More and More Beauty

Everyday I discover more and more beautiful things - Claude Monet

This oil painting adventure has been filled with the same delight, awe and challenges that came when I was teaching myself coloured pencil work. 

These pieces created this month, though, are my most favourite work, personally, to date. They have pushed me, and in that discomfort of growth, of stretching, I have discovered more beautiful things, felt more fulfilled than I have since the Silent Flight collection, and see a most wondrous path before me, filled with creating so many realistic, romantic, classical portraits of wildlife and botanicals. 

I feel so inspired, and the opportunities to share this work consistently this year feels so expansive, and exactly like the dreams I had of making beautiful art for you. 

Next week I want to describe the process of these paintings to you in terms of using oil paints as the medium they are realised in. It will be a delicious exploration of painting!

Would you like to learn the art of realistic wildlife portraiture?

This year I am also going to be leaning-into sharing how to create realistic wildlife portraiture again, through a series of classes planned for release over the next 12 months. 

They will focus on the foundational skills of drawing realistically, and then painting your creations. 

I will share a little more about these classes as they are created here in your weekly studio missive, but if learning from me is something you are eager for, sign up here too. 

I am planning a separate, inspiring, education and creative cultivation letter once a month that will let us dive into this aspect more thoroughly (and give you the heads up on new classes, free prompts and exercises, sketchbook habit building, and more).

For now, I leave you with thoughts of running free and wild through forests alongside wolves and foxes, with owls and ravens keeping pace overhead. 

Our legs strong and nimble, our lungs taking great breaths of cool, fresh, tree scented air, smiles on our faces, and tears streaming behind us with the sheer joy of it all. 

I can hear the wolf beside me breathing, strong and wise and sure-footed, the raven caws quietly in excitement over my shoulder, feathers lightly grazing my cheek. Turn your head to the left a little - can you see me? 

I see you. 

I see YOU. 

I see your wide smile and your wild heart, I can feel the joy coming off you in waves. 

This is who we are, wild one, where we belong.