Poppies

Well it’s about time I catch up with what’s been happening around here…over the last long long while.

In November, in  a fit of frustration I was working on loosening up my paintings. It only lasted the one painting and I’m right back where I left off with my tiny brushes, but I really enjoyed creating this painting, ‘Resolution of Poppies’. To let you in on how ‘slacking’ I’ve been on the art front, Bryan built the cradled panel for me when we were engaged in August of 2011. Yikes. I started an underpainting in our apartment in 2012, but packed it away when we moved and didn’t pick it up again until after the lure of the beach in the summer time had passed.

Well to get back to it, I’d spent a week or two on the painting and was really happy with it. Just in time for the Christmas Show at Studio33 Art and Frame Gallery so I took it in and asked Sara, the owner, if it was something she’d be interested in. She was and the next day at work we hung the show. Of course, I’d only spent a few weeks with the painting, none of them when the piece was finished and hanging anywhere I could see it and I wasn’t really ready to sell it. So rather than listing it for a price that was suggested by Sara, I decided to go a bit higher. After all, if it was priced higher than it probably wouldn’t sell and I’d bring it back home with me for a few weeks. Of course, things rarely work out the way you expect them to. Before the show officially opened, just a few days later a client walked in and bought it on the spot. I got a call it had sold while I was busy prepping food for the opening later that night. Never even got to see it with the classic sold mark on it, the red dot. So much for bringing it home after the show and enjoying it!

The colors are rich orangey reds, buttery yellows and cool blues. The movement, texture and translucency of the petals build over the soft pixelated background.

Measuring 20×23 inches with a thin poplar frame wrapping around it the piece was up for sale for $495. 

 

Commissions are always welcome in paintings and graphic design work. Check out my in progress portfolio tab for more examples of my work. Keep in mind that I am available to teach art lessons as well in a wide variety of mediums. Email courtney@bottledsunshine.org for more information!

Isaiah 61 1-3

I have a new found section of favorite verses. Thanks to my cousin Emily I’ve spent quite a while exploring Isaiah 61: 1-3. She was the first responder to my offer of creating a free printable Bible verse, quote, line of a song, etc. SO I was quick to get to work. Purples, whites and grays and crown. Seemed easy enough, if there was to many words then only verse three.

So I started reading. I had to make sure my design uplifted the words, drew attention to the key points, made it hit home. I knew it was going to be wordy. There was no way I could get rid of verses 1&2. So I needed to come up with some sort of unifying background. Something I knew would fit my cousins modern aesthetic, with clean lines and a little bit of ‘royal’ flair. She had asked for a crown after all.

That brought me to this:

and now it’s free to you as well. Feel free to save the file and print it off. Keep a little reminder around to strive to be an oak of righteousness!

Happy Monday!

New Painting Release

New London these days is all a buzz with the release of the New England Lighthouse Stamps later this month, featuring one of our very own, New London Harbor Light House. To commemorate the occasion every Saturday from this one until September 7th are festivals, special events, tours and boat rides in and by the lighthouses, and more. This lighthouse is the oldest and tallest in Connecticut, and even on Long Island Sound. Built under the command of Thomas Jefferson, well you know it’s gotta be old!

In preparation of the lighthouse events my boss at Studio 33 asked me to paint some lighthouses. You might remember that I mentioned that a few weeks ago. Somehow I’ve managed to get two done, and I’m working on the third. Who knows, maybe I’ll get another sale.

Here is a small 5×5 inch painting of oil on canvas. I named it Sunshine, New London Harbor. For sale for $50 dollars. A portion of the proceeds will go to the fundraiser to repaint the New London Harbor light, which needs it badly.

The second painting is of the Mystic Seaport light, which is a working light replica of a Branford Mass light, if memory serves me correctly. In spite of it not being used for navigation it’s such a cute mini lighthouse, and a big part of the seaport nearby.

This one is called, “Blue Skies, Mystic Seaport”. It’s an oil on panel, is 8×8 and is for sale at $195. I love this painting and will be sad to see it go, if it goes, which is why the price is a tad on the high side for something this size, though it’s still $50 bucks under priced other paintings of similar size.

So now that I’ve reached a lull in my to-do list something else gets added, wedding programs for my brother and almost sister in law. I got the information for them last night and managed to whip out four variations on one program yesterday, clearly love is a great motivator since I’m not the biggest fan of sitting in front of a computer staring at pixels, but I’m pleased with them. Once the wedding is over ill give you a view 🙂 in the mean time if you or anyone you know is interested in having invitations designed, signs or menus for a wedding, advertising for your business or special event…I’m your girl. I have loads of samples of my work, just need to get on uploading them. Clearly I’m not that motivated to promote myself. Ah well. I’m fine with that.

