Saturday, August 29, 2015

August is Artist Appreciation Month....

China Painted piece from Joyce Taylor seminar.
....who knew? Thanks to the folks over at  Patience Brewster for letting me know about this holiday! Patience is an artist who creates whimisical Christmas Ornaments and figurines.  When I got thinking about Artist Appreciation Month, I thought, I've been painting a long time and I had no idea. I was inspired to share some of the artists that have had an impact on my work today.

When I was a kid one of my "toys" was always pencil and paper and that's how I got started really. I remember my Dad doodling little faces while he talked on the phone. Dad wasn't a traditional artist but he was a Masonry Specialist and his art involved brick and mortar. Even though he's been gone 2 years now, his work lives on and will for a long time. He created beautiful brick faced buildings, steps, fireplaces, barbecues, not to mention his work with stone and marble.

In 1986 I was taking a drawing class at the community college and met a china painter. She invited me to come to her studio. Her name was Jean Featherstone. When she invited me, she told me that I could use her brushes, paints, etc. and and the end of the class if I liked it I could buy my own and if not I could have a beautifully painted porcelain plate., Well I liked it and the rest is Herstory. 

My watercolor inspiration was inspired from all the ACEO artists that were in my art circles on Ebay. I dabbled with that and found that it was much like china painting, painting from light to dark. I was very comfortable with it.

I always liked to use pastel and colored pencil but I have no recollection of how I got into that. I was self taught for that. Although I guess looking at the beautiful chalk paintings in the art galleries were probably where I got the inspiration.

Later when I start dabbling in decorative painting in acrylics I met a group of ladies in the Chesapeake Bay Decorative Painters many of those were teachers. Kathy Anthony, Debbie Reeder, Candy,Mollica, Beverly Cratty, etc...all inspired my painting and helped me learn techniques that I could then incorporate in my other art forms.

One day I was on Facebook and a friend in my art circles, Riv, was showing off some of her paintings in alcohol ink. Oh boy. I was hooked on that big time for a while. I took classes on line from Karen Walker. She was such a good teacher. 

Over the years I have taken lots of seminars, workshops, classes and watched demonstrations by many talented artists (watercolor, alcohol ink, colored pencil), china painters, and decorative artists. From each of these I was left with a little bit of their style and techniques. But my biggest inspiration is the best artist of all, the God who created the sunset and sunrise, the seascape and the landscape, animals and  humans and who also gave me the talent to develop in my life journey.
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