To continue into 2007 as a record of my work this past year. I started out the year with a wonderful mural that was not only a challenge as far as elements but a joy to paint with colors like these in the dreary months of January, February, and March. Snow, ice, and other elements kept me from getting this done sooner but all in all it took me about 55 hours to paint. I had the help of my online artist peers on a forum called Faux Forum that I visit everyday to read and catch up on what my peers are doing, teaching, and just having fun with like minds. Some of my peers also blog and you can go to their blogs to the left and click on any of the links to take you to some very fine artists!

This mural ended up being published in an artist's magazine called "Artisphere" and I wrote about how the friendships and support at this forum took my painting to a higher level of quality and learning.

Here is the finished mural and a slide show to show the progression:

Starting the new year off with a greeting, Happy New Year! Still sounds good. A feeling of rebirth, newness and a chance to do things better with goals in mind.

The year ended on a good note a bit stressful but good. I had some rewarding jobs that taught me more things I didn't know before.

Since posting my last works I've had several more.
Welllll... actually I am posting a marble fireplace that I finished just before Christmas of 2007! Oh my how time flies!
This is a before and after of a wooden fireplace I marbleized for a friend in her law office. It was quite fun and the end results turned out very nice. My friend is very happy!



One of my goals for this year is to go back and get pictures with this room totally finished and decorated. Keep watching!

The saying, 'Today is the first day of the rest of your life." Everytime I come here I am reminded of that saying. Why? Because I have yet to see how important blogging can be. I have yet to learn to make this a daily responsibility after the kids are off to school. There are a million things to do in a day and only so many hours to do them. So I try not to hang out too long on the computer so I can be productive in the home or at my job when I have one. Today is a grey, damp, and cold day... a good day to blog.

I am REALLY far behind on posting pictures of all the jobs I've had since my last post just over a year ago! Wow when I typed that it really just hit me how much time has flown by.

So... let's catch up shall we?

Let's start with a commission for a floral I did... I am hoping you have time to watch the slide show I made of the progress. Isn't technology wonderful?

Seems I am failing to keep up with my blogging. Seems life just keeps me from making this a habit, but all I can do is try right?

So...with that said, I'd like to catch up a bit on what I have been doing that keeps me from coming here on a daily basis to touch base with you.

I've recently had a couple of stenciling jobs that have helped to broaden my portfolio. They are the same stencils... almost the same colors but in two different places. One being a display home in a new subdivision going up in O'Fallon and the other in a teenager's room, she saw the stencils and fell in love with them! I'd like to do more of this type of work and add to it with modellos, raised stencils, and just be able to get more creative with my work.

This is the room I stenciled in, it was hard to get the whole room but I hope you get the idea:

Here are a couple of close ups of the medallion around the light fixture and the corner pieces... I used three colors in each stencil and blended them to create a lovely balance between the ceiling and the furniture:

The next stencil job was in a teenage girl's room which was a lot of fun to do. Like I stated earlier in this post, I practically used the same colors but any combination can be used to achieve this effect to match any decor in any room.

Once the client finishes the room I will go back and get pictures of the finished room completed with furniture and curtains, the room should be beautiful!

What people fail to realize is that any kind of wall treatment not only increases the value of your home but sets your room above the rest. Something not everyone else will have...it'll make your rooms unique and yours alone!

Here's just a sample of the stencils for this room. I used the ceiling corner pieces around the room in each corner on the walls, it was quite a trick but it worked with little damage to the stencils:

I went around the room with the corners and then in the middle of the walls were these scroll designs to compliment the corners and add fullness to the feel of the room:

Ehem... I 'thought' I was done but as I looked at the mural on the computer things started popping out at me that didn't before... I wonder why?? Maybe I was just too close to it in the room... anyway, here's the updated photos of the mural that is REALLY done now, no... I really mean it this time! lol....
Here try me and see if you can see the difference. :)









I was playing around too and I think I just may make this available for print sales. :) It's a thought.... why not? Right?
What do you think?

Let's see now... Since I posted last, I have finished the mural I spoke of below... I'll just show the finished views. Tinting the mural with green only on the parts that had plantlife on it really made the mural stand out.

I think I'll use my tripod and see if I can't get a good enough shot of this one to make prints available for sale. Not sure yet, still thinking about it. :)

Well the painting has finally started so I'll plan on posting the progress as I go. It's been a challenge to say the least, not really having any classes persay in Grisaille, a French word meaning grey, but I sure would love to take a class someday in this technique and similar ones. Old World Frescos, European style painting, ornaments, that's where my interest has been of late. Always looking to expand and grow as an artist. :)

This is a sample of a mural that I am being commissioned to paint. I hope to post the process as it's the first of this kind for me and probably going to be one of my favorites!
It'll be painted on a wall about 9'high and about 9' wide going around a corner and feathered out. This will be a good record of time started and finished.

