Catching the Sun

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"Catching the Sun"

Oil, 11" x 14"

Click here to purchase.

Yesterday was the first of my sixteen Monday Open Studio workshops for 2014. We painted flowers and had a blast! The day started with a visit by yours truly to the Los Angeles Flower Mart. 

I bought lots of flowers for my students to arrange and paint! We painted sunflowers, tulips and irises. What a great day. All of my Open Studios have a different theme so if you want to know more about my Monday Open Studios, click here.

The painting shown above was my demo. I loved that we were able to paint flowers and glass in the class. My next class is all about painting glass!

Here is one of the paintings completed in the class. I think it was her first time painting flowers!

Check out my new remodel blog for our new beach house in Ventura, Ca. I am now teaching workshops at the beach. Come stay and paint with me! I have workshops scheduled in the next twelve months in South Pasadena, Ventura Beach, Newport Beach, Charlotte, NC, and Atlanta, Ga. Click here for more information!

Creating a Collage to Show a Collection of Paintings

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These paintings are all available on my website.

Painting a series or collection is one of my favorite things. These paintings are some of my favorites and I think they would look great in a craft room or sewing room!

I also did a series of paintings for a "grandkids" nursery and wanted to share the concept on my newsletter last month. So I created a collage using Pickmoney.com. It's free and let's you create any type of collage and save it as a jpeg file. I also used picmonkey for the collage listed above.

I included this in my January newsletter and the response was amazing! If you have a collection of paintings you want to share be sure to create a collage highlighting your paintings. It's a great visual presentation for potential clients.

Join me this Sunday for a one-day website building workshop in South Pasadena. Learn how to build a website for your art business in one day!

Check out my new remodel blog for our new beach house in Ventura, Ca. I am now teaching workshops at the beach. Come stay and paint with me! I have workshops scheduled in the next twelve months in South Pasadena, Ventura Beach, Newport Beach, Charlotte, NC, and Atlanta, Ga. Click here for more information!

Using Collages to Sell More Paintings

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I was a bit tardy in sending out my January newsletter but at least I got it out while the calendar still said January. One of my previous collectors responded to the newsletter as she was interested in a painting.  She also mentioned interest in buying two paintings to hang side by side. She asked for suggestions of any of my other paintings that would compliment the one she liked.

I frequently use a free online program called PicMonkey to create collages of photos. So I used Picmonkey to create these three collages of suggested pairings of my paintings. The end result was that I sold five paintings to two different buyers. You might want to try PicMonkey and create a collage of your own!

My upcoming workshops:

March 17 - 19, Painting in Paradise at the Beach, Ventura, CA

May 12 - 14, Three Days Painting in Paradise at the Beach

June 28 - 30, Three Days "Painting in Hawaii" in South Pasadena!
Check out the website for our new beach house in Ventura, Ca. I am teaching workshops at the beach and renting out the house. Come stay and paint with me! I have workshops scheduled in the next twelve months in South Pasadena, Ventura Beach, Newport Beach, Charlotte, NC, and Atlanta, Ga. Click here for more information!

Basking in the Sun

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"Basking in the Sun"

Oil, 11" x14"

Click here to purchase.

I am in Atlanta teaching the most wonderful workshop. We have had a blast and the 16 artists in this class are truly my inspiration. We have worked very hard and laughed very hard. Just take a look at these first paintings with a palette knife:

Tonight I had the pleasure of cooking dinner for this wonderful group of artists. We had a great meal and were able to spend some time sitting around the fire and talking about art. What an inspiring conversation!

I should have more more photos of all of the boat paintings shortly. I will post them soon. And our last day of the workshop is somewhat pending due to the ice storm that is supposed to hit Atlanta tonight. Just my luck!

