hours while Aspen naps, but for now it's enough because I'm enjoying the time with her as well. And I know that I'm finally on the right path to doing what I'm supposed to be doing with myself, and it's nice to finally feel right about that.

So, that's probably more that you ever wanted to know. I'm supposed to tag seven more people, but I don't think that there are seven people who read my blog who haven't already been tagged, so I'm going opt out of tagging people. Hopefully that doesn't make me a bad blogger (just a lazy one).

Finally Moved!

Well, the month of May was completely insane. We went to Texas, moved, and also managed to spend about a week and a half up in Steamboat Springs finishing one of the houses that Nate was building so it would be ready for closing on May 31st.

Now that it's June and things are a bit slower, I've managed to get my studio in working order and actually PAINT!! That's not to say that my studio is completely organized and ready to go, but I have in place my easel and workbench, so it's enough for now.

The cool thing is that instead of being forced to hang out by myself in the basement, I now get to paint inside the house like a real human being. My studio is in a loft space on the second floor of the house, which is nice and out of the way, but also close to everything. Now I can paint when Aspen is napping, which is a big deal, and I don't have to worry about freezing in the winter and keeping bugs out of the studio in the summer.

Here are a couple of pictures of what I've got so far. It's a bit smaller than my old space, but I can still back up a good 14 feet from my paintings to look at them, which is my only real space requirement. It has a big window that lets in almost North facing light during the day, which is nice. I'm still working on lighting for evening - luckily it's summer and the days are long, so I'm not too worried about it yet.


Everytime I walk into the room I have an overpowering urge to push my easel into the corner where it can be diagonal and not look so enormous and out of place, but it's positioned where it is so that I don't get glare on my canvas, so there it will stay. I'm planning to eventually install some track lighting and a hanging system on the big blank wall above my workbench, so I can preview my paintings before I finish and frame them.


The painting on the easel is a 24x36" commission of the Mt. of the Holy Cross for a guy who has climbed the mountain numerous times. I'm trying to make it look rugged, so he can use it to brag about his climbing experiences - a "pretty" picture just wouldn't do it in this case.

Anyhow, all that's left to do is organize my enormous pile of unused frames (not shown),and get all of my blank canvases and panels organized into their slots underneath the workbench. I realized in the move that I have a huge pile of gold frames. They're all beautiful frames, but remain unused because my paintings tend to look terrible in gold. I usually use dark frames with a gold liner, and my paintings actually look best in a "silver" metal leaf finish (which isn't actually silver at all - it looks quite a lot like my gold wedding band - but doesn't have the bright yellow-y gold tone of a lot of metal leaf frames). I try to avoid the silver frames because the gallery doesn't love them, and I'm always trying new gold frames to try and find something that works. So far, I just have this pile of gold frames to show for it. Anyways, that can be a whole post for another day, so I'll stop rambling now.

OPA National Show - 2007

We finally got home yesterday from our trip to Texas for the Oil Painters of America national show. We had a great time seeing friends and relatives in Houston and I had an even GREATER time at the OPA show in Fredericksburg. I was in the national show last year, but wasn't able to make it to Montana to see it, so I was pretty excited to go this year and it didn't disappoint.

Oil Painters of America is an organization dedicated to representational painting, and they put on a great weekend of events centering around the show. Now that I've attended, I'd recommend going in the future even without a painting in the show - it was just such a good experience.

On Friday morning the juror of awards, Quang Ho, did a demonstration that was worth every penny charged for admission. If you aren't familiar with Quang's work, you should check it out right now. Not only is he a fantastic artist, but he's a fantastic teacher, so watching his demonstration was just as valuable as taking a workshop.

That afternoon, a panel of high-end gallery owners answered questions for two hours, ranging from how they prefer artists to submit their work, to what they see as current trends in the art market.

Friday night was the opening and awards ceremony for the artists. The opening itself was packed with people, and the show looked great. Whistle Pik galleries did a great job hanging the show, and all 200 paintings were fantastic. I'm completely humbled to have my work hanging in this show - it is by far the highest caliber show I've ever been in.

Following the opening was the awards ceremony, where much to my surprise I got an award for my painting (yay!!). I got a smaller award last year, but after seeing the show this year I thought there were so many great paintings that I didn't have a chance. It was a humbling experience to stand on stage and have my picture taken with the others who got awards - I was standing on the same stage as masters David Leffel and C.W. Mundy and feeling totally unworthy!

