Paint Party Friday: Week 46, Year 2 Check In Featured Artist: Tam Hess

 image courtesy of Tam Hess

Welcome to Week 46 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  pleases us with her playful animals and warms our hearts with her whimsical trees. Please welcome Tam Hess!

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?)

In Junior High, the art teacher told my Mom I was artistic and I had a gift.  The art teacher explained that Mom should really think about getting me into the local art academy.  Whoa!  I was so excited.  Mom panicked and put me into a secretary college the first chance she got.  My Mom was convinced, artists don't make very much money. Evidently nothing would keep me from my passion.  I had a bunch of secret art journals, rather than doing any homework I would draw, draw, draw!  When I first embraced being artistic (early twenties) I was into crafts more than painting and fine art. I was always dreaming of being an artist and having my art in a gallery or having an art reception or having art published in a book.  All this seemed completely out of reach!  I think I had explored and taken classes on every art & crafty subject I could think of. Until the baby shower of 2010!

image courtesy of Tam Hess

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

When I decided to make a painting instead of the usual crafty thing for my friends baby shower, it uncovered my passion and artistic style. I painted a tree for the baby’s room.  It was pen & ink with watercolor and glitter.   I always knew watercolor was going to be a part of it....over the years I was drawn to watercolor. I was so bad at first. Finally I learned watercolor by reading a book about how to fix your watercolor mistakes.  Watercolor is really tricky for me and such an awesome challenge! I know why pen & ink and watercolor went together for me.  I feel the need to reign in the watercolor and give it structure and an illustrative look.  SO that's what I did!  The kicker however was the glitter.  Not all of my paintings have glitter but MAN!  I wish I could put glitter on everything.  Living with all boys I realize this is not the way all people feel about glitter.  So, I use it sparingly and not in all my work.

image courtesy of Tam Hess

What is your favorite thing to paint? Why?

I love painting trees.  They are so organic and they have a lot of movement.  I like giving trees a structure and whimsy that they don’t always have in nature. Trees also represent so many things to so many people. They seem happy and serve many purposes.  Besides trees, I like painting all the little animals that live in them, anything whimsical AND teddy bears.  My goofy teddy bear obsession!  I don’t think they are trendy or popular right now so there are no sales on the teddies. I  still can’t get them out of my head!

image courtesy of Tam Hess

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

My proudest artistic moment was the artist reception that Moonstruck Chocolate Café hosted for me in October of 2011.  I was so nervous for the event!  What a night…all my family and friends were there to support me.  I had painted 20+ paintings hung for the event and I was allowed to keep them up until the middle of December.  What a GREAT time of year!  I made a lot of sales due to the Holiday season. That event gave me the courage to get my work into a few galleries and restaurants. Another painting achievement would be the sunflower painting I did for my sister-in-law.  The painting was time consuming, over my head and I thought I wouldn’t be able to do it.  I surprised myself and did it.  She really liked it too!

image courtesy of Tam Hess

What's next in your painting future?

First I want to get the teddy bears out of my head!  Not sure how to get that done.  Will they be stuck forever?  Ugh!  Also, I really love the collage elements I am using these days in my paintings, I want to keep exploring that medium.  I want to try to get into a gallery in downtown Portland Oregon, and I would like to enter some local contests.  Get into a gift store, illustrate children’s books, actually there is a huge list of things I want to do and try and see and experience but I’ll just share those. Really making money would be nice but there is no stopping the passion and the feeling that I'm doing what I'm suppose to be doing.  It's really a peaceful feeling!

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Thank you for providing us with a hearty helping of whimsically wonderful inspiration, Tam... We look forward to watching you accomplish the goals on your "huge list"!

To see more of Tam's work, please visit:
www.artinflight.blogspot.com Her main blog
www.tamarahess.com Her portfolio
www.etsy.com/shop/HandcraftedByTamHess Her Shop

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

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.

Have a great week everyone. If you missed last week's announcement of the auction, please go back and check it out!