Distracted Me

I didn’t post yesterday. And I may be a bit sporadic in the next few weeks (think a few times a week instead of the daily post I had been doing the last few weeks).

Here’s why: Some of you may know that I work at an art gallery. A small gallery in a ‘city’. It’s the biggest ‘city’ around and there’s a lot to do in the area; we get a lot of summer tourists. Sailfest is a big weekend long festival type event with the largest display of fireworks in New England, or so I’ve been told.

What’s that got to do with me? Well the art my boss let me display in the shop is completely sold out. There is nothing left, and with the influx of tourists for Sailfest come an inundation of people looking for souvenirs, nice ones to take home. To account for this I was instructed to paint up a storm in preparation. My boss needs more of my paintings. How cool is that?

So every morning I’ve been getting up earlier so I still have my time to laze about, and then painting for an hour or so before work, and an hour or so after dinner. All this on top of working, making dinner, laundry, wall paper removal in the master bedroom (peeled off the outer layer, still need to attack the glue), and generally keeping myself busy.

As if this wasn’t enough though, one of the weddings I was blessed enough to be invited to this summer (1 of the 6!) asked me to paint a guestbook tree, you know where the guests stamp their fingerprint and the couple has a keepsake to hang up in their house rather than stash an old book somewhere? How cool is that? It’s my first non-family commission. (Meaning they aren’t just asking because they feel bad!) Here’s an example from Etsy.

Needless to say I’ve been a bit distracted. I’ve left the door open to my studio one to many times, and with oil paint laying around…well Gingersnap stepped in it with her paw. I hope she didn’t try to lick it off to much and ingested poisons…guess this means I’m definitely not ready for kids yet. Darn! (Sarcasm).

So, now you have the upfront explanation of where I’ve been, or will be.

see the paint on the little paw?

no?

how about now? *headdesk*

 

p.s. no time to edit today, so feel free to either point out my errors and I’ll fix them later or just content yourself with the fact that I am busy painting, as these picture took forever to upload and I missed out on 30 minutes of precious painting time.

August: Looking forward

Happy August Everyone! How is it August already? I can hardly believe it. Though the weather lately has felt like fall! All the cool days and rain. Today looks like it’s back to the mid 80s though, that’s more like it! I’m looking forward to hitting the beach a few more times.

So much has been going on, but rather than dragging by the days seem to fly (quite unlike my last job pre-marriage) and it seems like I can barely catch a break! Life has been building in activities here in our little household. We love it, but it makes it hard to blog…during the days I’ve either been working or painting (hooray!) and at night we really try to spend time together, or at our weekly bible study, or a night or two with friends. We had a massive picture hanging session over the weekend and it’s certainly looking like we are putting down some solid roots here in our little house. I wish it was a house we owned instead of rented, but that can come later (maybe even next year? who knows!). All I do know is that it’s hard to rip stickers off the guest room wall and get rid of the maroon color since I don’t own it. Not sure if it’s worth all that time! ha. Guess all of our guests will be enjoying the maroon walls, pastel stickers, and bright rainbow fan a little longer!

In other news: It’s been really encouraging to see how each week our little circle of new friends grows a tiny bit…little by little we are getting to know more people at church. That certainly helps being new to the area and so far away from family and old friends. Later this month we have a visit from my parents and most of my siblings (Bran will be at college), and my maid of honor will also be swinging by for a few days! I’m very excited about both of those visits! To bad they have to stay in the funky guest room!

And at work, I’ve just been put in charge of the gallery’s facebook page and website and starting with the next show that goes up I’ll be sending out the advertising for the various shows we will be putting on at the gallery. It’s a stark contrast to compare working at Belgravia Gallery and Studio 33 Art and Picture Framing. Belgravia Gallery has a very clean modern website with lots of information. It’s clear they have put a ton of work into it. They also have a very different gallery though as well. Their gallery, just like their website is clean and minimally designed. It’s a totally different feel to Studio 33’s space. Two walls for artwork, some shelves and display areas for other pieces, it even has a card rack! It is much more homey and is filled with local art (instead of global) and treasures. But I do think it needs some streamlining. Both the owner and I agree the card rack has to go, but she’s tried in the past and people complained about not having it. I will admit it is nice to pick up something for a gift and grab a card as well, or just pop in when you are downtown. The gallery/picture framing shop also seems to be a gift shop. It works. It’s something needed in the area, but it’s up to me to give it a bit more unity. Already we have plans to build a wider window shelf (that will get rid of a bunch of smaller mismatched tables (yippee!) and build a second cabinet (more display space and get rid of an old low coffee table). So it’s coming. But it’s one step at a time. And of course, it’s hard to justify changes out front when the money is made through picture framing out back and that takes all the time we can spare.

