I painted.

Most of you know I studied art in college.  I graduated in 2010 with a BFA in painting in drawing and to be honest, I have done very little with my degree.  For me, making art is a very personal process, and there are a number of reasons why I have taken a hiatus for the past (almost two!) years.  My brother recently commissioned me to paint a temple for his wife for Christmas.  I have never, ever wanted to paint temples (there are so many reasons for this), but because he wanted an image of the temple Mike and I were married in, and because he is family, and because he gave me artistic liberty on the image, I decided to do it.  I am so glad I did.  Despite the fact that my entire living room was overtaken by paints, and getting the preliminary work done was painful, it was a very calming process.  I am happy with how the image turned out, and the errors and things I would change aren't too glaring when I look at the finished piece.  Most importantly, working on this stretched my abilities and lit a new artistic spark.  I can't wait to get back to my paints and get to work on some more architectural pieces.  The San Francisco skyline is limitless.

 My favorite part of the piece is the washes on the facade.

 Those windows...

 I wanted to leave the blue sky out.  The sky is my least favorite part.

Framed.

Can we talk really quickly about how amazing iPhones are?  It was so nice to be able to get high quality shots of the work in progress.  Here's to a new year and many more paintings to come!