Foxes, snowflakes, & Southern Comfort. How to WIN FREE ARTWORK on Valentine's Day!!!!

How to WIN FREE artwork this Valentine's Day

With Valentine's Day coming up, I thought I'd do something a little fun this year and giveaway some FREE ARTWORK.  2 winners are guaranteed, with a possibility of 3 winners.

More details about the giveaway toward the end of this week's blog.

In continuing this weekly series of featuring my older works, before beginning to release new paintings in March, it's very appropriate that "Winter Wonderland" came up in the rotation this close to Valentine's Day.  This week's featured painting was created with Michel in mind, based on the first time he and I met.  It's a story I get to tell often, but the following version has a lot more detail than anyone has ever heard.

I've fallen in love with someone at first sight exactly twice in my life, Michel being the second time.  Michel and I didn't meet until 2009, but our story begins 5 years before in 2004, with the first time I experienced a love at first sight phenomena.  Which began a series of events that led to me arriving at a bus station in Quebec City 5 years later, to go on a double date.

Growing up, my family owned a store in Jerome, AZ, and I started working there when I was 6 years old.  By the time I could drive, I was pretty much running the business, and had become rather indispensable to its operation.  It began as a rock and mineral store, but over the 26 years my family owned the store, it changed a lot, due in large part to the art and jewelry I began making in larger and larger quantities, and with me running the store, my parents were able to travel and bring back fun things for the store.

Being raised behind a retail counter had its good and bad points.  Good in that it started me in a creative endeavor.  I learned how to do really simple jewelry making and crafting skills as a child, and have built on those since, as well as learning a broader range of skills.  I've also gotten a hands on education of business management and how to do visually awesome retail displays, as we had two big picture windows at the store that I got to redecorate periodically, and the inventory changed often.

Matted 5x7 "Winter Wonderland"

The negative side of being raised behind a counter, I didn't get much in the way of free time outside of school, as I was always running the store.  Socially I was extremely stunted, and grew to prefer talking to people with a retail counter between us.  Mostly these people were tourists, who I would only ever talk to once, so it was basically a life of having the same small talk conversations with up to half a million people a year.

I started working on changing that in my late 20s, and tried to make myself go out and meet people, quickly discovering I had quite a large social anxiety problem, which seemed odd to me, considering how many people I would deal with at the store, but without the "power" of the retail counter, I just couldn't do it.  I started developing something similar to agoraphobia as well, where other than going to work, I would have to work up the courage to even leave my house to do things like grocery shopping, or checking the mailbox.  After many failed attempts at trying to become social, I stumbled onto chat rooms, making several chat buddies that turned into real life friends, and I started leaving my house more and more.  During this time, I decided I needed to do more with my life, see more of the world and such, as I had spent nearly all of it up to that point working behind a counter.  I told my family what I wanted, and we decided to put the business up for sale, as my family felt they couldn't run the store without me.

Matted 8x10 "Winter Wonderland"

I started traveling a little, mostly within Arizona at first, as I hadn't really been anywhere in Arizona, much less the world.  Worked on several projects I had been putting off for years.  Met more people, slowly started making more friends, but I continued to chat online.  I ended up meeting someone online that I had a lot of fun chatting with, and went on my first date ever when I was 29.  When you see young kids figuring out how to date, doing all sorts of awkward things, it kind of cute.  When you see a 29 year old doing them, it borders on downright sad.  We dated for 3 months, but it just didn't work out.

A few months later, I met another guy online, Mitch, and when I saw his picture for the first time, it was love at first sight.  We got along great in chat, and ended up meeting in person, where it was still just as great.  After 6 months of trying to date, we decided being friends was all we were going to be able to make happen, as we just weren't ever able to make it work otherwise:  busy lives, different goals, different stages in our lives, but we remained great friends.  He was even supposed to be the best man at my wedding, but had to drop out as he was invited to appear at a comicon with his artwork, and wouldn't be able to make it to Quebec.

