Tag Archives: Arts

2 Simple Quotes You Can’t Afford To Miss Out On

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Be Who You Were Born To Be

I’ve compiled 2 quotations for you today (which can be downloaded as printable mini-posters for around your office, home or studio and double as desktop wallpaper too).

I want them to serve as reminders of your sheer potential when you can remember to stay grounded and true to yourself.  Here they are:

Integrity QuoteIn other words, work from a place of source — what have you got to bring to or offer the world?  Play on your strengths, differing perspectives and unique interpretations of life. You can be inspired by others but make sure you are an original and not a copy.

Wisdom vs Pride QuoteSometimes we feel the urge to defend ourselves in spite of what could be right.  We can shoot ourselves in the foot by digging our heels in where situations may not serve us just to prove that our way is the way.  We need to put pride on the back-burner in order to listen to what is innate — that voice of wisdom that can steer us onto the path that is correct for us.

Be still and see if you can hear the voice of wisdom that longs to be heard.

To download these quotes just click on the picture, right-click and ‘save as’ to your computer.

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What Does The World Really Need?

Spreading Your Goodwill

The Secret to Excellent Living

2 Musical Quotations To Take Note Of

 

Going Green in the Art Studio

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No Soapbox Today…

Now before you think this is a blog about eco-friendly tips for artists, let me assure you now — this is actually about diving into the delicious green hues of the paint-pot.

Green is an unusual colour for monotone painting but I have fished out some of my art that has at least 60% green coverage (see below).

Gotta Love the Green

I love the colour green, I find it so wholesome, energetic, alive and vibrant — also somewhat comforting.

 ” One of my friend’s son once walked in the front door, paused to look around and then boldly stated that my house looked like a jungle.”

If you were to see my home, you would notice that I have a forest green sofa and plants popping out all around my house.  One of my friend’s son once walked in the front door, paused to look around and then boldly stated that my house looked like a jungle.  I loved that!  🙂

What is your favourite colour to paint in?  Or, if you don’t paint, what hue are you more partial to, especially when viewing a monotone piece of art?

Interesting note:  Did you know that green is the colour of your heart chakra?

Don’t forget you can kit your home or office space out in green and purchase any of the above pictures as prints, just click on the photo to take you to the store.

Find me on Twitter and Facebook:

Something Red…

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In keeping with a festive colour scheme, I will be posting some red-themed art today.

I have decided to choose one artwork from each of my main categories of landscape, form, seascape, floral and wildlife (well, if you consider a dragon to be wildlife).

I hope you enjoy…

You can view my full portfolio here where you can purchase prints, posters, greeting cards and more…

For my blog on Something Blue CLICK HERE

Thanks for looking!

Are you Swimming in a Sea of Possibility?

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Your Creative Legacy

You may think of yourself as a mere drop in the ocean but also know that you are the ocean.  You are special and are eagerly encouraged to leave your loving, creative mark on the world.

In the sea of all possibilities, what form will your mark take?  I can assure you that the excitement lies in finding out.

Remember that the journey should be as pleasurable as arriving at the destination.

Spice it Up!

Your unique stamp or soul imprint allows others to experience life from a different perspective.

Your personal creative endeavours lead to your specific  brand of reality…which allows the collective to experience variety – the spice of life.

Anyone Qualifies!

Imagine a world without musicians, architects, artists, playwrights, comedians, chefs, teachers, programmers, entrepreneurs, healers, writers, homemakers, artisans, designers, gardeners, builders and all those souls who exercise creative flow with everything they touch and do – no matter what profession they are in.

I can’t – can you?

You can contribute to creative expression no matter who you are – no exceptions!

The above imagery and quotations were taken from my table book of art and inspirational teachings called ‘Creative Expression — How to find your inspiration’ (please click the book icon to take you to a full preview of the book):

Why I love to paint flowers…

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When I paint a flower I feel an overwhelming bliss – an excitement to capture the beauty and magic of what I see and feel when I am in their glorious presence.

I am never happier than when I have a house full of flowers and the scent hangs on the air. Or when I am in my garden just being present with the smell of lavenders on the breeze.

They are my main source of inspiration because I still cannot fully fathom their exquisite beauty. Eckhart Tolle put it in a nutshell when he said that we could look upon flowers as the enlightenment of plants. I could look upon flowers all day and still be mesmerized. They are a true gift to us and to gaze upon their delicate wonder is to look at the unfolding of pure potential.

Here is an example of one of my floral paintings called ‘Red Poppies – Finding Beauty in Chaos’ from my new portfolio book – the original is still available and can be found in my art brochure 2011, which can be downloaded for free (see sidebar or click here to download):

To read more about what inspires me, please visit  or click on the book below – you can view a full preview of the book (preview button is at the bottom of the book icon on Lulu.com).

Art Portfolio - Cherie Roe DirksenSubscribe here to receive my monthly newsletter and free gift or click ‘sign me up’ in the side-panel to receive blog updates as they are released.

Something Blue…

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Today is going to be a visual blog.  I have taken some of my favourite paintings/artworks with a boisterously, blissful blue hue/theme.

Come take a journey with me, let’s waltz through the world in blue…

I hope you enjoyed this trip with me.

What colour do you like to see in monotone art?  What is your favourite general colour?  Is there any colour you tend to wear more or have the inclination to paint your walls with? Spill those colourful beans!

