I have wanted to do a larger painting of Lone Peak for quite a while. It’s the biggest and most prominent mountain that I see from the part of the Salt Lake Valley where I live. I periodically post images of my view on Instagram. You can see the vast differences in weather, light, and colors.
I added three new stickers to my shop this week. Click here to buy, share, gawk, critique, you know the drill. My #NPSLover stickers are listed first with my I ♥ Public Lands sticker right below them.
Up first is the painting I did last summer of the Milky Way over Sand Dune Arch at Arches National Park. I painted this during the weekend I spent at Draper’s Art in the Barn. It was a 2-day art exhibition (my first ever!), and I found it impossible to just sit or stand while people milled about, so I brought supplies to paint and ended up doing 3 small paintings.
Sand Dune Arch was a favorite spot of my kids when they were younger and didn’t much care about the awe of the park. Hike for just a few minutes in between these giant fins of sandstone and there’s an arch in there; it’s super short. It’s a wonderful spot to let little ones play in the fine sand and, depending on when you get there, you could rest in the shade. This spot can be super popular in the summer months when it’s hot. We’ve been to Arches multiple times, but only in April and May; which I HIGHLY recommend. Spring Break is a wonderful time to visit Moab.
You can click on the image to purchase a sticker too.
Next up is a painting I did of Corona Arch, just outside of Moab. It’s one of my favorite places ever and I did this painting for a client a while back to be printed on neck gaiters some day. For this sticker, I went with a new-to-me website, Jukebox Print, for these stickers and I LOVE how they turned out.
This is one of my favorite paintings and I had SUCH a fun time painting it. It was one of those times where I felt like I was in a groove and paper and paint just cooperated and coordinated.
Last up is Sundial Peak in Big Cottonwood Canyon and part of the Wasatch National Forest. I had to do some research to find out if this peak was on National Park Service land or BLM Land. I’m still not 100% sure, because I also see it tagged in the Twin Peaks Wilderness. This spot is close to where we live and it’s a hike I hope to do this summer. If I can plan it right (depending on snow melt and weather, we’ve had a TON of snow this winter), I want to do a backpacking trip there. It’s a tough trail with a lot of elevation gain, but it’s supposed to be worth it… barring the mosquito situation.
I painted this one just last month to help pull me out of a funk I was in. Finishing it, and subsequently making a few changes in Photoshop, really helped pull me out of my Winter Blues and the funk that I was in. I will have this available as a giclée print in a couple of sizes in the coming months.
I actually made a mistake when ordering this one as stickers. I didn’t pay attention to the wording on a sale and I ended up ordering 2x2 inch stickers. These are a lot smaller than I usually order, so I may just make these freebies to anyone who places an order.
I will order this in a 3x3 inch sticker at some point.
I want to paint some places that are gorgeous and not in Utah next. I have a few spots on my list like South Falls in Oregon, and I have a photo that I took of a beach in Half Moon Bay, California that I may paint. Any suggestions??
As part of my effort to light a fire under my butt to paint more often, I decided to participate in a 4-day galaxy skies painting challenge that I saw on SkillShare with artist Swathi Ganesha. Click here if you’d like to try a month of SkillShare for free.
It was such a treat to have a booth at Draper’s International Arts & Crafts Festival a couple of weeks ago. This is only the second year that the City of Draper has put on this festival, and it was noticeably larger than last year. There was over 100 vendors selling crafts, art, jewelry, textiles, and more.
They had lots of different performances on a main stage. Here is a link to a YouTube video that the city made about the event. I’m not in the video at all, but it gives you a good idea of the different booths that were there. There were lots of different food vendors too, which is usually my favorite part of any festival.
I had my 10x10 foot tent again, but this time I was somewhat limited to keeping all of my stuff inside my booth rather than letting it spill outside a bit. I also used two of the side walls to help with the wind and to give my booth more of an entrance and exit path. So this made it impossible for me to sit down and paint like I did at Draper’s Art in the Barn.
This turned out to be a good thing.
One: the whole festival was only from 10am until 4pm, so it was overall a very short day.
Two: it rained! Right around 2:15pm, a summer thunderstorm rolled in and it started raining. It rained hard enough to for me to move all of my stuff UNDER the tent and away from the edges. Of course, this was right when my taekwondo studio (along with my kids) was beginning their performance on the main stage too. Thankfully, I was able to watch it via Facebook Live.
It only rained off and on for an hour and then the sun came back out. Overall, it was a beautiful day, Quite a few friends were able to stop by my booth and say hello and buy a few stickers and prints. I had lots of kids stop by to pick up coloring pages or to just sit and color for a while.
A new thing that I had at my booth was a handful of blank, steel water bottles and tumblers. If you bought one, you could choose any two stickers to put on it for free.
Click on this image to see the Reel I posted about my booth.
All in all, having a booth at this festival was a really fun experience and I will definitely do it again next summer. Both experiences with a booth at a festival and an art show have made me want to search online for different festivals to judge the booth fees and potential travel expenses to see if it may be worth doing more often. I had a couple of people tell me that I would do well having a booth at shows down in Hurricane and St. George.
Off to do more research….
