New Trees and New Plans

"Hope" available at www.stacysartstudio.etsy.com

I play with my trees all of the time. This is one(on the right) of the my oldest styles. I've always loved the way trees stick no matter the circumstances. They can grow thru almost anything that is adverse. As you've no doubt noticed I like using them in almost all of my paintings and I make them twist and turn. I make them have hearts for leaves, I have them give a message, like the one on the right. I painted this one when I was reminded of some painful things that my son went thru when he was being treated for Leukemia  because a friend of mine was caring for her mother who was battling breast cancer. I don't know what it's like to have the disease but I do know what it's like to care for the one you love with the disease and this is how I felt about it. You want to take the disease into yourself so that your baby doesn't have to endure it, but you cannot so you must be a strong tree and hold him up, give him hope, love him with all of your heart, protect him when you can and give him strength when he doesn't have any himself. Also it feels bleak, like a cold winter but, there is beauty in winter as well and just like a real winter, spring always comes afterward. So there is always hope. That's why I painted this tree this way.

                             Then I painted this style tree. It's a happy Mom and Dad with a little one.

"Family Tree" available at www.stacysartstudio.etsy.com 

Do you remember when your big son was little and he would hold onto yours and his dads' hand so that you both would swing him in the middle? That's where this tree style came from!

Next I started trees in love! You know that feeling of love, where you give each other strength, devotion, safety, compassion, tenderness? Two people become one.

"Love" 2 sold 

Then I started playing with the limbs and how they were shaped. I named this one "Lace" because that's what the limbs reminded me of.

"Lace" available at www.stacysartstudio.etsy.com

Then  I began painting tree families for friends as gifts and I have had so much fun doing tree families. This is the latest that I've done.

not available (it's a gift)

After doing this last painting I decided to do a whole lot more of these. I love the freedom of making those limbs go into curly ques! I will be doing more tree families in the future and I'll be making them available to purchase as commissions. That way you can tell me how many people are in your family and their ages and something about your family so that I can incorporate something specifically for you in the painting. Also I'll offer it in different sizes so that different budgets will be included.    So! There you have the many trees of Stacys world! These are the things that reside in my head! 

I began this post talking about my little man battling Leukemia, well he's 18 now and is an amazing, funny, most entertaining kiddo! Which brings me to my inspiration this week. My boy is my inspiration and always has been. You can read about his story on my other blog. www.chemicalfreeliving.blogspot.com  He constantly amazes me with his kindness, foolishness, humour, compassion and strength. He struggles with the result of the treatment he received for Leukemia so he is home bound quite a bit and has learned to be pretty technically savvy which is a wonderful thing for mom!(the technically savvy part) Since I have no clue about these things! We are starting a new project together. Many people have asked that I offer cards in my etsy store but I've struggled to get that set up in a way that I feel that it's good quality and a reasonable price. I'm taking a couple of paintings and giving them to him to change the dpmi or whatever it needs so that they will print out in good quality. This will probably take a few months, (mainly because I'm slow) I will also be working on a few paintings that I will keep to use for prints only.    

Also I've mentioned before that I wrote a childrens book when my Avery was a baby and had planned on working on the art for that. Well, I didn't get far but there were technical things that I had to work thru with my untechnical(yes I know probably not a word) brain. I haven't given up on it tho and this winter when I hibernate I will be painting my fingers away! Avery will be putting up with his untechnical mother and help get it ready to be a book!

New trees and new projects! Isn't life grand?! Have a great week everyone! Don't forget to hug the ones you love!