A haircut. Wine. Oil Paints. What do all of these have in common? In my opinion, they are three things that are worth the splurge. While there are okay haircuts, decent wine, and sufficient oil paints, I’ve found when purchasing these three things that a few extra dollars produces exponentially better ends results. 

Over the past couple of years, I have tested out a number of different brands & colors of paint on my palette and found some real winners that I truly cannot do without.

BRANDS: There are a few brands of oil paints have stuck with me over time, and those I can rely on for consistent color and quality. Williamsburg Oil Paints is the gold standard for me. Their paints are highly pigmented, so a little goes a long way! Because I only have to use small amounts of their paint at a time, I find that spending a little extra on some of their paints okay because I know they will last pretty long.

Holbein Artists' Oil Colors & Gamblin Artists' Oil Colors are both tied for second. They are slightly less expensive than Williamsburg, but have a solid range of colors that make a big impact on my palette.

It doesn’t matter whether you are an artist, an athlete, or anyone who has a “big event,” what comes next is universal: the post-event blues. It’s the slump in the period following a big push where you feel drained, empty, and, sometimes, a little bit desperate. You’ve just put so much energy into this one thing, and then that thing is over and done, and you’re left wondering “What’s next?” “What more could I possibly do?” “How am I going to muster up the next thing?”

If you’ve ever felt that way or had those thoughts, I’m right there with ya. It’s a feeling that I’ve experienced before, but each time it takes me by surprise. My creative tank is hovering above low, and I’ve been wandering around my studio, keeping my hands busy, but doubting my ability to create anything at all.

Since creating and launching The Color of My Sky, I’ve been a bit stuck. It’s a combination of equal parts doubt, distraction, and whatever the opposite of creativity is. It feels as if I’ve forgotten how to paint and how to think creatively.

Over the past couple of years that I’ve experienced the creative rut, I’ve always been able to lift myself out of it and get back to doing what I do best. I’ve also learned over the years how to ride it out, and rise strong from the depths.

Today I'm featuring some of the art & artists that inspire me. These guys are too good not to share!

Lisa Golightly :: I've known about Lisa for a while now, and have never not loved anything she does. Her work is smushy and squishy when you look at it close up, but if you take a step back, you see figures and landscapes take shape. She is fearless with her negative space, and her compositional skills are some of the best. The color-lover in me appreciates those barely-there shifts in color and monochromatic paintings (like the one in the middle, below). Her work is loose and not too fussy, which reminds me to do the same when I work on my own paintings! 

Instincts are an interesting thing. Often they are loud and obvious and help you make the right decision in the moment. It's super convenient when that happens. Sometimes, though, an instinct can be quieter, whispering in the background. You can hear it, but sometimes think it was a mistake, or you heard wrong. But that little voice keeps whispering, and one day you turn around and hear exactly what that instinct is saying, clear as day. 

I had a quiet but persistent instinct whisper in my ear throughout the course of completing The Color of My Sky collection. I felt so good about the paintings that I created. I loved getting back into the flow of my artistic process, experimenting and playing on the canvas. I was confident about each and every painting - except one. Originally titled "Endless Spring," I completed this painting pretty early on in the process of building this collection, so it had been "finished" for a couple weeks. When I made this painting, I could sense that something wasn't quite right about the piece. My instincts were telling me that this painting wasn't finished, but looking at it, I had checked all of the boxes, and it was technically done. What my instincts were saying, though, was  that, yes, this painting may be done by my standards, but it wasn't really finished.

Each painting has a personality and a life of its own. I’m here to introduce you to one of my favorites!

‘Pasture’ gets its name from the wide open field that spreads out across The Farm. I painted this piece from a photo I took on a near perfect day. The clear blue sky was interrupted by a luscious billowing cloud that swept across the sky. It was late afternoon, and the treeline that lies beyond the edges of this image was starting to cast long dark shadows across the field.

One of the best things about The Farm is that its landscape is the constant variable in a frequently changing equation. Had I caught this scene a few hours earlier, the sun would have been high in the sky, and I wouldn’t have seen the deep, nearly-teal shadows in the distant treeline - even in the grassy green of the day, there are warm reddish-pink tones that suggest that the sun is ever so slightly fading.