On Saturday the owner of the Fredericksburg Artist School came and did a discussion/Q&A session about the business of art. We talked a lot about tax issues for artists, then moved on to the process of actually selling art. Again, totally valuable. I think it'll save me hundreds of dollars on my tax return next year!

After that were individual critiques offered by OPA masters. I got a thirty minute critique of my portfolio, and got some valuable advice on how to improve and move forward. I'm excited to get back to the studio and put the advice to work.

Saturday night was the collector's opening and barbecue. We actually skipped the opening because we had Aspen with us and the gallery was so packed we figured we didn't want to bother. But we went to the barbecue, which was a big fun event with artists and collectors. It was totally Texas - good BBQ and southern music.

Sunday was plein air painting, but we had to drive back to Houston since our flight was leaving on Monday. I still got enough out of the two days of events to keep me motivated for months!

Closing for the sale of our house and purchase of the new one is scheduled for this Friday, and movers come the day after tomorrow. With the big move, I was tempted not to go to Texas, but I'm so glad we went. From an art career standpoint it was immensely valuable, and it was also a nice little break in the middle of the stress of moving.

Now I just wish my entire studio wasn't packed so I could get back to painting!

Whew

That's the sound of me sighing in relief after what was finally a relaxing day!

We spent all weekend in a packing frenzy, trying to get most of our house into boxes before our trip to Texas. On Sunday, I moved my entire studio out of the basement and temporarily into my parents' basement, since I didn't trust the movers to move my large canvases and my huge collection of frames (I had no idea how many ready-made frames I had amassed until I tried to move them). Yesterday, we boarded a plane and left it all behind to fly down to Texas for the OPA National Show.

Now I'm down in Houston, relaxing in Nate's grandparents' living room. We spent the morning driving around town, taking a trip down memory lane looking at all our old haunts from the time we lived here. We drove by our old house and were shocked to see that the new owners painted it an ugly color, then came back here and went for a nice swim with Aspen (who isn't quite sure what to think about the pool). We'll do some of the same tomorrow, then leave for Fredericksburg on Thursday. When we get back, I'll blog about the OPA show and all of the associated events. Until then, I'm on vacation!

Crunchtime

"Summer Green"
Oil on Canvas
14x18"
2007




Well, after I posted last week about selling our house, we hit a snag and thought for a day that the buyers might back out, but now things are moving forward again and closing is set for May 18th. In between now and then, we'll be spending a week in Texas to attend the OPA show opening and visit some relatives and friends in Houston. So, that leaves two weeks to pack up our house, which wouldn't be so bad if it weren't for the fact that Nate works from home and I have an entire studio to clean and pack up!! Anyhow, this pretty much means I'll be spending the next three weeks packing, traveling, and moving (assuming I don't jinx myself with this post and all goes well with the buying/selling).

Regardless of the move, I have a 24x36" commission that needs to be completed by the end of May, and I really need to get some other paintings started. The gallery I currently show in asked if I'd be up for a solo show in the fall, so of course I said I would (who would turn that down?). They've sold a lot of my work, and I think it would be worth investing the time to put it together. But that means 20-25 paintings complete and framed by October or November, on top of trying to get enough work together to approach a gallery or two up in the mountains. So, I need to get my butt in gear and start to do a LOT of painting!!

The good thing is that I work well under pressure and I'm excited to have these opportunities, so doing the work should actually be a lot of fun. I'm just worrying about where to find time between the move and taking care of Aspen (who is becoming more and more mobile every day!). But I know I can do it, and I'm excited about the challenge. I'll probably try to post here as I make progress, just to give me some additional motivation.

Anyhow, back to packing now. Wish me luck getting the contents of this house stuffed into many boxes (and wish me continued luck on the selling of our house to some extremely finicky first-time house buyers)!

Interrogation

"Lower Mohawk Lake"
Oil on Canvas
22x28"
2007




So, there's this interview thing spreading through the blogosphere, and I finally got sucked in and told Ramblin' Girl that she could interview me since I knew she'd come up with some good questions. Thanks RG!

Here's how it works. She asks me five random questions to answer on my blog. Then, I'm supposed to in turn ask five questions to those who comment on my blog asking to be interviewed. So, if you want to join in, just leave a comment saying, "Interview Me," and I'll email you questions.

Anyhow, here are my (long and rambling) answers:

1. You're an engineer, with obvious creativity, (and since I'm an engineer that wishes she was more creative, I have to ask) do you sometimes feel schizophrenic for having both a strong analytical and creative mind? And if you do, what do you do when your "right" brain fights with your "left"? (Did I just expose my crazy?)