Matted 11x14 "Winter Wonderland"

Now this is where the story of how I met Michel begins.  Shortly after Mitch and I stopped trying to date, I was out with a bunch of friends, barhopping around Flagstaff, and we were all having too good of a time to end just because the bars were closing,  so we continued on with an impromptu house party.  One of my friends, Joe, had recently become single, and I had been the designated driver all night, so when we all arrived at our friend's house, a bottle of Southern Comfort was opened.  A large part of which was shared between Joe and I.  Fast forward to the next morning, we both woke up on the floor, hungover and cuddled together for warmth and both pretty much went "huh....".  We started dating right there and then and were together for 2.5 years.  It was for the most part a great relationship, but he had a bit of a jealous streak.

I started Dizzybear Creations shortly after Joe and I started dating, so I was working at home.  With no coworkers, spending the day all alone, I would often get on the computer and chat a bit during work breaks.  One person I continued to chat with often was Mitch.  Joe had heard many stories about Mitch and I, and didn't like me chatting with him, but instead of saying "I dont like you chatting with Mitch", he said "I'm not comfortable with you chatting with local guys....  I'm afraid one of them is going to try and steal you away."  To which I laughed, until I realized he was serious.  The solution I came up with, since I didn't want to give up chatting, was to find people from foreign countries to chat with, which he liked the idea of.

Joe and I ended up parting due to school taking him back to Maryland, and life continued on for both of us.  He with school and work, myself with getting Dizzybear Creations up and going so I could stop working construction, which I started doing part time after the store in Jerome was sold.  During my work breaks, I continued to chat with people from all over the world, including a guy from Montreal named JF.  After chatting with him for over three years, he asked if he could come see me during some vacation time he needed to use up.  I thought it would be fun, so he came down for about a week.  I showed him around Northern AZ, we went briefly into Southern CA, it was a fun visit.  We got along well enough that he asked me to come see him up in Montreal, which I did a few months later, arriving in the early part of December, and ended up staying a month.

Bus Station in Quebec City

The first time I met Michel

JF had to work a good deal of the time I was in Montreal, but he did show me around when he could.  I would explore the city on my own when he was working.  The day after Christmas in 2009 though, he arranged to meet up with his best friend in Quebec City who had recently started dating a guy, and the four of us were going to run around the historic part of the city.

The two of them had arrived in Quebec City before us, so when JF and I arrived they were waiting for us in the great big, beautiful bus station there.  JF saw his friend, and as we walked towards them, this really handsome guy turned away from the Big Buck Hunter video game he was playing, holding an orange colored shotgun, and wearing a knitted fox hat.  I was so taken by the sight of him, that I told him not to move and took his picture before I was even introduced to him.  This of course was Michel.  The second, and biggest, love at first sight I've ever experienced.

Me in the blizzard 

Michel on playground equipment in a blizzard

JF and his best friend were so busy catching up that they spent most of the weekend talking to each other, and mostly in French, so I didn't get to join in on that conversation much, as I didn't speak a word of French at the time.  Being left out of that conversation, I tried striking up conversation with Michel.  He was a bit shy, which made me want to try even harder to talk to him.  He was goofy, silly, had an infectious smile and laugh, I was completely taken by him.  Even more so seeing him play in the snow like a big kid.  A bit of a blizzard blew in, visibility was way down, but there was Michel climbing to the top of playground equipment.  It was a amazing weekend exploring the city.

Michel and I were both dating other people, so I knew it wasn't likely to go anywhere, but I had a feeling he'd be in my life somehow.  We became great friends, and hung out from time to time whenever I was in Montreal.  JF and I ended up parting after a year and a half of dating, long distance relationships are really tough, and I ended up losing touch with Michel.  I vowed to never be in another long distance relationship, and started putting more energy into further building my business, getting my jewelry and artwork into more stores, and went on with life.

Michel and I at the Grand Canyon

I was staying really busy with work, but continued to chat with people all over the world during work breaks.  One day, during a quick coffee break, Michel appeared online on facebook, which had never happened before.  I hadn't talked to him in probably 6 months, so I said hello.  He had gotten a new phone and it had facebook installed.  Luckily he hadn't figured out the settings yet, and didn't know his status showed as being online.  We started chatting and after a couple of months of chatting often, he asked if he could come spend some of his vacation time with me.  Canadians get a lot more vacation time than do most people in the US.

