A New Way to Paint

It seems that I've found a new way to paint. It's not that I'm really changing that much. It's more like I recently had time to paint every day and it did something to my perspective. It expanded it. I explored and found more than I thought was at my fingertips! Amazing! Here are three I did in a row as portraits...

Busy, Busy Creating New Paintings

I haven't posted a blog in some time because I've been so busy with life and painting. I'm posting two new paintings that I've been working on for a show I'm entering. I've been getting frustrated with communication and selling art and tshirts, etc. but I'm forging ahead and know that everything that happens is happening because that's what's in my head. so the answer is to have thoughts that break my norm, that reach out and grab me towards the place I want to be. Maybe I'm just tired, but I would sincerely like to make some sales...

New Insights into Art

I've skipped several days of blogging for a lot of reasons. Mostly, I don't know if anyone is reading them, but then again, this blog is a way to just express some of the thoughts I have going around in my head. I've been painting, of course. And yesterday I went on a bike ride by the river again to take some pictures mostly to help me with some landscapes I might be doing soon, or at least one landscape I have in my head so far.

I did a sort of portrait, "Girl with a Spider," for a local show for next month. I'm posting it here because I like it and it's a little different than my past subject matter. I'm also posting another painting I did before that. It's more what I've done in the past only different in that there are two figures instead of my usual one and I think it came out well for the meaning. The title is "Dreaming the Dreamer." I've come to accept my style much more this week and have realized that I want to develop within my style since I can't be anyone except me nor would I want to really. It's just that sometimes it can feel confining to see that I have a style and that that is the way I make art. But that is one of the challenges, to make new and exciting art within that style.

I'm thankful for every day I get to live this life like I am now, to have the time to explore as deeply as I can what making art really is for me and what I can do with it.

Art and Life again

Well, my sale of paintings on etsy was a bust this time, but I'm not in the least bit discouraged. I know that I'm here at this time in my life to paint so I will do that. And I'm ever so grateful to be able to paint right now as much as I want.

The only thing I really miss at this point besides a best friend to do things with and to go places with, is a really good art museum like the Getty in Los Angeles, my top favorite art place of all time. It's beautiful with it's architecture and has the best shows ever with all the masters. But minus a friend and a museum, I still continue to paint because I know I need to concentrate right now especially when I'm learning so much. Practice, practice, practice....though a love is important too (I'll have to wait until the right moment for that).

My motto for the last few years as I've been on my own is "forge on no matter what" because what else is there to do? I really don't feel sorry for myself anymore because I know that this is all my own dream that I've created here with the help of the Universe. And so I have to live with each day as it unfolds. I say onward and upward, up the hill and to victory! whatever that may be!

Another Day in the Life of an Artist

Today is Saturday and I'm staying in to paint and to make another version of a video I want to make for YouTube of my paintings. I've tried several times on this set of paintings about the environment for this video, "The Future Is You." But the way I was presenting it just didn't seem "right" somehow, as if it needed to be something I wasn't seeing.

I had decided to just not make the video, but this morning I woke up with another idea for it, a simpler idea that might work. So I'm going to work on that today too. I just feel that putting a video on YouTube would make it possible for more people to see my art and to be "out there." To sell paintings there needs to be communication and to communicate there needs to be exposure, a conversation of sorts. I'll post it here when it's made or at least post a link to the one on YouTube.

I also finished the details for my 50 percent off sale for my paintings on my site, http://www.ellensgreenart.etsy.com. All my paintings will be on sale today until noon tomorrow. I feel good about putting them on sale for awhile just to add interest and focus to what I'm doing, which is to live the pleasure and delight and challenge of painting and to make money doing it so I can continue to learn and live well.

All my paintings on etsy site 50% off tomorrow

If anyone is reading this blog, tomorrow or Sunday you can go to my ellensgreenart.etsy.com site if you like and buy a painting for 50% off. I've decided to make my paintings available at a savings on certain days because I really believe that people should be able to have original art on their walls and I realize that original art is usually too expensive for most people to fit into their budgets even if they want it.

The nature of art is that it takes a long time to create and it takes alot of experience and persistance to continue to make it in the face of doubts and obstacles such as time and finding a place in the world where it fits and is accepted and then acknowledged. But for those of us who find that they cannot live in the world without expressing themselves with images or music or performance, there is no other way to go about their lives. We are born with the urge to make our expression materialize into the world and the only way to live that is to keep encouraging ourselves to move forward no matter what happens. And ultimately to believe in ourselves.

