![]() I've been seriously blessed by having The Watercolor Painting Club highlight my blog yesterday. The feedback was so wonderful and positive. THANK YOU! I especially wanted to write and let people know that, as an artist, I'll always respond to any questions or comments that you may have concerning art or anything else for that matter! See, I'm a self-taught artist. When I was younger, I never had the money or time to go to college and study art. I was married at 22 to a wonderful man and we started a family right away. Three kids in three years! Woo hooo! We certainly started with a bang! I'd always been an artsy girl and I just longed with every fiber of my exhausted, sleep-deprived being to become an artist....I would fiddle around in the dark, unfinished basement of our CT house with craft paints, teaching myself Tole painting and painting little canvases. Looking back, they were really bad! Wow! I remember rocking my babies in the wee hours of the morning, dreaming and longing to just have the time, or the money or even one day to just attend an art class! It wasn't happening. So I fumbled around, painting on the walls of my daughter's room, doodling flowers and birds and picket fences during nap time. Amazingly, I started getting better at painting flowers with acrylics and people started paying me to come and paint flowers and butterflies in their children's rooms and nurseries! Oh joy! Soon, I had this grand idea that I was going to volunteer my budding murals to hospitals and sick kids. The Yale New Haven Hospital in CT had me paint murals on the entire third floor of their Psychiatric Ward...(please note, I have a history of failed grand ideas) (also note, the ideas are always grand to me until they flop, but that's ok!) That was interesting! There's nothing quite like having a bunch of patients hanging over your shoulders asking you head scratching questions and wanting to "use that bush over there" for their bodily needs....the bush being the tree I just painted on the wall! I wasn't sure if that was a compliment b/c it was so realistic looking to this slightly disturbed person or an insult to my art. Oh well! Moving down to North Carolina meant that I had to start over with my client base, but things soon picked up again. UNC's Pediatric Surgeon's office needed a volunteer muralist for their walls...I volunteered three months of my time filling their walls with elephants, ducks, birds, etc...finished it, and they moved! You just have to laugh at life sometimes. If you don't laugh, you'll just cry with frustration! Some of my early murals: I spent a few years painting murals, donating murals to chronically ill kids and families. It was quite an experience! I've walked into houses that have sweeping staircases and fountains in the circular driveway....I've quaked in my shoes staring at the blank wall that I was expected to create a huge painting on. Where to start? What if I fail? Why am I doing this? lol
In the end, you just have to dive in and start somewhere, make that pencil mark, pick up that brush...risk it! B/c if you don't you won't get anywhere or learn anything or have the opportunity to fail....and yes, failing is an opportunity b/c every time you fail, you learn something. So, in between mothering, homeschooling, painting murals, my hubby bought me my first watercolor paints about 4 Christmases ago....and I fell in LOVE! There was no going back. A new challenge to teach myself! Oh joy! I got books, I studied, I muddied, I tore paintings up, I framed some really bad art, I struggle and I WROTE other artists that I admired...not a lot, mind you, I just wrote an email once in awhile to an artist that I liked....and I never got a response. I just so badly wanted someone to say, "you can do it" or give me some advice on an watercolor problem...and no one ever did! I guess when you get too big for your britches, you forget that there are others coming up behind you that need encouragement and cheer. Now, let me preface that by saying that my inquiries were in my early watercolor years....until I found Pam Shank and she has been a WONDERFUL encouragement to me. She paints gorgeous watercolor portraits and I love her to death. So, my friends, ALL that to say that I will never ignore people who write me. I will do my best to be an encouragement to you and help you along your journey, because who are we if we cannot love and assist others in this life? It is what God expects of us and it is a joy and a privilege. Please enjoy, learn from, paint from, experiment with any of my tutorials...and if you need reference pics, I have free ones on my facebook page! They are copyright free, taken by me at the NC State Arboretum. Let's see what you can do! Thanks for reading and I wish everyone the best on their artistic journey! © Copyright Cady Driver 2016 - All Rights Reserved
17 Comments
I too hope to always be available to help other artists and have been lucky to have had help from Jean Haines here in the UK who although is a very successful artist herself, still wants to share and help mentor others, very fortunate indeed!! To paint in watercolour is such a joy, it is almost a need to share it with other people so they can sample some of that joy too!!
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3/8/2013 05:15:10 am
I love these murals. I just wrote a piece on my blog last week about the fear of failure and how people often do not start doing the things they want to because they are afraid they won't be perfect. This really resonated with me!
