The Art of Shawna Apps
It’s probably no surprise, but I love painting and drawing birds. They’re the animal I create most often, and they are my most requested subject as well. On our vacations to the Outer Banks, sandpipers are one of our favorite birds to watch while we’re on the beach, and I knew I’d be painting one soon…
Title: Sandpiper
Continue reading “New Piece: Sandpiper”You’re never going to believe it…but this piece? It actually DID WHAT I WANTED IT TO. I’ve had so many recently that went their own way, so to have one do what I wanted?
It felt really, really weird.
I’ve had a couple questions about where this piece is from, and I love that even though it’s from Corolla, Outer Banks in North Carolina, that it reminds my viewers of their favorite bodies of water!
Title: Tranquility
Continue reading “New Piece: Tranquility”One of my favorite places to be is always the ocean. I love watching and listening to the waves and watching the clouds roll by, but there is something magical about the sunset over the water. The way the sky changes colors, the clouds darken, and night starts to take over…it makes me feel at peace and so, so happy.
Which means, you guessed it, I was inspired to make a painting of it!
Title: Sunset Memory
This piece was heartbreaking to create.
A few years ago, I had done basically this exact painting and it was by far my favorite painting I’d ever done. Every time I took it to festivals, I hoped it wouldn’t sell because I loved it so much. Whenever anyone would favorite it on Etsy, I apprehensively awaited that glorious cash register noise, telling me it had sold and would be leaving me forever.
Why I didn’t just keep the piece for myself, I don’t know.
Well, unfortunately the piece was damaged beyond repair in our move a few years ago. I’d kept it just because I couldn’t bear to part with it. I tried fixing it just to keep it for myself, but it didn’t work out. I finally convinced myself to let it go, but I had to recreate it first…and that’s how this piece came to be!
Continue reading “New Piece: Be Still”Week 3 is finished! Woo hoo!
I really hate to admit this, but I’m pretty tired of drawing animals. Don’t get me wrong, I love drawing them, but sometimes switching it up is nice!
I didn’t really have anything on my list that wasn’t an animal; the items that weren’t animals were a little too complex for me to work on today, so I had to figure something out.
Like I mentioned yesterday, I’m tired of winter. It snowed again last night and I had to scrape my van off this morning. My mind was drifting off to the summer sun, our annual vacations to the Outer Banks…and then it hit me: I’m working on a specific series of pieces, and I hadn’t added the next piece yet….until today:
Title: Currituck Lighthouse
Size: 5×7
Medium: Graphite pencil and white gel pen ink on acid free paper
Inspired/nominated by: Me being cranky in the snow! And my friend, Vanessa, in a way. The first year my family went to the Outer Banks, she suggested I should go visit the five main lighthouses of the Outer Banks and then turn them into drawings or paintings. We only made it to three of them that year, and it wasn’t until our visit last year (our third year) that I made it our fourth: Currituck! My husband, his brother, and my littlest guy visited it and even climbed to the top! I drew the other three previously visited lighthouses during last year’s Drawing a Day Challenge: Bodie, Hatteras, and Ocracoke.
Favorite parts: The trees and landscape! The hints of brick on the lighthouse! Ok, who am I kidding, it’s an Outer Banks lighthouse, I love all of it.
Challenging parts: There are so many layers of landscape and the buildings and trees, trying to get it all to play out well was challenging. That seems to be a recurring issue this year, but I’m also focusing on improving that, so I’m being stretched.
Product availability: The original drawing is available in my Etsy store here and prints will be coming soon! I’m also planning on doing an OBX lighthouse note card set.
What’s your favorite lighthouse?
Saturday was DEFINITELY one of those days that I wish I had planned to take the weekends off for the challenge.
My youngest will be 7 soon, and we had his family birthday party on Saturday. The morning was filled with last minute cleaning, baking and party prep. I finished the party prep just as the party was about to begin, and still had no idea if the drawing would be finished, much less started. I enjoyed the party and didn’t worry about the drawing. If it didn’t get done, it didn’t get done, simple as that.
Believe it or not, I did find the time to get the drawing started AND finished! I just didn’t have the time to reveal it…so here it is, a day late!
Title: Bodie Lighthouse
Medium: Graphite pencil on acid free paper
Size: 5×7
I’m really getting the hang of carving a couple hours out of my day to do this challenge. I tend to let my work slide because there is so much to be done, and with all the projects I have coming up, I really can’t allow myself to keep doing that. If I get nothing else out of this challenge, knowing that me taking time to work is not going to kill me, and the world will indeed keep on spinning 😉
Title: Cape Hatteras Lighthouse
Medium: Graphite pencil on acid free paper
Size: 5×7
Day #2 was….interesting.
The power stayed on for the whole drawing, so that was a plus! But my day was crazy. I dropped my boys off at school, ran a couple errands, got stuck at the mechanic’s for over an hour, and then had to finish up all of my errands. I didn’t get home until way later than I expected, so I only had 2 hours to get my drawing completed before my hubby and kiddos got home.
And amazingly enough, I got it done!
Oh how I love this place.
Every year, we go on a week long vacation with my husband’s family during the summer. We’ve gone to a couple different lakes fairly close to home in the past, but this year we decided to do something different: we went to the Outer Banks in North Carolina during Easter/Spring break!
The week away came at the perfect time; we all live in western New York, and this winter was loooooong. Getting a break from the snow and frigid cold was wonderful, and it’s always nice to just get away from home and work.
However, my work followed me on vacation, but in a very good way…
For starters, I’m 31, and had never seen the ocean before this. Let me just say this: It. Is. Amazing.
All the color variations in the water, the bright colors of the sky, and all the cloud formations? It got my brain a twirlin’ coming up with all these new paintings I want to do, either in oil or watercolors.
One of my friends lived in North Carolina (actually, her dad is RV, the author I’m working with!), and she requested/mentioned that I should take pictures of all five of the lighthouses along the Outer Banks and make note cards and/or paintings/prints out of them. We only managed to get to three of them (Bodie, Hatteras and Ocracoke), but we’ll just have to make a trip back for the other two 🙂
As we were already in North Carolina and just a few short hours away, we left the beach house a day early and went to visit RV and his wife Jennie. After putting our kids to bed, we got to meet in person and discuss The Adventures of Boathouse Mouse series and look over illustrations in person while having coffee and cookies. It was so much fun spending time with them, and honestly, so hard to leave the following morning.
This is only a small fraction of pictures we took during our week away; I have over 1,800 pictures to go through. I’m not sure when I’ll have time to get painting, but I’m so anxious to get into my studio and work!
Which subject are you more excited about, the lighthouses or the clouds? Let me know below!
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