Morning! Today is a cool, overcast day here in NW Oklahoma. Love it actually! Nothing like a little drizzle and fog to make you want to curl up with a good book and some hot chocolate! Of course I have homemade cinnamon rolls that I would want with that cocoa! Anyway, I have started working on my 5th faerie in the Friday’s Child Faerie Art series and have uploaded a quick video in real time of me working on her. Hoping I can start the color before the next commission must be started! It’s an oil commission and one where I will have to let areas dry before I can continue so maybe I can get this faerie done this month. I hope you like her so far and I would love it if people would follow my channel on YouTube and share! Sharing an artist’s work is a huge help in promoting it and supporting the artist. Thank you and hope everyone has a Happy New Year!! https://youtu.be/xYz3Ax7YDRU

Merry Christmas! Two days till Christmas. Christmas commissions are finished and clients have them. Always a wonderful feeling knowing someone will open up a present that I created. Always hoping that they will love it. It can be stressful doing Christmas commissions because I always worry what if I don’t get them done in time? What if they won’t dry? What if some catastrophe happens and I have to start over?! Yikes! So far I have been lucky and thread horrible things have never happened. Knock on wood they never do! I know some artist take the rest of the year off and relax for a week or so, but I don’t. Not that a couple of days wouldn’t be nice, but o have my brick and mortar building so I really need to be there. You never know when someone might want to commission or buy a painting. And I have students who will be coming in for their lessons. Working on my 5th faerie design before I start my new commission. I have promised myself in-between commissions I will work on my faerie line! Otherwise I will never get to work on them. and the next commission will take me awhile to paint. But for now I have the next two days off! Family time, of not relaxing time, 🤣 Making homemade cinnamon rolls and coffee bread for Christmas morning! They will take all day tomorrow to make! But so very worth it! May you all have a Merry Christmas! Happy Holidays!!

So where do I get my art ideas? The answer —- EVERYWHERE! Lol, seriously I do get my ideas for my art from just about anywhere. I love nature — however as I get older I realize it doesn’t necessarily like me back. Sigh. Severe allergies! But a flower pot filled with beautiful flowers, light filtering through the leaves of a tree, or how it sparkles when it touches the water. The way the wind sweeps through the wheat and makes it bend gently over. The quietness of the woods with only the birds and squirrels chattering.  I love the solitude honestly. I am alone with nature or with my art and the introvert in me is quite content.  I love the wide open plains of Northwest Oklahoma, and as the old song by The Sons of the Pioneers says- the rolling hills of Oklahoma. Even as a child I would stare out the window as we drove to the grandparent’s farms and I would study the view, coming home late at night I would fall asleep to my mom singing and watching the stars. Peace. I was blessed to have a wonderful childhood and a loving family.  That had a tremendous impact on my art. Family. My new series of faeries are inspired by my wonderful little granddaughter. She has become a muse for me. I have always loved drawing faeries but I didn’t have a concept for them till she came along. They may not all look just like her but they will have an expression, the way she holds her hands, and well, her personality I hope. Each one tells her own story but all have a meaning behind them. I hope people will feel a connection to them. Creating something out of your imagination is so exciting!