Painting :)

This is the watercolour of Jack that I did yesterday :) Hmm......he looks a little sad doesn't he? I think that's his "I'm starving, I want your bagel" face. 

Thanks for the encouragement Mama Pea and Susan. I'm shy about my paintings. Sometimes I feel like I'm tooting my own horn when I post about my hobbies and my cooking. But I think that is the side of me that I'm trying to really overcome- the insecure Rain. But during the worst of my depression, I decided either I live or I give up. I chose to live my life to the fullest. I try so hard to stay positive and to fill as many moments in my life with good, creative, delicious and happy things. We only live once and I don't want any more regrets at all. I lost a lot of years and I'm making up for them now.

I walked around the house this sunny morning and took photos of all the paintings I've done and I have to say, I didn't realize there were so many! This is one I did for my boyfriend for last Christmas. I've mentioned that he had really nice memories of his grandmother. He showed me a photo of her cottage once and I decided to paint it for him. He loved it!

I painted these two for Halloween last year. I started painting in 2004 after my work burnout. I did art therapy. I HATED it!!! Every painting I did was black with some kind of red barbed wire in blotches. Of course the therapist did find lots of meaning in them, but I didn't feel that the art therapy helped me at all. But then I met an elderly woman who lived near me. I forget how we met. She was a painter and lived by herself and told me to come over anytime to paint with her. That's when I started to dabble with acrylics.

The "oranges". The bottom painting started off with just my two pugs, kind of a dedication to the two loves of my life who passed away in 2011 and 2014. Then it grew into the pet painting as I added the cats and each dog that we adopted! It'll keep growing over the years I'm sure! It's hung up right in front of me so I see it every time I look up :)

This is the wall in my office. A few years back I downloaded all of Bob Ross' "The Joy of Painting" PBS series. I used to watch him a lot back in the day and I decided to try out oil painting. Most of these are oils with some acrylics mixed in. His instructions are really easy and gave me confidence with oils. You can find some episodes on You Tube. This got me hooked on painting! And well, I was in a romantic mood when I painted the bottom right painting of my boyfriend and me kissing :)

These are the paintings my boyfriend wanted for his office, the Shipwreck is an oil and the other three are acrylics. The red one is my version of Little Red Riding Hood. :) It's hard to see here, but the wolf is very fierce with red glowing eyes...just waiting for Red to visit :) Bwah ha ha ha! :)

The black and whites are in my boyfriend's office too. The first one is a very famous film noir scene from the 1950 film The Big Combo. I made it for my boyfriend one year as a gift when he asked me to make him a film noir painting. :)

These are on the walls around our "breakfast bar" - basically where we eat all of our meals. We don't really have a dining room - I use it for my office so we eat at the "bar".

These are the last three acrylics I did last winter. I love using blues and doing landscapes - I cannot draw for my life so portraits and a lot of detail are very challenging for me! I'm not ashamed to say I DO USE TRACING PAPER!!! :) I get a lot of my ideas from browsing images online. I'm slowly starting to come up with my own ideas, but I still lack that confidence darn it! It'll come with time! :)

I started doing watercolour painting last spring - and I'll be honest - because it is much cheaper than buying canvas and acrylic/oil paint!! I wanted to keep painting but the budget was so tight that I just bought a watercolour pad and some paints for $25 and away I went. I remember the first watercolour I did was last April, sitting on the porch in mild weather with my easel :) I started with landscapes, but I branched out to do some things I've never done before, like the shark scene and the seahorse. 

I started on some fairy tale stuff like Sleepy Hollow and Moby Dick. The top right painting is my version of The Little Mermaid (you can kind of see her swimming under the creepy boat in the water). The butterfly is the last one I did before Jack. I really fell in love with this medium!! For a long time, all of these paintings were filed into a large file folder...awaiting the day where I could afford to frame them. They buckle because I don't have the best quality paper so I wanted to keep them flat and safe until framing. But last month I realized that I won't be able to afford to frame them for some time. So up they went onto the stairway wall with pushpins!!! My watercolour wall! Jack will be added once he's dry :) Now I have to think about painting the huskies and the cats!!!

And finally, this is the abstract series that I did in January. My boyfriend is a musician and he is putting out some new material in the near future. He asked me to paint a series of abstract watercolours for him. He wanted blues and whites and flow but chaos at times. I have to say...abstract is not my favourite way of painting and I felt SO UNCOMFORTABLE showing these to him, but to my real surprise and delight, he genuinely loved each one! He's used bits of all four in his backgrounds for the CD covers and booklets, as well as the cassette covers and booklet. Makes me kind of proud of that! I'm not too fond of these, though I love the second one because I used salt to get some kind of texture! He has these safely tucked away because he wants to frame them :)

When the fur kids are busy chewing their bones, it's time for me to relax! Relaxing each day before I eat is really important so that my food doesn't get stuck and painting does the trick :) I really think that hobbies are wonderful. I learned the hard way that work isn't the be-all and end-all of an accomplished life. I have so many things I want to try, my list is endless! I love seeing my Blogger friends' projects and accomplishments, they inspire me to keep creating! My boyfriend and I chose to live a simple life 3 years ago when we moved back up north. It's nice to have money for lots of "stuff", but that doesn't do it for us anymore and we'll never go back to the grind. As long as we have enough for our needs and to keep the pets happy and healthy, we're just fine! For me anyway, nature, hobbies, simplicity and a good, safe, loving and harmonious home life are the secrets to my happiness and gratitude! :)

Thanks for reading :)