Ok, so I never really appreciated the beauty of a rose. Roses. Typical. Right? I started noticing them last year. This year roses are huge and in such gorgeous colors. I want all this in my art, in my book? Here are my two thoughts. Why just paint roses when I miss painting all of the other flowers I paint? Oh but roses, you beautiful roses are keeping me out of my comfort! Do I know how to paint them? No. I’ve been practicing. I still don’t know what I’m doing. I love what’s happening with my work. It’s not great but I don’t want to throw it away either. My art seems to be blooming from this peace zone. All artists need to have mindfulness, connect and create from your spirit.
Sounds like I’m right where I need to be? I needed to clarify. Not to worry, I’ll be sharing my blue roses in the next post.
I had the most amazing day wandering around sketching all of the flowers I saw. I didn’t just see yellow roses. I saw this gorgeous tone of yellow. There were these magenta roses but none like a magenta I’ve ever mixed. These are the colors I dream of. Oh, that would be a great activity for my journal. The day was warm and the birds were singing. These are the moments where I’m like… can I live this every day!
Then it was on to a rustic stone house and a recurring thought every time I roam a museum. What stories would these walls tell me? Is there more than what the exhibit reveals? It was magic being in a room where poets, authors, singers, filmmakers, nature writers, and artists once lived. Yes, there was diversity in what they did but I shall never forget who they were. Many of these famous visitors were women! Not just women but Native American and Asian women. Charles Lummis was an advocate for diversity especially for Native Americans.
And all that led me to ponder the legacy and history I am part of. I am proud of my heritage. I am all things nature and spiritual. I am a teacher of character, peace, and mindfulness. I am a learner. I am a visionary. I am an expressive floral artist.
At this moment I want to paint flowers the way they make me feel. The poet in me sang,” Let’s show up with this powerful love and paint.”
It was wonderful to explore today! I have ideas and a color palette I will be working on this week. Interesting how I have never been able to fill about the about me description like I just did. I felt so good that I walked into an art store and didn’t buy anything. I have enough paint. I have the peace. Let’s do this!
Now it’s your turn! Who are you and what do you do? Comment below.
I’m an expressive flower artist. I want to build my art business. The best way to do that is to prioritize self-expression.
Off the top of my head here’s a list:
Daily journal (practice composition, color and develop flow
Add work twice a month to my Redbubble shop/portfolio
Write a minimum of three posts a week
Share daily content on my social media accounts
Invest in me via podcasts, nature walks, and courses
I’m blooming into a full creatively hue business that offers joyful art and offers inspirational items like t-shirts, puzzles, mugs, art prints, arty books and courses.
Creatively hue is the name for my blog. It sounded interesting and a reflection of self-expression. The more you paint, you leave societal ideas. You lose what art should be and paint. These are the ideas that always lead to interesting places. I’ve been doing more of this self-expression with my journal. Last night, I was going over my week.
What is the one lesson I want to share in today’s post? Suddenly, the lesson came together.
Hue is color. Nature is colorful. Color represents how unique and beautiful nature is. Nature is us. YOU. And my priority as an artist is self-expression. Right now my project is Roses. I’m painting beautiful roses.
I like painting yellow flowers and discovering that when the yellow is too light, I can trace it with a marker. I splatter a color. No worries it becomes part of the painting. And so a new chapter begins…
There’s so much I love about this pattern. I challenged myself to work with shades of pink. I got a fluorescent pint, magenta rose pink and mixed a few shades by adding green to pink. I used a flat brush to scrape the paint across the page. As the paint dried I got my nova crayon ready. I quickly thought about what I was going to do and sketched. I doodled patterns on the leaves. The blue just works! I sketched the aqua flowers with a marker. My designs are fun took look at. The bright fluorescent goes with how nature makes me feel, PINK HEAVEN. If you haven’t please go for a walk! It’s been raining so much. Oh, but the sun is out, dried up all the rain! I’m seeing the biggest roses ever. It’s music to my soul.
Ok, back to my pink roses. The one lesson I can learn is—wait there are two lessons. The first lesson is that too much titan buff can desaturate color. I want warm vanilla, which is why I like the sun-kissed vanilla I created. The other lesson is to relax as I layer and think about contrast. I forget to loosen my grip on the brush. Hello! These are expressive abstract roses. You can tell which roses I tensed up with.
I’m so happy that I have this journal. Every day I’m getting better. As always thank you so much for reading! If you enjoyed this post and have a comment, please comment below.
I’m enjoying the flower doodles I’ve been painting in my sketchbook. It feels free to work on a limited space, on I don’t know what type of paper this is but it’s good enough. At somepoint, I’ll film a video walk through of my journal. I’m looking for an 8 x 10 journal. I want something that I can keep and turn into a roses book? Prints? Yes, let’s!
I’ve been pondering the direction I should go in. I have worked with watercolor, acrylic, and tempera. I’ve painted many subjects. I’ve written seven arty books. Is it six? My favorite projects are Different Is Beautiful and There’s No Right Way to Paint a Flower. Now that I think of these two projects, there’s no need to wonder. The answer has been with me. Isn’t it always?
Different Is Beautiful is a love for nature and us. Nature is colorful and different! Nature is my childhood curiosity. Everything in nature is unique and that’s what makes it beautiful.
