I don't do this often.

I almost never do this

 And yet here I am

entering an online art show.

I'll give you the link and if you can,

I sure would appreciate it if you could go

vote for me.

Click HERE to view the link.

This is the painting I entered.  

Several years ago I had been trying to paint Roses.

Sort of like I'm doing right now. 

I went to bed very frustrated and thinking about all the colors I had used the previous day.

I actually dreamed this painting.

Luckily, I remembered it the next day

so I went right out to the studio and painted it.

All the swirling colors in the background are actually the colors of the paints I used to create the rose.  

It's the only time this ever happened to me.  

It was pretty cool!

Thanks for stopping by today.

A Rosy Challenge

Difficult But Rosy

I spent several weeks in late May and June

immersing myself in daisies.  

Click HERE to see those details and paintings.

Here's one of the finished pieces.

I learned so much and realized that by doing so many pieces of the same subject matter I really began to improve.

I am a certified florist and I love flowers, so I decided I really needed to learn how to improve my rose painting.

Can I just say, roses are hard,

I cut some roses from my yard and 

brought them into my studio. 

I studied pictures of roses I've taken in the past.

I looked at how other people painted roses.  

I decided I would do my own 30 day rose challenge.

So here are the first 7 days of the challenge.

I've struggled.

I've learned.

I've improved.

This was one day of practice 

after one extremely excruciating painting session.

I set a timer and gave myself 10 minutes for each row of roses,

You can see the top right one did not make the cut.  

There was lots to be learned in this session.

Knowing I only had so much time forced me to look and react quickly, quit over-thinking.

So here are the first 7 days of the challenge.

It's funny but it was on day 7 (bottom right)

when I felt like I learned the most.  

I started to begin to understand what I was doing,

what the rose was telling me to do.

To me it's not the prettiest one of the bunch,

so to speak,

but I learned a lot abut petal placement,

shadows, and going from light to dark.

I was using only three colors on the roses,

so I was working in a semi monochromatic palette.

Doing that forced me to look at how to achieve the depth of the rose and how to see different sides of the petals.

There is a learning curve in everything we try that's new.

I've tried roses before, but was never happy with them

and decided that now is the time to dive deep

and learn everything I can in 30 days.

That's why working in a series is so beneficial

because you have a chance to really dive deeply into a subject and learn and improve, maybe faster than any other way.  

When I finish this project, I'll put them all up for sale

at extremely affordable prices.  

One is actually already spoken for.  

If you're a beginning artist

and would love to have the support of other beginning artists,

my Facebook group,

Bucket List Artists was created with you in mind.  

Click HERE to ask to join,

be sure to answer the 3 questions and you'll be ushered in to a group of other beginning artists,

all scared, all learning and encouraging each other.

I do a live every Thursday at 1 p.m. EST and there 

are over a year of classes, lessons, hints, tips, and other ideas for you to work on.

I'd love to have you join us.

If you're interested in real start to finish painting classes, please visit my website at

www.paintingwithacrylics101.com.

There you'll find classes created with the beginner in mind, a full blown art course, a free blog and a free daisy painting class.  

So much goodness in one place just for you.

Thanks for stopping by today and let's paint together real soon.