I don't know about you but I always feel like the beginning of the school year is my chance to revisit and re-energize all those New Year's resolutions I made last January and have slowly let go of. I did not totally drop the ball but it is hard to focus on your to-do list when you have kids on summer vacation, wonderful family visitors and all the good beer and weather of a German summer.

Summer play time also brings good ideas. I visited a lot of beautiful places this summer, some famous and some not. All those images in my brain have to go somewhere - hopefully they will show up on a canvas this winter.

My obsession with painting chickens is slowing down as I prepare for the next series I have in mind. It is going to be a lot more complicated than what I currently paint so I am summoning the courage to actually do it and not keep putting it off (it combines portraits and birds).

This year I also need to focus on actually selling artwork!
I imagine a lot of artists have this goal. I plan to research online marketing, ramp up social media and basically market myself which is really scary to an introvert like me. This month I am showing all my chicken paintings in the local library on Vogelweh Base here in Germany - which is a start in the right direction.

Next up - paint, paint, paint!

As I ease back into regular blog posts, here are a few art related posts from the summer.

Please leave a comment and let me know: How was your summer? What are you hoping to get done this fall?

Until next time,
Beth :-)

The beginning of yet another chicken...

This little watercolor sketch was from the pool. Can you see the man that was in front of me?

Giant tile mosaic in the Paris metro.

C.S. Lewis — "Experience: that most brutal of teachers. But you learn, my God do you learn."

Dear Beginning Artist:
Here's the one thing that has taught me more about painting than anything else: Paint every day. Those three little words are enough to strike fear in the hearts of every art student cradling those fragile dreams of success. It's advice given by every art teacher - but to take it you must surrender to your craft.

I, like many of my fellow students, loved making art but only did it in those few hours a week of class. There are amazing artists that have been taking classes for years because paying for an art class is the only way they would let themselves make art. For fifteen long years I took classes, made art off and on and stuffed a lot of those dreams of an art career down below everything else. I could blame a lot of things but really it was, as Steven Pressfield puts it in his book "The War of Art", Resistance that was the culprit.

It is said, the thing you resist persists. Thank God that is true! In the 25 plus years I have been personally putting up some form of resitance the desire has persisted. Our move to Germany literally gave me the freedom to make some sort of art everyday. And I discovered, just like all those fine art teachers told me, painting everyday has been my greatest teacher.

Larry Bird practiced free throws, 300+ a day.

Chef Greg Mindell said it took him baking over 1,000 croissants before he started to understand it.

Researcher K. Anderson Ericsson came up with the theory that elite performers have practiced 10,000 hours. That equals roughly practicing everyday for 7 years.

How do you master your chosen craft? To give something seven years you must love it. Once you give yourself permission to do what makes your heart sing, do it over and over again! So simple its hard to get!