The Little Princess
This is a 5″x7″ mixed media painting on paper. The sides are 1.5″ deep and are painted red.
This painting is available HERE.
Deep in thought …
Being a princess isn’t always easy…
Lost In Your Dreams ( A Work In Progress)
This is a 18″x14″ mixed media painting in wood. The sides are 1.5″ deep and are painted red.
This painting is SOLD
This painting is not a work in progress. It is complete. Our subject, however, just may be a work in progress, just as we all are. Living our lives on a day-to-day to basis. Doing the best we can.
I had a lot of things going around my head as I painted this one. I was thinking about how when we are young, we sometimes give up our authentic selves in order to be accepted in a group, or perhaps by a love interest. Sometimes we try so hard to become what we feel we need to be, we totally lose sight of who we really are. We try to blend in, to fit, to please, not realizing that, being untrue to who we really are will never lead to happiness.
As a mother of two young girls, intellectually, I realize that helping my children to have self-confidence and self-respect is crucial. Emotionally, however, I find it difficult when they question everything that I tell them and make choices that I would not make. If I don’t let them make their own choices about these small things at this young age, how are they going to have the skills to make good descion when the stake are higher? If I expect them to bend to my way, all of the time, why would I expect that they wouldn’t bend to other people as well?
It is like walking a tightrope, trying to raise children that are considerate and respectful but also have their own ideas and purpose.
These are the titles that I wrote down as I painted this one:
Falling Into You
Becoming You
Becoming Me
I Become You
You Become Me
Blending In
Falling Into Me
Lost In Your Dreams
Lost In You
Don’t Forget You
Harlequin’s Yellow Birds
This is a 14″x18″ mixed media painting on wood. The sides are 1.5 ” deep and are red.
This painting is SOLD
Art Gallery Of Alberta
MY SMALL BLOCK FINE ART REPRODUCTIONS ARE NOW AVAILABLE AT
THE ART GALLERY OF ALBERTA GALLERY SHOP
BUY ONE AND SUPPORT ME AND THE ART GALLERY OF ALBERTA …IT IS A WIN, WIN!
Lift Me Up
This is a 8″x24″ mixed media painting on wood. The sides are 1.5″ deep and are painted red.
This painting is available HERE.
This is a little different for me. More illustrative and a bit minimal. No cut out butterflies or flowers. It was hard to leave it like that. Knowing when to stop can be half the battle, hey?
maria@mariapacewynters.com
The Girl With The Red Ribbon
This is a 6.25″x4.25″ mixed media piece on 100% rag paper.
Available on Etsy
Wonderland
This is a 9″x12″ mixed media painting on wood. The sides are 1.5″ deep and are painted red.
This painting is SOLD
Happy Valentine’s day, I hope that you are all having a great day. Remember to enter this month’s give away.
maria@mariapacewynters.com
Hopes And Desires
This is a 18″x14″ mixed media painting on paper covered canvas.
This painting is available HERE.
We have all experienced dream crushers in our life. Those people that think it is their job to inform us that are dreams are impractical or unrealistic. Growing up working for my parents at their small Inn in Victoria, I met many people, strangers really , the felt that it was up to them to tell me that my desire to be an artist was just plain silly.
‘Art is hobby’ one couple told my sixteen year old self as I poured them coffee for breakfast.
It is amazing to me, when I think back, at how many people told me this. It got to the point that I stopped telling people what I was studying or what my goals were.
Their comments did not changed my desire to be an artist but they did make me feel that it was perhaps a hopeless dream. After all, how do you BECOME an artist? Sure you can go to college and university but let me tell you a little secret, it is not much different there. My professors may have well been those people that I served at sixteen. They were actually teaching us that being an artist for a living was a crazy idea and not only THAT, but if you did manage to make an living as an artist, it must mean that you have sold out.
HUH?
It is no surprise that I remained confused about my desire to be an artist for a very long time. Until I turned forty, actually.
What changed when I turned forty? I was able to turn off those dream crusher voices in my head and realize that the way to become an artist is to create art. As often as possible. End of story. There is no great mystery here. Maybe I am not making as much money as some one with a ‘real job’ but holey moley, I am doing something that I LOVE TO DO.
There is value in that.
There is joy in that.
