After many years of having mosaics be my main artistic focus, I yearned to branch out and explore other mediums.  Through my research into the delicious world of art and design blogs I found a charming and inspiring artist named Amy Rice.  She made sweet and off-beat paintings from stencils that she created from her own drawings.  I was so captivated by her work that I thought I might give stencil painting a try.  It was more difficult than I imagined, but definitely fun!
So one day I was looking at a stencil I had begun and decided to take my time painting and try and use more detail and shading, as opposed to just adding opaque color.  To my sheer delight, I completely surprised myself at what I was intuitively able to accomplish!  Well, that was the end of the stencils for me, and so I began to practice drawing and painting.  What I discovered through the process is that I love to paint.  Let me clarify:  I mean I  absolutely adore the feeling of the brush in my hand moving the paint around on the canvas.  It was definitely one of those moments in life where I felt I had discovered a new world and felt immediately at home in it.  Now,  I am not a schooled or trained artist and, like all my self-taught endeavors, it’s a very slow learning process.  So please be kind when you view the paintings I’m about to show you!

Here is a link to Amy Rice’s web site http://www.amyrice.com/

and check out her blog too, you’ll see why I’m so smitten with her! egg-basket-full-of-hollyhock-dolls.blogspot.com/