Fall Window Decoration

I recently updated a store front window with a Fall theme. Above and below pics are details.

I used Montana Acrylic Markers, in two different tip sizes, directly on the glass and loved them !

The set of brass lanterns add a nice 

warm glow for the cooler evenings ahead.

WorkCREATIVE

Last week I led a team building art workshop at Waddey Patterson law firm. The workshop was part of a series that The Arts & Business Council of Greater Nashville  thought up, called WorkCREATIVE.

" WorkCREATIVE in-office projects bring music, visual and performing arts into the workplace and integrate employees in hands-on creativity to stimulate communication, build teamwork, and spark innovation for effective business growth. The Arts & Business Council’s staff consultant connects businesses with local artists and arts-based learning. "

Participants collaborated on a multi media piece featuring the firm's logo. They incorporated upcycled materials provided by Turnip Green Creative Reuse. The group's enthusiasm and thoughtful participation was refreshing! See pics below for the process and finished product.

Pet Portraits

Below are a couple recent pet portraits. These are watercolor and ink on an 8" x 10" archival watercolor paper.

Email if interested in commissioning one of your own! Sarahkshearer@gmail.com

A couple more details:

-8" x 10" fits a standard size frame

-$100

-Will work from photographs 

Nursery Mural

I recently worked on a home mural for Jessica and Bruce- a couple expecting their first baby. It's easy to get excited about a project when you work with lovely people like these two! Pics below show the before and after of this fun nursery mural.

Before: blue paint, lots of  natural light, white trim.

The inspiration: a playful bedding set chosen by the couple inspires mural elements. 

After: details around the baseboards incorporate the colors, theme and shapes featured in the bedding set.

After: this wall provides a primary focal point, designed to frame the nursery furniture.

After: my favorite corner. Here's to hoping Mom and baby spend many happy and healthy hours together here!

If you are interested in a custom mural for your home or place of business, please contact me for more information:

sarahkshearer@gmail.com

Spring Window

I recently assembled a new window display with the focus on creating a bright, fresh look for spring.

I sketched out several different sizes of a flower template and traced it onto felt. After cutting out a variety flowers sizes, I paired them up into several different color and shape combinations.

Pinching the flower petals and stitching them up the back side gave the flowers a  great shape. I stitched together two layers of felt on each flower to get a "fuller" look.

Attaching the flowers to branches and incorporating pea pebbles into the arrangement finished out the project.

I'm pleased with the final look and am so happy to say, we finally have beautiful warmer weather in Nashville to accompany the spring season!

Mural Update

Just a little update on the mural I posted about HERE last week.

It was a real treat to be joined by a crew of all ages to paint the most colorful parts of this piece.

These guys were focused and thorough little artists!

These guys covered alot of ground and had a great eye for what colors to add where.

This captures my enthusiasm for the project... 

...and this is where it left off.

I'll be going back in and adding detailed elements to the design- more pics soon to come!

On Painting

My passion in art is human connection. Reading Jason Stopa's recent article "the Line is A Circle: Painting Is A Circle" reawakened a passion for painting that has been somewhat dormant in me. For awhile now I've struggled with why I paint, what I paint, and if I can call myself a "real artist" because I don't feel myself fitting in with what I see and read about in the art world. 

I don't know why it took someone else's words to clean the glass that I've been trying to look through, but it did. So thank you for that, Jason Stopa as well as Mary Addison Hackett who shared the article on FB, spurring me to read it in the first place.

Ever since college I've known I didn't really fit in with the contemporary art scene because "painting was dead"- an art form that only the severly outdated would use. But painting was my first love. 

So I kept at it. Over time though I felt like what I was doing wasn't disaffected enough, cryptic enough, or edgy enough. Through the years I lost my way, or more truly I lost my Why. Since painting the way I did -based on intuition and emotion - did not itself seem valid, I tried to alter my work but as I did I grew less and less happy with it. Less connected with why I was making it, and thus making it lost priority in my life. 

In the most recent years I moved more towards creating craft based projects because I couldn't reconcile where I was at with painting. I enjoy creative diversity; reaching outside my painter's box and into a much broader range of materials was great. But I missed losing myself in painting. 

So today, I want to let all those hang ups go. I want to paint something that makes my heart beat and eventually I'll put it out there into the world believing that someone will understand my language, and that however briefly their heart will beat to the same sensitivity, too.

Collaborative Mural

That's right, friends. I'M NOT DEAD- as the frequency of my post since last year would imply. Not only am I alive and breathing, but I am creating. Tonight, I am inviting folks to join me in creating. I've sketched outlines for the design of a new mural that I am working on and am inviting collaborators to come paint it in with me.

The mural is on combination surface of unfinished concrete and drywall. The space possesses a beautiful, open, raw feeling- perfect for a colorful large scale art project!

Prior to starting...

Sketching begins...

Sketch is finished- time to add some color!

So tonight, twenty something colors of paint will be available and I will be there* painting away from at least 6-8pm!

Click here for full details and a short video about the project!

*LFA Boiler Room – 1200 Villa Place, Nashville, TN 37212