Combining Two Passions

So some of you may know that I love to knit as well as creat art. It’s something completely different and so relaxing and I love the feel of amazing yarns. It’s sometimes a battle between the two as to where I spend my time lol. I also recently began a venture into oil painting. I’ll talk more about this later, it’s really been a learning curve!

Setting up a still life to paint from requires some thought and while I’m only 8 paintings in so far, I have been loving painting some of my favorite things around the house which is where I got the inspiration to paint my other passion!

Yarn Bowl 8×10 oils

This is my favorite yarn bowl, yes I have several lol, and the knitting needles my dad found for me several years ago so they are extra special. They are hand carved antiques that are well-worn. I don’t use them but I do display them in a bowl with some yarn balls on my coffee table.

I added a gallery for my oil paintings on my gallery page. I’m loving learning something new and working outside my comfort zone,

Lost and Found

Found 16×24 mixed media acrylics

Finished this piece a few weeks back and it’s in a gallery show right now. The bird was inspired by a picture that a neighbor took, and you could clearly see it had something in its mouth. I have it holding one of the pearl buttons from this woman’s dress and if you look closely you can see the loose threads where it fell from. Hope you are enjoying summer, it’s sure hot in Texas! I will share my oil paintings in a future post. Trying something new and loving it.

Best,

Pam

New Work

‘Guardian’ 24×36 acrylic on cradled hardboard

I’ve been busy working on some new pieces for some upcoming art events. This is my most recent piece still finishing it up but it’s mostly done. This has been sitting in my studio for literally the last 3 years, only as an idea sketched on the substrate. I have just not been inspired to finish it so I started working on it a face at a time and it began evolving. I removed some of the faces and added the ‘Guardian’ on the left as the last change. I now feel it’s what it was meant to be. It’s so weird that when inspiration strikes the painting is so easy. I guess everything has a time.

I also worked on this smaller piece. I just love it and may end up keeping it.

‘Called Home’ 11×14 collage and acrylic on cradled hardboard

I keep forgetting to post here as I try to build my Instagram page back after losing it. Please follow me there at pamcarrikerart

 

Crowning Achievement

‘Within’ acrylic on 9×12 hardboard panel

 

I’ve been busy getting ready for a pop up art show in my community. I haven’t done one of these types of events in years. Nothing like saying ‘yes’ to something to give you a little motivation to create new work! As often happens for me, the work at hand leads to new ideas and directions I want to explore. While adding frames, tags, and hanging wire to my work, I was also pulling out the things I need to make up my display table and I stumbled on my portfolio of published magazine articles. Of course that distracted me for a bit as I took a trip down memory lane lol.

I have felt that I already ‘achieved’ my goal(s) as an artist by writing books, articles, teaching and developing product lines but as I’m getting artwork ready to sell I realize that I won’t ever be truly done ‘achieving’ my artistic goals because I’m constantly growing as an artist. I’m a ‘practicing’ artist, there’s always new media, new techniques, new inspiration so I’ll never be done. That brings comfort to me. I don’t want to ever be done. Even if the venue I’m working in looks different than what I was previously doing, it’s all good. Things change. Needs change. The need to find your space to create never changes.

New Brushes for a New Start

Sometimes you need to give yourself permission to buy some new supplies! I recently decided that it was time for some new brushes so I went to my favorite brush maker, Rosemary & Co and placed a nice big order, actually two orders lol. 

I love their brushes, they are handmade and last a long time. I originally ordered the long handled ones like I’d been using but went back and opted for some short handles too as they are easier to take with me to my art group. These are their Eclipse line and are so wonderful with acrylics.

Packaging isn’t everything, but I have to say the boxes these came in made my heart smile.

These are just the things I needed to begin a new chapter in my art adventure and with a little care they will last a long time and are worth the investment.

This is my favorite brush cleaning soap, and YES, I clean my brushes after every painting session. This soap helps keep the bristles clean and conditioned.