Paint Party Friday: Week 37, Year 2 Check In Featured Artist: Andrea Thompson

image courtesy of Andrea Thompson

Welcome to Week 37 of Paint Party Friday (Year 2) and to the next edition of our Featured Artist Series! (Would you like to be a PPF Featured Artist? Please click here for details!) This week's featured artist frees our spirits with her fanciful falling ladies and jazzy zentangles.  Please welcome Andrea Thompson!

Please tell us a bit about your personal history with painting. (When did you start painting? How has your painting evolved since you first started?)
I have thought of myself as an artist ever since I was very very young and my parents and grandparents told me how good I was at drawing. I loved art and since it was encouraged, I kept doing it. Apparently it was reported on my kindergarten report card that all I wanted to do in school was to sit alone and color. I don't think I have changed an awful lot since then, as that is still my activity of choice...

I took art in highshool and was considered an artist by my friends, but then I went to college for floriculture merchandising instead of art, and then I  got married and had 4 kids and worked full time at the local bank, then in head start, then in early head start and then in fraud and legal in DSS and now in child support. Even though in my head I was always an artist, I didn't actually paint. I did creative stuff like scherensnitte, quilting, quilling, embroidery, sewing, and eventually mail art. For awhile I had a rubber-stamp company with my parents. It was called Zooming Turtles. I drew all the rubberstamp designs and my mom did all the work. You can now buy my designs from third coast rubberstamps.

I think all along I thought I would put off my art until someday when my kids were older and I had time... then I had my surprise child at 39, and then we got his autism diagnosis... And I realized that someday would never come so I had better start painting again anyway. I started with watercolor, started my blog and my etsy shop.

image courtesy of Andrea Thompson

What are your favorite techniques, media, and tools to use in creating your paintings?

I used watercolors as they were easy to start and stop since I was mostly painting on my lunch breaks at work. I worked wet into dry, again as it was easier to work in 15 minute slots that way, always with a tiny brush. I have since done some acrylics now that my son lets me work at home a bit too.

image courtesy of Andrea Thompson

What is your favorite thing to paint? Why?

I painted falling ladies like it says in my header... Not by choice, they were just what showed up when I started to paint at first. They were me, I guess, falling out of control, but trying to enjoy the wind on the way down. But that was for about a year, then I moved onto mandalas and zentangles. Both of those are so relaxing to do, no pressure over having it come out a certain way. No preconceived notion of what it will even look like, Just enjoying the process. Then this year I started doing the rocks in white, and my sketchbook, both are very soothing to me as well, along with some acrylic canvases done in an intuitive style, just adding color until I "see" something there on the canvas, then trying to bring that image out.

image courtesy of Andrea Thompson

What is your proudest painting moment and/or greatest painting achievement so far?

My proudest moment would be getting my daughters who were never all that interested in art to do creative things with me....my oldest, Brandy, now has her own etsy needlefelting shop: barefootbananas... And Jesse has started painting at home as well.

image courtesy of Brandy Thompson

What's next in your painting future?
Any type of art that keeps me calm, sane and connected to nature. I would love to make a living at it, wouldn't we all? So if I could publish a book or make classes to sell, that would be wonderful, but for now, it is what i do for myself. The sketchbook I carry everywhere helps document my life and plan future projects but mostly it helps clear the artistic clutter out of my head into paper!

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Thank you so much Andrea for the lovely interview and for sharing your wonderfully creative artistic "clutter" with us!

To learn even more about Andrea, she can be found at:
http://www.etsy.com/shop/FallingLadies?ref=si_shop

http://fallingladies-fallingladies.blogspot.com/
and Brandy at:
http://www.etsy.com/shop/barefootbananas

 **Would you like to be a PPF Featured Artist? (Of course you do!)
Click here for more details!**

Another hopping party last week with awesome artwork! And now, here is our check-in:

As always, please make sure to use your post URL address NOT your blog home page URL address as there are many late visitors who get confused as to which post is for PPF when they arrive (after Friday) at your website. If you are unfamiliar with Mr. Linky, an explanation of how this tool works can be found on Week 1 and Week 2 Check-Ins.

Hope everyone in the USA has a fabulous Thanksgiving weekend! We are ever thankful for all PPFer's fantastic paintings and enthusiastic participation here.