There is something so SACRED about that.
The thing that makes me so crazy is that, as a parent, I work so hard to cultivate and encourage my children’s dreams and yet one person can come along and destroy it all with a few ‘helpful’ words. So remember, next time a young person tells you what they want to do with their life, just listen, bite your tongue if you have to. Don’t be a dream crusher, be a dream cultivator. *************************************************************************************************
The size of your success is measured by the strength of your desire; the size of your dream; and how you handle disappointment along the way.
-Robert Kiyosak
Desire is half of life; indifference is half of death.
-Kahlil Gibran
It is a miserable state of mind to have few things to desire and many things to fear.
-Francis Bacon, Viscount St Albans
Dream Me Up
This is a 6″x36″ mixed media painting on paper covered canvas. The the sides are 1.5″ are gold leaf and turquoise.
This painting is available HERE.
I am setting up at the Highlevel Diner tomorrow morning. My paintings will be there for the next three months so drop by and take a look.
AND
While you are in line to get a table, you can pick up Mosaic magazine, I am the featured artist.
TOOT, TOOT.
Awaking Dreams
This is a 8″x10″mixed media painting on wood. The sides are 1.5 and are painted red.
This painting is available HERE.
“Use what talents you possess; the woods would be very silent if no birds sang there except those that sang best.”
~ Henry Van Dyke
Dream Magic
This is 6″x12″ mixed media painting on wood. The sides are 1.5″ deep and are painted red.
This painting is available HERE.
Technicolour Dreams
This is a 6″x8″ mixed media painting on wood. The sides are 1.5″ deep and are painted red.
This painting is available HERE.
“The future belongs to those who believe in the beauty of their dreams.”
~ Eleanor Roosevelt
Freeing
This is a 6″x12″ mixed media painting on wood. The sides are 1.5″ deep and are painted turquoise.
This painting is $90 and is available HERE.
On ‘Freeing’:
I have to say, I have always felt that wearing men’s ware as a women is not only incredibly sexy but very freeing as well. I am not sure that men feel this way but I have always loved stars that have opted to go this route. Think Katherine Hepburn, Diane Keaton, Marlene Dietrich and even Madonna. I guess I just really like the fact that you don’t have to be showing all that much skin and still have amazing sex appeal. It is kind of empowering. Like I said, not sure if the guys actually like it. I remember going to a school dance dressed up as Charlie Chaplin and I can tell you, I didn’t dance at all that evening. Perhaps a mustache on a woman is never that sexy and, in retrospect, going to a dance at an all boys school and dressed up as a ‘boy’ is probably not the greatest idea I’ve ever had, even if it was Halloween.
MATISSE FOR INSPIRATION:
This Saturday we had our first art lesson in the loft. Having just all seen the local art gallery’s exhibit of Matisse, I decided that this would be an excellent jumping off point.
Here is what the girls’ created.
( Scarlett was a little creative with the blue eyeshadow before we even got started!)
Meg, signs her creation.
I think they all did a wonderful job!
My Red Crown and Cape
This is a 6″x8″ mixed media painting on wood. The sides are painted red and are 1.5″ deep.
This painting is $80 and is available HERE.
Yesterday, Scarlett was telling me what her day at preschool was like.
SCARLETT: We went to the gym and I played super hero with Atticus … no, actually, Atticus was a super villain, not a super hero.
ME: Oh, what was his super villain powers?
Scarlett: (Looking at me with much pity and disbelief) He didn’t TELL me.
ME: Oh right. Well, what was your super power?
SCARLETT: ( standing up and putting her right arm in the air) CLEANING!
ME: Now that IS a good super power.
(Here is hoping that this super hero comes for a visit to our house because I am pretty sure her arch-nemesis is living here!)
I love the way kids play super hero. My girls have had their moments, but the desire to be a princess is always stronger. I think that the cape is more of a boy thing. I remember a long time ago, before I even had kids, knowing a woman who had a boy who would not leave his house without his cape. I love that.
Onward…
This is a 6″x8″ mixed media painting on paper covered canvas. The canvas is 1.5″ deep and is painted RED.
This painting is $80 and is available HERE.
Two more days of 42…onward to 43. YIKES! How is that possible???
maria@mariapacewynters.com
The Plaid Pierrot
This is a 6″x6″ mixed media painting on paper covered canvas. The sides are 1.5″ deep and are painted turquoise.