Michel climbing out of the Grand Canyon

We spent 10 days road tripping all over Northern Arizona, visited the Grand Canyon, parts of Southern California, and went to Las Vegas.  One of the most fun, fast paced, road trips I've ever been on.  He went back to Montreal, and I kind of figured I'd probably never see him again, as he was dating someone, which made me sad.  His relationship was already having issues but ended shortly after he got back.  We chatted more and more, and it turned out the feelings I had towards him were mutual.

Three months later he came and stayed with me for 6 months.  And then I followed him back to Montreal for 6 months, which is when I painted the 16 paintings.  There's been a lot of back and forth between Arizona and Montreal.  In October of 2013, on the 2nd anniversary of our first date, we were married in Saint Come, Quebec, and hopefully in a few months the immigration paperwork will be done and Michel will finally be able to come to Arizona and stay.  Long distance relationships are tough, even more so when there's immigration issues.  We both cant wait for him to get here.

Me at the Grand Canyon

I've mentioned in a previous blog, that most people think "The Duel" represents Michel and I, but in actuality, the the 9th painting I painted in that 6 month visit to Montreal: "Winter Wonderland" is the only painting I've done (so far) that purposely features a representation of us.  In original sketches, the bus station in Quebec City is in the background, but it is such a beautiful building that I felt it was overpowering.  Also in the original sketches, the skeleton man was to wear the fox hat, the snowman the top hat, but ever since being in that blizzard when I met Michel, and seeing him play in the snow, I cant think of, or see snow, without thinking of him.  Or foxes for that matter, because of the hat he was wearing.  So a snowman wearing a fox hat just seemed to be a perfect representation.

There's less recognizable symbolization in the skeleton man being me though.  I do love top hats, but dont often get chances to wear one (I would wear one all the time if I could though).  I have a cape I made that I try and work into as many costumes as possible.  When I made it, it was for a Halloween party in 2003 that I forced myself to go to when I was first trying to get out and meet people, to be more social.  I went as a cloaked skeleton man.  That night was the first night I truly realized just how much social anxiety I had, but having the costume to sort of hide behind, helped a lot.  Every time I wear the cape, I think back on that night and smile that I was able to get through it.  The cape I made is a gunmetal black color, but in the original sketches I drew, it was too dark, so I changed it to emerald green, my favorite color. When I started painting though, I only got a couple of strokes of the green on, when I changed it to the deep red color you see, for more contrast against the blues, and because the painting was starting to take on a holiday feel anyways.  That’s my favorite part about painting, the paintings never finish as planned.  I’m always surprised by the end result.

To see my other blogs, <CLICK HERE>

NOW FOR THE VALENTINE'S DAY

FREE ARTWORK GIVEAWAY DETAILS

There's will be TWO winners of FREE artwork in this giveaway.

(Possibly 3, keep reading)

To Enter:  Visit my facebook page and 
Share, "Like" and/or make a Comment on the giveaway post 
you'll find in the newsfeed.  It will look like this:

The giveaway will be a 
random drawing from all
the people who 

"Like", Comment on, 
or PUBLICLY Share
the giveaway post

"Like" the post = 1 Entry

Comment on Post = 2 Entries
Share* the contest post = 3 Entries

Total number of 

possible entries = 6

*IT HAS TO BE A PUBLIC SHARE, because the way facebook is set up, I wont be able to see that you shared the post, unless you have set it to be shared with the PUBLIC.

PRIZES

One winner will receive A FREE art print of any of my paintingsa FREE art print of "Winter Wonderland"

and a FREE limited edition Valentine's Day 2015 bookmark, pictured below.

A 2nd Winner will receive a FREE art print 
of "Winter Wonderland" 

and a FREE limited edition Valentine's Day 2015 bookmark, pictured below.

CLICK HERE TO BE TAKEN TO THE DIZZYBEAR CREATIONS FACEBOOK PAGE

***POSSIBLE THIRD PRIZE***

Additionally, if at least 143 people participate and
"Like", Comment on, or Share the giveaway post, 
there will be THIRD name randomly drawn to win a 
 Valentine's Day Gift Mystery Box, 

So tell your friends to "Like", Comment on, and Share too!