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Cady
3/8/2013 06:50:39 am
That's great, Judith, that you have such great mentors! The UK has wonderful watercolor artists.
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Joyce Stumpf
3/8/2013 08:57:27 am
Hi Cady! I love your website and your blog! You are such an inspiration to me and I'm sure others! How on earth do you find the time to paint with all the other things you do??? I have no excuses now! Keep up the good work, I will be following your blog!
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Cady
3/8/2013 09:13:05 am
Hey Joyce....thanks for reading...you know, people keep asking me that and I honestly don't know! I guess I'm probably not as crazy busy as I seem to be on paper....my days consist of homeschooling and running my kids to their different events, but my kids are older now, and it's definitely easier to paint for long periods of time.
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3/8/2013 09:45:00 am
Here is the post I was referring to! http://itsadomelife.com/2013/02/you-will-be-terrible-but-start-anyway.html
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robin booker
3/8/2013 10:20:55 am
Great, humble example of where many artists, are, were, or want to be!
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3/8/2013 02:08:34 pm
You are the most amazing daughter any mother could ever hope to have. I wish my mother could see your incredible work - she would be so very proud of you!
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Kathy Dugan
3/8/2013 11:05:28 pm
Cady, first I want to thank you deeply from my heart for sharing your life and art with all of us. You have turned in to the needed inspiration for me to get my butt moving again. I absolutely LOVE LOVE LOVE watercolors and have been painting for a good number of years, but have stopped dead for the last few. I did start again a few months ago, but have been so critical of myself and what I'm producing, I have five half finished paintings sitting around my studio right now. I just recently completed (yes, completed) a portrait of my grandson for his 12th birthday, now all the grandchildren want theirs done too!!!! LOL! Then along came you and helped complete the picture. Thank you so much! I do have a FB page with pics of my work Kathleen Dugan, there are two pages
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Cady
3/12/2013 02:11:45 am
Kathy, SO glad that you have been inspired to start up again! You should definitely pick up your work again. I know that as artists, we are our own worst critics, but we cannot stop b/c we feel we've failed a painting. Every torn up piece of art is still a learning experience and I cannot even tell you how many things I've torn up and thrown away. It happens to all of us, trust me. The journey is 99% of the fun, studying other's work, looking at light sources, the subtle change of colors, being creative.....don't give it up b/c you're frustrated. Paint whatever catches your eye or inspires you.
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3/12/2013 01:44:12 am
Hi! I just found your site via Facebook, through the Watercolor Painting Club. What a beautiful site and so inspiring! I love your stories of how you volunteer to paint murals for hospitals. It must be so soothing and calming to enjoy your works of art. I paint watercolors, but it's a small hobby and I don't publish or post anything on the web. It's the sheer pleasure of putting color on a blank sheet that I enjoy. Florals and landscapes are what I do better and I am inspired by other artists like yourself. Keep up the great work!
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Cady
3/12/2013 02:13:54 am
Hi Betty Ann,
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3/18/2013 04:17:09 pm
OMGoodness!! I am so glad I have found you....i have been struggling with the how to's and the what for's of it all... LOL....I too am 'being' self taught....it is 11:16p.m.... and i am heading to lala land, but I am sooooo coming back to visit tomorrow....what a blessing.
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Cady
3/19/2013 02:00:09 am
Hi Cynthia,
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Colleen
3/18/2013 09:15:17 pm
I love your story and your beautiful murals. It's warmed my cockles, for sure. It must have been daunting, but they must have provided warm support to patients. The positive effects on health of a beautiful environment can't be overstated, can they?
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Cady
3/19/2013 02:01:24 am
Thanks, Colleen...I'm not sure what "cockles" are, but I'm sure it's a British thing, yes? It made me smile. :)
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Debbie Brunhoff
4/28/2020 09:12:04 pm
Dear Cady
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About CadyI'm a wife and mother of four kids. I homeschool, paint, run, and garden! I am always interested in digging truths out of Scripture. Here, you'll find my thoughts on art, adoption, gardening, mothering, homeschooling, books and whatever else is on my mind. Enjoy! QuoteCreativity doesn't exist in a vacuum - like skepticism, it's a means, not an end. It cries out for a theme. To treat creativity as an end in itself is to assume godlike character for humans as though they could create ex nihilo. -J. Cheane Archives
August 2016
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