For most people, myself included, choosing a piece of art for the walls of your home is often the cherry on top, the last touch, or, sometimes, the afterthought of designing dwelling spaces. The color of the walls, the area rug, and the coffee table are all things that are the first to be checked off the list. But when trying to find the perfect piece of art to complete the room, there are so many fixed variables that the art has to accommodate if it’s the last thing chosen.

I came across this Wall Street Journal article that takes a different approach to interior design. Instead of starting with trim, paint colors, couches, and accent tables, these homeowners started with their art. They had a piece, or a collection of pieces, of art that they had to have in their home, but wanted to be absolutely certain that it fit in with the design of the rest of the house. Every detail, such as the lighting, the layout, and even the ceiling height was all determined from the specifics of the artwork. Some of the art collections were so precious, they even installed individual security systems for each artwork, like in a museum.

Each painting has a personality and a life of its own. I’m here to introduce you to one of my favorites!

We all dream of somewhere else. Whether it’s somewhere we’ve been, or somewhere we frequently return to, where we are now often isn’t where we want to be. Thankfully, paintings like ‘Day Dreaming’ can take us there as soon as we lay eyes on it. This seems to be a quintessential “Elizabeth” painting for a few reasons: the wide and narrow format, the big sky, and the loose interpretation of the land. There is texture and depth in the sky that signify movement and the fleeting nature of the light in this moment. The subtle shifts in color that add visual interest and depth to the sky, from a cobalt blue to a turquoise-y teal, each layer building upon the last.

The wide dimensions of the canvas are my favorite to work with for many reasons. The wide format of the painting has an ability to allow me to capture a range of moments on the canvas, rather than just one. And if you have never experienced the expanse of a Texas sky, this sized painting is the next best thing. On the far right, you can see the sun hanging onto the sky, fading into the horizon, illuminating that side of the painting with its warmth. As you progress to the left, the light changes the land, but in a softer, more subtle way.

A while back I read an article in the Wall Street Journal that interviewed Jeni Britton Bauer, founder of Jeni's Splendid Ice Creams. I had just had some of her ice cream at her store in Nashville, so it seemed rather serendipitous that I was now reading an interview with her. What I loved most about what she had to say was how she approaches food with simplicity, and lets the flavors shine. She doesn't try to do anything crazy, she just amplifies what is already there. Her investment in simplicity is so attractive, and something I need to apply to my life and my art practice.

Another great article I keep coming back to is Maxie McCoy's guest post on Carly the Prepster on the topic of consistency as the key to growth. Even when I don’t want to, or I’d rather just stay in bed and lounge all morning, I MUST get up, go to my studio, and do the work. Otherwise nothing will get done. Even taking 30 minutes in between appointments or errands to stop in my studio and do something is better than nothing. Progress doesn’t happen overnight, and neither does success. Small steps culminate in a long journey - I can’t wish things into action, or rely on social media to do all of the work. I have to make work, because without it, there’s nothing to share or post about!

In an earlier post I talked about my first landscape painting and a particularly challenging assignment that my professor would task us with at the beginning of each semester, which led me to discover a new way to paint. Instead of using areas of thick paint, like I'd done with some landscape & outdoor scenes, I layered lots of thin layers on top of each other, giving the painting a glowy effect. I decided to try out this new application to a landscape painting, thus beginning my "new era," so to speak, of landscapes.

Scrolling all the way back through my photos made me laugh a little, because I found the original picture of this painting in the first hundreds of my 10,000 photos of my camera roll. What seems like a lifetime ago was actually less than three years ago. Three years. It's so easy for me to feel like I have been doing this forever, and that I haven't done enough, or haven't grown big enough or had enough success, but seeing the time stamp on that photo of the first landscape gave me some perspective. It showed me that I have grown, and I have been successful, and I've only been seriously painting barely three years, and part of that time I was still in school. 

Part of my painting process is starting with really bright colors in the first layers, and then painting over them with softer, lighter layers. Because oil paint is more transparent than other paints, the vibrancy of the first layers shine through, ever so subtly, in the finished painting. 

Today I'm featuring some of the art & artists that inspire me. These guys are too good not to share!

Karen Blair :: I found Karen's work when we both had pieces at Bee Street Studio, and I was immediately grabbed by her lively brushstrokes and felt the energy coming from each piece. I loooove her use of soft colors, and admire how her pieces are abstract-ish, but still landscape-ish.