Art by JPL

I take a weekly painting class at the Mosesian Center for the Arts in Watertown, MA. It's a great class with super talented students and an incredibly wise teacher. It's so fun to go and paint with people who get as excited about mixing colors as I do! And we can all be nerdy about art stuff together. I know my non-artist friends and my husband appreciate that I have people to talk about this stuff with! I'm planning to attend a painting workshop in 2019, details are still be

Here are 5 tips and tricks to survive a painting challenge. I am nearly halfway through my latest 30-paintings-in-30-days challenge and I'm finally getting the hang of it! Tip 1: Paint ahead! This sounds like cheating but it's not. It's being practical! Life gets in the way no matter how much we plan ahead. Paint several paintings in advance, and just post one each day! Everyone will be amazed that you can paint so regularly and post so promptly. They don't need to know that

As artists, we feel that we are supposed to have a cohesive style. But how do you find your own style? It can feel overwhelming! I have some tips based on my own journey. I hope you find them helpful. Tip 1 - Paint a lot. Keep your paintings around so you have something to look back on. It will help you see that you're improving as an artist! But it will also give you a way to see common threads in your work, those threads will make up your style. Tip 2 - Look at a ton of art

I completed my 30-paintings-in-30-days challenge this week!! I had so much fun painting flowers for 30 straight days. What a fabulous painting challenge. I painted several in watercolor while on vacation at the beach in Sarasota, Florida. I ended up using my palette knife a lot in the second half of the challenge and I had so much fun experimenting with keeping things loose. I'm going to be popping these in my online shop in the next week or so. Send me a message if you're in

This month is flying by!! I am working hard on my 30-in-30 challenge. You can see the paintings daily on instagram or facebook. I've been painting a day or two ahead so that each morning I start by posting a photo. It helps to keep me organized and energized instead of feeling like I'm behind or playing catchup. I started trying to keep things loose and messy. As you might know if you've met me, it's not easy for me to paint that way! So around the half-way mark I started usi

Last week I was interviewed by the amazingly talented Molly O’Riley for her Darling Rage Nation podcast. You guys. I was so excited to talk with her as I’ve been following her on instagram for a long time. It was a great chat! It felt like we’ve been friends forever. We talked about our journeys to being artists. We talked about being ignited to action after the last presidential election. We talked about our inner critics, both for painting and for parenting. I even reveal

I am officially changing my 15-in-30 painting challenge to a 15 in 2018 challenge. Or a 15 in 365. However you want to look at it. I have the canvases and I fully plan to paint 15 florals. However, January is harder than I expected. At this size, the paintings just come a bit more slowly. I'm going to embrace that and push myself to do them throughout the year. I know they'll be worth waiting for! In the meantime, I've been sharing a lot on instagram about what it's like in m

Happy New Year! I started my 15-in-30 painting challenge on New Years Day and finished the first painting this morning, January 4th. Some paintings just take a little longer to emerge than others and this one was very much worth the wait. If it means I need extra time to get to 15 paintings, it will be so worth it. Patience is key! Today I want to share a behind-the-scenes look at my painting process. I often start with a reference photo. I will have an image in my mind of wh

This has been a crazy year - from political marches and protests, to traveling around with the kids. I am so grateful for everything I have learned and I am excited and hopeful about what 2018 will bring. (below are my top 9 photos from instagram - my personal page and my art page) I finished delivering all of my holiday orders this week! Paintings really do make great gifts. And sometimes you have to give yourself a gift. I'm happy that my paintings will be enjoyed in homes

Do you have a hard time picking gifts for people? I have the best idea ever and I'm only slightly biased. I truly believe that paintings make amazing gifts. My most memorable wedding gift came from my maid of honor who brought her grandfather's gorgeous watercolors to our apartment and let me and my husband choose one. We had to agree together on a painting which was a good way to practice decision-making as a couple. And we both absolutely love the painting. It is hanging by

In my painting class this fall I have been pushed to start painting with my palette knife. It has been such a great experience! It's so challenging to control the knife that it makes very realistic painting feel impossible - for me, I have seen some insanely detailed and accurate palette knife paintings by other artists! Somehow knowing that I can't get too realistic has really freed me up to focus on gesture and suggestion in a way that I absolutely love. I hope to keep up t

I've been thinking recently about where ideas come from. I'm often asked about that as a visual artist and I don't always understand the answer myself! I have a lot of images that float around in my mind and I want to try to capture them when I paint. These are often landscapes, seascapes, and skies. I return to these subjects over and over again in a vain attempt to capture the beauty of nature. Sometimes these images come to me in my dreams! Like this one: If I sit down to

Hello! I've been busy - varnishing paintings, adding wire for hanging, naming paintings (ugh), and signing paintings (yay!). And now some of my favorites are already to go in my online shop! Check it out when you have a moment. I have fun dropping my paintings into real-life settings. They look so fabulous, don't you think? I'm about to go out of town for nearly a month so if you have your eye on something, order it this week! #painting #onlineshop

Three of my paintings will be hanging in a local art show this summer! If you're in the Boston area you should come and see them. They're at the Belmont Gallery of Art. They'll be there until August 23rd. In fact, tonight is the opening reception. It's from 6-8pm and since I'll be there with my kids I think we might last 15 minutes before we leave to go get ice cream. Look for me from 6:45-7! Stormy Sea, 12 x 12, acrylic on canvas, $156 Quiet Sea, 12 x 12, acrylic on canvas,

Remember when I started the 30 day painting challenge and I called it a seascape challenge? Well, things changed. On day 14 I didn't want to paint a seascape! So I painted flowers instead. Flowers led me to fields of flowers which led me to landscapes. Here are some of my favorites so far. These will be varnished and available in the shop in early June ($156/each). Two have already been reserved! #painting #flowers #fields #landscape

Over the last two years I have found my favorite painting class. I have an amazing teacher and the students in the class are all fabulous painters. I learn so much from them and it's great to try new techniques and new subjects. So fun! Here's a behind-the-scenes peak at my weekly happy place. Right now we are working on using underpaintings as a value study, in addition to laying out the composition. We're using yellow as light, purple as the darkest dark, and either the war

After our lovely trip to Puerto Vallarta in April I tried my best to clear my May calendar to work on a 30-day painting challenge. It is now May 5th and after I finish this blog post I will be painting my 5th seascape! I have already learned a lot in 4 days and I'm having a blast. I've been posting sneak peak close-ups on instagram and facebook (@artbyjpl) and here you can see the first 4 together! When I'm finished with this challenge I will be posting them to the shop ($156

I sold a painting while on vacation last week! It's a birthday surprise so I won't say who purchased it or for whom... Now it's time to get it ready to go. Including adding the title to the back and adding the hanging wire!! I'm excited to send this one off to its new home! #painting #hangingwire #sold

This week has been a busy one! I started a seascape last week but I made myself file my taxes before finishing it. Success! I even signed it. It usually takes me forever to decide if a painting is finished enough to sign but this one just came out and was done. No stress. I love that feeling! I also got new gorgeous business cards. I ordered them from Moo and they're very high quality. I couldn't love them more! Looking ahead I'm going to do a 30 day challenge of some kind. I

I just finished reading Painting as a Pastime by Winston S. Churchill. Yes, that Winston Churchill. I will confess to having had no idea that he was an accomplished painter until I watched The Crown on Netflix. I'm sure that says something about our education system but I'm going to try not to worry about it. Churchill writes about painting as related to war which is both hilarious to me and also, surprisingly, sometimes accurate. I laughingly say I'm winning when I'm happy w