To see the Valentine's Day Gift Mystery Box - Click <HERE>

Why 143?  

143 is a texting code meaning "I Love You." 

One letter in I,  Four in Love, and three in You. 

ALSO........

From now until February 13, 2015, 

ALL wedding themed art prints are on sale for up to 50% off.  

Prints of all the paintings shown here in this blog are available at the webstore <click here>. 

"Winter Wonderland" is on sale through Feb 13th and is available in 3 different sizes.

Thank you again for sharing my artwork/posts with friends that you think would like my artwork, on your social media accounts:  Facebook, twitter, blogger, pinterest, tumblr, ello....   

It is INCREDIBLY helpful in getting my artwork out in the world, and is greatly appreciated. 

As a little thank you to those who've been reading this blog, when I start releasing the paintings in the third week of March, I'll be beginning a trivia contest, asking questions that you'll be able to find the answers to in my blogs.  There will be more details coming in March. 

If you have any questions you'd like to ask that I can answer in a future blog, you can either post them in the comment section below, or send them to my email  dizzybear73@gmail.com  

Webstore: http://dizzybearcreations.storenvy.com/


Direct link to all blogs: http://dizzybearcreations.blogspot.com/

Twitter:  https://twitter.com/DizzybearC

Pinterest: http://www.pinterest.com/dizzybear73/

Facebook:  https://www.facebook.com/dizzybearcreations

Ello:  https://ello.co/dizzybearcreations

E-mail:  dizzybear73@gmail.com

All orders placed between now and February 14th will also receive a FREE Limited Edition Bookmark with their order. 

The weekly featured painting series will resume on February 16th with 2 paintings, "Mariachi Band" and "The Bullfighter"

Michel and I at Oceanside, arriving just in time for the sunset

Michel's first visit to Sedona

Reflections in Vegas

Playing tourist in San Diego

Michel at the Hoover Dam

Breakfast at the Hash House a Go Go

Fun night at Venice Beach

Edited:  The giveaway was originally to be a contest entitled "How I met my Valentine" and required people to post their stories of how they met their Valentine, (thus me posting my story of how I met Michel).  From the stories submitted, I would then pick my favorite on Valentine's Day to be the Grand Prize winner.  And a second prize drawn from the other entries.  It was proving to be too confusing a contest, so the contest with this giveaway instead.  Same prizes, just simpler methods in which to win them.  My apologies if anyone was writing their stories to submit.  You're welcome to still post your stories as comments on the Facebook post to enter the giveaway.

HAPPY VALENTINE'S DAY!!!

Leaves of change, cigars, spoon skull gift, and windchimes

Been a busy week around here.  The tourist season in Northern Arizona starts picking up in mid February, and then really kicks off in mid to late March, so I've been working hard to get ahead of orders, while continuing to paint every spare moment I can.

The new paintings are going really well.  Slowly, but really well.  Looks like I'm going to begin releasing the new paintings starting in the third week of March.  I'm working on some fun ways to help release the new works:  trivia contests, pondering a contest on helping me name the paintings, and several other ideas resulting in the giving away of free or discounted price prints, as a reward to fans for helping me spread the word about my new paintings with their friends.

Valentine's Day is a couple of weeks away!  I'm still thinking on what to give my Valentine this year, but I do know what I'll be giving my fans:

 I'll be discounting the wedding themed Day of the Dead prints at the Dizzybear Creations webstore up to 50% off (beginning February 1st), and 24 brave and awesome people will get a special treat in the form of a "Valentine's Day Gift Mystery Box".

At the time I'm writing this, there's still 23 Valentine's Day Gift Mystery Boxes left, but they will sell out QUICK when I take them to the gallery next week.

The webstore continues to baffle me.  It gets a lot of traffic, but there hasn't been as many sales as I expected.  One of the many things I've been doing, to try and change this, is posting all the new items I've been making on the webstore.  Often times up to two months before they hit the galleries and stores.