I hope everyone has a creative day today...

Life and Art

Another productive day of painting. Have I told you I really like to paint? Ha! Ha! Of course, painting isn't the whole world, but for me it is a lot of it. I felt sad yesterday because of an imperfect personal world, but after I sat painting for just a little while, everything seemed better and more clear. It seems that as I brush the paint onto the canvas, the rest of the world fades away and the painting calms me as if my soul is moving my hand and letting me know that no matter what, everything will be alright.

It wasn't always this way. But the more I focus on what I'm doing and the images I'm painting and all the details that make it a complex, satisfying expression of my inner world, the more I calm into knowing thoughts of peace and good will.

The "Goddess of the North" is taking shape and will materialize into the world in just a few days. I hope to capture her peaceful look of strength as I have drawn it on the canvas when I paint her face.

Art Tshirts

Today I posted another tshirt featuring the new painting of mine, "Goddess of the Bees," on my ellensgreenart.etsy.com site. I've sold so many tshirts here in Sacramento, but have not sold many on my etsy site yet. I wonder sometimes why and think it may be that there are 15,000 other vendors on that site too. But then again it's probably just because not enough people know I'm there because the tshirts are very wonderful and allow people to have a lovely piece of art to wear at a very affordable price.

I'm posting an image of this new tshirt and hope you enjoy looking at it and may even be inspired to look at it and others on my etsy site. Today I'l be painting on a new canvas and doing some riding around, delivering a painting and visiting. It's another beautiful day here in California and riding a bicycle is a joy.

I hope everyone is having an unusually interesting day!

Goddess of the Bees

I finished "Goddess of the Bees" yesterday and feel satisfied that it came out very well as you can see by my the photo I'm posting here today. I also had a wonderful time of excitement when I sold a painting on my ellenmcmahill.etsy.com site.
Years ago I held onto my painitngs as if they were my little children, but now each one I paint I want to send out into the world for others to enjoy. I think I feel a greater confidence that even though I may really love the images I have created, that there are many, many others waiting to be painted too. I think that those who create images, stories, music or anything that is from their heart and soul always wonder if someday they will run out of inspiration to create anything new. I think that must be a feeling that might be connected to wanting to hold onto what we have created. I feel now that what comes from within me is like an endless spring of ideas that will continue to flow as long as I allow it to.

I'm now at work of "Goddess of the North," learning about arctic animals, and polar landscapes, challenging myself to make up a sort of story about what I'm painting. I like to make a little world in my painting where there is feeling and knowledge that goes beyond the moment I have caught in the paint strokes of the canvas.

New Ideas and Art Happiness

I took yesterday off from everything except painting. I'm finishing up "Goddess of the Bees" and I must say that it has turned out very well! I'm excited about a book I bought yesterday on costumes mainly from ancient times to the 18th century. It has all kinds of details that will inspire me and is really fascinating to just look through to see all the creativity when it comes to clothes that people have used to express themselves. This Goddess series I'm working on now has lead me to think about clothing more intensely and how all the little details in our appearance are part of the way we more fully express ourselves.

I also had an inspiration about my painitngs and selling them this morning. I'm going to put all of the ones posted on my ellensgreenart.etsy.com site on sale on the fourth Saturday and Sunday of each month from now through the end of the year. They will be 50% off on those dates, which is a great savings and make them really affordable for original art. So if you're reading this and are interesting in buying any of them, they will be on sale from noon to noon on September 27-28, October 25-26, November 22-23 and December 27-28, 2008. I'll also be posting new ones all the time so there will be lots to choose from.

I'm excited about this because I really love it when people can afford to buy original art. It is an ideal situation for the art buyer and the artist.

Riding by the River and Other Natural Thoughts

My bicycle ride along the American River yesterday was peaceful and full of beauty. I refound my knowledge that I don't like to sketch "from life" but would rather study how things look as they are happening. I stood transfixed watching the perfect symmetry of the water cascade down a sidestream with the sun making perfectly symmetrical oval shadows just like a greek dome. I wondered if the first architects took this vision from nature to make those ancient domes with multiple arches down from the top center.