All of this, the friends, job, the pursuit of my own art, has hit me just how much I need to network and build relationships with people in the area to rejuvenate not only Studio33’s web presence but build more friendships, and ultimately succeed in getting my own artwork out there. It’s next to impossible when most of my contacts and friends are four hours away and I have all of six local friends to get to events. I’m sure that will change little by little. If you are at all interested to see where I work, go here https://www.facebook.com/Studio33.Art.Frame.Gallery. If you are feeling really generous like the page! Even if you aren’t anywhere near local, just liking and interacting with any content you like (stuff I’ll be posting!) will help get the word out locally as well! I’ve discovered it’s the one cool thing about ‘stalking’ on facebook! Thanks so much!

Have you ever found yourself needing to network? Any tips or suggestions?

Unexpected Answer to Prayer

The humorous thing is I just wrote a post on courage.

God is so cool. Seriously. So cool. I’ve been a job stalker on craigslist for about a week. I’ve applied to several jobs, and thankfully we have a bit of a flexibility money wise that I was able to stop pursuing several of those jobs as I realized the fit wouldn’t be great. Before I took to the web for a job I started to walk the local riverfront street that is filled with antique stores, thrift stores and a few art galleries. The first gallery I walked I didn’t have a sense of peace, so I simply walked out. A few stores down was an antique store I really enjoyed and just flat out asked if they were hiring. They weren’t, but she seemed interested anyways and took my number letting me know it would be part-time and sporadic. There was one gallery Bryan and I walked past but they were closed at the time. I had noticed a small fish on the sign though, one very reminiscent of the early Christian symbol. Since it was closed, and we were looking for a place to eat dinner I forgot about it.

That is until today when I was heading downtown to look for a room divider screen but the antique store was closed and I ‘just so happened’ to see the sign for the gallery again (thanks God!). Since I had time to kill (I had planned on going out) I walked in. The lady quickly hung up the phone and was friendly. I felt reasonable in asking about a job, though I was resume-less and in a tank and denim skirt. L. was really chatty and friendly and went off to speak to the owner. S, the owner, came in herself and had a chat. What did I think I could add to the gallery, what skills did I have, what sort of availability did I have, etc. Of course once I mentioned Messiah College, she asked if I’d seen the sign. I explained I had and it had led me to come in and ask, kind of how I felt the early Christians must have done it. After our chat, she asked me to send her my resume and I hurried home to do so.

No less than an hour later I got a call from L. The first lady I had met was inviting me to church where her and her husband lead the ‘life-builders’ Sunday School class filled with young people like Bry and me settling down. She also invited us to come over for iced tea, and invite Bry to her husband’s prayer group that meet at Bry’s work! I thought that in itself was an answer to prayer because we’ve really been looking to get plugged in and meet people our age and our stage. I thought that was incredible as I’d just been talking to a dear friend of mine yesterday about what in the world I was going to do with myself and how frustrated I was that I was missing my support groups back home. She encouraged me to just pray about it and reminded me that God has a plan and he’d bring me to wherever I was supposed to go. So now, we had a new place to try to meet young married people.

But it didn’t stop there. Then the owner got on the phone and said she was really impressed with the way I interacted with her, and my resume looked great (thank you Belgravia Gallery, for letting my intern there while I was in London) and wanted to know if I could come in on Monday (we’d already discussed I’d be out of town from Thurs-Sunday to spend time with family). So Monday, 10 am. I’ll be back in the art field. Exactly where I’ve wanted to be since I interned in London fall of 2009. I don’t have to spend countless hours trying to transfer my teaching license, I don’t have to give up my dream of entering the art world, and since it’s part-time, and only 5 minutes from home I’ll still be able to pursue my art. And the cherry on top? I could sell work there too!

The amazing-ness(new word!) of it all brought me to tears and happy jumps and reminded me of how I felt when Bryan got this job. It also made me wish I’d never forget how it felt to know with certainty because it is just so visible how God watches out for us. But I guess that just makes it even more poignant when he sweeps us off our feet in better ways than we could ever imagine. The closest likeness I can get to that is being a teen or young adult and picturing what a selfless husband/wife love would feel like, even as I was dating Bry, and then when it actually comes to pass (being married) it’s a million times better than you could ever possibly imagine.  Folks, I’m on cloud 999. Thank you God!

What has been something you’ve been praying for? Let’s pray together!