Well, I definitely feel like it sets me apart from the crowd. When I was working in engineering, I always had a different thought process than everyone else - like, we might all end up at the same answer, but I would get there a different way. Does that make sense? And in the art world, I often find the same - I tend to approach painting in more of an analytical way than most other artists I meet. Luckily, most of the successful artists I've met are also fairly analytical, so I don't feel completely out of the loop.

Ultimately though, I think engineering is more of a right brain activity than people think. Being a good engineer means being able to solve complex problems every day, which requires a lot of creativity. Just because it isn't visual or abstract doesn't mean it isn't creative. And being a successful artist requires a bit of an analytical mind, especially for the business side of things. All in all, I think the two complement each other, and being able to use both "sides of the brain" just helps me improve at the things I do.

2. Since the Twister obviously isn't it, what's your favorite childhood memory?

Oh my - what a big question! I don't think I could pick just one! I remember that when I was in second or third grade, my mom signed me up for art classes at this frame shop called Studio West, and I would go every Wednesday night. We oil painted, did pastel, watercolor, you name it. I loved it. What I loved even more was that once a month, my mom would pick me up from my art class and we would go over to Pizza Hut, and I would get to get a personal pan pizza, which would be free because I won it by reading so many books for the "Book-It" program at school. What could be better than art class and a personal pan pizza? Back then, not much!

Other favorites were staying out late at night playing games at the end of the cul-de-sac with the neighborhood kids, diving into the pool for swim practice at 6 am when the pool was still steaming in the cool morning air, and sleeping on the bleachers of the rink at my sister's early morning ice skating practices. I also used to love it when my dad would ride his bike to the gas station to buy cigarettes (!) and take me along, letting me ride on the horizontal bar of the bike (!!!). He would buy me a jolly rancher and I'd be so excited.

3. I love creating things, but don't like sharing my "art" with many people. What's it like to have other people critiquing your paintings?

It's like a roller coaster. Sometimes people love your work and rave about it and you feel on top of the world. The next day someone comments about your framing choice, or says something negative about your subject matter, and you're plunged down into the depths of self-doubt. Ultimately, you develop a thick skin and realize it's all subjective, and it gets easier. I've studied art a lot, and I know what I like and what I strive for with my work. At this point, I measure my art objectively on how it lives up to my own goals, rather than focusing on other people's opinions. But it's always valuable to get critiques from people whose art you admire - I'm always happy to take advice from accomplished artists, because it might help me to get where I want to go.

4. What do you miss most about college? What do you not miss at all?

I miss learning something new every day (I know - that's totally geeky, but it's true). I miss having a totally free schedule and being able to hang out with friends whenever and wherever I want. More than anything, I miss being able to live on $750 a month - it was so nice to be unencumbered by "stuff".

As for what I don't miss, there's a lot! I don't miss the tests. I went to the Colorado School of Mines for my engineering degree, and the tests were hell. A calculus or thermodynamics test might have four or five questions on it, and it would take two hours to finish. And you'd just hope the professor would give you a lot of partial credit for your work, because it was virtually impossible to get the right answer. I also don't miss, in general, the people. I have some great friends from my time at Mines, but there were a lot of unhappy, stressed out students there, who weren't so much fun to be around.

5. Can you ever imagine yourself moving away from Colorado and the mountains? Is there anywhere else that you could live besides here? Is there anywhere else in Colorado that you'd rather live?

Short answer - NO, I can't imagine moving away from Colorado! Last night, Nate and I drove 2 miles, put Aspen in the baby bjorn, hiked a half mile, and sat on top of some red rocks and had dinner as the sun went down. In moments like those, I'm totally at home.

I lived in Houston for a few years and I've never been so miserable in my life. It's sounds silly, but I feel like I lose a bit of my soul when I'm away from the mountains. I suppose I could live elsewhere in the Rockies, but now that I have a kid I love being close to family and having roots, so I have a feeling we'll be here for a long time.

Nate and I have discussed living in Steamboat Springs, and it would be totally possible now that he's been building houses up there. But I'm kind of a wimp about winter, so I don't know how I'd handle being snowbound for months. And again, it's been really nice to have our families nearby now that we have Aspen - I love that my mom and Nate's mom can watch her while I paint so she doesn't have to go to daycare. I also love being close to city for a night out here and there. So, it would take a lot to entice me to move!

Making Luck

"March, Lake Louise"
Oil on Canvas
22x28"
2007







I've spent a lot of time in the past year thinking about what I want my life to look like, and what it's going to take to get me there. Part of that is figuring out what being successful means to me as an artist.