It never ceases to amaze me what artists go through constantly in their minds.

Take this ballerina I painted in less then ten hours or so... I didn't keep track just know that I drew it, transferred it to watercolor paper, did the back ground first then in one evening I painted it all and inked the outlines.

I painted this for my neice for her sixth birthday after asking her parents what she was into. Well she is into ballerinas alright, but Angelina ballerina, a bear! Well this is what came out when I went to work.

My niece told her mom to hang it up next to her bed! I guess she likes it? :)

I hope to do more like this in different colors to make a set of ballerinas.

On to new things happening to me this year so far. A new licensing agreement with a very well known Interior Designer for her printing business, is in the works. I have been painting on canvas for her and have been working on new techniques that will take me on a different path for awhile. I have a feeling all these different styles I have been trying out will eventually lead me to where I NEED to be. :) Here's the first set that I presented for her Spring catalogue and shows.

These paintings were created with the idea that they can be sold as a set to hang together or individually. I am having such fun with this new adventure and hope it will bring me ever so close to the artist I am meant to be.

These originals were submitted and accepted by Patricia Schmidt Interior Designer for her printing business Art Classics LTD. She has been in business for over 40 years and I am honored she has taken an interest in my talent. :)

Music is also an art form that takes on a whole new world of expression. I'd like to introduce you to my husband of 23 years and tell you a little about his new project and some of the events that have contributed to his CD project.

There's so much news to catch up on I don't know where to start first. Maybe a good place would be to announce the release of my husband's CD! It's out and available on his website at www.scottsounds.com

The feedback on it so far has been very upbeat and positive so if you haven't heard the samples on his website, please visit and take a listen. If you like the reminscent sounds of the late 70's and 80's lighter rock, you'll like the uniqueness of Scott's music with a Christian message. Seems people are listening to it and coming back to buy more to give to friends. That is a good start.

Scott has always loved the River Road up towards Grafton. In the fall the colors are magnificent and the area now hails the revival of the Bald Eagle. There's one particular spot Scott chose for these pictures... under the stone cross along the highway. We took a wrong road and thought, OH NO! we won't have enough light to take the pictures! Then as we came to the cross I took my camera out and OH NO! again... my battery was LOW...sigh...but? funny how things work out... These shots would not have had the beauty in them if we had taken the RIGHT road to begin with and if I would have had more battery, we surely would have had run out of light because I would not have had that sense of "urgency" to get done!
So please enjoy these as much as we did. :)

Autumn is another time when color has changed, from the cool colors refreshing in the summertime to the warm colors that warm you inside as the weather turns colder. I found this tree with the sunlight just in the right spot. It lights up the whole tree with a glow that would warm anyone up inside that loves this season. :)

I have a few side notes... so I'll just introduce them one at a time. Today I want to introduce my love for flowers. I think God made flowers to remind us of what beautiful really means. Not only are they beautiful for their color, pattern, texture, scent, size, shape, and every other element of artistic principles, but they die and whither only to reproduce through seed or bulb and start all over again. My point? you decide, there's too much there to digest once you really start to dissect a flower. So just enjoy their beauty and we'll discuss the philosophy of why God made flowers later, okay? My passion for Iris is first and foremost.

It's hard to know where to start so I guess I'll start with the most exciting project going on right now in our household. My husband Scott has written and recorded a CD of scriptural music put to a melodic pop/rock genre. He wrote, played all instruments except the drums where he used a computer program that uses real drum sounds to be arranged into any drum pattern to fit any song. Wow! What technology can do! :) Anyway, you can sample some of his songs on his website: http://www.scottsounds.com and please sign his guestbook and mailing list so you can get the news of how to buy his CD when it becomes available. :)

I painted the cover art for the front and back and I feel very good about the whole thing. I used watercolor on 150lb paper and did the finishing touches in pen and ink. Encrypted into the branches of the trees is the title of the CD. I will post the title in my next blog so you can try to figure out what the title is. I think that would be fun, don't you? :)



The back cover is simple and is the dove from the front cover blown up. The dove carries a parchment which will have all the titles of the songs handwritten on it.



I hope you have enjoyed this post and come back again to see what else I can get my fingers into! :)

Hello and Welcome, I am going to try and do a better job of keeping up with this blog. There are so many out there Flickr, you name it! I want to see what's going to work the best for my purposes. thanks!