My 21st Century Impressionist Lifestyle

In my truest of hearts I am a hopeless romantic and a softy for the sentimental notes of life.

For my larger works, I am forever drawn toward Oil Painting. There is something about oil paint and her slow drying ways that urges me to slow down and smell the proverbial roses. Impressionist style oil painting makes me feel a longing to move slowly, painting my way through life.

And the true core of the impressionist movement in the late 1800s, was a connection to the untamed and living part of nature and humanity.

It was a practice of capturing from life and in a way that was focused more on the feeling than on the detail.

I try to capture this lifestyle in my own 21st century way, by following the path of these great artists and hauling my art supplies into the wild to capture nature any chance I get.

As a self taught artist of 20+ years experience, my education has come through reading endless books on technique, experimentation, mountains of sketchbooks, and largely just following where my heart and obsession leads.

The 2 Year Block

In my early 20’s I lost someone very dear to me, as well as a huge creative inspiration in my life.

As a result, I didn’t pick up a paint brush for nearly 2 years.

Creating can be a place that feels emotionally sensitive and this was the first time I experienced intense grief.

Approaching art started to feel too tender and too painful and this was compounded by how I connected this person I lost to art in general.

Thus began a two year journey of finding my way back to painting.

I started small, painting exclusively for myself.

Bit by bit I began to take my sketchbooks back into nature on little painting adventures. And through little steps I slowly healed from the grief and connected once more to my cherished art.

How I found Live Wedding Painting

I have discovered painting outside and on location to be my favorite kind of art creation.

As a result, I became very used to busy environments, working with odd weather, and random strangers coming up to ask me questions. So when a friend asked me if I would paint for their wedding, I was eager to give it a try. It was an immediate LOVE.

But I did take a pause before launching fully into this kind of work and announcing it to the world. I wanted to mull it over in my mind and create a look and brand that reflected everything I love to create on my own. I experimented and finally connected with a style that made me so excited to share. Now, years later, every wedding I go to paint feels wholly new and like I am creating just for myself. And tailoring each painting to my clients honestly gives me endless wells of inspiration and a fresh take on each oil painting.

Creating LIVE at weddings has also given surprise gifts back to me artistically.

For one, I found that creating large pieces so quickly on a wedding day kept me from over thinking. I also fell in love with capturing the energy and atmosphere at an event that holds so much excitement and emotion. And this emotional approach has found its way into my other artworks.

My Studio

My beautiful, light filled studio, lives in our home. A spare bedroom with giant windows and 10 foot ceilings, transformed into a place for creation.

It is a space I mulled over in my mind for a few years, filling out every need and wish, so when we went to build it, the space already existed in my mind as a fully designed studio.

Even with all of this forethought in the design, it took me a while to become acquainted and comfortable with this new studio.

I slowly added comforting touches, works in progress, and developed a familiarity with my new creating process before it began to feel like a place of inspiration and ideas.

Designed with:

corners for cozy sketching
a wall to display my collection of art books
a desk area for the technology side of the biz
a draft style table for brainstorming
a large wood easel for painting on canvas as large as I like
a giant mood board for inspiration
and a counter the length of the room with endless drawers for organization

What lights me up, Artistically

There is one underlying theme that connects every one of my favorite books, and it is ATMOSPHERE. Something so specific and intangible that transports you.

You can smell the fog of the sea air, you can see the subtle glow off of the dim lanterns, you can pick up on the sense of mystery and maybe even unease.This is what I’m drawn to paint again and again. Painting from real life, but then adding a sense of mystery, a certain mood or atmosphere, bringing you into a dream.

I want something that is representative of what I see, but like “Alice Through the Looking Glass” everything is a little big MORE.I am endlessly drawn to fable, to fairytale, to lore, and this rolls repeatedly into my artwork.

Whether it is the bright hopeful light of fairytales, or something that leans further into lore, into a moody setting.I want you to feel like you’re in the moment I painted and yet feel like you are out of time. Part of a story.

I AM A STORYTELLER

Self Taught

I get varying reactions when I tell people that I am a self - taught artist.

I get the “Wow! That’s awesome.” or the “Good for you, but I could never.”

Also there are people who seem highly suspicious of the statement “self taught”, like teaching myself through reading and experimentation is some kind of crime.

And then lately I have been getting a response from other artists that I DID NOT expect. They say something like…”I wish I had done that instead of going through art school.” The first time I heard this I was floored and completely mind blown!

But now that I’ve had several artists express the same sentiment and explain it to me, I would sum it up as this:

They worry that it taught them to conform too much to what their teachers thought was real art

AND/OR

They feel like they lost sight of their own creative and unique voice in their work. And that it’s been a journey trying to find it again.

I will certainly never claim that everyone who attends art school feels this way, or that being self taught is in any way superior. But it thoroughly shocked this little self taught girlie who has always worried she didn’t have enough to bring to the table with my own private art journey.

It has meant so much to have encouragement from other artists who took a more traditional art education route, that I am on a good and valid journey, choosing to do things my own way.

I have always been a massive nerd. Reading books like they were going out of style.

Today you will rarely see me without a bag of activities to keep my mind entertained. Books, kindle, sketchbooks, and over the past 5 years or so, journaling and all things note taking have been added to the bag of interests

The practice of carrying a notebook everywhere and capturing ideas whenever they fall from the sky has added so much to my creative practice.

I am a huge nerd

Travels & Adventures

Much of my artwork revolves around creating collections from my travels.

This started out as a natural response to my adventures. Like journaling, but with a paintbrush.

The first travel collection I ever made was a series of prints crated straight from my sketchbooks.

Now I’ve progressed to the point where I fully plan how I pack around what art supplies I’m bringing with me.

I love to wander through different mediums when I travel, playing with oil pastels, gouache, watercolor, oil paint, or some combination of these elements.

Sometimes the sketches end up in my final collection and sometimes I bring those sketches, made on location and in the moment, back to my studio to create larger works of art in oil paint.

The Sketchbooks

In my studio lives a basket of sketchbooks, each one with a different shape, size, color, or paper texture. Each sitting by the door, ready to be thrown into a bag and taken on an adventure.

Sketchbooks feel like the beginning and end of my creativity. They are my safe place and where I go to play and experiment.It is wild to think of so much freedom being found in such a small space.

In the world of animation and films the sketchbooks coming back into a place of power. Artists I follow in that world say that studios are now requiring to see the sketchbook work of new artists they want to work with.With the advent of AI, seeing the nitty gritty of the “made by hand” sketchbook, gives the viewer a VIP pass into the rough work of the artist.And not the fully finished artwork they carefully curate. It is getting a rare look at the messy part we call the creative process.

And I decided that I wanted to offer the same to you. A chance for you to step inside the unedited part of my creative mind for a moment.

My Little Sketchbook

I tried my best to be fully transparent and faithful to the sketchbook. Leaving everything in the correct order and even ending the series on some random little doodles. Only one page was left out that held some personal information. I also left in little bits of ephemera like the polaroid and a pressed 4 leaf clover. Those are items that live between the pages of this little sketchbook.