Welcome!

Welcome to The Pink Artspot!  

I'm Jen and this is my personal art and life blog.  Kind of a live art journal.   I plan to share my artwork, my thoughts and sometimes my process.  My art at the moment consist of acrylic, ink and watercolor doodles and paintings.  I prefer to paint on 12x12 canvas or 9x12 watercolor paper. I carry a tiny sketchbook and a set of pens around in my purse so that I can zendoodle whenever the mood strikes.

A quick doodle that I did with my morning coffee several months ago.

Mandala - "Cosmic", 12"x12" Acrylic on canvas

Painting is just the latest of my art obsession.  I love color.  Like really really love.

But.... it goes way way back.

When I was 12 or 13, I painted our basement playroom with giant murals of mountains and rainbows and sea life and rainbows.  (Someday I'll have to find a picture of that for here...).  It was silly and fun and oh so 70's!   I also sewed quite a bit as a teen, making both clothing and bunches of satin soft sculpture rainbows and other things.  Several (okay, many) years later, I worked at a company where everyone played tennis and did cross stitch.  I'd rather eat dirt than play tennis, so I jumped right into cross stitching!  But my need to play with more and more color led to a period of collecting fabric and quilting.  I loved all the many color ways and fabric designs, but of course, that wasn't enough color either, so I started dying fat quarters and working on elaborate color wash style quilts.

While attempting to master quilting, I also started decorative painting - learning to do faux wall finishes, stenciling, one-stroke painting and a few murals.  Nothing terribly epic, but I sure had fun!

Hey look - we still had a couple of these hanging around the house!
(don't laugh - didn't you ever paint on candles?  Do it - it's fun!!)

After that, I got into beads - after I knocked over a giant tray of my daughter's beads.  Cleaning them up, sorting them out...I got hooked.  Started making jewelry, and learned to bead crochet but I never really got prolific about making stuff - it was the beads that I loved - the colors, shapes, finishes.  So I started collecting, and eventually opened an online bead shop (no, it's long gone now...).

Pile o' sparkly beads! I made the big one and the big string of larger beads in the middle; now it's all a cool necklace...somewhere.

At the same time, I started learning how to knit and crochet.  Knitting ended up being the one that I preferred, and I learned to knit socks. Started collecting yarn as well.  But mostly, still playing with the beads.  

Dabbled in a little entrelac...I don't think I ever finished this!

Not satisfied with factory made beads, I also took up lampworking and began making my own glass beads.  I was working on honing my skills and developing my style when I lost my studio space.  That was in 2011. 

White murrini over encased dichroic glass (okay, yes, it's not perfect but it's soooo sparkly!!) 

My lampworked owl on crocheted seed bead rope

Lampworked vessel, amber with silver glass scrollwork

I really didn't want to craft after that.  I mourned my glass and my studio.  I sold many of my remaining pieces and put my equipment in storage.  I didn't have the money to rent and outfit a new space and time went by.   Many crazy life events happened shortly thereafter.

Messing around in my studio

Friends playing with glass in my studio

I really didn't feel like creating anymore,  except for occasional (like for a day or so) knitting and life changed even more and it was this past Spring that I decided to try zendoodling for stress relief and to just do "something". I found that I liked it a lot.  I think there is something soothing about repeating shapes over and over.  And let's face it, it's easy to make things look pretty good with high quality fine ink pens!  So I kept at it, and my doodles started turning more and more into mandalas and portions of mandalas.

Zendoodle half-mandala

I liked making mandalas and got so much peace from making them,  that I decided to try my hand at painting them.  I started with square canvas and acrylic.  I found it to be very therapeutic and relaxing. So now my focus is drawing and painting mandalas.

Winter, 12x12 acrylic on canvas

And so now, here we are (are you still with me??)

What I've learned after ALLLLL that....I need to do art.  I need to create stuff.  Art is is something that one does for oneself.  Not to please others.  Not to impress people.  But because making art feels good.  If you're doing the right art for you, it quiets the mind, and makes time go by.  It makes you think deeply while you're doing it.  Or sometimes, it helps you not think at all.

It's all for fun.   I may or may not have anything profound to say.  Hopefully I'll have a little eye candy for you.  Or some inspiration.  Or occasionally something to smile about.

I hope you will join me in playing with art - no matter what the medium.  I'll show you my stuff - and talk about things as we go along.  Maybe we're both thinking about the same things...maybe we're both just interested in making stuff.  We'll see what happens.  Hope you'll stay along for the ride.