April 1′st Joke!

Mother nature is playing a joke today on me! In my quest to paint in my studio, the weather has turned hot and humid making it rather difficult! But I am going to push on and do it anyway. Because of my love of painting, I am determined to stick to my goal of painting daily…So I was wondering:

How many of you artists or non-artist out there have all kinds of “blocks” that get in the way of  accomplishing your goals? What do you do to “unblock” yourself? I would love to hear from you…

Art and a Nasty Cold

For the last 2 weeks I have done 0 art! The last time I felt this bad was when I was maybe 10 years old! The day after Christmas I came down with this nasty cold which sapped all my energy. I am happy to write that the fog has finally lifted and I can now go into my studio to paint again. Anyone out there who has or is suffering from this latest bug I can sympathize with you.

Finally, I want to wish everyone a very HAPPY and HEALTHY New Year!

Thoughts on attending ICON 6 Illustration Conference In Pasadena

Returned from Conference held in Pasadena, Ca. a few weeks ago. I am glad I attended and enjoyed meeting with other illustrators. There were lots of speakers, but I feel it all went too fast to take in all the information presented to us. The weather there was very hot (95 deg.) and my room was away from the main building so I had to walk in and out of the heat a lot. Even so, the event was worth it. I hope to keep in touch with those people I talked to there.

Interesting Documentary on Art & Aging

One of the important aspects of art I think is the wonderful effects on older people. I came across an article which explains all the benfits of doing art in your senior years: http://creativeaging.squarespace.com/creativity-and-aging-blog/

The video on this website is very good and uplifting! Check it out!

Art Instruction Book Review

Hi all,

With so many art instruction books published it is hard to know which ones are great and which ones are not so great. So I thought I would give my opinion as a collector of art instruction books. As I am an art instructor, I frequently bring in to my classes art books that I recommend. I now have an enormous collection and so it naturally came to me to do book reviews on my blog. So here we go!

To begin this journey, there is one book that I notice that I return to over and over again and this is “The Art of James Christensen – A Journey of the Imagination.” As Told to Renwick St. James. This book gives the beginning and advanced artist the inspiration to explore their own imaginative side.

In his first chapter, James gives us his view of how to tap into your imagination and he does it in such a beautiful way! He believes that “anyone at all can make the voyage. No one is born without an imagination.”  He believes that by using visual metaphors, symbols and allegory are ways to better communicate between the art, the artist and the audience. The rest of the book is based on examples and descriptions of how he uses these ideas with great art and inspiring notes.

I highly recommend this book to anyone who wants to not only be a better imaginative artist, but to anyone who would like to use their imagination to improve their life.

I have to go now, but please return as I will be reviewing more of my favorite art books. Bye now…..

Pamela

New Self Promotional Illustration!

Just finished this self promotional illustration using Photoshop and Painter X.  I enjoyed painting this and wish all my illustrations went so smoothly!

My Ideas on the Process of Doing Art

Because this is only my first post I thought I would write about my artistic thoughts regarding the process of doing art. I love to paint and draw beautiful subjects. That seems to be my ongoing theme. I enjoy sticking to my focus ideas. But there are times when the process goes a little haywire. The process is either too slow or too fast, too weak or too strong, too interesting or too boring, etc. But when everything goes with a certain flow, everything works! I think that is what drives me and other artists to continue painting – in spite of these annoying interruptions of flow. I would like to hear from other artists on this important subject…Here is my latest painting when I felt the flow experience.