On Wednesday, my latest painting, Helianthus, will be picked up by the buyers. To say I'm excited is an understatement; while I love creating new pieces, I'm never keen to hang onto them. I'd prefer that they head on their merry way out the door, so I can continue to create new work. But to say I'm floored by the reaction to Helianthus would also be an understatement. It has been so fun to share the behind the scenes process of creating this painting with followers from my Facebook and Instagram pages (don't forget to follow me there, if you aren't already...). Now that the painting is complete, I figured I'd share the process with you from start to finish, to...
Happy July, Friends! Welcome to my studio... I hope that all of you are continuing to adjust to the new normal as best you can. My kids have been back at daycare for just over a month now, and I'm hoping that this will be my final week of working on my sunflowers (please oh please). I am incredibly proud of this piece; by the time it's finished, I suspect that well over 100 hours will have been poured into its creation. As such, I am quite anxious to see it finally leave my easel and leave for its forever home. When that happens, I'm going to be taking a week off to putter around my house and my other...
My Backstory It's been four years since I first opened my little art studio in the former Tweedsmuir Public School in North Bay Ontario, now 176 Lakeshore Coworking. At the time, the school was under construction as it was slowly being converted to office spaces, so my rent was a pittance due to all the work being done. Even though I felt completely unqualified to be offering art lessons and paint nights, with the encouragement of my friends, I decided to test the waters and see what would happen if I opened my studio doors to the public. Before the studio, I had been painting on my guest bedroom floor, in a little two bedroom basement apartment that I was...
Hello everyone! I don't know about you, but once the weather warmed up, my housing maintenance To Do list quadrupled. For the past few weeks, the twins and I have been outdoors almost nonstop, and the gardening work has been monumental. Between working daily in the dirt, I've been preparing for my inaugural Sketch a Day Challenge month of June, which I'm running through a public Facebook group. So far, we have 68 members and counting, and the link to the group can be found here. I'd love if you joined us! Believe it or not, I'm actually nervous about this! Committing to creating one small piece of art per day is DAUNTING. Like many of you, I have days ahead...
It's difficult to put into words just how much I love my community. I arrived in North Bay in 2013 as a vagrant with no fixed address. Fresh off of the plane after spending four months backpacking solo through Southeast Asia, I came to the north in search of a new beginning. I thought I'd spend only 8 months in North Bay while working on my Bachelor of Education degree, and when it was over I'd have a better idea of where I'd go next. I never planned to stay. After only a few weeks, I felt in my heart that North Bay was home. That feeling has never left. Before moving to the Gateway City, I'd lived in nine...
