My Life as an Artist and Digital Experimentation

Ha! The title sounds like it should be two separate blogs. Oh well, here it goes.
My life as an artist goes back to crayons and coloring books. Like most everyone else. Well it didn't take me long to figure out plain paper would do, and I could use colored pencils and even paints! By the age of 10 I was teaching my friends how to draw stuff. Hmm, now one of those friends is a recognized Ontario artist...and way beyond MY price range!! I'm tickled for him! His beautiful work has made a career for him. Well, my focus became photography for many years (teens) as I explored up at the cottage and in the vast forest. Wow, how interesting and beautiful the woods were to me...and I saw the birch bark peeling, and the fungus on the broken tree, how pretty the light was coming thru the trees. My camera was my partner.I wish I still had those negatives!!
I attended OCA in my late teens aspiring to get into what was then called Advertising Art. Now its Graphic Design. Still focussing on photography, and Layout and Design (2D and 3D), Illustration, Typography...I really never explored much of the FIne Art Department..except to venture thru there to see the paintings. Wow! some awesome work there! I was to get my OACA certificate when love found me, and life suddenly changed. Still a nature lover I've mostly lived in rural areas with trees. Raising 3 kids, all of them with creative talents, I left art behind only to craft for a few years.
But the painting bug suddenly hit me in 1995 and I went for it at full tilt! Oh boy, what fun! I loved it! and did it quite well, almost immediately had my own style. Made lots of sales over the years, but never enough to support myself. In recent years I've been trying a more abstract subject and style..but I have to laugh.Yes, of course its still organic in nature....organic abstract...fantasies of sorts I guess. I really am enjoying developing these newer paintings. And I can photograph them with my Digital Camera!! and upload them right away, and show them off here at FAA. Yay! I'm getting so much inspiration now from my fellow artists..I spend hours a days looking at everyone's work and marvelling how wonderful it is.
When I realized how much digital art there is I was blown away. Its so beautiful! My son downloaded a program for me, and I have been playing with it alot lately. Still learning but freaking out about all the possibilities...just experimenting every day using my own photos and paintings to manipulate into oddities. Fun, fun, fun. I guess I'm really not too old to learn new tricks. Lots more to learn too. You can see my new oddities in my Digital portfolio. I also have a Paintings and a Photography portfolio.

ALL I WANT FOR CHRISTMAS IS A NEW DSLR!!! oh ya, and new tubes of oils. Talk to you all again soon...



Those habits of shooting what catches your eye was expensive,....all that film, the prints. People used to say, 'oh that's a wasted picture'...hey I still do on occasion when someone tries to photgraph me. But now there's no wasted pics, and the only cost is memory cards, and batteries....and of course the Digital Camera. Yay! Simplicity pervails!