The Art of Shawna Apps
Sometimes I’ll make a piece and be like, okay, this isn’t bad. Others I’ll be like, oh wow, I like this a lot!
This piece?
I’d keep it and stare at it all day every day if I had wall space left for it! I really think this might be the best piece I’ve ever done.
Title: Twilight
Continue reading “New Piece: Twilight”I’ve mentioned before that there are times when pieces don’t go the way I intentionally planned…and this piece is no different!
This piece came together really easily. The color gradient, the clouds, it was so smooth and seamless…but it felt like it was missing something. I hadn’t planned for anything but the clouds to be in the painting, so I was feeling a little frustrated. I had the name Lullaby in my head, but that felt like it was missing something as well. I happened to be talking to my husband about something and it inspired me to try putting a moon into the piece, and it was perfect! The alliteration for using ‘lunar’ in the title with lullaby was the sprinkles on top (because sprinkles are better than cherries!).
Continue reading “New Piece: Lunar Lullaby”We live in a beautiful part of Western New York where the views are amazing. I love driving down back roads, especially for sunrises and sunsets, and just take in the view. This painting was based on a late autumn morning, and I was taken aback at how the bright blue sky and purple and white fluffy clouds were so vibrant when paired with the bare, dark trees and chopped down cornfields. I of course had to take a picture and paint it!
Title: Autumn Farewell
Continue reading “New Piece: Autumn Farewell”You know I’m obsessed with clouds, right?
Actually, anything sky related makes my heart sing: sunbeams poking through the clouds, the way the colors swirl and change for sunrises and sunsets, the clear, bright blue skies…it is my happy place!
One evening I was taking my oldest son to school for a practice, and as we got to the end of the road, this beautiful sunset was just beginning to fade and stars were just starting to appear. He looked at me and said “Mom, you need to paint this.” He took a picture of it quickly before we finished heading to school, and this piece was born not too long afterwards.
I love spring mornings.
You know the ones: when the sun finally feels warm, there is a slight breeze, the sky bright blue and the leaves starting to bud on the trees. It feels amazing to the senses and the soul after a long winter!
One one of these mornings as I was keeping an eye on kiddos waiting to board the bus to school, there were fluffy pink clouds in the sky that reminded us of cotton candy, and so this piece was inspired!
Title: Cotton Candy Skies
Continue reading “New Piece: Cotton Candy Skies”Why is it that clouds are at their most beautiful right before storms roll in? The contrast between the dark and the light, the shapes…it is stunning.
Title: Calm Before the Storm
Continue reading “New Piece: Calm Before the Storm”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
A couple weeks ago we were on our way home from church and along our journey I saw this beautiful sky. There were big, fluffy white and purple clouds along the horizon, the blue of the sky played so well with the colors of the bare trees and farm field, and there was one, lonely cloud up high in the sky. I knew I had to paint it, so I took a picture really quick and put it on the back burner for later.
Later came really quickly as I was able to get started on the piece a few days later, and it was turning out BEAUTIFULLY. The clouds were staying white where I wanted them to, the purple was making them look fluffy, it was just going exactly the way I wanted it to, if not better.
I finished the painting in record time, and I was ECSTATIC. I waited for it to dry, and then plopped it into a mat for framing….and then it all went downhill really, really quickly.
Continue reading “Happy Accidents”My husband and I just celebrated our 15th wedding anniversary in October. We have a tradition where we go away over Columbus Day weekend as it’s a long weekend (he’s a teacher and can’t always take time off), and as we weren’t sure what the world would be like, we decided to stay close to home and visit Ithaca, NY. While I was a little bummed we couldn’t do something bigger (we like to do bigger trips every 5 years), it ended up being an amazing weekend. We visited one of our favorite college students, ate so much delicious food, and visited a few waterfalls. The leaves were starting to change colors, so it was STUNNING.
One of the falls we visited had a huge, long, difficult trail that I especially was not prepped for. I almost quit multiple times going up, but with some encouragement from my husband and other hikers along the route, I did it! On the way back down, there was a spot along the path where the light on the newly colored leaves felt magical, and it inspired this piece…
Title: Autumnal Equinox
Just as a warning, there might be a theme for some of these newer pieces. When I started relaunching my business, we happened to have our annual Apps family vacation fall smack dab right in the middle of it. And when we stayed on a beautiful river and as an artist I am obsessed with clouds, sunrises/sunsets, and all things landscape and of nature, we can just say that there were a lot of photos taken as inspiration for future pieces (including Serenity Bay!).
While we were on vacation, I was asking some of our family members what kinds of things they’d like to see me do. The #1 response? Another blue heron…
Title: Harry
Continue reading “New Piece Alert: Harry”
Back to the Drawing Board 