The webstore has built in tools that keep track of how many people visit, which pages they look at....  Everything get's looked at a lot, but still, not many sales.  It confuses me, because when I take the new items to the galleries and stores, they end up getting priced higher than what I sell the items for on the webstore, and they sell like crazy, often selling out, even at the higher price.

On the positive side, a large percentage of the customers I have had at the webstore, have become repeat customers, so I must be doing something right!  :-) I'll be sending out an email on Feb 9th to all the customers at the Dizzybear Creations webstore for a special, customers only Valentine's Day "Show the love" sale.

I've been spending a lot of time this past week crafting silverware windchimes.  Like I mentioned in last week's blog, I really like making the windchimes, especially the metal working.  I collect the parts and pieces all year long to work with, and once or twice a year I spread everything out all over the studio and spend a week or so working up as much of it as possible, using all the beads left over from jewelry I make.  Most of the jewelry pieces I design, will get created numerous times, but what I like most about making the windchimes, each one is different.

Here's a few pictures of some of the items I've been working up in this batch of silverware windchimes, I'll post some pictures of the finished products in next week's blog.  All the windchimes will be available at Sedona Green within the next couple of weeks.

This weeks featured paintings are "Autumn Wedding" and "The Cigar Smoker".

"Autumn Wedding" was the 8th painting I did in 2012.  How it finished, is not how it was planned though.  Originally, this painting was going to feature a man riding a Penny Farthing.  A Penny Farthing is an early type of bicycle with a very large front wheel and a small rear wheel, as seen in this picture.

I painted the background first, but before I started on the man and the bike, I did a few preliminary sketches working out the details and realized that the best way to feature a Penny Farthing is from the side, so you see the wheels facing you, like circles.  The manner in which I had painted the background however, if I were to paint the man riding the bike facing sideways to the viewer of the painting, he'd be riding the bike in the wrong direction on the road and would quickly be hitting a tree.

I thought for a few days on what to do with the background, and had all sorts of ideas.  Most featured different types of vintage cars, but I was never able to sketch out anything I liked and gave up on the idea.  At the time Michel and I were starting to plan our wedding, scheduled for the following year, having decided upon a fall wedding, in October of 2013.  Since we were having a fall wedding, and I had painted a fall background, it just seemed a perfect subject to finish the painting.

Autumn in Canada is quite different than Autumn in Northern AZ.  For one, it's much earlier in the year, and the fall colors dont last quite as long up there.  We had our wedding at a lake house north of Montreal, and while there were still some trees with fall colors, we were about a week too late and had missed a majority of the color explosion.  It was still a beautiful wedding though.  We wanted to get the photographer to take our picture in a similar layout as this painting, but we never got the chance.  Hopefully when we do the Arizona wedding, there will be more time for pictures, and a beautiful backdrop of fall color.

"Autumn Wedding" gave me a couple of problems.  Most people would guess it to be the dress, with all its detail, but once I figured out the method, it was just a lot of repetition to paint all those ruffles.  What did prove to be a challenge was the groom.  This painting is the first time I ever gave one of my male Dia de los Muertos (Day of the Dead) characters hair, having always reserved the painting of hair for the women characters.  In the original version, he definitely looked like a woman wearing a suit.  I painted over the original version of his head and hair twice, as he kept looking very feminine.  If you compare the style of his face, to the others painted in 2012, you'll notice that his face is noticeably different than the rest in the series.  I ended up painting his face in a "stronger/harsher" fashion, with a bit less fine detail, to give the face a much more masculine feel to counteract the longer hair style which was contributing to making him look like a woman.  While working on this phase of the painting though, I decided I definitely do need to do a couple of gay and lesbian wedding paintings.  Even more so, now that 37 states in the US recognize same sex marriages, and soon all 50.

"Autumn Wedding" has proved to be a fan favorite and is the second best selling of my wedding themed Dia de los Muertos (Day of the Dead) paintings.  Coming in a close second to my very first Dia de los Muertos (Day of the Dead) painting:  "The Bride and Groom". 

