Super Honesty Time

The snake painting's getting detailed with marble shadows but more on that later. Total honesty time I did spend 1 day without painting this week 😱 This happens rarely as I like to paint at least every day, but only maybe a small handful times a year, you never know what life throws at you. Basically I got food poisoning mid shift, it was awful. Diarrhea every 20 minutes, 12 hours straight and vomited on the street but being the only female nurse and the only RN on duty with my agency in the downtown core at the time, I'm proud to say I managed to at least struggle through what was left of the worst shift of my life, apologies and thank you to everyone's bathroom I used and sorry about the pile I left on the street. This post is probably TMI but it's kinda funny looking back on that terrible night in retrospect. I'm just glad I was still able to concentrate and get what I needed to be done safely and effectively and I didn't end up making a mess in anyone else's home, or on anyone. Nothing like some good ol' adversity, builds character! Power and status you can lose, but character you can take with you anywhere, through anything. Anyway, rest assured things are back to normal now and I'm happily painting and again and working tomorrow. Just a sorta funny day I thought I'd share.

Postcards For Sale!

The Big Goose

The painting days are fun but can be isolating and lonely. At a suggestion from a friend, I recently joined a community of penpals! I love writing and getting snail mail and opening my mail box is so exciting these days. I'm now getting mail from as far as Malaysia, Hong Kong, Australia, USA and of course, all across Canada. I love writing letters, another art form in itself, from the way ink hits the paper to the picking out of carefully selected stationary, envelopes and washii tape, oh my! Naturally this snowballed into giving me incentive to turn my Canada Goose painting into a postcard which blossomed into putting a whole set of postcards out. Now I'm getting fan mail from all around the world from interesting people thanking me for my artwork and questions about art this and that and it's been wonderful and lovely. It's definitely helped me feel more connected with the rest of the planet on my solitary days of painting and although it may not feel like anyone else is in my studio, I am assured someone somewhere's waiting to see my next painting, very motivating! Anyway, I put the postcards out for sale, in case anyone's interested on my etsy page: LISA NG ART Pretty affordable at $2.33 USD per card and a deal for a dozen! Link right here: https://www.etsy.com/ca/shop/LISANGART

Sending postcards have been a great way to share art all around the world. They don't cost much to make and not much to send. They make their way everywhere including the delivery in-between. There's an art collector I know who works as a letter carrier, has one of my favourite paintings but I lost contact a few years ago. Sometimes I wonder if they've come across one of these yet in their day to day..? Anyway, if you're reading this and are looking for a cheeky snail mail pen-pal send your snail mail address to my email, lisangart@hotmail.com and I will respond!

Radioactive Raccoon

Indoor Chameleon In Orange Major

Albino Squirrel

Green Anole

Frilled Lizard

Red Headed Agama Lizard

https://www.etsy.com/ca/shop/LISANGART

Losing My Marbles Or Did I Just Find Them?

The snake painting’s coming along great! It took some time to figure out how to paint this particular marble pattern. I used a combination of greys and greens layered on top of another and finally mixed in some gel matte medium for a thinning out of colour to get a more translucent quality. I’m pretty happy the way it’s coming together. Still got a ways to go though. I'm painting in some of the shadows now. The painting needs a little pink, just a tiny bit, not too much, for I love the way pink and green go together.

In the meantime it's given me a lot of time to reflect on things, as all paintings do. For some reason I find myself in a path much less travelled. Which is a good thing, but takes a lot of explaining. Being an artist is probably 90% believing in yourself and 10% trying to spell it out for people who just haven't yet encountered one. Lot of people ask why I don't work 40 hours a week at my day job, I feel like I have to justify myself all the time. Well, good art takes time! An artist dies a little everyday for everyday they don't get to make their art! What would this world be without art! What are we, animals?! So I work 25 hours at my day job to support myself and 80 hours on this other thing that will likely outlast my existence. 

