Whited out and repositioned her arms/hands. They’re hard to see here but the hands will have great definition. Rework of her stature 5ft almost to size #rework 

Waiting for one of my daughters to be done with testing finished up another ballerina sketch. White charcoal on tonal grey paper is my current obsession. So smooth on application #ballerina #ballet #dancer #toeshoes #pointeshoes #art #figuredrawing #figurativeart #sketch #drawing #illustration #interiordesign #art #artcollector #losangeles #longbeach #decor #abstractart #belgium #madrid #gallery

Two weeks of being sick with a sinus infection has put me down, so I haven’t painted. Just sketch #sketch #portrait #drawing #faces #figurativeart #art #artofinstagram #figurativeart #modernart #artstudio #gallery #longbeach #losangeles #london

Thursday sketch day.Go quick, fast hand movements , open up your shoulder, let your instinct take over. Don’t overthink. Dm/email me for pricing on prints. 

Sketching in Sahara with paint/charcoal. When I was little my parents were all set to buy a retired Race Horse named Sahara Shizad. We had a coral for her. She wasn’t white but I’m going to paint her white. They didn’t end up buying her. I was so sad. I always wondered where she went, if she was still alive. I would have taken such good care of her. The corralmay be burned downthis past summer. But I can sure paint my memories •WRECKED• series 

20 minute quick sketch while my daughter had Algebra Tudoring. Graphite/charcoal. 

I drew Reese for her birthday😍I love sketching my babies, though they’re young women now #sweet16 #16candles #birthdaygirl #sketch #portrait #drawing #art #portraiture #illustration #mamasgirl #littlewomen

Sketch work in preparation for something big I have planned to paint for years. The Guardian. I’ve seen him my whole life, mostly in dreams when I was growing up and in my adulthood. Never a clear shot of his face though, but he is BIG. I’m getting close to feeling ready to start him. 

Sketch

Quick sketch. Any of my sketches and some of my paintings are available for prints. Just email me (website) for prices/dimensions #artprints #quicksketch #illustration #drawing #portrait #modernart #gallery #artofinstagram

Day 3, started painting her face which is extremely difficult due to the immense texture from the painting beneath it

I made my own medium to cover an old 48x48 the I did a quick sketch of a lady floating in water. For me it really helps me to reverse sketch in white on a dark surface to see my plan

Thought the best thing for me was to battle this for the new year. It’s the fireplace from my childhood home that burnt down. We lost all three homes in that fire. Painting this was hard for me. I hit so many emotions. Multiple layers of paint including some flames with were muted later. In the end I feel ready. Ready to let go of my past, but keep it close as it should. My short story is posted with this on my blog/website. If you’re going through grief or rough patches I would love to help you. God saved me. He gave me art as a life raft. Without Him and without it I would be lost. Like I said shoot me and email or DM if you need some encouragement or just an ear or guidance into painting! Happy New Year friends. 

After the pics is my short back story:  

Sometimes I still feel the loss in the pit of my stomach. Like I was punched. There’s no more going back, or visiting the walls of my childhood. The tangible evidence that served as my adolescent sanctuary is gone for good. It’s so hard to wrap my head around. I visit my house, my old life in my dreams. Touching the walls, walking through it’s long halls. I like to think of my house as alive. Like it’s trapped in the Upside Down as my brother in law said. Like it’s waiting for me and my siblings in another place. Waiting for us to come home.

When I was a young  18, married a Marine who was my brother’s friend in Boot Camp at USMC, San Diego. We married in the little  church next to my father’s house in Old Shasta. Amazingly the church survived the Carr Fire. The firefighters used the water from my father’s pool to save the church. I’m happy they did. Even though that marriage was doomed and didn’t endure, I still like the feeling that something from my past still stands.

  I’m going to give a brief summation on our father without defaming his name. I don’t want to do that. We we’re raised by both our mom and dad. Our dad worked as a respiratory therapist at Redding Medical and Redbluff Hospitals. He was barely at home. When he was he was at arms length, distant, and often played mind games. I didn’t realize what a “real” father was supposed to be like until my second husband Dean filled his role remarkably with our four daughters.

So back to when I was 18. My husband and I moved down to San Clemente because he was stationed at Pendleton.  Then I h

  My ex husband and I came home to visit after visiting his home in Denver. I was so homesick on that trip. My sister had given birth to my second niece Danika, and I missed it. I felt such longing to retrieve my hometown, my friends, just to hike in the hilly woods behind my house. It was nighttime When we drove over the mountains from Reno and as we came over the mountain and saw Redding’s lights shining like a beacon of hope, my heart sunk. Could I go back? I felt like it was all right there in front of me, but I couldn’t go back. That single memory will live with me forever.

  I had to come stay with my parents during my first year of marriage to my ex because he went on a six month deployment overseas. I didn’t know that going back home would make me feel so displaced. Like I was in limbo. My dad and I had an altercation during this time over his same mind games. For the first time I stood up to him. I had realized after being away how abusive he was. My mom has to step between us as my dad came at me with fury in his eyes. Later that night my mom came to my room and said she was finally ready to leave him. All her kids were grown and she couldn’t live like this anymore.  So, we packed up a small uhaul and I helped her leave my dad. She left him without telling him. I left a note for him. My mom moved in with me in San Clemente whole my ex was overseas. I kept in contact with my dad until the following year. He came down but I never felt comfortable, and he was still controlling. I talked to my sister and I decided to cut ties with my father. My brother and sister did one a year later and the other followed after many altercations.

