Caution:Artist at Play-Artwork by Shana Rowe Jackson

  I have been in the throws of inspiration this lately, and have created SIX new pictures since last week. One was a landscape strait from imagination, the next was inspired by a photo my husbands friend let me use,  then a heartwarming photo of my dog Max, a sketch of my cat Puff and the other two were additions to my "Revival Series" I think I pretty much covered every medium this week. :)   On Tuesday the 9th I had the opportunity to paint with a local painting group called the Tuesday group. It was nice to paint with others for once, and after we took sometime to critique, which was a really nice change for me and I learned a lot. I didn't really know what I wanted to paint, so the night before I did a quick landscape sketch from my head, and that's what I ended up doing. It's called "Daisy Lane" it's 11"x14" acrylic. I finished most of it there, then did a couple updates that were brought up during critique when I got home. I can'

"Love and Be Loved"-Mixed Media © Shana L Rowe Jackson 2012    Sometimes, I get so enthralled in my artwork that it consumes my whole life. I can't sleep, I have hard time concentrating on other tasks and it makes it difficult to find time for day to day tasks. Often times this feeling comes along with a natural high, when I am crazy inspired and doing some of my best work ever, and whipping out paintings like there is no tomorrow. Other times, it comes with lows, where it seems that my hard work isn't paying off as fast as I would like, I'm not getting many sales, or I don't feel I am getting the recognition I deserve. These lows can be detrimental to creativity, so when I feel this way I know it is time for me to step back from art and let myself re-vamp before coming back to it.    I recently went through one of these lows, and realized that I was too consumed with my art and marketing it. I love my art, and most of the time painting is very therapeut