My Heart is a Bouquet of Roses

9x8.25in. oil on Trekell wood panel - click to purchase here

A while ago I picked up these cute heart-shaped wood panels from Trekell. Picking up a bouquet of roses from Target, I just knew that they had to be the subject of this painting. This heart is part 1 out of 4 of my heart-shaped painting series. The second will be another configuration of this bouquet and then the final two will be sunflowers, just because I love sunflowers. This painting took me the longest time to paint, beating Warmth in time worked. While this painting was incredibly daunting (and spent a long time in the "ugly" phase) it was really rewarding to finish. Stay tuned for part 2!

Goochy, Mintie and Momo

7x5in. oil on canvas panel - click to purchase here; click to purchase stickers here

These three little plushies keep me company at my desk while I work my day job and spend my nights editing photos, videos and performing admin work for my art business. My husband gifted me the cute octopus Goochy one year for Christmas and I love his cute little face. I picked up Mintie this year from Michaels - he's one of those Moosh Moosh plushies that you can turn inside out. I love this flipped side of him because his expression makes me think of "determination!" Topping my three-man stack is a cute little keychain of the cat Momo, made famous from the Cream Heroes YouTube channel. Momo is one of my favorites, and the voice that his owner has for him is very cute. 11/52

Candy Corn

7x5in. oil on canvas panel - click to purchase here; click to purchase prints here

I love candy corn! I was shopping around Michaels when I saw this cute glass pumpkin and knew I wanted to fill it with candy corn and paint it. To be honest, this composition was incredibly daunting to me. I really didn't know how I was going to approach painting the candy corn inside the glass pumpkin and near the end it was just blobs of yellow, orange and white. Trusting myself to squint my eyes and paint what I saw, everything really started pulling together when I painted on the dark lines to represent the folds in the glass. I filmed the progress of this painting and will be available to watch on my Instagram, Tik Tok and Facebook! Completing this painting inspired an upcoming painting that will consist of various Halloween candies that I enjoy. 10/52

Mirabilis Jalapa

4x4in. oil on canvas panel - sold; click to purchase prints here; click to purchase stickers here

Full disclosure: these flowers may not be Mirabilis Jalapa but Google gave me a very similar image/article result that looked identical to the reference photo that I took and I'm going with it. That being said, I loved the pinks, purples and blues that made up the petals and I really like the pops of orange that stand out against the petals. I also wanted to try out making a more "blurred" background so I really pushed the brushstrokes in the background to give them less of a form feel and more of a feeling of other foliage behind these three flowers. This is the third and final painting in my series of testing out the different Gamvar varnishes, and this painting is varnished with the "matte varnish" - another full disclosure: I don't really like this varnish. I felt that it really dulled everything out and washed out the darker values that I had in the background compared to the flowers in the foreground, making them appear to be very similar in value. That being said, I'm still glad that I tried it out to see what it looks like - it even gives me vibes of those old 90's tween novel covers.

Hibiscus

4x4in. oil on canvas panel - sold; click to purchase prints here; click to purchase stickers here

My husband's grandmother's house has a border of hibiscus bushes and every year these beautiful white hibiscus flowers bloom. One day I caught sight of these flowers and fell in love with the way the warm sunlight shown on them and even shown through the petals. This is my second painting out of three to test out the three Gamvar varnishes, and this painting is varnished with the "satin varnish" - I like that this varnish causes less glare than the high gloss, but I find that it doesn't really punch up the colors and values like the high-gloss picture varnish does. It also leans more matte than the high gloss, so maybe in the future I will test out mixing half-gloss and half-satin mixtures.

Sunflower

 

4x4in. oil on canvas panel - sold; click to purchase prints here; click to purchase stickers here

Here in Nebraska you can find plenty of wild sunflower bushes everywhere in the months of August and September. There was a bush growing near my apartment complex and I just had to take some reference photos of them! There were so many birds and bees enjoying the flowers and the yellow petals looked so striking against the stark blue of the Midwest sky. I wanted to test out the three different Gamvar varnishes and I thought a floral series would be a nice change. This painting is varnished with the "picture varnish" - I like the high gloss look, just not too easy for a beginner like me to photograph. I think sunflowers may be my favorite flower!

Lil Pun

7x5in. oil on canvas panel - click to purchase here; click to purchase stickers here

I picked up the most adorable mini pumpkin at Target earlier in the season and knew I wanted to paint it as a still life. Orange is absolutely my favorite color and I love the contrast between the orange body and the blue surface. This time I set up my still life on my desk that can turn into a standing desk and it really made it easy for me to stand up and paint. I recorded a process video and posted a minute-long version of it on my Instagram and Tik Tok! 9/52

Fall on the Keystone

8x6in. oil on Ampersand Gessobord - NSF

This is the fourth and last painting out of the four for my October Plein Air challenge! I've never completed an October challenge that I've started before (like Inktober or Peachtober) but having finished this one makes me feel really good. I'll make another post later with my final thoughts on the entire challenge. This bridge is out on the Keystone Trail, one that I've ridden quite a large amount of times! I love being on the trails here, people were very nice to me when they passed me on their walks and bike rides. Some brush strokes I kind of regret placing, but overall I really like this piece.

