Good morning! So, after taking several months off (unintended, but necessary), I think I am finally back. First, I had been placed as interim supervisor for a night shift and, after thankfully not getting the position, I was moved to days. Both of those positions left me with little time for writing. I also struggle every year during December because many, many years ago, I lost my husband in a hunting accident the day after his 28th birthday and a week before Christmas. Every year I keep myself together with shoestrings, but I always make it through.
Then I also did something completely impulsive. I have been getting videos in my For You area of Facebook and such that were about painting. I have been watching them for the past several months and becoming more and more interested in seeing if I could paint like they were showing. A little back story here, my sister and cousin are both professional artists. Both are graphic designers and both live in Albuquerque, New Mexico. My sister (Mindy Basinger Hill) designs books and is very, very good at it. She is currently the Art Director for the University of Washington and works from New Mexico but flies to Seattle every several months for at least a week. My cousin (Wendy Creel) designs lottery tickets for the New Mexico Lottery and also paints some of the most amazing desert scape paintings ever! Growing up I was not interested in being an artist. I was way too ADHD and I did not want to compete with my sister in any way.
Back to the present, I did pick up a lot of artistic skills just by watching my sister and listening to her. I also wanted to make my mother a special gift this year. This was our fourth Christmas without my dad and I started thinking about making her something having to do with him. I have this photo I took of my dad at Jekyll Island.. I started realizing that I wanted to try and paint that photo for my dad.
So, I bought some acrylic paint, some brushes and a few canvasses and got to work. I decided to just paint the background ocean first and see if I was any good. This is what I ended up with:
After showing it to a few people who thought it looked really good (in my son's words "Where have you been hiding this talent all these years?") I was very happy with it so far, though I was nervous that I would mess it up when I added my dad, but I did so anyway.
The head is not exactly correct and I made a few creative changes, but overall I was happy with it. I framed it up with a copy of the photo on the back and wrapped it for my mother for Christmas.
My mom appeared to love it and that made me happy! I also had thoroughly enjoyed the painting process and realized that it helped me relax. I decided to try and paint some more and see how they turned out. A lot of these paintings are just me playing around but, when I realized I was just a little short for rent and the paintings were taking up a lot of space, I decided to see if I could sell them. I put them up on Facebook and actually sold my favorite painting of a tree to one of my favorite people.
The rest are still available and I would love to sell them. My goal is not to become famous but just to paint for pleasure, but I will sell them off (to keep my house from being over run) or make some for special gifts. If anyone is interested in buying them, I am trying to keep my prices lower and try to gage them by how much time I do on one. I will post the photos and prices below.
My second painting ever. I painted the sky using one of my photos as inspiration and decided I wanted to add a castle outline to it. 12 x 9 $50
Based off my many photos of the sunrise over Lake Herrick. 12 x 9. $50.
Mountain scape. Based on memories of a lake in South Dakota I visited and I added mountains in the background. 12 x 9 $60
Desert scape. Based off the photos from my trip to Albuquerque (I will post those later). 12 x 9 $50.
Fishermen by an island. Not really based off anything. 5 x 7 $20
One of my mountain practice runs. Supposed to be a river, but it is way too straight. lol 5 x 7 $15
Silver sunrise over water. 5 x 7 $15
sunset into the ocean. 5 x 7 $15
Fall tree. My first tree, Not really happy with this one. 5 x 7 $15
Bird in a bush. I love this one! 5 x 7 $20
Silly flower picture. 2 x 2 $3
Pink flower on black. 2 x 2 $4
Pink tree on pink. 2 x 2 $5
I hope you enjoyed these and I really do hope to write more I am trying to desperately finish up my young adult book so I can self publish it. Thank you all for being here and believing in me.