Speeding forward, my family confronted me about my marriage to my first was abusive. I had married someone like my father. With help from my mom I loved away to Seal Beach to be near my mom and her new husband.

My sister wanted me to move back to Redding, but how could I go? I had a failed marriage. I missed my home, my house. Our father stilled lives there. With his new family. He married a woman just a few years older than my sister. She had kids. I tried not to have resentment because we all cut ties. We left. But I did.

When the fire started I kept in constant contact with my sister about where it was. I remember it being in French Gulch. I expressed to my sis what if it comes to Old Shasta? No one thought it would. My sweet Old Shasta. I adored growing up there. Walking to J’s Market to buy Jolly Rancher Sticks with my brother. Playing “army” with my over zealous brother near the cemetery about Shasta Elementary. Picking berries for pancakes along Middle Creek for Saturday morning pancakes. Hanging out stockings on the fireplace while laying under the Christmas tree. That fireplace was my favorite place.

My brother in law is a Shasta County Sheriff. He sent me and my sis photos of the structure after the fire. What will always haunt me is seeing the fireplace still there standing among the rubble. Like it was saying “I’m still here”. When my family and I came up on Thanksgiving my sister and brother in law took us to see the properties. Well we went to see all three houses we lived in that all three burned down. The last one was the one we lived in the longest. All of the rubble had been cleared. It looked son different from what I remembered. We took a fireplace brick. I look at it everyday.

I decided to paint a new expressionist figurative series that displays embodiment with fire in the background. With the fire I feel like I can let go now. I can move on from my past. It also brought me home. I rarely visited up there anymore, but after the fire hit; there’s a longing I cannot shake. I plan to visit Redding often. It’s in my blood.

My new Art pieces are under review from New York, LA, London, and Santa Monica. I’m hoping I can bring some light to my sweet town. I know it’s not really a “town” but a city now. I like to think of it as a town. It’s more dear to me.

So this is my short story of my love for my town rekindled. Reborn from the ashes.

I did a quick sketch lesson for a client who picked up a commissioned geometric illustration. 

Don’t mind my phone shadow. Working on a commission sketch #geometricart #lineart #waves #illustration #drawing #circleart #paintpen #charcoal #art #artistsoninstagram #losangeles

Follow me into the dark

This past summer my childhood home and the surrounding area burnt to the ground in the Carr Fire. It’s extremely hard for me to put my vulnerability out there, but I’ve realized in order to tamp into my true self I need to. What devasted me about losing this house is that I haven’t spoken to my father who raised us in this house in over 21 years. I’ve always been very guarded about the whole thing. My  dad still owned the house with his new family when it was lost. I left Redding when I was 18; I married young. Too young. I look back now and know I was trying to escape. Since I left I’ve only visited a few times. My sis and her family still live up there too. I couldn’t explain it until now why I couldn’t go home. I just knew it hurt too much. That town and house held so many memories for me. I guess I always thought I’d be able to see my old house, my room, my tree swing, the old cemetery me and my brother used to hike to in the hills of Old Shasta, my tree fort, Mr. Hardt’s Property where I pretended I was a professional cyclist-taking a tumbler in my bike that I still have the scar on my knee. But all of it is burned and gone. All the trees are gone. 

So, since the fire I have felt huge growth as an artist. Quite a big boom. I can see on all my old pieces what needs to be done. I cannot work fast enough. I know when I get blocked I just need to look at the photo my sister sent me of our old fireplace standing among the ruble. I started the layout of painting this old fireplace today. The one we hung out Christmas stockings on. The one I sat on a day before I left for my life in Southern California. I have the photo of me sitting on my brothers lap on it. So I’m painting this for me. As a reminder. A reminder that, that grief is a part of me. That I can go home still; even if I have no home. It’s still in my heart.  

Note: I am remarried, the first one didn’t work out  

This is just the start.... 

48x48 heavy texture  

1st on Figurative Series

cleaned up get legs point shoes and background. Added in flective lines the. Some sheer paint for dimension. I always line up my painting with the grooves of the wood floor when doing lines. It’s so easy to go crooked on accident. I used my smudger for the lines and highlights on her legs with quick flicks of my wrist. 

In attempting to occupy my mind while The Carr fire rips thru my hometown. I painted and made a cheesecake for my oldest 18th Bday. 

found solid video that my childhood home has burned. 

Starting muscle definition

tutu layout, lining the point shoes, and starting her legs 

Start of new exhibition series

quick 5 minute sketch on the start of my figure series. Focusing on dancers in motion and capturing the raw strength of their bodies that I truly admire. 

Day 3 of Jesus

Adding in some transparent slate blue hues #workinprogress #art #crucifixion #jesuschrist #portrait #interiordesign #painting #gallery