Painting for a Great Cause - The Painted Bra Art Project

Tomorrow is the first day of October. It's a busy month for me - lots of friends and family birthdays (mine included), and, of course, Halloween. October is also Breast Cancer Awareness month, and I came across a great project to participate in to raise awareness: The Painted Bra Art Project. All of the painted bras will be auctioned from the Facebook page for the project, starting Friday, October 14 through 8:00 pm central time on Saturday, October 22, 2011.

As I've had two ladies that are very dear to my heart have to take up the fight against breast cancer, I happily painted a bra to donate in honor of each of them.

 

This first bra is titled "A Rose for Mary." It was painted in honor of my grandmother, Mary Louise Robbins, who is a breast cancer survivor. She will celebrate her 80th birthday this December. I didn't choose shoes because Grandma is nor really a "shoe person." She does love to garden and paint flowers however. When she came to visit me, right before she was diagnosed with breast cancer, she and I spent a day each painting the same rose. Our paintings of roses came out entirely different - Grandma kept mine and I kept the one she painted. It was a fun experience I will remember and cherish for the rest of my life.

This second bra is titled "Inner Strength," and was painted in honor of one of my best friends, Kris Beauregard, who is just starting her battle with breast cancer. I wanted to paint something that reflected part of Kris's personality - and, as she cherishes her Hawaiian heritage, I thought this was perfect. The title is a tribute to Kris's own inner strength as she faces the challenges ahead. You can follow Kris's story on her blog.

I'd like to encourage everyone who reads this blog to take the time to check out The Painted Bra Art Project and help spread the word about the auction.

For those of you interested in what I will be painting next, the winners of the Painting Life's Footsteps/Defying Procrastination photo to art contest have been chosen: See which photos won!

3 Sisters, 1 Pair

"3 Sisters, 1 Pair" is a commissioned piece, acrylic on 10" x 10" gallery-wrapped canvas. These were both fun and challenging to paint with the worn places where the leather shows through, the variety of textures and details. As the title suggests, these shoes were well loved and passed down among 3 sisters. I love the style of this pair, and remember having a pair of a similar style in brown when I was a little girl.

A Creative Collaboration Contest!

I am excited to announce a creative collaboration with aspiring author (and my sweetheart) Michael A. Walker to celebrate the launch of his writing blog, Defying Procrastination!

 

Michael intends to use his blog as a platform to share the knowledge and wisdom he gains during his journey to becoming a published author with other writers. He has written several passionate and award-winning pieces including his essay, “White On White Crime,” winner of the 2010 Phi Theta Kappa Regional Literary Anthology. Michael was also recently named Poet of the Month by The Art Collaboration. As of the official launch, Defying Procrastination predominantly features samples of Michael's non-fiction works and poetry, along with his first entry of valuable advice to other writers.

Our creative collaboration is a photo contest, inviting our blog readers to submit their photos...of shoes! Each person can enter up to two photographs to the contest. Additionally, each person can vote once per day per photo. 

THREE LUCKY WINNERS!

PRIZES

Three prizes will be given away for this contest. The winners will be chosen at random from the top 10 photos that get the most LIKES on the contest page.

ONE WINNER: Will receive a hand painted portrait of their shoes on a 12”x12” gallery wrapped canvas ($400 value) by Painting Life’s Footstep’s ^TM  artist, Alisha K. Ard, along with a short story written about your shoes by Defying Procrastination’s very own Michael A. Walker. The story and painting will be featured together on a future post on Defying Procrastination to forever be immortalized on the World Wide Web.

TWO WINNERS: Will receive a hand painted portrait of their shoes on an 8”x 8” canvas board ($200 value) by Painting Life’s Footstep’s ^TM artist, Alisha K. Ard, along with a poem written by Defying Procrastination’s very own Michael A. Walker. The poem and painting will be featured together on a future post on Defying Procrastination to forever be immortalized on the World Wide Web.

CONTEST ENTRY RULES:

• Only 2 entries allowed per person.
• A person can only win 1 prize, regardless of the number of entries submitted for the contest.
• Photo should be of a single pair of shoes against a simple background.

The contest ends August 31, 2011.

