Painting Archives - Creative Jubilee

Zierikzee’s Classic Wooden Windmill

By Christina Lee| October 8th, 2017|Creative Inspiration, Humbling Hobbies and Habits, Painting|

On my way to the Netherlands, I stopped by Zierikzee, a quaint town 30 km from Rotterdam. Zierikzee is known for its legendary harbour, houseboat enclaves, enchanting boutique shops and historic townhouses and homes. The city itself is quite charming and convenient for an afternoon stop on the way to Amsterdam. I spent most of my time weaving my way through the neighborhood and admiring the cozy-looking Danish houses. I couldn’t help but wonder what it’d be like to spend the night and wake up to this beautiful harbour. With just a few hours in town I walked along the waterway, snuck into a few bakery stores, bought three pairs of shoes, then got led astray in the fields of green and stole a snapshot of this classic wooden windmill. I stood in front of that towering windmill for quite some time admiring the view… that is until it rained and I had to get back on the bus. Nevertheless, this classic, historic windmill was only one that I could imagine seeing in movies or a painting, so standing right in front of it was surreal.

Months later, I’m still thinking about this picturesque scene and replaying the adventure in my mind. One of the ways to bring this moment back to life is by taking out my paint pad and acrylics, and capturing the memory on paper. I’ve only recently started to explore landscape painting and find depicting nature (fields, bodies of water, mountains) much more interesting than still life.

Well, here’s my spin on the classic wooden windmill of Zierikzee. I hope it inspires you to travel to Holland sometime and experience this wonderful view for yourself.

Celebrating 20 Years: I Conquered Scrapbook Expo

By Christina Lee| July 29th, 2017|Craft Day, Learning from the best, Oh My Crafts!, Painting|

I didn’t strike the gong this time around, but I should have because I conquered Scrapbook Expo 2017! I’ve been going with Susanna to Scrapbook Expo for years, more years than I can even count. It must be somewhere in the high single digits if not early double digits. This time around, Susanna and I are celebrating the 20th Anniversary with Keely and her ten year old daughters, so we reserved a table of five. Now it’s time to get our free scrapbook packets and our totes, and off to the expo we go. I guarantee that none of us will come back empty-handed.

While everyone is in a scrapbook frenzy and off to the expo for some shopping, I am holding down the fort. And since I had just gotten back from my trip to Belgium and Holland, I couldn’t help but find a way to relive those iconic scenes from The Netherlands. Cruising up and down the beautifully laced canals, enjoying Dutch cheese, meeting my business partner and admiring the architecture was mesmerizing. As I flip through the photos and memories, I am inspired more than ever to pick up my paint brush, dust off the palette and paint this picturesque view.

So it seems like the gang is not yet ready to begin scrapbooking, so I’ll need to go out for some extra reinforcement. Ample text and photo messages suggest I should go directly to the back of the expo to the Kreative Kreations booth where I can join the others in picking up a new hobby and pouring endless hours into adhering a gazillion diamond dots onto a sticky canvas. Well, Kreative Kreations, I’m sold and can’t wait to begin working on Van Gogh’s “Cafe at Night. “

Painted Wine Glasses

By Christina Lee| April 19th, 2016|DIY Home, Handmade, Learning from the best, Oh My Crafts!, Painting|

I’ve spent quite some time at the Artistic Home Studio and it only left me hungry for more. They offer so many classes that I’m going to go back, and take each and every one of them. This time around I decided to try out the Painted Wine Glasses class. I was greeted with tubes of acrylic paint and a handful of assorted paint brushes. Okay, I can do this.

As I began to mix and layer on the first coat of paint onto the glass, I realized this is going to be more challenging than I had anticipated. I’ve painted with acrylic before, but with glass as the medium, one coat of paint would hardly suffice. In fact, I could hardly even see two coats. Wow, this is going to take some time. I decided to nix the idea of doing some fancy shading and wiped the glass clean. Water and paper towels make for a good eraser.

Instead, I opted to paint these spring-like flowers (yes, spring in the winter!) keeping in mind the transparency of the glass. It took about 10-15 coats of paint to finally get the full effect of each color. Between the layers of paint, take a mental note of how you blended the colors since you’ll need plenty of paint. It’s also handy to have a blow dryer plugged in between the layers.

Paint + Multiple Layers + Blow Drying Sessions = Hours + Fine Master Pieces

From Canvas to Home Decor

By Christina Lee| August 8th, 2015|DIY Home, Humbling Hobbies and Habits, Oh My Crafts!, Painting|

A few years ago, I took an Acrylic Painting Class over at the Pacific Art League to try and surface any hidden talent in painting. I spent my weekends in the art studio watching these ten minute demos from the instructor and then participated in three hour sessions of supervised painting. We painted old pottery, crooked vases and lots of fruit. Week after week, I painted a variation of the same setup with minor adjustments to lighting and draped backgrounds until finally my instructor pushed beyond the world of still life and introduced me to landscape. She pulled a photo out of her drawer and had me starting painting a scene from her weekend excursion to Pescadero, California. I had never visited Pescadero, but these rolling waves, rocky shores and luscious mountains could easily hold my attention for the next three weekends or 12 hours+ of painting. And so began a newfound of hobby of landscape painting.

As with all my paintings, when I finished, I tucked this one into my portfolio that lay under my coffee table. Only until my cleaner came and pushed my furniture aside did I realize that there was a hint of talent and possibly a “frameable” piece that could sit somewhere in the apartment. I decided to block out the white space on the entertainment stand in my room. It had been sitting there for years unattended, since I had no intention of buying a flat screen television and I had one too many unsuccessful trips to the furniture store. With my painting in hand and a trip to Michaels, I got this piece mounted and framed. Finally, a finished painting and a piece of art that I can call my own.

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