I've decided to go where my talent takes me and so far it's taken me to some really amazing places, and experiences! I love knowing my art plays a part in people's homes and lives all around the world. My art is collected all across North America, it can be found in Australia, Switzerland and Hong Kong, and that's only for sure what I know of, but not just that- in a tipsy topsy turvy kind of way, knowing that I wanted to stay true to who I am in my craft, not wanting to compromise my vision in anyway, it somehow lead to me to my day job, a homeware nurse! I love my job, being integrated into people's lives in this meaningful way, sharing authentic experiences, meeting people from all walks of life, witnessing true courage as people face the inevitable, I feel very lucky, and inspired! Not only that but it's flexible, affords me a life of painting, I paint 3 days a week. To be honest I've begun to take a couple extra visits here and there on my painting days just to break up the long hours of isolation, it's helped a lot with my mental state. I also just figured out how to hook up my phone's Spotify account to the car stereo so now I can continue to listen and discover new music just like I do while painting as I drive around from visit to visit. I get asked a lot on how I came to be a nurse and how nursing and art are related. People seem to think the 2 are opposites, right brain, left brain sort of thing and that most lean towards only using 1. To that I suggest Leonardo Da Vinci used both.

So art and nursing, what are the similarities? What are the differences?! Explain yourself! Painting today, I came to the conclusion: 

Both art and nursing heavily involve communication, one relieves pain and suffering, the other increases happiness, both point in the same direction.

Holy Cows! 🐄 🐄

I sold 2 paintings off my Etsy Shop: LISANGART The buyer is from Switzerland!🇨🇭The buyer was lovely in that he had to have both, keeping the sisters together and had to have them pronto before someone else bought them. Money paid up front, shipping and packaging paid for, no fuss at all, my favourite type of art collector. Bless his wonderful home and country! I can now say I have original collected artwork all across Canada, the USA, in Australia, Hong Kong and now Switzerland! It feels lovely to be appreciated all around our little globe. A long time coming, I’ve been painting daily about 12 years now. Mostly sold regionally up until 6 years ago when I finally got my website together and did some online marketing, finally I am able to reach a global audience now. It warms my heart and makes the studio days feel less lonely knowing that somewhere in the universe my paintings are being appreciated. It’s strange having bits of your soul scattered about. Rarely do people send me their photos of my artwork hung in their homes for me to share, which I can respect their privacy, adds to the mystery of the buyer. It feels like the paintings disappear sometimes when they leave my hands and sometimes years later, a stranger will peep their head out from the bushes to say, “Yes! I have that painting from when I bought it several years ago, or it was given to me by a friend or family member and I look at it everyday.” If they can describe the painting, I know exactly which painting it was and when it left me as each of my paintings are so individualistic it’s hard not to know. Will I ever see or hear from my cows again? Only time will tell, for now I will imagine them in warmer weather, mooing for me from time to time and munching away on grass, in Switzerland ♥️

COW STUCK IN A ROOM OF GRASS acrylic on wood 24 x 18 x 1.5 inches 2015 In private collection.

GRASS STUCK IN A ROOM OF COW acrylic on wood 24 x 18 x 1.5 inches 2015 In private collection.

Dino Landscape ReFurbished

Dino Landscape acrylic on canvas 12 x 9 x 1.5 inches 2010 

In private collection.

     Had the Dino Landscape in the studio for a quick touch up. Word of advice, if you're moving or need to put something in storage, NEVER wrap a painting in coloured tissue paper, the colour will leave the paper and stain the painting! Fortunately, after painting over some nasty purple streaks I was able to get this painting looking back to more or less it's original form, even better I think, actually. When in doubt, store a painting in archival acid free white tissue paper or glassine paper, these materials can safely touch the painting directly. Then you can wrap the painting in bubble wrap, foam, or cloth (preferably white). 

    It was actually sort of nice this happened actually because I didn't get a chance to photograph this painting before it left my hands so many years ago. I was therefore finally able to snag a good record of it before I return it back to its rightful owner. 

     There now only remains 1 painting missing out of my 200+ painting catalog (available at www.lisangart.com). My Drugged Up Bear depicted in this very old photo of me from almost 10 years ago. The painting up top, have you seen it? I sold it almost a decade ago, in the city of Toronto, ON. I wonder where it hangs these days. I can't believe almost a decade has passed since this photo was taken. Painting is a time warp, they take a long time and to be fair I do paint a lot that when I finally look up to view the world around me so much time has passed and so much of our world has changed!