This blog is a two-fold experiment for me.  On the one hand it’s a way for me to document my journey as an artist and on the other it’s a way for me to begin to express myself publicly as an artist.  Both are hard for me to do but it’s part of my “Journey” and so, I will persevere.

“Persevere” is the word I chose to define the year ahead for myself.  The concept  of choosing a Word for the year is one I got from Quinn McDonald, whose blog I follow daily.  It’s the word I will keep in mind every day and use to focus as I walk into and through 2013.  I am not a “struggling artist”, but I am an artist struggling to break all the way out of my chrysalis and live the rest of my life the way I am meant to, by God’s grace.  (You may take “God” to mean whatever Force or Deity means something to you.)

Every step I have taken in the past several years has led to this moment, from my decision to take a year off working (due to a small, unexpected financial windfall) and go to art school for a year – and learning so much – through discovering and exploring “fingerpainting”  on iPhone and iPad  to stumbling onto soft pastels, my medium of choice now.  Several months ago, I found Steven Pressfield’s blog, and his books The War of Art and Turning Pro, and they inspired me to persevere in spite of the occasional turmoil around me in the lives of those I love.  But it is so easy, when you haven’t quite made the leap, to be distracted and even overcome, by excuses regardless of their origin, and so PERSEVERANCE is my word for 2013.

On that note, here is my last painting of 2012.  There are others I began but didn’t finish – they will be done in 2013!

Winter Parking Lot Bugs  soft pastels Lorraine Young  7″ x 10″  $100  Framed

Winter Parking Lot Bugs Lorraine Young Sennelier soft pastels on Canson Mi-Teintes pastel paper. 7″x10″ $100

This is an interpretation of a photo I took from the parking lot of my office during the first snow storm of the winter, on November 7 2012.