Valentine's Day Art Show

I had the privilege of being one of the artists in a Valentine’s Day Art Show at Castle Hill Cider. The event featured 30 different local artists from Virginia. Castle Hill Cider was a gorgeous location for this art event. Even though the artist reception was held on Valentine's Day the art will be on display till March 10th. I definitely want to do more art shows and festivals. It was great experience and a lot of fun!

 

Rose Bouquet

Happy Valentine’s Day weekend! It is almost Valentine’s Day or in my case Singles Awareness Day and I thought it would be a great time to share my new painting. This piece is actually inspired by a previous painting I did that I’ve wanted to redo. A couple of weeks ago I found out about this Valentine’s Day art show in the Charlottesville area and I immediately jumped on the opportunity. I got accepted to show my artwork at the event and I realized that this would be the perfect time to redo the painting. The piece was a Rose Bouquet, which I thought would be perfect in the show. So here is my Valentine's Day inspired painting with all the pinks, reds, golds and roses!

Rose Bouquet, 2016
14x18
Mixed Media 

 

 Here is a picture of my previous painting below so you can get an idea.....It is always fun to go back and look at my old artwork to see how much I have progressed as an artist.  This piece is cool because the flowers are tissue paper, which I use to do a lot in my bouquet. Now I am more into painting my flowers with acrylic paint, but I still love this piece.

 

 

Moon Paintings

I have been obsessed lately with gold and silver leaf foil! These shiny foils are so fun to use in my artwork. The foils are perfect to use for creating moon pieces which makes the moon have that glowing shimmery look. I added some moons to some of my pieces a while back, which I got positive a lot of positive feedback on. I decided that it would be fun to create some pieces where the moon was the main focus.

 Luna- (2015)
14x18 acrylic painting with silver foil

 Golden Crescent Moon (2016)
14x18 mixed media 

Also, wanted to add some of the older pieces which include moons just for fun....

 The Mountains are Calling (2015)

18x24 

Mixed Media

 Rocket Ship (2014)

30x40

Mixed Media

New tiny paintings

Today I am happy to share some new paintings with you.

 ♥Flamingos-12x16

Here is my newest mixed media painting, which I am so excited about. I finally finished this piece yesterday. Ever since I did the pineapple painting, I've wanted to create more bright neon pieces for summer. I was nervous about doing flamingos because the neck is long, curvy and thin. I was worried I wouldn't be able to cut the paper/fabric exactly right and the neck would look all choppy. Anyways, I am so glad I just went with it and attempted the piece because it turned out great. I did struggle with the background a little, but then I decided to go for a sunset appearance fading into emerald water.

  Flower Bouquet- 11x14

I finished the flower bouquet painting last month, but forgot to post it. I love the contrast of the different purples with the black. I normally don't use a lot of black in my art because I like my art to be bright and fun. However, I feel the black really compliments the purple and mint colors. I think I might experiment more with black in the future to create some contrasty pieces.

So here is a little sneak peek - I've been trying to create a tiny painting collection because I hope to eventually open an Etsy shop. I would love to hear any feedback! Please tell me your favorite pieces and what you would like to see more of! It would be super helpful.

Pineapple Painting

I jumped on the pineapple craze and created a new tropical pineapple painting!! I love love love this bright summer painting. I am so excited how it turned out! I couldn't ask for a better color combo outcome! The background was inspired by geometric surfer print. I added texture to the painting by adding random triangles to the diamonds of the pineapple to create a 3Dish look. However, I can't take full credit for this idea cause my lovely sister thought it would add a nice touch!

Tropical Pineapple 12x16 mixed media piece

 

 Here are some pictures taken during the process of creating the mixed media painting. The painting took longer than I expected it too, but I am pleased with the outcome.

Spring Painting

Oh how I'm lovin Spring. The weather is warming up and flowers are blooming! I am so excited to be outside more and enjoy the weather. Another thing I am excited for is to paint! I recently started a new shift at work where I get Fridays off, which will allow for more painting. So here is my spring inspired painting. I wanted it to be really bright, colorful and flowers were a must. I've been on a gold kick so had to add some gold detail. I have so many ideas for new painting and I can't wait to get to work!!