We have a handful of entries already and I'm absolutely loving the variety in the submissions. So grab your camera and a pair of shoes that you love - then get creative and have fun with it! The sooner you submit your entries, the more time you have to get votes.

 

CLICK HERE for the contest page. Submit your shoe photos and start voting today!

(Pssst -You can also click here to read a poem Michael wrote for me this past Valentines Day!)

A Family Portrait (in Shoes)

This past Christmas, one of my best friends commissioned two shoe portraits for her gifts to her brother and sister-in-law. Since it would be obvious their favorite shoes were missing for a couple of weeks and this was top-secret work, we planned for her to steal the shoes and come by my house so I could take some reference pictures to work from and I'd still have full control of the lighting and composition (which is part of my process and why I like to have the actual shoes to work with).

The plan worked beautifully - and with an unexpected adrenaline rush. Who knew conspiring to nab shoes for an hour could be so fun? My friend enjoyed being in on the process - trying different arrangements, deciding if they should be paired off by gender or mother-son/father-daughter, and playing with how much light/shadow. Once we shot about 20 pictures we had the task of deciding which pictures she liked best. We narrowed it down to a few, with different elements from each to be incorporated into the whole, finished look. She decided on a light blue background color and then was off to return the shoes.

These are the two finished paintings. Both are acrylic on 12" x 12" gallery-wrapped canvas. I was thrilled when I received the following response from my friend's sister-in-law:

Dear Kat & Alisha,
I want to thank you both for the wonderful and amazing gift I received this past holiday. Your thoughtfulness (Kat) and creativity (Alisha) truly blew me away. Your detail for capturing the memories and moments of our family is breath taking. Words can't express how much the pictures mean to me. My favorite part is the realistic features - JB's narrow foot and Mr. Man's scuffed up shoes. The mommy and Mac painting reminded me that we now have a princess whose mom  has no idea what to do with her. Reflecting on our shoe pictures I realize, as beautifully detailed in your work, we as parents will always walk side by side with our children and they will always want to fill our shoes.Thank you again and I can't wait to share with all my family and friends the paintings.

Step Boldly

"Step Boldly" is 9" x 12" acrylic on gallery wrapped canvas and is one of my works in the show "Art by the Usual Suspects" showing at The Limelight Gallery in Binders Art in Atlanta. This work is available to purchase at the show, which runs through April 29th. The opening reception is today from 2 - 5 pm; directions available here. Come enjoy the music, partake of the refreshments and meet the talented group of artists featured in this show!

I took my son (9) and daughter (4) along with me to deliver the paintings Friday afternoon. All three of us fell in love with so many of the pieces in this show! My daughter favored the pieces with bold and brilliant colors. My son loved the textures of some, the composition and details of others and declared he needed to withdraw all of the money in his savings account to purchase as many pieces as his funds would allow. He also vowed to promote the show to the entire 3rd grade of his school.

They were both so inspired by all of the great art they saw that they asked me for pens and paper so they could draw. Since we were at Binders, I let them pick out their own art supplies. Gavin chose a small sketch book and a set of colored pencils while Brynn opted for a coloring book with a lot of drawing activities and a pack of scented markers. While we sat in Atlanta traffic for the next 2 hours and I contemplated what a misnomer "rush-hour" is, as there seems to be a lot more idling than rushing, my kids happily created art and exchanged compliments on the masterpieces created by each other.

The whole experience taught me two important lessons:

1.) Take the kids to more of my art venues. While they see me paint and are my two biggest fans, it's important for them to see what I am painting for as well. I tend to take them to art festivals I am not a participant of and let them stay with grandparents when I have a show. They were so thrilled to be included this time and I realized it's important for them to see more of the whole process. (I should probably also state that my kids are very well-behaved in public - we get compliments from strangers about it all the time. In fact, there are a couple of restaurants we go to where they are greeted with "It's our favorite kids!!"and scooped into open arms when we walk in the door. So it's not their behavior that has kept me from including them - it's been more of a concern that they would get bored.)

2.) The backseat needs a crate of art supplies at all times. Those 2 hours of creeping home would have been so much more stressful if the kids hadn't been preoccupied with their art.