I studied the colors as the water tumbled over them too. The colors of the moss on the stones and the minerals in the stones themselves are intensely vivid - yellows, bright blues, yellowy greens. I sat looking at the greens along the river banks and the golden pale red texture of the river bottom exposed by our lack of rain since early spring, which is normal for this area but which takes more and more water from the river as the months drag on until the fall when the rains will begin again. I marvelled that I was walking on dry earth that only a few months before I had gazed at covered with swiftly flowing river water at least two feet higher than it was now.

On my ride on the shaded trail to and from my destination I studied the trees and how they really look with their leaves and shapes and how the branches reach up beyond their trunks. Squirrels were running all over in preparation for the winter I imagine. On this trail there is a certain kind of squirrel with a gray shawl shape on its shoulders. There are many of them along with the regular gray squirrels and I like noticing them in their distinctive "clothing." They seem to live in the ground and sit cutely so often on their back legs stretching up to see as far as they can into the short distance that is their world.

It was a lovely day though I was tired on the ride back and was glad to be home again to paint, which I did for 3 hours after I had some tea and chocolate, a lovely energizer.

I'm Taking Time to Relax

I've been working very hard for many days in a row, so today I'm going to ride my bicycle, my only mode of transportation unless I rent a car, to the river and do some sketching and just forget about everything for awhile. The weather today is gorgeous with fall cool in the air.

I hope everyone has a creative, enchanting day today.

Secret Dream Box is ready

I posted my Secret Dream Box on ellensgreenart.etsy.com yesterday and feel very good about it! And I made a tshirt for sale from the painting too. Here's some photos to see for yourself! It's not just my feeling that it's a good product but that it's also about how I view the world - that if you think about something without obsessing about it but think about it more in a way that's positive and calm and if it happens that's good but if it doesn't then destiny must be taking you somewhere else that you'd really secretly rather go.

It's an understatement to say that life is complicated and that there is never any one reason for anything. I've found that everything is part of a infinite, complex dance that we all do together, each of us affecting everyone else. It's really mind boggling when you think about it.

So I'm starting on my next painting, Goddess of the Bees! I'm feeling very warm and good about it and am finding pleasure in just putting the paint on the surface of the canvas as the image becomes more clear.

A Busy Day in the Life of an Artist

Busy Day in the Life of an Artist

I was very busy this morning finishing up making my first four Secret Dream Boxes for sale on my ellensgreenart.etsy.com site. They came out so beautifully and one will be posted today. I also made a tshirt with the complete image of the painting (the Secret Dream Box only has the the central figure). I then spent alot of time photographing the boxes and tshirt in various ways to get the best shot.

I also received an email about using particular music of Steve Reich on my YouTube video about my paintings and it seems that it will be too complicated (for me anyway since I like to do things in the simplest way possible) to use his music so I plan to reshoot it with no music at all. I still think it will come out well and interesting I hope.

So I'm off now to work on my photographs on the computer, post an item on my etsy site and then begin a new painting, "Goddess of the Bees" and probably shoot a new video of "The Future Is You," the name of my last series of paintings just before it gets dark.

My first blog on this site

This is my first blog so it will be short. mostly I want to send the message to the web that I'm an artist who is very excited about painting and what I can do with it as well as the process of the actual paint on canvas.

I'm here to share my days with whoever wants to read this and to share images of my new paintings, which will be posted at least once a week. I've just started a new series of goddess paintings and am very inspired by all the images that have already begun to fill my head.

I just finished a series of painitngs I started around March about possible futures of the environment since climate change seems to be happening faster than we are imagining it. I recently made a homemade video of most of the paintings in the series to post on YouTube and am waiting for permission to use some music by Steve Reich as background music. So hopefully I'll be posting it soon.

As a beginning in my goddess series I'm featuring the first one, Goddess of Dreams. I'm also using this image for a tshirt, which I'll post on my selling site, ellensgreenart.etsy.com. I have lots of other tshirts posted there already as well as some of my paintings. And the image here will also be on the cover a box I'm making, Secret Dream Box, also to be posted soon on my etsy site. I'll be posting more and more as the days go on. I have website as well at ellenmcmahill.com where you can learn all about me up to this moment, at least generally.

I've moved quite a bit in the last four years - from Florida to Los Angeles, where I learned a whole lot about art from the classic paintings that abound there especially at the Getty Center, my favorite museum there. And last September I moved to Sacramento, CA to mostly get away from the crowds of people that make LA a place with absolutely no privacy.

So I'm glad I'm here in my studio on another beautiful fall day.