This painting is $65 and is available HERE.
Enter January give away.
The Shadow Of A Hat
This is a 6″x6″ mixed media painting on paper covered canvas. The sides are 1.5″ deep and are painted red,
This painting is $65 and is available HERE.
This is another nameless mug shot from 1900. This one is from my home town of Victoria, so I have actually walked the same streets she walked … well, not exactly.
maria@mariapacewynters.com
The Pickpocket
This is a 4″x6″ mixed media painting on paper covered canvas. The sides are 1.5″ deep and are coral.
This painting is $65+ shipping and is available HERE.
This is from a mug shot from Australia Feb.2, 1922. (V. Lowe.)
I don’t know about you, but I think she is going do it again.
maria@mariapacewynters.com
She’s Just A Little Girl
This is a 6″x12″ mixed media painting on clayboard. The sides are painted red with newsprint butterflies and are 2″ deep.
This painting is SOLD
This is something that I have to remind myself often. Especially when it comes to my seven-year old, I find it much easier to remember when it comes to my four-year old. I always have. I have always expected more from Imogen. When I look back on what I expected from her when she was four I kind of cringe. I guess this the curse of being the oldest and born to an older mother who was set in her ways perhaps, and had way to long to build those expectations. You know what I mean. The times when we would see children in public and think, “if they were my kids ….” (fill in the black with all of your ‘non parent’ wisdom HERE). Or, on the other side of that, when I was trying to have a child unsuccessfully for five LONG years and I would see a mother or father completely ignoring their kid begging for gum as they were standing in the line to buy groceries and I would think “NEVER! I will NEVER ignore my children, I will talk to them, I always engage them in stimulating and meaningful conversation”. I didn’t realize that they weren’t ignoring their kids they were simply WORN OUT. They can do that, you know, after the 100th time or begging for something in the grocery store, that DOES tend to happen.
This all being said, I must remember she is just a little girl more often. I know that I am a good mother, but I could be better. Couldn’t we all? I was watching TV making dinner the other day (yes, I have a TV in my kitchen! I know, I know) and I saw the worst thing I have ever seen on TV. I am not going to mention the show but it was basically about a mother abusing her child in the most horrific and twisted unimaginable way, and this is the stuff we were privy to. And the first thing I thought of was ‘ he is just a little boy’ and then I had to turn it off because it made me ache so bad that a child would have to endure anything like this from his own mother. What hope does a child in this situation have?
And as bad as this was, I have to tell you, it doesn’t have to be THAT abusive to have long-term scaring effects on a child. How about a teacher that tells a child in front of their peers that they will be getting a bad report card if they don’t start behaving? Don’t think that kind of shaming isn’t going to have a negative effect on a child. Unfortunately for the child and teacher, probably an immediate effect.
Anyway, I was just thinking about all of this when I was painting this one and I know what I have wrote it is a bit rambling but really what I am trying to say is those words ‘shes just a little girl’ were circling around my head but what I was thinking about was ‘they are just children’ and they are really delicate and we have so much power over them. We all just really need to remember to be kind.
Waiting For Him
This is a 6″x6″ mixed media painting on paper covered canvas. The sides are 1″ and are painted turquoise.
This painting is $65 and is SOLD
I see her standing at the edge of the sea. The wind whips her hair around her face but she stands motionless.
She is waiting.
Waiting for him to come home.
maria@mariapacewynters.com
Aspirations
This is a mixed media diptych on wood.
The sides are 1″ deep and are turquoise.
SOLD
Painting, painting, painting….eating it, breathing it, living it …. these are my aspirations…but they are tiring.
To Catch A Glimpse
This is a 12″x16 ” mixed media painting on a wood stretcher. The sides are 1.5″ and are red. This painting is $280 + shipping and is available HERE
There is something about this poise that I love. I have painted it before and called it Waiting.
He is watching her. She pretends not to notice but holds her breath in anticipation as she attempts to look back over her raised shoulder to catch a glimpse of him watching her.
You Are The One
This is 3″x5″mixed media painting on paper covered canvas. The sides are painted red and are 1.5″ deep. This painting is $50 and is available HERE.
