Art Blog for The Inspiration Place

The reason I became an artist was that I am most comfortable communicating my thoughts and feelings visually. However, since I am often asked to explain my art through the written and spoken word, I am sometimes at a loss for how to translate them into something equally meaningful.

We can learn a lot from art

When preparing for my last solo art show, I stumbled across the following poem, “Straight...

I know what it’s like to be starved creatively. Although art is now integrated into every aspect of my life, it hasn’t been that long since my life looked very different. In 2000, I worked at a high-powered hedge fund job that required long hours, and with a toddler at home and one on the way I barely had time to take a shower, much less any time to devote to art.

Missing my creative side

No doubt I...

Lately, I've been listening to podcasts as well as reading a lot about Feng Shui and I've been thinking about how that relates to my art.

What is Feng Shui?

Feng Shui is the ancient Chinese practice of aligning your stuff with its most positive energetic forces. The basic concept is that everything has energy. There are some things that will always give off "bad" energy...these are things like...

It seems every spring, I start painting animals and flowers... Not that I don't paint animals other times of the year, but the intensity of my painting creatures definitely picks up around March. Early in the month, I started working on this duck painting. When I first start off with my mixed media creations, I often have no concept of what the subject will be. I start with my feelings. Feelings...

One of my favorite social media time wasters is instagram. Being a visual person, I love all the eye candy that people post throughout the day. In this post, I share with you my top five loved instagram posts in 2015.

All but one is of my animal art, which shouldn't really surprise me. Do you do instagram?

1.

I named this painting "Foxy Loxy" after one of my favorite children's stories, Chicken...

I was truly overwhelmed by your enthusiastic response to my last postcard giveaway...

So, in the spirit of the holidays and giving, I am planning to do another one.

But this time...

There is a catch.

You see, I want to give these postcards to you only if you actually open my emails! (Yes, with the magic of computers, I can tell who opens my newsletters and who doesn't)

So here is what I am going to do.

...

This blog post is derived from a newsletter I recently sent out to my collectors. My collectors said they really enjoyed the newsletter about the art show because it showcases the kinds of people who buy my art, and makes it easier to identify themselves as one of my collectors.  So, I am republishing it here for you dear blog reader! {if you want to be a newsletter subscriber too, you can sign up...

I always like to imagine that when birds cross my path-- and other animals as well-- that they are carrying secret messages to me from the spirit world. I know that I am not alone in this thinking as I often hear reports from otherwise sane and logical folks about "the eagle who flew over the funeral ceremony", or "the bird that landed on the sill just as their mother was passing."  Have you heard...

Remember the joys of childhood? When rain meant a day at the movies and snow was a school holiday- not bad weather you complained about. Remember the days when the most important things in the world were your two wheeler bike, your best friend, and the ice cream truck? That is the sense of joy and wonder I try to preserve in my artwork and why I love to capture the innocence of animals who never...

Last week, I had a series of unfortunate events-- all in the same day. For example, my contact ripped in half and I had to run over to the eye doctor to have the him fish the remainder out of my eye. I also dropped a valuable (yes, very valuable) earring down the drain, but because the weather was so glorious that day my mood was unaffected. I could just observe these events and laugh at them...at...

One of the pleasures of being an artist is imagining how you might enjoy the painting in your home. In order to get ideas, I love reading decorating magazines like House Beautiful. Looking at these fabulous homes all over the world, I never fail to get inspired by artfully displayed treasures.  Art is an Essential Source of Joy (tweet this!) Now those who are clutter adverse, I want to point out...