Jennifer Love Artwork BLOG

"Inspiration is for amateurs!"  Have you heard or seen this quote? I have many times, and I believe it as well - in a sense. If we are to be professional artists, that means we show up to work as any other professional would. Some days you have a successful and productive day, others...not so much. But, you plug away at it no matter what if you want to create that paycheck! But, setting that attitude aside for a moment...sometimes artists are also inspired! When we are, we have to act on our inspiration, immediately if possible. And, a lot of times, that inspiration results in something magical. A painting that you truly love, where all the techniques and color harmony and everything just came together. Sometimes it is just a happy accident, when you are experimenting with new ideas and techniques. The question is...once you've created the magic...can you recreate it? What if you did that magical painting on inferior quality materials because you were just experi

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

What I love about mid-March in Utah are the sure signs of Spring that seem to appear almost overnight. Beautiful sunrises and sunsets. SUN in general! Daffodils blooming, buds appearing on my lilacs, leaves on my butterfly bushes, and tulips poking out of the ground in my flower beds! Our house is West-facing, so the tulips are always coming up later than most of the neighbors, but they also bloom later, so I have flowers longer. :) I have found, over the past few years, that I increasingly crave the sunlight and find the gray days and dark nights of Winter to be increasingly depressing for me. There are some sunshine days that are beautiful in Winter, and I see the beauty there. But, the lack of light and the prevalence of gray make the overall season more and more difficult. So, as Spring approaches, the light increases, the flowers start popping out, and the weather starts warming up, I feel more cheerful, more energetic, and more inspired! Today, the temperatures are warm, my k

Wife, mother, referee, nurse, cook, laundress, time-out enforcer, maid, dishwasher, lawn care specialist, gardener, research director, referee, artist, newsletter editor, primary worker, recycling coordinator, referee... As so many of us do, I wear many hats. Mother and wife are the most important hats. Research Director puts food on our table and a roof over our heads. Dishwasher, laundress, cook, lawn care specialist, gardener, etc... are all necessary to keep our household running. Referee, referee, referee...well, that's what you get with two little boys in the house! Newsletter Editor and Primary are voluntary jobs, but I try to do my best. Unfortunately, the "artist" hat, because it is my personal pursuit and not something that currently provides much benefit to my family other than "making mommy happy," often gets put on last and in the moments when I can eke out a few hours to myself. I am trying to carve out regular painting time in my life, work it