Thank you so much to Sarah at Harmless Color for including one of my paintings, Be Free As A Bird, in her Etsy treasury - http://www.etsy.com/treasury/4d464a1aa6228eefc18dd1f7/lets-paint-the-forest-red. She also has a wonderful blog at http://harmlesscolor.blogspot.com/ where she showcases some of her handmade gift items and delicious recipes that make me want to get in the kitchen and bake! What a wonderful way to begin the day!

I just listed a new painting on Etsy called "True Love". The painting celebrates the true love of a young mother for her child as they enjoy nature among budding dogwoods and sweet robins. I thought I would share the progressive development of this mixed media collage painting from sketch to the finished painting. As you can see, I changed things along the way, but painting is a journey and you just go where it takes you. I just realized that I started my sketch off with the baby holding a stuffed animal - a rabbit. I didn't even think about 2011 being the Year of the Rabbit! Maybe I should have left the painting the way that it was. Oh well, I'll just have to paint another one. Anyway, I hope you like this version! The painting is listed in my Etsy shop at http://www.etsy.com/listing/66923562/true-love-original-mixed-media-painting?ref=pr_shop if you'd like to take a peek:)

I created some new collage paintings over the holidays as Christmas gifts for my family. I thought I would post them here since I have been so bad about keeping up with this blog. My New Year's resolution is to start blogging and work on being a full-time artist. Thank you to my two followers:) and also thank you to the people who posted nice comments from several months ago that I just noticed today! I hope you all have a very Happy and Prosperous New Year:)