Spring Bouquet 11x14 mixed media

Throwback Scotland/London Pt 3

Alright this is the last and final post on my London/Scotland trip (FYI this is a throwback post from a trip I did a year ago, but forgot to post it...meh). This post is about our adventures in London and Edinburgh. So from Scotland we took a sleeper mega bus to London. It was my first time ever taking a sleeper bus. I will say it was an interesting experience. I was able to sleep some, but the overnight travel was definitely the way to go if you have limited time. We arrived in London extremely early and we dropped off our bags at the hotel (to hold until check in time). Most places weren't open yet so went to Starbucks and planned our adventure and charge our phones.

The map of London with all the tube stations!

Lovely pastry shop we stopped for breakfast when we first arrived London called Patisserie Valerie.

 

Buckingham Palace, of course was a must see. We didn't get to see the changing of the guards, but I hope when we go in June we are able to.

Queen Victoria Memorial

It was so hard to get this picture with everyone taking pictures around, but we did it!!

Gorgeous gardens in the Palace

Roaming around Piccadilly Circus

William Shakespeare's statue in Leicester Square, London.

The famous Tower Bridge! Apparently you can do a Tower Bridge Exhibition. I am wondering if we might have time to do that on our next trip!

LUBS her!

 House of Parliament and Big Ben with its gorgeous architecture.

The London Eye, the popular giant Ferris wheel. It looked busy when we went by it and we wanted to make the most of our time. I have heard mixed reviews about actually getting on the Ferris wheel. However, maybe on our next visit we will be able to do it. I think it would be a cool way to see London.

Of course we had to go see a Broadway show while visiting. We chose The Lion King and boy it did not disappoint! The person who played Rafiki was fantastic. The overall cast was brilliant, but Rafiki was amazing! I also loved the elephant costumes they had!!

HARRY Freaking POTTER lol! I was pretty excited to go to King's Cross where Platform 9 3/4 is located. Yes, I am a Harry Potter fan..how can you not be!! The line was pretty long to get a picture, but we waited (again tons of HP fans). When you finally get up there you chose your scarf...GO Gryffindor! We got some solo pictures. Then Court and I took an action shot, which turned out great! Courtney did an awesome job jumping backwards when I did my stupefy spell (lol yes I know super nerd)

This was our action shot that I was talking about above. It was pretty great! We had to buy this picture at the HP Platform 9 3/4 shop and I feel like it was well worth it!

Yummy breakfast at The Breakfast Club! They have several locations in London, but we visited this one.

I love cafe art. Yummy mocha  ♥ ♥

Laduree Tea Room was somewhere I really wanted to go to get macaroons! It was located in Harrods, which is a large department store. We had trouble finding where it was located in this massive department store, but the searching was well worth it. The colorful macaroons are so pretty and delicious too.

It was hard to choose, but here is my colorful array of macaroons!

We strolled through Notting Hill and looked at all the colorful houses! I want to live in a pink or teal house! We wanted to go to Portobello Market, but we didn't make it in time for the market. Maybe on our next visit we can experience the market.

Flowers in St. James Park. Unfortunately it was starting to get a little dark at this point, but it was still fun to walk around the park!

She is just a dime! This photo taken on the bridge in St. James Park.

This is a picture of the London Eye from St. James Park. The park is a really lovely park to walk through. You can see the London Eye and Buckingham Palace from a different view.

Buckingham Palace

 -----------------------------Edinburgh

This was my last day here. I love Edinburgh so we got to spend some time here after London. I love the architecture in Edinburgh. It is such a lovely city.

I have been to the Elephant House, but when we went last time it was super busy. This time we actually got experience the Elephant House and have some coffee. I definitely adore this place because I love elephants, coffee and Harry Potter. This place is known as the birthplace of Harry Potter! This is where J.K. Rowling spent time writing her first Harry Potter novel.

Greyfriars Kirkyard is an eerie graveyard in Edinburgh. There is grave with the name Tom Riddell and apparently many Harry Potter fans believe that it inspired Tom Riddle/Voldemort in her books. So here is another Harry Potter reference.

Tom Riddell's grave

This place was definitely creepy, but cool!