A little background

I guess it would be nice to give you all a little background on who I am and why I'm starting an art page. I've been playing with art materials and ideas as long as I can remember. When I was a child, we didn't have Hobby Lobby or Michael's or anything like that, so the best thing for me was when I would receive a new box of crayons and a new coloring book, or some new pencils and a notepad.

My parents were creative in their own ways. My Dad has always been outstanding with his drawings and has dabbled in painting with both oils and acrylics. My Mom was always sewing or knitting, and when I was young she had a set of fabric paints that she would use to decorate t-shirts for me, my siblings and my cousins. She tried to introduce me to sewing and knitting also, but those didn't come as easy for me as drawing and, later, painting.

I loved crafting and after I had children we did a lot of crafts together, that usually involved painting. I volunteered to run an art program at the elementary school my children went to and had fun with that for a couple of years. I even worked as a substitute with the school for several years. I always enjoyed any chance to encourage the children to try out different art projects.

Then I found a local business with an indoor playground and crafts for the children, and ceramics and thing that adults could enjoy. I started spending time there and became friends with the owner, eventually leading to my leading various programs, mostly for children.

I began painting the ceramic pieces and loved working on them. I don't even know how many I've painted over the years, and I am overall happy with most of them. {Note: below is pictured a drawing and a WIP that I did on ceramic a few years ago.} I also began experimenting with hand building and creating my own pieces, which I plan to do more of in future.

Currently, thanks to a visit to a local art gallery, I've been painting with acrylics on canvases, which I haven't done in many years. It's interesting to unlearn some of the things I learned with ceramics. I also forgot how much I enjoy being able to see the finished product right then and there, rather than having to wait till after it was fired, as you do with the ceramic pieces.

I still have notebooks full of sketches and ideas that were going to be used for ceramic pieces, and now I will be attempting to paint some of them on canvases instead. I hope any followers will stay with me for this newest adventure. I'll be adding more blogs with other backstories on various pieces, including some behind the scenes photos of the sketches and processes I've used. I think my next post will be about the art show that I am going to be in this month. Stay tuned!