There’s No Right Way to Paint a Flower is about self-expression. In this book, I set out to prove that you don’t need fancy tools to paint beautiful flowers. In fact, the rarest, odd, or ordinary make beautiful flowers. This is all I want my artwork to be. I’m glad I found Suzanne Allard’s class. Her class helped me bring everything together. I have new tools and a new journal. These two journal pages had me mixing shades of blue, tapping the bottom of a brush to make an interesting pattern, and mixing lovely green. It’s much more fun mixing green than buying it.
What is your latest project? How do you feel about it?
I’ll be sharing weekly updates of roses. I’ll be doing the occasional promt post or a poem. I haven’t written poetry in a while. I do post daily inspiration and project videos on Pinterest and Instagram.
I finished a journal. Now it’s time to start a new art journal. My new journal is a smaller size. I have a limited space to work my magic on a limited space. Here are a few art journals that Ive been doodling in fro time to time. The smaller journal is a Corduroy pocket journal for my poems. The other is a journal I picked up at UCLA. In this journal I doodle and test markers to see if I can create watercolor effects. They are not. I can doodle, look at color schemes and most of all I can learn not to be Ruby the Copycat!
I had a chance to read this book and here I am in the same situation. Ruby is a new girl at school. She’s shy, nervous and scared. She meets Angela with a beautiful red bow. Angela read her poem to the class. Ruby copied it. On and on Ruby went copying. This made her classmates mad, particularly Angela.
I went through all of my artwork. Perhaps you have seen all 100 of my designs on Society 6. Society 6 was my platform for storing my portfolio. And if I made a sale, great. I sold a sticker. Yes. Was I dedicated to the site? Did I habitually upload work weekly? Monthly? No. I’m not sure how I feel about Society 6. Since Society 6 was my portfolio it was experimental. There’s no right way to paint a flower. I believe that. I paint this way. I also know that my shop should be cohesive. I had three different signatures for my art. Some prints are actual pages from book projects. There are a lot of projects that I had to say goodbye to. These projects reflect an attitude of I’m sharing and hope you like it. Doesn’t sound too confident, does it?
And that brings me to pink and blue roses. I paint expressive abstract florals. I’m working on roses. I love painting nature. I have lots of ideas. I was frustrated. You know when you see cool on social media. It gets to you and you ask yourself, “How do I measure up? I don’t want to measure up. I want to paint. I am an artist, period. I know about color and the principles of design. I know about the wonderful flowers I see on my walks. These flowers are my biggest inspiration.
I just wrote a post on Instagram about hoarding acrylic paint. I would save the good “stuff” for when I was ready. In the words of an awesome first-grade class, I was born ready. They say this every single day. I need to paint like this. I am an artist. I should stop posting partially finished work because I didn’t really work on it. If people don’t like my work, it won’t hurt as much. I’m switching gears. My priority is self-expression. I love the positive feedback you give me. It reminds me that I’m not alone. We all have a story to tell.
Don’t hoard your paint for a better day. Paint today! Glad I had this talk. Glad I painted these pink and blue roses. Pink was my hero. I mixed orange with a sun-kissed white. I mixed a little of sun-kissed white with pink and threw in a little fluorescent pink. It works! My new portfolio will be here. Here’s to new beginnings! Have a good week!
Do I know how to paint floral arrangements? I’ve just painted one. I’ve painted good sketches.
Children never fully say they’re artists. They always grin and say,” I like to paint!” I was doodling with my bag of markers. I felt the childhood days of coloring with a huge box of crayons. I didn’t care if I had skills. I wanted to use the colors. I’ve been thinking like this all day, always.
I have a lot of paint
Do I need to buy more paint? Maybe I need a cerulean blue. I’m always going to want more paint. But, I should use what I already have. I have tubes of pink, blue, yellow, and neutral tones. I can paint beautiful flowers with what I have. I remember when I went to the store to buy green. I have blue and yellow. I have turquoise and teal. I can mix beautiful greens! Color is part of my story.
I have professional grade and student grade paint
I was, cleaning and organized my paint: watercolor tubes, acrylic tubes, and acrylic fluid bottles. I’m a lover of color, not brands. I read that someplace, and I declare. I have favorites. Some of my favorites are professional grade. Many of my paints are student grade. Someone else said,” You can give an artist a box of crayons. They’ll be able to make awesome art.” Crayons are great. But you make the tools. The tools don’t make you.
I seem to prefer Windsor Newton Watercolors
The professional acrylics are creamy. Other artists will fall in love with Liquitex Heavy Body. I have my favorites. I have my doodles. I have my happy mistakes.
I haven’t used my violet iron to paint
The best way to learn is to paint. Paint with your supplies. Use what you have and make it work. I walked through the aisles of a Blick store and sporadically picked violet iron. I thought it was an interesting shade of brown. Tomorrow I’ll be color-mixing with violet iron.
It’s so much fun to doodle
I have tons of markers. I like to draw. I organized my markers and pens in a pencil pouch. I can easily grab them when my blooms need a little more life. When I don’t have time to paint, I can doodle. Let’s be real. The only time I don’t paint is when I’m sick. Basically, I paint every day. Oh, I should take them with me on the road! Lunchtime draw! When I go downtown!
Yes, these are the roses I’ve been painting. Do you see the hearts? I painted the background weeks ago but hearts are the right symbol to remind me to paint with heart. All I need to do is keep exploring. The ideas and the talent are already here. I don’t need permission, except my free will to continue self-expression.
Color. Nature. You.- Creatively Hue 