Simple Creativity

As I mentioned a few days ago, I have been spending a lot of time on The Pioneer Woman blog. I first found the blog when searching for a pumpkin muffin recipe (hers is amazing!). Then I got addicted to her love story (From Black Heels to Tractor Wheels) - it's almost as good as Nicholas Sparks but less tears. After that I found her photography (sigh...). It is so beautiful, it makes me want to go out and buy a Nikon and jump right in (maybe next year though, I have a lot going on right now). Browsing through her pictures gave me the inspiration to start a new painting of a sunset.

I recently got my hands on my mother in law's pictures from a wedding we attended in Vermont last summer. She had some amazing pictures of sunsets over Lake Champlain which I then started playing with in GIMP (I used to have Photo Shop, but lost my subscription when I graduated - so now I am figuring out GIMP because it is free). Above is the photo I am working with, but beware the quality is not great. I had to crop the photo quite a bit then started playing with the colors. I am using it as a starting point for my painting, but will pump up the colors and textures once I dive in.

I took a painting class in college about 3 years ago, but haven't done much since. I am excited to get started again. I've been craving to work with the medium again (literally craving the feel of the paint and brush). I think this is interesting because at the time I look my painting class, it actually was very stressful for me. I am a recovering perfectionist, but back then I was a full on perfectionist and didn't allow myself the time to learn and experiment. I just wanted to make a masterpiece in as little time as possible. The fact that I was taking 18 credits, many of which were very time consuming, definitely played into the feelings I had toward the class. I have nightmares of the end of that semester. I literally did not sleep during finals week for 4 days straight. I was a walking zombie. I also had started a new waitressing job and was trying to work in my final projects around my shifts. Ahh, just thinking about it makes me want to crawl under my covers for days...

Alright, here I go. I'm going to apply the gesso to the wood I am using this afternoon during my munchkin's nap time and take it from there.