How it all began
I absolutely love interior designing. In fact, that was my forte'! Fabrics, textures, colors, and the plethora of choices that exist when designing a home made me feel like a little girl in a candy store. Textures are my favorite of all though.
When you look at something and you can feel it and run your hands across it, somehow it almost feels as if you become one with what you are touching. Sounds weird I suppose, but I fell in love with texture. So when it came time for me to step out of my comfort zone and use a canvas instead of a wall, I thought to myself, that if I could make a wall look fabulous then I certainly could do that with a canvas!
I am mommy to 4 beautiful children. I have 2 boys and 2 girls. Both of my girls are extremely artistic and I have to tell you that they both encouraged me and were like my little cheer leaders when I began the journey of learning how to paint! If it wasn't for them, sometimes I maybe would have given up and thrown in the towel. After all, walls didn't need shading and dimension, and canvases did!
This journey has been exactly that...a journey. I first learned that I could sketch with a pencil. That led me to using color pencils and then watercolor pencils that if you wet them they become watercolor paints. It was fascinating to fill in the paper and then wet a brush to go over what I had just drawn. So once I knew I could draw, I bought my first tiny canvas and an array of acrylic paints. I was mesmorized by the colors and hues that I had never seen before!
I would sketch on the canvas and then go back in and fill it in. It felt like I was painting a paint by number picture...only without the numbers. I fell in love all over again. I found myself able to paint between 2 and 4 pictures a day at one point. Acrylic dries so fast that you can layer it up and make amazing textures. But even though I was thrilled with my painting progress I still felt a void. It would take me nearly a year to figure out what that void was, and then destiny stepped in.
There was the most beautiful picture hanging in a place of business just about a year and a half ago now. After getting the artists name and phone number, it was amazing to find that she lived only a short distance from me. I found out that she gave painting lessons, and would come to my house to show me how to paint.
I had hit a plateau and I was desperate to know more, but unable to sit in an art class. This was perfect! When I met her, she introduced herself as Holly, and it immediately felt as though I had known her my entire life. She was the most beautiful woman I had ever seen, and her artwork was nearly as beautiful as she is...it was perfect!
The only catch was that she painted with oil paints and I had never painted with oils, but she agreed to come to my house to help me paint, and so I made the leap to using oils. Just when I thought I knew all about love, I fell in love all over again, but this time my heart had a place for my oil paints!
The things that oils could do were miraculous, and I could even add texture to my canvas...how much closer to heaven could I get? Holly taught me things about color, and shading, and dimension that I never would have known had she not come into my life. In our lessons together we would accomplish 6 hours of work and learing in less than 2 hours. I soaked it up like a sponge!
As I grew in oil painting, my friendship with Holly flourished unlike any that I have ever had before. So I was blessed to grow in the painting that I loved, and blessed with the best friend that I have ever had in my life. She believed in me when I couldn't see, or when I would get stumped and felt like I couldn't finish a painting. She taught me how to persevere and relax at the same time.
Holly taught me an invaluable lesson about being an artist. She told me never to get down on myself by trying to be too perfect, because the oil paints take a while to dry and that I should always be working on other pieces while allowing the one I'm frustrated with to dry. Amazingly when I do that, I gain a clear perspective and new vision to complete with passion something that only worked to frustrate me a short time before.
So although I have come such a long way from sketching and using watercolor pencils, I am determined to never stop learning and being a student of the art of oil painting. For I learn something new each and everytime I pick up my brush! And one day I hope to be able to say that I have been painting for nearly 30 years...Just like Holly!