Painted Chair for Chairish the Future 2010

This is the chair I painted for Chairish the Future 2010. I titled the piece "Where Are You Going My Little One?" The description I gave for the chair follows:

The inspiration for the painting on this chair begins with my own childhood. I lived with my grandmother and she would sing songs to me at bedtime each night. A particular favorite of mine was “Turn Around.” The song begins –

Where are you going my little one, little one

Where are you going my baby, my own

Turn around and you're two

Turn around and you're four

Turn around and you're a young girl

Going out of the door

As a child who was anxious to grow up, this song held a different meaning for me than it does today. Now, as a parent of two children, I understand how fleeting the precious moments of childhood truly are.

On this chair, the shoe tracks represent where the child has come from, the shoes themselves are this brief moment of their childhood and the sock prints lead off to the future. The shoes featured in this painting are currently my daughter’s favorite pair – she’s four.

Fashionably Floral

"Fashionably Floral"
6" x 6"
Acrylic on Clayboard

It's 2010 and I'm kicking off the New Year a little late - but it's off to a great start! Two of my pieces, "Easter Shoes" and "Two of a Kind," were chosen to appear in Best of America Watermedia Artists - published this month.

I've also been invited to paint a chair to be auctioned at Chairish the Future 2010, benefiting the Furniture Bank of Metro Atlanta. From their website: "Each year the Furniture Bank serves at least 3,000 people in over 1,000 families. Clients include individuals and families moving out of homelessness, fleeing domestic violence, and living with HIV/AIDS. " The gala and auction will be held at 7 pm February 27 at The Foundry at Puritan Mill in Atlanta. Pictures of my painted chair will be posted soon!

In more art news:
- I've joined a great group of talented artists at DPIAG
- I'm painting new works for an art show in April (more details as the show gets closer)
- Limited prints of my art will be available soon

Kaleidoscope Art Show - Reception Sept. 13

I am delighted to announce that my piece, "Two of a Kind" is in an art show this month! Show dates and reception information below:

September 1 -29, 2009

Please join the artists for a reception Sunday, Sept. 13, 2009 2 PM - 6 PM

Limelight Gallery

(Inside Binders Art & Frame)

Piedmont-Peachtree Crossing

3330 Piedmont Road, Suite 18

Atlanta, GA 30365

404-237-6331

Lessons Learned - a note to fellow artisans

Everyone's heard the term starving artist. Perhaps you have even been discouraged by family/friends/colleagues for pursuing an art career when they respond with: "You're going to be an artist? Don't you know they call them "starving artists" for a reason?"

Never-the-less, you don't let them get you down, you take the leap and forage ahead into your art career. You buy your supplies - be it paints and canvases, beads and wire, a slab of marble and chisels, whatever suits your medium of choice - and you begin. This new creativity takes hold and you feel wonderful. Look what you are able to create! You show your family/friends/colleagues who scoffed at you and - hey! even they are impressed. (In fact, they want you to give them certain pieces - or offer a steep discount - because they know you personally.) Soon you realize it falls to you to start marketing your art for the rest of the public to see and you get a website and/or start a blog.

Things start moving along for you (and maybe there are a few false starts or stalls along the way until you really find your style, but you never give up) and you finally make a move to launch a serious marketing campaign when... your domain expires because your debit card was renewed this year, but you happened to be out of town at the time without access to the one e-mail account that you used to set up the domain and, try as you might, you keep getting the run-around when you try to renew it because: a) the domain is locked b) it hasn't met x number of days c) it's beyond x number of days d) the reps you talk to don't know what they are talking about and make offers they can't make good on, or e) (as in my case) ALL OF THE ABOVE.

So you call the company and you play nice, then you get a little frustrated, then you finally say, "Look, I'm going to be in a show next month and I have all these business cards with the wrong domain on them! Isn't there anything you can do?!?" And you know what? They look at your site; they hear you are an artist going to be in a show; they hear that you actually have had business cards printed, and they try to price-gouge the heck out of you to get your domain back. But, you are too smart for that so you buy the .net of the domain and back-order the .com of the domain and you are happy that you know a cheap place to order your business cards from.

Then, you look at the lessons you learned from the mistakes you made - and you share them with others so they can learn from them too. So, here are the lessons you can take away from this blog post:

Lesson 1:
Don't let other people's opinions of your career in the arts have any bearing on what you do. It's your life to live, not theirs.