5x7 "Autumn Wedding"Print <click here>

8x10 "Autumn Wedding" Print <click here>

11x14 "Autumn Wedding" Print <click here>

The second featured painting this week is "The Cigar Smoker".  Until I painted "The Vigilante", which will be featured in about a month, "The Cigar Smoker" was hands down the best seller to men.

This was the second Dia de los Muertos (Day of the Dead) painting I did featuring a Sedona background.  The rock formations in the background are Cathedral Rock in Sedona, AZ.  I'm not exactly sure why I keep doing it, but several times now, the story cards I've printed for the backside of the prints for this painting, will list the background as Coffee Pot Rock.  At least a hundred have been sold with this mistake.  If I ever become famous, I would imagine those copies would be more valuable, like a coin or stamp with a mistake are more valuable.  I really doubt I'll ever be famous enough for it to matter though.  I'm just happy that getting to be creative pays the bills.

While this painting sells well, it's one of my least favorites now.  I had retired it a couple years ago, but the owner at Sedona Green asked and asked and asked for me to start reprinting it again, and I eventually gave in.  

At the time I painted it, I was pretty happy with how it turned out, as I was still learning how to paint, but looking at it now, I just want to fix all the mistakes in perspective and depth of view.  It was first painting I did that had a long depth of view, so several things in the back have too much detail, others in the front have too little, the shadows are weird.....  I could go on for several pages.  

This is why I dont have much in the way of my own work hanging in my house, I tend to only see the flaws or things I'd want to make better, especially with the earlier pieces.  This piece, to me, has the longest list of things that need to be fixed, so every time I see this painting, it just drives me crazy.  I have many times wanted to paint over a few spots to fix some of the problems in the earlier paintings, but I like being able to see my paintings improve when compared linearly.  

"The Vigilante" was meant to replace this painting, with the poncho, and the cigar.  For many people "The Vigilate is preferred, but with the addition of an automatic weapon, and switching to a straw hat instead of the sombrero, many other people prefer "The Cigar Smoker".

Prints of all the paintings shown here in this blog are available at the webstore. 

"The Cigar Smoker" is on sale this week for 50% off.  It is available as a series of specially reprinted, limited edition, hand signed and numbered prints. Limited to a series of only 10. 

You can see the other limited edition prints by clicking here or visiting http://dizzybearcreations.storenvy.com and clicking on the "Special Edition Prints" link on the left hand side.

"Autumn Wedding" is available in 3 different sizes and is also discounted for one week only.

Two more paintings next week, and a special contest! Thank you again for sharing my artwork/posts with friends that you think would like my artwork, on your social media accounts:  Facebook, twitter, blogger, pinterest, tumblr, ello....   

It is INCREDIBLY helpful in getting my artwork out in the world, and is greatly appreciated. 

As a little thank you to those who've been reading this blog, when I start releasing the paintings in March, I'll be beginning a trivia contest, asking questions that you'll be able to find the answers to in my blogs.  There will be more details coming in March.  

This week only, with the purchase of every Spoon Skull Pendant, you'll also receive a FREE Hand Crafted, Vintage Chandelier Crystal, Angel Skull Ornament included with your order (retail value of $12.50).  This offer ends on Feb 1st.

If you have any questions you'd like to ask that I can answer in a future blog, you can either post them in the comment section below, or send them to my email  dizzybear73@gmail.com  

Webstore: http://dizzybearcreations.storenvy.com/

Direct link to all blogs: http://dizzybearcreations.blogspot.com/

Twitter:  https://twitter.com/DizzybearC

Pinterest: http://www.pinterest.com/dizzybear73/

Facebook:  https://www.facebook.com/dizzybearcreations

Ello:  https://ello.co/dizzybearcreations

E-mail:  dizzybear73@gmail.com

All orders placed between now and February 14th will also receive a FREE Limited Edition Bookmark with their order.  

Apple Picking, Coffee Pot Senoritas

The last couple of days I've been doing a bunch of metal work, working on preparing a bunch of metal pieces to make into a batch of silverware windchimes.  I usually try and do something different after finishing a painting to give my eyes a rest before starting the next one.  In the last couple of days I spend working on a painting, I'm usually up really close putting in so many final touches of detail that I get really bad eyestrain.  One of these days I'll break down and get glasses.  Everyone in my family, both sides, wears glasses or contacts, so it's amazing I've made it this long without having to get a pair myself.

