I’m having a competition over on my Facebook page, where you can win a $50 voucher to spend on any of my paintings. You can even use it to commission a brand new personalised painting! Supporters over on Patreon get a bonus 5 entries. I will draw the competition on Saturday 1st July. Best of luck!
Many people are looking for interesting art for their walls to represent their families. I myself have grand plans for a family feature wall in our next house.
I can create a work of art for you that represents your family in a unique way. In my family tree portraits, I represent the family using a number of my signature swirly trees.
In the portrait, I represent each parent in a different primary colour. I then represent the children as a secondary colour that is a blend of the two parents’ colours, to represent that the children are a blending of the two parents. I also use hearts to represent the love the family shares. I can do any variation on this theme you like, including creating a portrait for blended families with stepchildren. It is a great way to have an artwork on your wall that uniquely represents your family. These paintings can be created as anything from small watercolours on paper to large acrylic paintings on canvas.
Another way your family can be uniquely represented on your wall is in a painting like this:
In this painting, only a couple are represented – however, smaller birds could be added to represent children. Once again, a painting like this can be commissioned as anything from a small watercolour to a large canvas. I have plans to create a painting like this for my own family – but I think I might make the background more like this one:
If you’d like to commission a painting that represents your family in a unique way, please contact me!
How do you give a title to your artwork? This is something I often have difficulty with. I recently finished a painting I’m struggling to find a title for.
I feel like the title should help the viewer to understand the meaning and inspiration behind the work. But I want the title to be interesting and in some cases, a little mysterious – especially in my abstract work – I want the viewer to have the chance to make up their own mind.
Sometimes, a title comes to me immediately – often this is the case for the simple images – a group of colourful trees on a night sky background becomes ‘night colour’, or an image of a baby bird taking its first flight becomes ‘brave‘.
For other paintings, I have more trouble thinking of a title. Sometimes I’m inspired by quotes or poetry – My painting “Hope is the thing with feathers” is inspired by a poem by Emily Dickinson.
The title of my painting ‘Beautiful Mysterious’, of a star filled galaxy, was inspired by a quote by Albert Einstein:
Fellow artists: How do you come up with titles for your work? Is it something you struggle with, or does it come easily?
I love painting in watercolours – it’s definitely my favourite medium. My watercolours are a bit unusual compared to many I’ve seen, as many of them are abstract or naive in style. I love making abstract watercolours because it gives me a chance to let the paint have a ‘mind of its own’.
Many of my favourite abstract watercolours are inspired by science, like my ‘Moons of Jupiter’ series:
Some more ‘space’ inspired works:
From the very big to the very small – some of my other abstract watercolours are inspired by microscopic images:
But I think my favourite overall is this one – it’s only a tiny painting, but it has a lot of detail:
I’ve been enjoying doing some paintings with lots of little details lately. The first is one I started a LONG time ago, but only finished recently, entitled ‘Growth’. This painting includes lots of little details, including some embroidered elements, which is a first for me.
The next two paintings were both inspired by ocean waves. One was done primarily with watercolours, with some ink drawing done afterwards. The other was inspired by zentangles, and I did the patterened sections with a sharpie first before adding the colour with watercolours later.
I’m not sure which one I like best yet, but I’m leaning towards the last one – what are your thoughts?
So I haven’t posted here in a while, for a lot of reasons – I haven’t had much time for creating since I had my kids, and I’ve had even less time for the more tedious aspect to having an art business: promotion. I’ve completed a few paintings since I last posted, but just didn’t get around to putting them up here. I’m also hoping for a long-overdue overhaul of this website, but I’ve decided not to wait until that’s done before I start getting organised again.
My latest painting is called DFTBA, and I think it’s very fitting that this is the beginning of my creative revival. I hope you like it!
