This piece is very special to me because it represents the start of my own journey as a professional artist. I am a creative human of many mediums. I always knew creating was my calling. But growing up, I was told that being an artist would land me on the streets one day. It wasn’t a respectable career or a very practical use of my time.

And while I continued to dance and write, for some reason I was especially shy about spending my time painting. I would only allow myself to paint as a gift for someone else. I didn’t even own any of my own work.

One day I realized how absurd it was that I had this passion and nothing to show for it. So I started painting a series of paintings for my own home. And I have not stopped painting since.
It was years later that I decided to put my artwork out into the world and ask if people might want to pay me money for it. This painting is a celebration of my departure on this great adventure of embodying the identity of professional artist.

Harnessing a New Medium

This was quite a challenging piece for me because I had just started working with oils. I did the entire background in acrylic paint and executed only the girl with oils. I was intimidated by the idea of completing an entire painting using ONLY oils, and this felt like a good way to dip my toe in.

I learned a lot about the way oils behave along the way. I found that I had to implement a bit of a mindset shift. Acrylics dry in seconds, and so I was accustomed to building up thin layers, one immediately after the other. Oils require mediums in smart quantities to work this way, and there always seems to reach a point where you just have to stop and wait days for the paint to dry before continuing. There was a lot more blendability with the oils, which was nice. But I found that also meant that I needed to be very careful with my brushstrokes.

The Research Phase

I love birds, but I have never painted bird wings in detail. I spent time researching the structure of different bird wings… the way the feathers were positioned, the various sizes of feathers, etc. And then I adapted what I found to my fantasy version on a human. Finally, I spent some time playing with the colors to develop a plan for the wings that I was happy with.

My First Gallery Appearance

As I was nearing completion of this piece, I learned that a local artists’ guild was putting on an online exhibit with the theme of “Creative Inspiration”. And this piece felt absolutely perfect for that theme.

So I finished her up real quick and entered her. She was shown in a digital exhibit with the Las Vegas Artists’ Guild. It did not win any awards, but it was a huge step for me because it was my very first ever gallery showing. Just like the painting depicts, it felt like an official leap out into the unknown.