Hello everyone!

[Laura D]

Hi, I'm Laura. I've been an artist since I was a child and have recently renewed my commitment to keep my
ushes wet and to wear down my pencils! Have to support the local art supply shop/framers you know.

My art has been sidetracked by raising a family and then trying to market a line of victorian greeting cards... that old lack of confidence reared it's ugly head. So... now I am in the process of changing my website over to my fine art and moving the card designs to designs for licensing. (Wish me luck!)

My main loves are watercolor, graphite and color pencil - and I'm a color theory nut. I hope to meet you all soon.

[Erika Takacs]

Hi Laura, welcome to ASC. Your commercial art is very nice, good luck with the cards! Looking forward to seeing your fine art as well, Erika

[Laura D]

Thank you Erika. I took a peek at your website and love your sculptures. Congratulations on your first show!

[Singular]

Hi Laura,
Welcome aboard. I am glad you found us. Your art is wonderful. I look forward to seeing more and chatting.

all the best,
Joe

[Laura D]

Thank you Joe. From the looks of it I think this will be a really great place. Glad you like my work. Your gallery "creator" was very easy to use.

[Erika Takacs]

Thank you Laura for your kind words. I see you uploaded your fine art images successfully. What strikes me most about them immediately is the fine colouring. Vi
ant but subtle at the same time- I don't know how you do that. Your portraits and landscapes are outstanding. I loved 'Steev' the most. It's great that you can return to your first love and create what you like.

[Laura D]

Thank you Erika. Steev is my favorite too. It was the first time I'd been in a life drawing situation where they used colored lights. So dramatic.

about how I did that... I'm a color junkie! I love playing with it to see what kinds of effects I can get. "Ribbons" is a full sheet doodle with every color Prismacolor made in 1990.

Right now I'm really into watercolor and a have replaced all of my Cotman paints with WN's artist series. Of course I just have to do color studies of the paint mixes! I even did a video series on YouTube of instructions on creating color swatch books. I'm nuts.

[Erika Takacs]

I'd like to see the You Tube video.

[Laura D]

Aw gee shucks (digging in one toe) that would be nice. A warning though, it's actually in 9 sections (YouTube limits the size so severely)! The first two go over creating a (physical) template for the page layouts and starts here:
http://youtube.com/watch?v=tevBv1_Iy7c

If you just want to look at the painting parts the intro is here...
http://youtube.com/watch?v=qeJiAHxJp9k

Thanks for your interest.

[beautifulbay]

Laura, I love your elegant victorian style. Very feminine and beautiful.
I had done the same thing, I started getting my work out to the public, was goign rather good for a start, but quit to raise my kids.....had a hard pregnancy for one, and just took a lot of time off....a lot! Now that they are older, I have more time and am back at it. It's hard to believe that I actually went a few of those years without drawing anything at all.....now I can't live without my pencils and paper.
Feel good about your work, it is very good. I know how that confidence thing can be, I struggle with it all the time.

[Laura D]

Thanks BB. I'm moving away from the Victorian stuff... it was a craft compromise for the last '90's/early 2000. It's time to put those doubts aside and do what I really am meant to do. I can't lose any more money that the card line did.

[Erika Takacs]

Laura, I watched two, is there one on which you actually paint a watercolour painting? I find that watercolour works better on my sculptures and handmade paper then acrylics, but I'm having a difficult time with it.

[Laura D]

It's a tricky medium Erika, you aren't alone! No, I haven't done any demo videos. I only did this video because other artsits wanted instructions on doing a color mixing swatch book. I've done a bunch of WIP's and helped instruct a class... making a editing the videos takes a lot of time so I tend to stay away from them (for now!).

What is it you are having trouble with? Do you have photos?

[beautifulbay]

Laura, I haven't viewed your videos yet, but I will make some time to do so soon. I'm very interested in seeing.
I wanted to do a video too, but I don't really know how.....nor have a dig video camera....so I think I'm a bit stuck on that idea.

[Laura D]

I don't have a movie camera either but my new digital camera does little videos. I just shot one today about float mounting and framing a watercolor.

Now I have to put all the parts together, edit it and cut it up into little pieces... youtube has time and file size limitations. That will take another 2 days (except we have to have Christmas in there somewhere) so maybe next week it'll be ready for upload. That's another 2 hours. At least. Whew. Not hard, just involved.