And I’ll end it off with a blue t-shirt design…

Some More of My Best Selling Art Prints

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If you want to see my top selling art prints then click here.

These are some more of my best selling art prints online.

I love doing the backgrounds for these paintings.  Many people have asked me if it is a stencil – definitely not!  This is all done by hand and no pattern is ever the same.  It is like a fingerprint.

White Poppies

The Poppy Collective was a huge painting, the first large one I ever did of poppies.  It was definitely a challenge to do, especially the background as you can well imagine.  The painting measured 760mm x 920mm.

The Poppy Collective

Sunset Reflections was purchased by my sister and hangs in her bedroom.  It was a marriage between the poppies and the sunset/landscape.

Sunset Reflections

Another poppy painting has made it into the best sellers list ~ Poppies in the Rising Sun.  This particular one was featured on the RedBubble homepage.

Poppies in the Rising Sun

And there you have it — some of my Best Selling Art as Prints and Posters via RedBubble.

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Christmas Gift Ideas…Part 3

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A Recap

In the past 2 weeks I have discussed great sites such as RedBubble and Zazzle for creating your own gift designs, whether it is from photographs or your own personal artwork.  See Part 1 here and Part 2 here.

Need inspiration?

Today we are going to go behind the scenes and discuss getting inspired.  It’s not an easy thing to obtain if you are stuck for motivation or ideas.  This is where perusing other artist, designers and photographers websites or works on sites such as RedBubble is such a great way of seeing what other creative beings are up to.  Not that you want to copy their ideas but it does, more often than not, lead you to do something that is triggered by someones idea but made completely different by your creative style.

A lot of these gift ideas use captions along with images that can really have that added ‘wow’ factor touch.  So, to get you going on some inspirational visuals, I have been introduced to a site called Pinterest and I want to share this wonderful site with you.

Pinteresting…

For those of you who are not acquainted with the site, it is a really great visual social network.  Displaying not only art, design and photography but also captions, short quotations, illustration, fashion, home decor designs, food and a whole lot of other fantastic things to stir up your creative juices.

“Set aside some good quality time for this as I guarantee the candy feast your eyes will be lapping up is going to make time fly…”

It is a fairly easy site to navigate and it allows you to ‘pin’ any image you like, adding it to your pin board on the site where others can have a look too and repin if they desire.  You also get to check out what other people have pinned on their boards, whether it be their personal creations or other images they have nabbed off the web.

Again, these pictures do fall under copyright laws — so obey!  But have fun getting inspired and motivated to start your own creations.

Set aside some good quality time for this as I guarantee the candy feast your eyes will be lapping up is going to make time fly out the window…next thing you look at the clock and hours have passed as you have perused the many visual delights!  Enjoy and, most of all, have fun.

Future projecting

Can you imagine how impressed your family and friends will be when you present them with a gift of your very own design?!

It is a great way to express yourself, feel a sense of achievement and to get that Christmas list looking good.

If you still feel like making your own gifts is just not for you, here are some more gift ideas from my store:

  

Painting Dolphins

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As promised, in my previous blog about whales (read here), this art blog is going to be about painting dolphins.  As I explained in the ‘Why you have to love whales’ blog – I live in Cape Town and am privileged to see these beautiful mammals expressing their joyous souls on a regular basis.

I have not, sadly, swum with them (yet) – as was the case with the whale – but I have seen pods of dolphins in the False Bay area and what a sight and fuel for inspiration they are!

I have no fantastic tales (or tails) to regale with today so I am simply going to stick to the technical aspects of painting underwater scenes…

The technical side of painting underwater (and no, not physically!)

Dolphins - Cherie Dirksen original paintingPainting underwater scenes are quite involved as they require a lot of layering.  This ‘wash’ of blue that needs to be repeated until the desired effect is achieved, needs time and patience…and I paint in acrylics – for those who paint in oils the process takes even longer as the drying time is slower.

  1. The first layer consists of getting the basic blue background started – then I apply the subject matter.
  2. When that is done the watered-down blue paint wash layering begins until the right monotone colour is produced and ready to go out into the world.
  3. The most rewarding part of this journey is in the varnishing.  As soon as you apply that coat of gloss varnish the painting comes alive and the water looks wet again (like it does when the paint is first set to canvas).

Magnifique!

Perhaps this can give you a better appreciation of how much time and effort (or in some cases, curses and tears) goes into these deceptively tricky aquatic scenes.

Inspiration

With every work of art comes the inspiration behind it.  With this painting, as with the whale painting, I have put it down in the form of a poem.

The Poem 

‘Dolphins – The Spirit of Freedom’

You never let us forget how to love
How to laugh
How to smile
How to be light-hearted

You never let us forget how to be
In the moment
In this space
In this time

You never let us forget about beauty
About simplicity
About friendship
About sincerity

You never let us forget about fun
Being in the heart
Playing with each other
Soaking up the bliss

You never let us forget why we love you so
Why we feel connected
Why you are important
Why you are here

You never let us forget
Who we are
Why we are
When we are

Please never let us forget

If you also have an affinity for dolphins and would like to splash out and have this original painting gracing your wall – click here for details.  I also have a wide variety of products to choose from with this specific dolphin design – for prints, posters and greeting cards click here, for gift ideas click here.

For those of you who still need convincing about how wonderful dolphins are, please do yourself a favour and watch this incredible short video – your heart will melt…go on, you know you want to. 🙂