Sandi Hester, oil on paper, 18 x 24
The finished painting! I couldn’t get one single photo to capture the color accurately – so frustrating! This is the best I could do but the original is so much prettier and has a creamy buttery feel about it.
Sandi Hester, oil on paper
Thought it would be fun to share peeks into my studio at times. Here’s the first “peek”!
Sandi Hester, oil, 14×18
Playing with old family photos. This is what it looks like for me to play in the studio! I’m not going for an exact looking portrait- I’m just using the photo as a spring board for shapes and color/design hints. This one is of my parents before I was born. In the lower left corner I wrote what was on the back of the photo – my older sister Jackie took this photo – she would have been a little girl at the time.
Sandi Hester, oil
This is a biggish one for me – 15×15 oil still life.
Sandi Hester, oil on paper
Simple still life oil sketch.
Sandi Hester, oil, 10×10
I’ve been really enjoying painting these blueberries!!
First things first – I have no idea how to link Instagram to my blog BUT I wanted to let you know that I am on Instagram now and I post on there more frequently since it feels a little more laid back and not so formal as the blog. I think my “name” is sandigrady1. Leave me comments if you can’t find me.
Ok, on to the video! I did this video a couple months ago but just couldn’t get it to work – somehow it just started working so here it is! So, yes, I know, I need to work on my videoing skills – not the best BUT it does contain lots of good info, products, and several good tips I’ve learned along the way. I hope you enjoy it! If the video below doesn’t work here’s a link AND don’t forget to subscribe to my Youtube channel so you get updates on when I publish videos.
I’m having my annual art sale at our house again this year. The prices of my oil paintings will be a lot less than I sell them in public – this will be the friends and family prices. I have a TON of new paintings so I hope you’ll come out and see all the new stuff. These little oil paintings would make great one of a kind Christmas gifts. This one is a still life I set up in our backyard and painted from my studio. I do that a lot. My studio is also in our house so you will be able to tour our house and my studio while you’re here. Details below – hope to see you!
The sale will be Saturday, November 16th from 10:00am – noon. Our address is 4252 Burton Hollow Rd, Whites Creek TN 37189.
I would like to introduce you to Cooper’s new best bud – Templeton! I’ve been keeping my eye on PetFinders – a website that lets you see what dogs are up for adoption around you – for a couple of months. Cooper LOVES other dogs and I thought since we have all this land why not get another one :)! This little guy is a great fit for our family – he’s laid back – he’s kind of like a little old man – he moves slow and gentle unless he’s playing with Cooper. They have some major WWF wrestling matches – they just waller around on the floor together and then after the wrestling match they both collapse in sheer exhaustion! Templeton came for a “sleep over” this weekend to see if he’d be a good fit and it went WAY better than I ever imagined it would go. If I start back volunteering at a nursing home he will be a great one to take with me to love on the old people because he’s very gentle and has an old soul and is just a love bug. He’s only about a year old but he acts more like he’s 10 years old – except for when he’s playing with Cooper. Cooper acts more like he’s 10 years old now too – guess they are both wearing each other out. It’s a good fit for all of us. It was Grady’s turn to name our dog and I think he came up with a great name that fits this dog really good!
You may, or may not, have noticed there is a new look to my blog. It’s a little cleaner and fresher. Because of the new look some of my older posts may be a little wonky :). I’m not going to take the time to clean them up – please just over look the wonkiness.
I’ve been playing around with a new medium lately that I really really love – acrylics. As always, there’s a big learning curve when you start a new medium but it’s been fun playing around with something new. It’s actually been hard to pull me away from my studio because of this new medium. For those of you who may be interested, I came across a great website that has a lot to share about acrylics. There’s lots of instruction, tips, and FREE videos!!! Yahoo for that! Here’s the link if you’d like to check it out www.willkempartschool.com. I also signed up for Will’s art courses and they were really good.
I still have a LOT to learn with this medium but I thought I’d share some of my first paintings with you. I’m adding several to this post since it may be while before I get back on here again – at least that seems to be the pattern :). You can click on the picture to see any of them larger. All of these except the red barn are small 6 x 6 paintings. There’s also some glare on some of these – I’m still working on photographing these acrylic paintings without glare – it’s much different from photographing my watercolor paintings.
Sandi Hester 