Art is a part of me that has always been there and will always be - I've been drawing and painting since I can remember, and there was never a time that I didn't entertain the thought that I'd love to be an artist someday. I would be an artist even if I never sold a painting or made a penny. But I have to admit that a big part of my dream right now is to make a living from my art. I set business goals every year, and they are just as important to me as the process of painting itself. If I dropped the business side of my art, I would be heartbroken, because a part of my dream of being an artist is getting my artwork out into the world.

Since I desperately want my art business to succeed, I know that there are decisions that need to be made every day about how to best fit that goal into my life. How do I fit painting in while taking care of Aspen? How do I make my art business succeed and contribute to the well-being of my family?

Nate deals with a lot of the same questions. He has a full-time job, but he'd really like to quit and build houses for a living. He built three spec homes in the past year, and discovered that it was what he really loved to do. He loves working with his hands and being able to offer an affordable product in a market (mountain real estate) where not much is affordable.

Nate and I aren't big risk takers, so we knew that we were going to have to find a way to pursue both of our dreams without taking a huge risk financially, especially now that we have a child. One of the things we discussed as a way to make ourselves more comfortable would be to sell our current house and use the profit to put a big down payment on a cheaper house, making our mortgage payment a lot less. That way we wouldn't have to worry about cashflow so much, and we'd both be a lot more comfortable with changing things up career-wise.

So, we put our house on the market three weeks ago. We figured it might take a while to sell, so we didn't find another house to move into, but picked out some neighborhoods we liked. Last weekend we got an offer on our house, and with closing set for May 18th it was time to get in gear and find a place to move. We found a house we liked last Thursday and put in an offer, and now we have closing all set for the same day as the sale of our house.

Since this all happens three weeks from now, things are going to get hectic. We have to find movers that are willing to store our stuff for a few days (we don't get possession of the new house until three days after closing), we have to schedule the inspections and appraisals (we're not working with a realtor), and in the middle of it all we're going to Texas for a week to visit relatives and attend the Oil Painter's of America National show opening. I don't know when I'm going to find the time to paint, but I'm determined not to let it slip. I'm still trying to build inventory so I can approach some new galleries, and I don't want that to come to a screeching halt just because we're moving.

Anyhow, the point of this really long rambling post is to say two things. First, I'm going to be unbelievably busy for the next month. Second (and most important), I don't believe that luck happens - I believe that you make it for yourself with the decisions you make. Luann Udell said this much more eloquently in her post on April 10th. The point is this - the average American thinks that Nate and I are odd for selling a nice house that we can afford perfectly well, and moving into a smaller cheaper house (seems like the American dream is to supersize everything these days), but our main priority right now is making our life what we want it to be, and we're taking the steps necessary to get there. I call it making luck, and hopefully it works!

Surface

"From a Distance"
Oil on Canvas
16x20"
2007




Brushwork is an important part of my paintings. It's something that I'm always working to improve, and an area where I still have a lot to learn.

I'm not a slave to detail, and in real life my paintings are somewhat painterly. I believe that each brushstroke should be carefully placed, and that once placed on the canvas it should pretty much remain untouched (believing this doesn't mean that I am a master at adhering to it, of course - that's another matter).

One of my instructors was always on my case to spend more time looking and thinking, and less time actually putting paint on the canvas. He was right - whether painting plein air or in the studio, the more thought you put into each stroke, the less likely that you'll end up reworking things, or "noodling" on the canvas.

I've been really working on getting the texture of my paintings to have a certain quality, and I feel like I'm slowly making some progress. Lately, however, I've been getting annoyed at the way my support can affect the presentation of my brushwork. I typically paint on cotton canvas, and I'm getting more and more annoyed at the way the texture interferes with the look of my paintings. I know a lot of well known landscape artists only paint on linen, because they like the texture more, but my problem is I'm finding that I don't like texture at ALL.

In the detail below, you can see what I'm talking about. See how the brushtrokes on the mountain are thick and speak for themselves, but the sky above has canvas texture showing through? I know I'm being picky, but it drives me nuts! There's a lot of paint on that canvas, and I don't want to see that texture there.


I buy preprimed canvas, and I've started to put two extra coats of gesso on each canvas in order to take some of the tooth out of the canvas texture. It's time consuming, but it seems to be doing the trick. I'm thinking of switching to some type of smooth panel for smaller paintings, but I'm not sure what to do for large paintings. A 30x40" framed painting is heavy enough as is - I don't want to deal with the extra weight of a panel that size. Any suggestions?