Times flies when you're...working full time, planning your wedding, doing your taxes, house hunting in the crazy Seattle market, and trying to find time to create new artwork! Sheesh!
Dress shopping!
One of the houses we went and looked at.
In between all of that going on I had the amazing opportunity to meet up with the lovely Jenny Vorwaller. She's a full-time painter, Mom, and wonderful and wise human being here in the Seattle area. We chatted about life, being an artist, a businesswoman, having her work featured at Anthropologie (!!), and what it takes to get noticed in the art world today. Specifically how things have shifted tremendously into the favor of the artists and that they no longer HAVE to go through galleries to get an audience and sell their work. There's so much potential and possibility today through social media for one to get noticed. Jenny also has a show titled "I Am Nature" coming up on March 1st - go check it out!
Coffee with Jenny Vorwaller
The sun is starting to make an appearance again here in Seattle-yay! Which warms my heart and brings much happiness to my soul. Speaking of light, I'm looking to open an online shop to sell prints of my artwork soon and am trying to figure out the best lighting setup to make that happen. If anyone has any experience doing this for Etsy or their own online shop, drop me a line!
Another artist adventure for myself (and my fiancee) this month was trying our hands at oil painting. I had signed us up as a Christmas gift to ourselves for a Mike Wise workshop through the Cole Gallery in Edmonds, WA. We had stumbled upon Mike's work at the gallery months earlier and were stunned by his use of expressive brush strokes and color. When I saw he was teaching a three day workshop on landscapes I knew we had to try and get in! After paying the class fee ($350 each), buying all the supplies (ouch!), and taking time off of work we were armed and ready to paint! Sadly after only half a day of painting at the workshop we were pretty disappointed. The class was much more advanced than we were expecting (which = frustrated Jennifer and Aaron), the instructor was not warm or welcoming to the class and didn't seem exciting to be teaching us, the subjects he gave us to paint were ugly and uninspiring (in my opinion), the space we were painting in was freezing, and even though we both don't give up easily (especially on something we spent a lot of money and time arranging) we decided not to attend the final day of the class.
My oil painting created during our Mike Wise workshop in Edmonds.
On a brighter note, we thoroughly enjoyed our warm cups of soup and sandwiches from the tasty local cafe in Edmonds called Chanterelle. Highly recommended if you're ever in the area and want a tasty breakfast or lunch spot to stop into.
Currently:
Giggling at: The Fear Box: Mila Kunis, Kristen Bell, and Kathryn Hahn Touch a Millipede & Other Weird Stuff
Reading: Art, Money, and Success by Maria Brophy
Listening to: Watermelon by Tom Rosenthal
Watching: The Marvelous Mrs. Maisel