"Live as you will have wished to have lived when you are dying." - Christian F. Gellert

Lesson 2:
If you want to be successful at your art career, you will have to promote yourself at some point. I, personally, don't mind marketing and promotions, but at a lot of presentations I've given about promoting your art online I have heard grumbles and protests about this aspect. Realize it's part of being a professional artist (versus a hobbyist). Your efforts are in vain if you simply create your works and store them all in a basement and hope you are discovered one day.

"The test of a vocation is the love of the drudgery it involves." - Logan P. Smith

Lesson 3:
No matter how many starts, stops, stalls, trials and errors there are - keep going! You are worth it!

"I know the price of success: dedication, hard work and an unremitting devotion to the things you want to see happen." - Frank Lloyd Wright

Lesson 4:
Always keep your accounts current.

"D'oh!" - Homer Simpson

Lesson 5:
Try looking at something that seems negative from a positive perspective. For example: I must not be viewed as a "starving artist" since the price of my domain quintupled. I mean, surely no one would expect a failure to pay those outrageous prices!

To further illustrate looking at negatives from a positive perspective:
"I'm in a wonderful position: I'm unknown, I'm underrated, and there's nowhere to go but up."
- Pierre S. DuPont IV

Feel free to share lessons you have learned in the comments!

Two of a Kind

Two of a Kind - 12" x 12" acrylic on gallery wrapped canvas.

This painting features my husband's red Chucks and my son's first pair when he was an infant. While I look at this painting and see the people behind the shoes as my husband and infant son, someone else may see it as their older son and his new sibling, or their wife and child. (I do have a similar piece planned to paint this month of my pink chucks with my daughter's first pair.) With that in mind, I did not want to make the title gender specific. My husband suggested Two of a Kind and it fit perfectly :)

I intended to enter this painting in May's juried show at the Atlanta Artists Center, but I got derailed by a migraine on Friday. Saturday morning, instead of going to the gallery to turn it in, I made a mad dash with the kids to Chuck E. Cheese Saturday morning only to find that I had the dates confused - the party is next Saturday. By then it was too late for me to make the submission deadline.

So, it's been a crazy start to May :-) I am still taking the "Every Day in May" challenge. The added benefit of the "Every Day in May" challenge for me is that I should have plenty of pieces to choose from to enter in June's juried show!

Firekites AUTUMN STORY - chalk animation

Ok, this is not my art and it does not feature shoes, I know. It is, however, an incredible video worth viewing and sharing!

My son wants me to teach him the magic of stop motion animation now :-)

Get Rhythm!

The title for this painting of tap shoes was inspired by the following lyrics of Johnny Cash's song:

"Get Rhythm"

Hey, get rhythm when you get the blues
Come on, get rhythm when you get the blues
Get a rock 'n' roll feelin' in your bones
Put taps on your toes and get gone
Get rhythm when you get the blues

I have a lot of fun painting the really shiny shoes - the reflections of the light, the background color and even the other shoe :) This painting is acrylic on 10" x 10" stretched, gallery-wrapped canvas and ready to hang. SOLD!

Contest Winner Shoe Portrait

I know it's been a long time since I have updated my art blog and I do appreciate the e-mails I've received inquiring if I am still painting. Yes, I am! I've also been busy with some graphic and web design work lately, so I have not been painting as frequently.

I thought I would start up my blog again with a post of the shoe portrait for the winner of the contest. Liz wanted to use the free shoe portrait as a gift to her sister-in-law who had lost her daughter in March of last year. The portrait was delivered in time for her to present it as a Christmas gift and Liz was absolutely thrilled with the painting :)

Red Shoes times 3 - commissioned

Here are the 3 latest paintings I have done. All 3 were commissioned by the same person, with the request that the shoes be in poses very similar to each other and on a white background. Since the shoes looked so different themselves, I tried to position them as close to the same pose as possible. I usually post commissioned work with feedback for the pieces, but due to some e-mail complications, I am still awaiting the feedback :-)

The contest to win a free shoe portrait has ended and a winner has been selected. Congratulations to Liz C. in La Puente, CA! Thank you to all who participated :-)