I have had the opportunity to work on a few paintings. I finished the painting I was working on as a gift to my friend, but I won't get to deliver it until Wednesday. I will see if he minds me posting pics once he has seen it. After I finished and framed that one, I started on my very first commissioned piece! This is a portrait of a little girl and her puppy. They are adorable and I have had a blast painting them! I am almost done; tomorrow I want to spend some time making the puppy a little more 3-D. That will be accomplished with proper shading and making sure the hair (it looks like a Maltese to me, so yes, hair) is laying in the proper directions. This is a white dog - I never thought about how difficult it is to paint a white animal!
Next up is another commissioned piece which is to be a surprise for the subject of the portrait. Enough said about that! :)
I have a few other commissions in the works, and I am always ready to consider more. I am working with a highly skilled photographer until I get better lenses for my camera, and hopefully for longer, so we will be sure to have photos to work from which have good light and appropriate composition and detail.
I am LOVING my job!!! Have a blessed week!
Monday, February 10, 2014
Tuesday, February 4, 2014
Welcome to Through My Own Eyes!
My name is Tracy and, at nearly 50 years of age, I have finally decided what I want to be when I grow up. Throughout my life I have been creative. I have a self-diagnosed case of ADAD (Attention Deficit Artist Disorder.) Basically that means that am almost always creating something, but the medium is known to change rather frequently! My creative interests have, over the years, slimmed down, and I am grateful for that. I have been keeping my knitting going, of course, and it will be one of my loves forever! Another art that I love, though, and finally feel like I am growing in, even gifted to do, is painting.
I love to paint. I have painted landscapes for years, mostly in acrylics. Still-life subjects are okay, but I love the way God created this earth and enjoy documenting it on the canvas. I painted often as a child and young adult, then forgot about it for many years. Fortunately, I picked it back up for therapeutic reasons a few years ago. Still, I always had a specific subject and a specific recipient in mind whenever I painted, so I never built up a collection of my own work or even bothered photographing it. I had honestly forgotten how much I had painted for friends until they reminded me recently! Painting people or animals, though, was something I never tried. I really didn't believe I could do it.
Then came Kay Witt, friend and mentor. We met when I assisted her with painting a backdrop for our church play, and I became a sponge soaking up her pointers and techniques. She made me fall in love with painting again! Kay is an amazing artist who is known lately for her wolves that she has painted in pastels. They are so lifelike, you just want to run your fingers through their fur. You can see some of her work at http://wildwolfportraits.com. I had never painted in pastels and could not believe you could get something so lifelike from little sticks of color, so I signed up for one of the wolf workshops that she taught.
I. Was. HOOKED. I fell in love with the medium and started painting for real. I still didn't tackle painting portraits until I took a pastel portraits class from her a few weeks ago, and a new world has been opened up to me.
I love pastels. I'm talking LOVE. All I needed was a little encouragement and now I am off and running. I am enjoying myself and getting more and more inspired every day!
So why have I started taking commissions? Our family has been through a lot over the past years... My son had cancer in his spinal cord, and that captivated my attention for the year that he was in chemo. The cancer disappeared very quickly and stayed away until 2012, when he was rediagnosed with a new tumor in the same area just as I was being diagnosed with thyroid cancer. (I am cured and the cancer in my son has not grown any more in the past year.) A few months ago I very nearly lost my husband to sepsis - VERY grateful that I still have him - but it caused him to be out of work for two months, all the while increasing the medical bills. Now the scoliosis in my son's back has gotten severe enough to warrant putting him in a back brace. He goes for a fitting in a few weeks. I tell you this only to point out that, due to medical expenses alone, finances have been rather grave, and I had been considering getting a job outside of the home for the first time in 17 years. That was NOT the answer I wanted, but I had to consider it, until now. I believe with everything in me that I need to be painting and using the money from the sales of my paintings to defeat the medical bills. Now that I have made it known that I am making this a profession, I have friends telling me, "Well, duh!" or, "It's about time!" I never had the self confidence until now, so NOW IS THE TIME!
Thank you so much for stopping by! You can find me on Facebook ("Through My Own Eyes - Portrait Art by Tracy Ries".) I will be updating this blog as often as I can with the latest projects and news. And now I am off on my big adventure!
Have a blessed day! Come on back any time.
My name is Tracy and, at nearly 50 years of age, I have finally decided what I want to be when I grow up. Throughout my life I have been creative. I have a self-diagnosed case of ADAD (Attention Deficit Artist Disorder.) Basically that means that am almost always creating something, but the medium is known to change rather frequently! My creative interests have, over the years, slimmed down, and I am grateful for that. I have been keeping my knitting going, of course, and it will be one of my loves forever! Another art that I love, though, and finally feel like I am growing in, even gifted to do, is painting.
I love to paint. I have painted landscapes for years, mostly in acrylics. Still-life subjects are okay, but I love the way God created this earth and enjoy documenting it on the canvas. I painted often as a child and young adult, then forgot about it for many years. Fortunately, I picked it back up for therapeutic reasons a few years ago. Still, I always had a specific subject and a specific recipient in mind whenever I painted, so I never built up a collection of my own work or even bothered photographing it. I had honestly forgotten how much I had painted for friends until they reminded me recently! Painting people or animals, though, was something I never tried. I really didn't believe I could do it.
Then came Kay Witt, friend and mentor. We met when I assisted her with painting a backdrop for our church play, and I became a sponge soaking up her pointers and techniques. She made me fall in love with painting again! Kay is an amazing artist who is known lately for her wolves that she has painted in pastels. They are so lifelike, you just want to run your fingers through their fur. You can see some of her work at http://wildwolfportraits.com. I had never painted in pastels and could not believe you could get something so lifelike from little sticks of color, so I signed up for one of the wolf workshops that she taught.
I. Was. HOOKED. I fell in love with the medium and started painting for real. I still didn't tackle painting portraits until I took a pastel portraits class from her a few weeks ago, and a new world has been opened up to me.
I love pastels. I'm talking LOVE. All I needed was a little encouragement and now I am off and running. I am enjoying myself and getting more and more inspired every day!
So why have I started taking commissions? Our family has been through a lot over the past years... My son had cancer in his spinal cord, and that captivated my attention for the year that he was in chemo. The cancer disappeared very quickly and stayed away until 2012, when he was rediagnosed with a new tumor in the same area just as I was being diagnosed with thyroid cancer. (I am cured and the cancer in my son has not grown any more in the past year.) A few months ago I very nearly lost my husband to sepsis - VERY grateful that I still have him - but it caused him to be out of work for two months, all the while increasing the medical bills. Now the scoliosis in my son's back has gotten severe enough to warrant putting him in a back brace. He goes for a fitting in a few weeks. I tell you this only to point out that, due to medical expenses alone, finances have been rather grave, and I had been considering getting a job outside of the home for the first time in 17 years. That was NOT the answer I wanted, but I had to consider it, until now. I believe with everything in me that I need to be painting and using the money from the sales of my paintings to defeat the medical bills. Now that I have made it known that I am making this a profession, I have friends telling me, "Well, duh!" or, "It's about time!" I never had the self confidence until now, so NOW IS THE TIME!
Thank you so much for stopping by! You can find me on Facebook ("Through My Own Eyes - Portrait Art by Tracy Ries".) I will be updating this blog as often as I can with the latest projects and news. And now I am off on my big adventure!
Have a blessed day! Come on back any time.
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