My upcoming workshops:

March 17 - 19, Painting in Paradise at the Beach, Ventura, CA

Check out the website for our new beach house in Ventura, Ca. I am teaching workshops at the beach and renting out the house. Come stay and paint with me! I have workshops scheduled in the next twelve months in South Pasadena, Ventura Beach, Newport Beach, Charlotte, NC, and Atlanta, Ga. Click here for more information!

Looking Back at Thirty Paintings

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Here is my "collage" of the 30 paintings I completed this month. I created it with an on-line program called picmonkey. Just go to PicMonkey and select "create a collage". You can use one of their designs or you can design your own. To make a collage with 30 photos you will need to design your own. Then you can drag your uploaded photos in to the collage until you are done. (When you drag in a photo, you can see where to place the photos as you move them around. If you move them around carefully a small gray bar will appear and you can create columns and rows by adding more photos.)

It's a fun tool to use. You can change the width and color of the grid lines between the photos and then save the completed collage as a jpeg on your computer. Post your collages here! And it doesn't matter how many paintings you completed. Create a collage to show off the paintings you created this month.

Thanks for joining me this month. Happy painting!

My upcoming workshops:

Feb 3 - 5, Painting in Paradise at the Beach, Ventura, CA

Feb 10 - 12, Palette Knife Painting, Atlanta, GA (sold out)

March 17 - 19, Painting in Paradise at the Beach, Ventura, CA

Check out the website for our new beach house in Ventura, Ca. I am now teaching workshops at the beach and renting out the house. Come stay and paint with me! I have workshops scheduled in the next twelve months in South Pasadena, Ventura Beach, Newport Beach, Charlotte, NC, and Atlanta, Ga. Click here for more information!

Thirty Paintings in 30 Days - Day Thirty

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"Cranberry Jars"

Oil, 6" x 6"

$200.00

Click here to purchase. 

There were many times this month when I thought this day would never come. And now it's here and I am sad. I am going to miss the pressure of finishing my painting every day. OK, so maybe I will miss the pressure just a little ... or not at all ...

I have thought long and hard about what was my favorite part of this month's challenge. Aside from painting every day, it has to be the great emails I received from all of you! So many of you had breakthroughs and incredible traffic to your blogs. Many of you had tons of sales. And for some of you there were struggles. Regardless, we all learned a lot.

Technically the challenge is over for now. But we all know, of course it's really just the beginning. 

This is the time for all of us to build upon what we have accomplished this month. Whether you painted five or thirty paintings, it doesn't matter. We have all learned something from painting more often, from blogging everyday and sharing our art on Facebook. The results have snowballed and have been amazing. Many of you told me that you have already blogged more times this month than the entire  year. Most of you have found a way to leave "the stuff" behind so when you enter your studio it's all about painting. A lot of you are painting faster and having little trouble finding inspiration to paint. It's been a great 30 days and I thank you all for joining and inspiring me to paint every day this month.

Tomorrow we will head back in to our studios and paint some more. We will continue to push ourselves out of our comfort zones and take some risks. We don't need to feel rushed and we don't need to ignore our families anymore (haha). Just paint what you want, but take a little more time to build on the momentum you have created these past few weeks. 

I promise we will do another 30 in 30 Challenge in January 2015. Maybe I will do another one in 2014, who knows! In the meantime I will be busy painting and teaching and enjoying the beach house (I have a workshop there next week!)

Tomorrow I will post a collage of all of my 30 paintings. I will also post instructions as to how you can create one too. So be sure to check back tomorrow.

My upcoming workshops:

Feb 3 - 5, Painting in Paradise at the Beach, Ventura, CA

Feb 10 - 12, Palette Knife Painting, Atlanta, GA (one spot left!)

March 17 - 19, Painting in Paradise at the Beach, Ventura, CA

Check out the website for our new beach house in Ventura, Ca. I am now teaching workshops at the beach and renting out the house. Come stay and paint with me! I have workshops scheduled in the next twelve months in South Pasadena, Ventura Beach, Newport Beach, Charlotte, NC, and Atlanta, Ga. Click here for more information!