When I start a new painting, I always begin with two copies, just in case one of them doesn’t turn out well. Sometimes this means I end up with two great art pieces! For this purple octopus, I made it smaller on the page because the first one took up the whole canvas. I also tried to…

Someone recently mentioned that a purple octopus would complete her collection. And I thought, yes, it would! I haven’t done a sparkly purple octopus yet, so, challenge accepted! I started with markers, as I usually do, and I intended to use the watercolor powders to enhance the background. But I wanted to have more control,…

This is my second attempt at combining my octopus paintings with the new abstract powder paintings. The blue abstracts looked so much like water that it felt like an obvious combination. However, I wanted to use my favorite color palette: a teal or turquoise blue with a rusty orange or red. These colors together make my heart…

During my Senior year of high school, there was a competition from a car dealership to paint a car with fun graphics. Multiple high schools around the area participated, and I think the students won $1,000 for first prize or something like that. I led a small team of two other artists, and we airbrushed…

My painting, Blue Inferno #01, won an award in the 6th Annual Women in Watercolor International Juried Competition! I’m a finalist in the Abstract Category. They said this year’s competition had over 1730 submissions from 56 countries from the best of the best women watercolor artists. https://womeninwatercolor.com/2025-award-winners/

I asked an experienced abstract artist for some feedback on my new abstract paintings. The advice was to create a little more negative space for the eye to rest in. So I decided to do a few abstracts with white space. And I wanted to do something with black and red, I was trying to…

One of my first “real” jobs was doing portraits at a former local amusement park in Ohio called Geauga Lake. I was 16 years old, I had my driver’s license, and I worked there for two summers. During my first summer at Geauga Lake, I drew side view portraits colored with chalk and pastels. The one…

Since I had been experimenting with powdered watercolors, I thought it would be a fun challenge for me to try that technique on my octopus art. I drew the octopus on paper with markers, then I applied water, and then I started adding the powders. I had to move fast, because it dried very quickly.…

The number one question I always get is: “How long did that take?“ I can understand why people ask this question. They might be trying to make conversation, or they’re genuinely curious, or they’re trying to assess the value of the piece. However, there is not a simple answer to this question. It may have…

Last year, I had a booth at the Union Street Festival. It was a great experience for me, I sold several original octopus paintings, AND I received several commissions on top of that! I also met some great people, hello to those people! Just before the show I painted Kirameki, the shiny blue octopus, and it was…

When I was growing up, I always had a hard time falling asleep. I would lie there and my brain would just spin out with thoughts, and it would never calm down. It happened so often that I would make fun words out of the digital numbers on my clock. Or I would have favorite times because…

A few days ago I was sitting in the backyard and opened the umbrella to block the sun because even though I love being outside I don’t want to be in direct sunlight. As I turned the crank I discovered 5 big spiders had been hiding in the folds! I was kind of expecting this, our backyard is spider central.   Their presence…