A Knack For Design

I grew up in a family of artists.  No, not the visual kind, but rather musicians.  Both my parents were professional musicians.  My father taught music in the public school for over 40 years and was an accomplished violinist.  He also played a plethora of other instruments quite well and used his talents in church and community settings.  My mother is a vocalist and music teacher and still uses her talents in many ways.  There was never a dull moment growing up our large family of 7 children.  I was the only girl among 6 brothers.  Wow!  That was an experience in itself.   Our family was naturally centered around music.   We each played several instruments and sang.   The typical weekend was booked with singing and instrumental engagements in churches, nursing homes, banquets, etc.

Since we had inherited our parents abilities, you would think we would naturally all turn out to be musicians today.  Although several of my brothers are still active in music, I chose to take another path.  I knew that I wanted to be an artist since early childhood.  While my family used music stands to hold their music, I used mine as an easel for my canvas.  I asked my parents for art lessons, and they signed me up for several local art classes that taught oils, charcoal drawing and pen and ink.  When I first entered college I thought I would major in music, since that was what I grew up knowing, until, I sat in a music seminar and the speaker made this comment.  "If  you cannot eat, drink and sleep music, then you should not do this." After that seminar I discovered that the only thing I could "eat, drink and sleep" was art.   The college didn't offer an art major, so I took the few art courses they had as electives while there.   When I look back, I realize that I took the long way around to becoming an artist, but I never gave up in the pursuit of practicing my passion.  Although I was unable to chase my passion of art through school, in a sense it chased me and I am where I am supposed to be today, because I didn't give up on my dream.  It also created endurance in me.

As parents, we want the best for our children.  We want them to experience many things so that they discover their talents.  However, I think the best way of helping your child discover their passion is to listen to them.  What do they talk about most?  What do they enjoy doing with their free time?  As a parent I wanted to make sure that I gave my daughter, Vanessa  the opportunity to discover what her God given abilities were.  After trying her hand at painting, I could see that she had talent, but I noticed that it just wasn't "her thing."  She informed me that she had a love/hate relationship with art when she was in grade school.  She liked the creative process, but never cared to be forced to create the same thing that everyone else around her was making in art class.

Vanessa, First Grade

Entering 12th Grade

When Vanessa reached high school she was already pursing her passion during study hall without our knowledge.  Every chance she had, she would pull out a piece of notebook paper and start creating designs.  We didn't know she was doing this until the end of 10th grade when we found her notebook full of designs, each one done by hand.  

Her first design in 8th grade

A sampling of Vanessa's designs.

A few of her finished designs on art paper ready for printing.

I'm not sure how Vanessa will choose to use her designing ability, but I think the lesson here is to listen to your children and to give them many opportunities to explore and discover what they both like and dislike until they find what they are passionate about. 

Sunflower Love & A Sneak Peak of My Daughter's Art

I just finished a new 16x20" painting titled, "Sunflower Love".  It will be available at Dutchland Galleries this week.  I also wanted to give you a sneak peak of my daughter, Vanessa's designs.  I will share more about her unique hand-drawn geometric designs in an upcoming post.

"Sunflower Love" Original Painting

A sample of Vanessa's Hand-Drawn Designs

Firefly Lake Painting

With summertime in mind, I recently finished a new painting, titled "Firefly Lake."  The original is available at Dutchland Galleries located in the Kitchen Kettle Village.  You can also contact them through their website at dutchlandgalleries.com for more information.  If you are interested in prints of this painting, they are available in several different sizes through Fine Art America.    Here is the link for the prints.  I hope you enjoy your summer!

http://fineartamerica.com/featured/firefly-lake-mary-charles.html

Dinner on the Deck

  We recently refinished our backyard deck by replacing some of the boards and a much-needed fresh coat or two of stain.

Carl did the prep work and I did the painting, of course.  We make a great team!

Here is the pond and garden surrounding our deck.  The pond is right off the edge of the deck and this photo is what it looks like later in the season when all the sweet potato vines are full-grown.  We also have a japanese maple tree where the curly willow twigs used to be.  

It took a lot of patience this year to get the pond back into shape as we faced several challenges from the rough winter.  We had to replace the waterfall box, the filter, and all the piping due to freezing & cracking problems and then the loss of many fish from a pesky blue heron.  All the trees behind our pond were also lost due to severe weather and they will have to be cut down this spring, but we are happy to say that we are finally on our way to getting things back into shape.  Our neighbor was kind to offer us some beautiful flowering shade plants that they wanted to get rid of and they are starting to grow.  (Thanks, Lester & Lois!  You are a blessing!)  The challenges we faced with the pond this year were only the tip of the iceberg.  We faced several other challenges that seemed overwhelming.  Everything seemed to come at us at once.  However, we were reminded that we can trust God, one obstacle at a time and one day at a time and that He will take care of us.  He showed us his care through different people in our lives.  For this we are so thankful!

Yesterday, we decided to have dinner on the deck.  It was a beautiful day and it was nice to finally hear the tranquil sounds of the pond running again!

We had kabobs and twice-baked potatoes.  Yum!  We made the kabobs with chicken, zucchini and mushrooms, loaded them with BBQ sauce and cooked them on low heat for 20 mins.  In retrospect, they could have used some pineapple chunks or tomatoes for added color, but they were DELICIOUS!  We also made a few kabobs with the leftover chicken pieces, to add a little more meat to each of our plates.

I also had a chance to finish some small paintings this past week.  Here are the pics of them.  A few of them are still available in my etsy store.  You can see them at this link.  

https://www.etsy.com/shop/marycharlesfolkart?ref=hdr_shop_menu