Follow Your Bliss
Can you remember the first life changing experience that lead to "Follow your bliss" or your dream? Was it dramatic? Was it inspired? Was it meant to be? Did you know what you always wanted? Were you born with the dream, “I knew I would always be a singer, a dancer, a scientist, an artist”?.
Did your dreams take a detour? Did others influence you? Did extenuating circumstances, force you to do something else?
Did you believe if you followed your dream that you would lose the people you love? Did you think others would think you were crazy? Did you go against the norm?
Did you feel you were worth it or capable? Did you believe in yourself? Did you have someone believe in you?
All these are hard questions, I have experienced many of these situations on the journey to follow my dream, “Follow my bliss”, to become an artist. "Follow your bliss, is the heroes’ journey", says Joseph Campbell. You will find a lot of dragons to slay along the way. The challenge is not to be detoured and to not give up, to find a way to “Follow your Bliss”.
This is my thirty-fourth painting of my #paint52 challenge, Atelier Interactive Acrylic on vellum, measures approximately 7″ X 11″, price $230.00. The painting portrays the Streetcar found on the Embarcadero, adjacent to the Piers an addition to my San Francisco Series. SOLD
*All art from Janet Vanderhoof’s Fine Art Gallery, maybe seen in Janet’s studio at Morgan Hill, CA. You may purchase through contacting my email jvander51@msn.com or phone (408) 460-7237. Thank you!
WAKE UP!
I do my best thinking while on the treadmill, the repetitive walking, stomp, stomp, stomp forces me to connect to the “greater mind” and receive my best ideas. It brought me to a question, “why do I have a need to paint vivid color?
I heard a quote today from Iyanla Vanzant, “Our eyes adjust to the level of deficiency present.” As our vision is obscured, we become accustomed to our everyday way of thinking, preventing us from exploring outside our comfort zone.
And yet, could it be that there is a lot more that is going on around us daily that we are unable to see and don’t have the level of consciousness to understand?
While painting Plein Air, a person came over to me perturbed as if I made a terrible mistake, “I don’t see that color!” Of course his untrained eye only knew local color and was unable to see what was actually there.
Taking it a step further my painting goes beyond local color and hopefully like a strong cup of coffee, WAKES YOU UP!
This is my 22nd painting for my #paint52 Challenge, measures approx. 9-1/2 " x 9-1/2", Atelier Interactive Acrylic on vellum*. Price $190.00
*Vellum is archival, a heavy paper resembles the thickness of mat board.
Lover's Leaf #paint52
I have the most beautiful Chinese Maple in front of my house. Early spring weather has brought it into full bloom already. It’s magnificent and as usual I attempted to see if I could express its beauty. Sometimes that’s the problem with painting nature. It’s almost impossible to make it as beautiful. In fact, my teacher once said; if you can’t improve it then don’t change it. Ha, that sounds like the judges talking to the contestants on American Idol. They always think they can make it better than the original creator. Yet, when I create landscape paintings, I just wish I could give you a piece of what I see, a morsel of God, the passion, the brilliance, the colors.
This is my 16th painting for my #paint52 challenge. The painting measures 24" X 36" Atelier Interactive acrylic on a museum wrapped canvas (Framing isn't needed). Available for purchase $2160. Thanks so much for visiting.
Grandma's Girl #paint52
It was so great to see my granddaughter Camden this weekend. I hadn’t seen her for quite a while and missed her a lot, she is going to be six soon and growing up to be such a big girl. I love that she loves nature so, and is quite adventurous. She had no fear feeding her pet chicken Nellie. I always wanted to paint this image and thought it would be great for her to take home with her. I showed it to her mom and she actually started to well up with tears. She not only loved this painting, but was touched by the image of Camden feeding her favorite chickens.
This is my seventh painting of my #paint52 series, the challenge to paint 52 paintings in one year. The painting is 9” X 12”, painted on a linen covered Birch New Tradition Art Panel; the medium Atelier Interactive Acrylics. The New Traditional art panels are lightweight durable, and easy to carry for Plein air painting, but can be used for studio painting as well. They come in a wide variety of styles and textures. This panel will be easy to transport and pack. You might want to check out the site, it’s a great find. I under-painted the painting with Raw Sienna. Once again I prefer to paint loose and capture the essence of the moment.
Last night my son Blair said he was very proud and excited to see what I was doing and expressed that it was a great challenge. What I love about this challenge is sharing it with everyone and perhaps along the way inspiring you as well.
I really appreciate you sharing my journey.
Magical Mystery Tour #paint52
Hop on the bus for the "Magical Mystery Tour". This is my sixth painting for the #paint52 challenge and also another addition to my San Francisco series. The painting measures 18" X 24" and the medium is Atelier Interactive Acrylic. It’s great that I can accomplish two goals at the same time, one to paint 52 paintings for the year of 2012 and second to acquire a body of work for an art show on my San Francisco series. The painting is underpainted with red and I noticed the red seems to vibrate, showing a glow when photographed. This painting was a challenge, due to the size of the bus taking most of the background and also a bright blue. I didn’t want to overdo painting the bus; it is a focal point, yet I also wanted the person walking towards us to be the focal point, as well. I guess you can have the “push pull” effect with objects, as well as color. The people on the sides were laid in simply, almost framing the focal points. I may do more way later, but now I must put it aside and start on another painting.
This #paint52 journey is magical, as well as a mystery. It is a mystery, a leap of faith to paint so many paintings in one year, not knowing what the end of the year will bring as a result of this venture. It has been magical, because it has already been very healing to be painting regularly. The more I paint the more I want to paint. It is filling my soul and I feel alive again.
Thank you for following my journey.