A New Year, a New Start!

       I recently got married on October 12, 2012 to Theodore W. Nielsen. Me and my husband then relocated to Hampton Virginia in January of 2013. It is definitely a change of pace from Tennessee. No more mountains and tree filled hills, its now seagulls, beaches, and flood zones. Its a fresh start for not only my married life but also my life as an Artist.
       Due to cramped apartment living conditions I have not been able to work on my artwork as much as I would have liked, but that didn't stop me from creating some more watercolors. In June we plan to relocate to a house where we will have a lot more space and a garage where I can work with my encaustics more properly.
       Due to poor communication and unreasonable professors I did not get a letter of recomendation to my desired graduate school of choice. Lets just say the ONLY reason I didn't get accepted was because I didn't have letters of recomendation.
       So Sisavanah if you are perhaps reading this it would be lovely if you could take 5 min and log onto the Virginia Common wealth University Site and write a quick letter of recommendation for me. It would be splendid considering I'm not going to give up this easy. Seeing as I transferred universities during college and all my other professors have retired and apparently fell of the face of the earth it is kinda important. Haha. 
     
 In other news I hope to get my teaching license soon and will perhaps get a local job teaching. K-12. The K-12 teaching is not exactly what I had in mind but it is my fall back job after all. With all this free time in between college and graduate school I plan to make good use of my Time. I will continue to make artwork that is of my liking and possibly some commercial pieces to sell to the general public.
   
Well tata for now. You will be seeing me soon! Art is my life and that will never change!

Four.50.Four

My senior show! Can you believe it? The time has came and gone already. The semester is almost over and I have been totally neglecting my blog. I guess that is believable when you have as hectic of a schedule as I do. So much has happened but quite honestly today isn't enough time to fill you in on everything so I will let the pictures to the talking for me! Hope you enjoy!

Here are Photos of my Pieces in the Show.....

   

And here is photos of the Gallery.....

MY FIRST SOLO EXHIBITION OF MY ARTWORK!!!

I am very excited to announce my first solo exhibition will be at Casablanca in the Gulch of Downtown Nashville. My opening night/reception will be from 5pm to 8pm on April 2nd. Starting around 7:30pm there will be live music. So please come out to Nashville and support me in my First Solo Exhibition of my Art Work. My artwork and photography will be at this lovely Coffee house for the entire month of April so if you don't get a chance to come out on my opening night feel free to stop by anytime during their regular business hours. For more information about Casablanca Coffee you can visit their website at http://www.casablancacoffee.com. And all of this wouldn't have been possible without my buddy Tom! You can visit his wonderful art hosting Facebook page, Featherjett Fine Arts at http://www.facebook.com/pages/Featherjett-Fine-Arts/180744338636363.

I'm super excited and super blessed to have this show for the entire month of April. I super excited to finally get a foot in the door for the local art community. Who knows what will be next!

A New Year for Art

So I have been quite behind on my posting of artwork and process. You have to excuse me and my random sickness and surgery. They are starting to become more frequent... I sure hope I'm not getting worse instead of better. But I do know that I am getting better instead of worse as far as my artwork goes. So here is the first piece for the Spring Semester of Painting V. I will post more photos later as they come!

ACCEPTED

My artwork got accepted for the SAA (Student Art Alliance). The Reception is Tonight at the Murfreesboro City Hall Rotunds space. It is being held from 4:30pm to 6:00pm. Please come out and support me and my art work.

Art can be very emotional and stressful... Part 2

So I have personally been going through a lot lately and it was really starting to affect my artwork and my outlook on life. I was getting to my lowest of lows. There was even a week where I didn't pick up a paintbrush. It was awful. Not to mention my Fibromyalgia was hurting me severly. It finally came to my decision to switch directions my artwork for this semester and go a different Direction. I decided, with some encouragement from my professor (Thank you Sisavanh!) , to paint my pain in emotional abstract pieces. My goal by the end of the year is to have pieces that are so emotional that the viewer can grasp my pain and immediately understand what the piece is about without ever having to read the title.

Here are two Process Pictures:



And here is the Final Piece:

Back to School :)

For my first piece back to school I decided to do an artist study of Franz Ackerman. I really enjoy looking at his works. I find them very new edge and fun. They are in my opinion EXTREMELY colorful. Throughout the process of my work I was constantly referring back to Franz Ackerman for composition and abstract shape ideas. Little did I know that I was gonna be in over my head and turn out not liking what I was doing. But through the process of this piece I learned that craftsmanship is Key and in order to achieve this piece effectively it need precision, which quiet frankly I don't have a lot of. Some would say I can draw a straight line to save my life... I however say give me a ruler and I will try my best. You can't achieve perfection... its just not possible.

Here is a process image of the piece...


and the final product.

Summer Fun

So for the summer I have been doing some watercolors. The first one I did was just too boxed in. I'm probably going to go back and work on it some more. The second one I like better because it was somewhat successful. I don't typically work in red color tones so I was pleased with the way it turned out. The last one I did is definitely more of a commercial pieces. Sometimes I need to paint quick and simple pieces to make sure that I don't get rusty on typical things that most customers would buy.

First Piece of The Summer

So this Lady, Shirley Savage, that my dad works with at Kroger asked me to do a painting of her kids and I gladly accepted. Here is progress photos of the piece. I ended up getting $75 for the piece.

Last Piece of the Year

So here is the progress pictures of my last piece for painting III. I got really creative and had a lot of fun with this piece. I used actual mud and smacked a hand print on the painting. I got this crazy look from a lady when I was out side scraping mud up with my bare hands into a bucket. I felt like a little kid again. i also sewed black hemp into the fibers of the canvas. I think it added a nice visual effect. especially since I coulding paint a perfect black line that thin and that long to save my life. I think I would like to do more pieces like this one.