Posts

Inspiration and Blooming Aloe Vera

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Re-post (first published 4/29/12).  ______________________________________ Inspiration! One thing that is wise for an artist these days is to have plenty of your very own, original reference photos whenever possible. It's also good for an artist to plaint en plein air when you can to just get a good reference on color and how light and color intermix in nature rather than a camera interpretation. I don't paint en plein air a lot, so I am trying to do that more often to let my brain work on the color theory. So, while we were out of town visiting Mesquite, NV last weekend, I painted my little "Bottle Bush" painting en plein air one morning. I also took some good reference photos of the Bottle Bush and also an Aloe Vera plant that is about to bloom to add to my reference photo file. (I've never seen a blooming Aloe Vera before - have you?)

FRIDAY FEATURE: Featured Artist ~ Catherine Darling Hostetter

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Here is a re-post of my  Friday Feature of whimsical artist  Catherine Darling Hostetter (first published 4/24/15). Enjoy! ______________________________________ I am trying a new thing with my blog that I am going to call FRIDAY FEATURE. These posts might include Top 10 lists, products/services I have found useful, or other art-related topics (beyond writing about my own art).  To start out, I am writing a series of features about artists I admire. My goal will also be to provide some personal input from each artist - though that might not prove to be possible in every case. But, I will try my best. With that, I welcome you to my inaugural FRIDAY FEATURE post...let's begin! Welcome to the wonderful, witty, and whimsical world of Catherine Darling Hostetter! "Adoggio" ©Catherine Darling Hostetter Catherine, a full-time artist from Midvale, UT, also happens to be a friend of mine (though I don't get to see her as often as I would like). A

Exhibitions, Workshops, Paint Outs and Nibbles

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Where has 2016 gone? Only a few more weeks until the new year. The holidays are upon us! The first few months of this year, I busied myself preparing for an exhibition at the Utah Arts Festival Gallery and finishing up my two years as the Newsletter Editor for the Utah Watercolor Society (UWS). I had been asked to take on the UWS Vice President role for the coming 2016-2017 year and, in June, I was voted in as Vice President. Since then, I have been super busy with all the duties that come with the role of VP! Over the summer, I also learned that I had been selected for another exhibition at the Utah Arts Festival Gallery - but this time for their October show! So, in addition to the VP duties, I worked hard to prepare eleven new paintings for this show. In October, I was also privileged to be the UWS liaison to Iain Stewart , the national artist that UWS hosted for our 2016 Fall Workshop. He was also the juror for our Fall Member Exhibition. What an amazin

Painting for Fall

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Summer FLEW by!  Our summer was filled with tee ball games, coach pitch baseball games, and visits to grandma's house. I spent a good amount of time in my continuing efforts to complete a KonMari sort and tidy of our entire house. We are at the "miscellaneous" category in the discarding process. It's a long process for me, marked with many detours. Not the recommended (tidy all at once, in one "event") process from Marie Kondo. But, I have not lost sight of the ultimate goal, and continue to tidy by category and just keep picking up where I left off whever I can devote a few hours or a weekend to it. It is slowly, but surely coming along! (See my previous blog post " A place of Sanctuary: If I tidy up my home life, it will benefit my professional life ."  to read why I think it's important to complete this tidy project.) Along the way, in July, I also received notification that I have again been selected for a group showing (3 artists) at

Inspiration

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Spring in Utah brings a rainbow of beautiful blooms. I love walking through my yard daily to see what new flowers and colors have popped out! We've had an especially rainy May this year and my yard is loving it! Some of my roses, iris, peonies, and weigela bush I draw a lot of inspiration from the spring and summer seasons and am always thinking about new bushes or bulbs I might want to plant in my yard next to keep the array of colors going through the summer. Roses are one of my favorites. They give and give all season long...and they remind me of my grandmother, who always had stunning rose patches and won several city beautification awards for her yard. Some of my roses, weigela bush, and peonies The beautiful fuschia pink roses in my front yard are from a bush that I started from a small cutting off one of my grandmother's bushes. Incidentally, fuschia happens to be my favorite color - ever since I was a teen. I thought it was especially fitting that, o

Paintings for Parkinson's 2016 - Our Story

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Updated from April 2014 post... December 2013 I was going to call this “my story,” but it’s really not about me. It’s about us . It’s about me and my husband, Steve, and our life together. Our story begins on January 9, 2004…our first date. At age 30, while young in the grand scheme of things, I was nearly considered for spinsterhood here in Utah, where marriage between ages 18-25 is very common. When you pass that mid-twenties mark, you quickly find yourself in lonesome territory, where most of the men you meet in your age range are already married with kids. By 27 years old, it feels like your odds of finding a date, let alone husband, are almost nonexistent. By 30, you’d better resign yourself to the single life and make your peace with it! Not that I was on the hunt for a husband. In fact, I had settled into my life and reached a place where I was content. I had purchased a house, I had a good job, a cat, and I was able to set up my paints and