Martha Kelly Art

I'm having a crazy week (and will continue to do so, so there may not be too much artwork posted through the weekend). I have, however, had time to get myself over to the park on a couple of beautiful late afternoons. Thank heavens for daylight savings. It really extends my painting time.

Above is the small statue in a bird bath outside the Brooks Museum. This is a revisiting for me. I painted this statue in an MCA summer art camp when I was 14 years old, and I think it may have been the moment when I realized I wanted to be an artist. We were working in watercolor (and I was doing a much larger piece), and somehow the blues and greens in the statue mixed in a way I hadn't anticipated and came out so much better than I intended. I was hooked. This small miracle only happens about once a year. The rest of the time, the painting you make is a pale shadow of the one you saw in your head before you started, but that once a year is magic. And even on frustrating days, there's nothing else I'd rather be doing.