Under the Bridge

6x8in. oil on Ampersand Gessobord - NSF

This is the third out of the four plein air paintings for the October challenge! The section on the left where the rocks are with the darkest shadow was such an eye-catching area to me and I wanted to give it a try. This is my first plein air attempt of concrete forms! This painting started out pretty ugly but it quickly pulled together in the end. I also really liked the section of the overgrown dead grass. The highlights stand out against the darker orange-brown base and I feel like it really works.

Lost Home

 

8x6in. oil on Ampersand Gessobord - NFS

This is the second out of the four plein air paintings for the October challenge! This is my first attempt at dappled light and it's definitely tough. I had a lot of fun making this and the weather was so nice. I had a kind of tough time editing the color balance of this image to match the painting itself, my phone's camera leans heavily blue. I had a bit of a hard time painting the dappled light on the ground, but once I internalized that it's just color blocks against a darker background, I feel like I started to understand the subject better.

Radiant Pumpkin

7x5in. oil on canvas panel - click to purchase here; click to purchase prints here; click to purchase stickers here

This was my first attempt at painting strong, dramatic lighting alla prima. I had this cute pumpkin glass jar and I tucked fairy lights into it while I set up my black box in my bathroom to give the appropriate level of darkness to let this piece shine. The fairy lights were these beautiful specks against the glass and made the glass warp in delicious ways. I liked choosing to put the subject against the corner of my blackbox, the way that the seams between panels point towards the subject really draw your attention even more to the light source. 8/52

Cornfield

6x8in. oil on Ampersand Gessobord - sold

This painting marks the beginning of my 2022 October Plein Air painting challenge! This month I plan on making four 6x8in. plein air paintings, starting with this one. I really liked the way the shadows stretched on the harvested cornfield from the rows of trees. I'm very lucky to live right across from a very interesting-looking cornfield. I just loved the way the rising sun cast the long shadows from the trees and how the hills influenced the crop lines.

Valentine's Day Candies

7x5in. oil on canvas panel - click to purchase here

I love cherry heart lollipops! The next in my candy series, I've created an homage to Valentine's Day. Candies featured in this painting are the cherry heart lollipops, M&Ms and cookies and crème Hershey's hearts. I thought a blue background would help the pinks and the reds really shine. The hardest part about this painting was the foil on the cookies and crème Hershey's hearts, but once I realized that it was just color blocks next to each other, it was pretty easy to translate them into the painting. I also ate all of these candies. 7/52

Sunflowers & Roses

7x5in. oil on canvas panel - NSF, click to purchase prints here

Valentine's Day is a big celebration in my house due to my birthday being the following day. My husband always gets me a gorgeous bouquet of flowers and I wanted to try my hand at my first-ever still life set up painting session! It was really difficult but it's such an important exercise. Excited to do more of these! 6/52

Candy Hearts

7x5in. oil on canvas panel - sold; click to purchase prints here

I actually love candies like conversation hearts and candy corn. My husband may make fun of me for my "terrible candy taste" but that means more for me. This painting actually sparked my love of painting candies! I just loved the dramatically lit hearts against the stark magenta background. These hearts said the silliest things, like "bae". The trick to make it "look" like there's writing on the hearts is to actually just paint abstract shapes! Who knew? I ate all of these candies. 5/52

Blueberry Gin Punch

7x5in. oil on canvas panel - sold

I made this blueberry gin punch for the weekend my husband and I played Yakuza: Like a Dragon. Housed in my favorite Woodford Reserve glass, this tasty wintery cocktail hit the spot. You can find the recipe here, just don't forget to cut it in half with Prosecco! Also, apparently, if you introduce a room temperature cup/cool cup to a boiling hot item (like the frozen blueberries that you boil into a syrup), you will crack your glass. I ruined a batch of this tasty cocktail that way (and my poor cup). 4/52

Illuminated Halloween Skull

7x5in. oil on canvas panel - not available; click to purchase stickers here

Halloween-time is my favorite season and this was the first Halloween my husband and I celebrated together. We often light our spaces with Christmas lights and candles, but the way that the light was shining on this skull from Michaels was absolutely stunning and spooky. I used so many colors of oil paint just to make the ranges of reds, pinks, purples and oranges right. A lot of quinacridones and reds were used in the making of this painting. I love this painting so much and feel like it encapsulates who I am as a painter that I turned this painting into my business card! If you place an order from my shop, you will receive my business card, or a "mini print", as I like to call it. 3/52

 

White Lilies from Papillion

 

7x5in. oil on canvas panel - sold; click to purchase prints here; click to purchase stickers here

White lilies are one of my favorite flowers. I love all of the different colors that they come in. This painting was particularly difficult for me to paint since the petals were white, but recently I learned a trick to painting all of the nuanced colors: put your photo into Photoshop and turn up the saturation a little bit. Don't worry, I know not to let my kitties loose around these toxic bad boys. I'd love to make a Silent Princess flower painting from The Legend of Zelda: Breath of the Wild! 2/52

Sunset on Park Avenue and Dewey Street

 

7x5in. oil on canvas panel - NSF

When I lived in the city you could see all sorts of clouds against the city skyline. Many mornings were washed in pinky-oranges while sunsets were washed with vivid reds and deep purples. You never knew what you were going to see until you opened your curtains or stepped outside. Don't even get me started on golden hour in the city - the beautiful and warm light flushed against the city buildings stole my heart. It just goes to show that midwestern sunsets in the big city are quite breathtaking. 1/52