Audience Choice Winners :: Autumn Paintings in Gouache

Yayy I’m so excited to be sharing the Audience Choice Autumn Paintings winners with you today! Sooo many folks chimed in to vote here, through my newsletter, and on Instagram and YouTube - I was truly floored!

I have been really feeing the cozy, colorful fall vibes hard this year and I think you all chose two photos that exemplify that superbly!

So without further adieu, the winners are…

If you’re not already, subscribe to my YouTube channel while you’re up there and/or make sure you are following along on my Instagram because I will certainly be doing ‘audience choice’ artwork again since I got such a huge response from this one!

Here are the winning photos:

And here are the final paintings! Yay!

They are actually bigger here than in my sketchbook, kind of fun to see all that detail up close!

Thanks again everyone who contributed! Y’all gave a great response and I can’t wait til the next go round! Happy Autumn!

11.23.2022

Sneak Peek at the Autumn Painting Winners...

Ugh it’s so hard not to share progress shots of this first tiny autumn landscape! 😬😆🥹😋 So I decided just to tease this extreme closeup of one corner of it finished.. but maybe it’s not super obvious which one it is?? 🫣🤫🍂🍂

A big thank you to all who voted!! I’m literally having so much fun trying to paint these the best I can so y’all will be psyched to help choose my art in the future too!

I think this one has turned out great! You like the little multicolored trees on the muddy shore? It’s a lot of tiny specifically directional brushstrokes that help the textures look so different 🙌🤎🧡💛💚💙

Now if you just simply cannot wait until next week to see the finished paintings on my YouTube channel, then make sure to subscribe to my newsletter (and check your inbox this afternoon if you already are!) because I’m showing this piece to those folks today as a special treat, just ‘cause I like to share art there first with my biggest supporters

Choose My Next Paintings - YOU Decide!

Hey artists, want to have input on some beautiful autumn paintings for me to create??

⚡️For the next 24 hours I am running a poll where YOU get to decide the two autumn paintings I paint in gouache in my new sketchbook. I took these photos on a recent hike here in Tennessee and the colors were just so glowing in each one I'm having a hard time choosing myself which ones to recreate🍂

I’m running the poll on YouTube (on my Community Tab) and Instagram (in my Stories and Reels), but you can also vote just by commenting on this blog post below - whichever way you prefer!

Your choices are…

Now vote below and tune into my Mid November YouTube video to see which two pictures got turned into gouache landscapes in my supa cute new blue sketchbook! Yay!

Yay, thanks! I can’t wait to see what y’all decide!

11.5.2022

A Special Hawai’i BDay Treat!

‘To My Wonderful Mama on her 70th Trip Around the Sun, I would never have been able to behold scenes like this had you not given me the courage to explore. I love you more than anything, Caleigh ❤️’

I created an extra special island care package for a big milestone for my fave person: my mom just turned 70!!

I painted this little seascape for her in gouache (above) and also got this amazing silver and precious inlaid stone pendant that my twinzie Emsy (@emsyvision) created with her own two beautiful slender little hands this past summer during her first apprenticeship with a metalsmith jeweler. I am so floored by her incredible craftsmanship that I had to pick up a few pieces for myself too, which I promise to share as well!

I also scored a few other tiny treats including this gorgeous tiny hand painted bowl and some of the best coffee chocolate I have ever tasted in my life!

I was thrilled to hear it arrived right on time on the big day and was a welcome surprise during these quiet says around the house. In this Birdie’s opinion, care packages are just as much fun to send as to receive… I just love imaging the look of surprise and excitement pulling each little piece from the tissue.

11.18.2020

Surprise Art of Me!

Whoa I am so floored! @jetheadedgypsy just surprise painted me doing my favorite thing, painting!

The original photo of me was taken by my girlie Jae @paintinghawaii when we were out doing a lil plein air painting at Makapu’u Beach on O’ahu so the layers upon layers of women painters that made this art possible is truly heartwarming.

Thanks so much to Dané @jetheadedgypsy for making my week by surprising me like this! I’m so very honored.

Can’t wait to go back out for some more artsy adventures on da ‘aina one day!

2.5.2020

Maui + Big Island Vanlife Vlog

Whew! What a beautiful whirlwind those ten days were! Sleeping outside every night under the stars with the biggest rose gold glowing moon you’ve ever seen, letting the wind whip through our hair as we were cruising the winding hairpin turns presenting us with spectacular waterfalls, elementally intense craggy coastlines, the greenest jungle vines, and the lushest rolling patchwork hills you can imagine.

Woo Hoo enjoy this vanlife adventure including the amazing Road to Hana, an orchid painting timelapse from the farm we stayed on, and even a visit to the black sand nude beach!! Plus make sure to pop back over next week when I’ll be posting more of my very best pics from this sunny, nature-filled vacay :)

Check lots more Maui pics here

..And Big Island pics here!

11.16.2019

Plein Air Painting at Makapu'u Beach

Just had another luxurious day painting outside with another sister artist of mine, Jae. This time, however, we opted to go to the beach and paint in our bathing suits! So fun!

There was some light cloud cover which made the day just perfect and a few local kiddos wound up coming over to check out what we were creating. I’m pretty psyched too because this is the first plein air landscape painting of my own that I have actually liked - ha!

I know we artists can be hard on ourselves, but pretty much all my landscapes painted from life have been a disaster. Since I like to get so detailed with my oil paintings, I have a really hard time relaxing and generalizing enough to capture as much information as a landscape provides. You know that saying ‘you can’t see the forest for the trees’, well I feel like I can ONLY see the forest for the trees so every time I try to render a scape I get lost trying to represent every leaf and every branch.

Anyhoo, we all have to practice at anything before we have skills and plein air painting is no different :)

7.3.2019