Me and my Frenemy

Thanks to the upcoming "30 Paintings in 30 Days" challenge I'm going to extend the olive branch of forgiveness to my old frenemy, oil paints.  When I was 10 years old my parents gave me a fantastic oil painting kit (the adult version no less!) and I struggled for years trying to master the medium.  Though I managed to notice the wonderful blending qualities and amazing color options immediately, I fought with the drying time before finally waving the white flag to turn to watercolors and acrylics.

I tried taking a class in college which ended badly because I didn't mesh with the teacher's requirement of painting flowers each and every single lesson.  I tried once again after noticing an artist using them on top of their acrylics (what??!!) and managed to ruin every single painting because of my severe lack of patience.

Earlier this year a dear friend of mine lost her husband who had been an amazing artist.  While I was helping her clear some things out, she decided she wanted to redecorate her house and commissioned me to paint a very large painting to go on a huge family room wall.  Part of the deal we struck included my taking her husband's oil paints and brushes, which until now had gathered dust in my studio.

So when trying to decide what to do for the upcoming art event, I decided to REALLY challenge myself and work with Larry's oil paints.  What better way to get over the love/hate relationship than to stare at it day after day for a month?

So here are a couple of studies I painted in preparation for the upcoming challenge which begins January 1, 2015.   I'm planning to do a mix of non-objective abstracts (to work with color and composition) and abstract landscapes using Larry's top quality paints and brushes.

Each morning I'll be posting the latest painting on this blog and uploading them to my ETSY stores, Creative Soul Revival and The Beachy Boutique.  The beach scenes will be in the latter store while abstracts and non-beach related landscapes will be for sale in Creative Soul Revival.

This will be my 4th "30 Paintings in 30 Days" challenge and I'm looking forward to kicking off the New year with it.  There is something exciting about creating something each and every day for 30 days, and I want to get a cohesive line of work to show on my new website that is being worked on that will be strictly for my art.

Here's to making friends with my old enemy - may we overcome our issues and become the true friends I had hoped we would be when I first met you on my 10th birthday.   And may I channel a lot of Larry's talent and patience in the process!

Countdown to 2015

Merry Christmas from Jackson, the Flying Reindeer and myself.  It's a chilly and sunny day here in Sacramento and we just got home from brunch and Christmas at my Mom's house.  With the holiday almost over and done with it's time to start getting things ready for 2015 including organizing things for my 4th "30 Paintings in 30 Days" challenge (this year I'll be using oil paints for abstracts on small pieces of unstretched canvas); order new business cards and postcards for a new marketing campaign; finish my Creative Soul Revival website; start working on my new website for Judy Jacobs Art; and dust off my Newsletter to send out to my mailing list.

So much to do and only a week to get it all done (including the "regular" list of things that need to happen before year-end).  I'm really excited about launching the new site for Creative Soul Revival and have had several people add their name to my mailing list so I can update them on future classes.  Stay tuned - there's more to come!!  I think 2015 is going to be a fabulous year.

Back to Blogger - at last!

In 2013 I set up a new business called "Creative Soul Revival" and was able to obtain all the social media platforms my little heart desired including my Pinterest board, a Facebook page, my Twitter account, an Instagram page and my own ETSY shop.  I also grabbed a website with the name that is still a work in progress as well as a separate Wordpress blog and Tumblr blog.  The last two were out of desperation because I couldn't get this name on Blogger which was my first choice.

I had tried reaching out to the owner of the already taken CreativeSoulRevival.blogspot.com but nobody's home.  They hadn't made any posts to the blog and there isn't a contact name or number.  There was nothing Blogger could do either - they let me know they aren't in the business of tracking down non-published domain operators and I totally understand.  That said, I had an active blog with Blogger for several years called Coming Abstractions and I wanted to build my new blog through them since I already knew how to use it.  Honestly I've tried to figure out WordPress and Tumblr but feel so overwhelmed that today I finally said "ENOUGH!" and am taking "My Creative Soul Revival" as my official Blogger name.

I'm excited to start blogging again using Blogger.com and now feel complete with my social media and on-line choices.  I'm sure there will be others that will come along that I need or want to try but for now I'm a happy camper.  After taking most of 2014 off to rebrand my business and my direction with my art career, I'M BACK!!  I'm excited to start over with this new idea and concept and look forward to explaining more in future posts.