I always enjoy the process of making the windchimes.  I collect parts and pieces all year long, and once or twice a year I spread everything out all over the studio and spend a week working up as much of it as possible.  My studio is usually in a constant state of chaos, it's how I work best, but during the week that I work on windchimes, it's especially bad.  I'll leave myself little paths and the rest of the studio will be a sea of brass, silverware, glass pieces, wire, beads.....  it's a beautiful mess.  I always feel bad for my neighbors during windchime week though, as I'm often out in the yard pounding on the anvil for hours on end, making all sorts of noise.

I really love doing metal work.  The grinding, the sparks, the pounding of metal into different shapes....  it's all so much fun.  I bought myself a Pneumatic Planishing Hammer, thinking it could help me pound out the silverware flat, but it turned out to not be strong enough for that.  Which is good, because half the fun of making the windchimes is working on the anvil.  Today I realized I could use earbud style headphones under the industrial ear muffs I wear to protect my hearing, so I'm sure I was extra loud in the back yard today, albeit, a bit more rhythmic in my pounding on the anvil.  Louder because I found myself singing a lot though.  Sorry neighbors!  It wasn't a cat being hammered on an anvil, it was just me singing while pounding on the anvil.  Of the many albums I listened to today, I'd say the soundtrack of the movie Juno was the best music to anvil to.

I'll be posting pictures of the windchimes I'm working on in future blogs.

The painting I finished though, is the one I mentioned in last week's blog.  It ended up taking a few extra days to finish, as there were some changes I wanted to make.  It's definitely some of my best work and I cant wait to release it.  I let Michel see it a few days ago, the final test of any of my paintings, and let him attempt to tear it apart.  He didn't have a lot to say about this one.  The shadowing on part of it was a little off, and I had too much detail on one part, both easy fixes.  That's usually what Michel helps with most, pointing out shadowing and perspective problems.  I'm happy to have his help.  Thanks Michel!!!!

The featured paintings this week are "Apple Picking" and "Coffee Pot Senoritas".

As I've mentioned, I usually dont have a lot of time to paint, but during a 6 month stay in Montreal in 2012, I was able to paint 16 paintings.

“Apple Picking” was the 7th of the 16 paintings of 2012.  I had been going to Montreal pretty steady since 2009, and had already seen and done most everything there was to be seen or do in the city, as I would spend most of my time there playing tourist.  It's a great city, but it was starting to feel like a chore trying to find new things to see and do every day, which is why I set out to start painting again after nearly a three year hiatus from painting.  I matched my painting schedule with Michel's work schedule, and would just paint and paint while he was out of the apartment and I had all that time alone.  Often times continuing to paint into the evenings, or on weekends if the weather was bad or we had nothing to do.  I did still take many breaks and day trips with friends, and one such welcome break was an apple picking excursion in Rougemont with close friends.

Rougemont is a cute little town just 45 minutes out of Montreal.  Lots of apple orchards, cider and ice wine tasting rooms, farms, but everything does seem to center around apples.  Ice Cider is amazing, if you haven't had the chance to try it, make sure you do.  It's a dessert wine, originating in Southern Quebec.  Sometimes labelled as Ice Wine when sold in the US.

To make the Ice Cider, the apples are harvested from the trees at the peak of ripeness and kept in cold storage until the onset of consistently cold winter temperatures.  The apples are then juiced and set outdoors to freeze for 6 or more weeks.  The freezing and melting off process creates a concentrated juice at the bottom of the vats that is naturally high in sugar and flavor, and from this the ice cider is fermented.  It usually takes about 8 pounds of apples to make one 375 ml bottle of Ice Cider/Wine.

On this particular apple picking excursion, we went to the Michel Jodoin Cidrerie, took their tour and did a cider and wine tasting.  Then crossed the street and picked apples in an orchard.  With which I baked up several apple pies when we got back to the apartment.  I have two sisters and mom taught me right along side of them how to bake, cook, sew, crochet, knit, and all those other things mothers used to teach daughters.  I make a good apple pie, but they were even better with these apples.

Another thing I liked to do when I needed to take a break from painting, was go shopping at thrift stores and vintage clothes stores all over the city.  I'm a big guy, 50 x-tall in a jacket, so finding clothes that will fit anywhere is often a chore, even more difficult in thrift stores and vintage stores.  While in a thrift store on one of those days that I was needing a break, I found a tweed jacket that fit me perfect.  I had always wanted a jacket like this, so I was even more excited when I saw it was only 10 bucks.  Spent a lot more on a matching hat from a chapellerie (hat store) downtown a few days later.  I didn't wear the outfit when we went apple picking, but finding this jacket seemed like something that needed to be in a painting!

5x7 Apple Picking Matted Prints <click here>

8x10 Apple Picking Matted Prints <click here>

11x14 Apple Picking Matted Prints <click here>

The second featured painting this week is "Coffee Pot Senoritas".  Part of this paintings history can be found in my first blog, and can be read by clicking here.

As I mentioned in last week's blog, the gallery that sells most of my artwork and jewelry, Sedona Green, originally wanted to specialize in Sedona, AZ themed items, and originally only stocked my Day of the Dead paintings as a temporary space filler after moving to a larger location.  They ended up selling so well though, that the prints remained.  To make the owner happy, and as a thank you for keeping the prints in the gallery, I painted four dia de los muertos paintings with Sedona backgrounds.

Coffee Pot Rock is one of my favorite rock formations in Sedona.  I've lived in Northern Arizona for 37 years now, and remember this rock formation looking a lot more like an old fashioned percolator style, stove top coffee pot.  Over the last nearly 4 decades, the rock has been subjected to some weathering and rock cleavage, so it doesn't look quite as much like a percolator these days.  I often wonder if younger people even know what percolators are.  I haven't seen one myself in over 20 years, other than the one I use.  Maybe they should change the name to "Espresso Pot Rock".  The Italian style stove top espresso makers look a bit like percolators, and are still in use by many.  Myself included.  I do love caffeine, probably why I dont sleep much.  hehe.

There's a great trail around the base of Coffee Pot Rock.  I dont get as much time to hike these days as I used to, but it is a favorite hike of mine.  When friends and family come for visits, I usually take them on two hikes, around the base of Coffee Pot Rock for the views, and then we'll go climb Cathedral Rock.  I really need to find more free time, I miss hiking.

Most of my free time these days goes to playing roller hockey.  Which I love playing.  I only started learning how to skate about a year ago, but the other night while playing, one of the guys on the other team exclaimed "F#@$ing Dennis, he's getting good enough to be a damned pain in the ass".  This of course has absolutely nothing to do with art, or anything I make, but it made me super happy to hear that, as I've been working hard at getting better at this sport.  I play with a group of guys that have been playing for years and years, and are quite good, so hearing that definitely felt awesome, as I often feel like I get in the way, or slow the game down.  I still have a long way to go, but it's been a lot of fun so far.  I really should find some time and go hike around Coffee Pot though.  It's been too long.

Prints of all the paintings shown here in this blog are available at the webstore. 

"Coffee Pot Senoritas" is on sale this week for 50% off.  It is available as a series of specially reprinted, limited edition, hand signed and numbered prints. Limited to a series of only 10. 

You can see the other limited edition prints by clicking here or visiting http://dizzybearcreations.storenvy.com and clicking on the "Special Edition Prints" link on the left hand side.

"Apple Picking" is available in 3 different sizes and is also discounted for one week only.

Two more paintings next week! Thank you again for sharing my artwork/posts with friends that you think would like my artwork, on your social media accounts:  Facebook, twitter, blogger, pinterest, tumblr, ello....   

It is INCREDIBLY helpful in getting my artwork out in the world, and is greatly appreciated. 

As a little thank you to those who've been reading this blog, when I start releasing the paintings in March, I'll be beginning a trivia contest, asking questions that you'll be able to find the answers to in my blogs.  There will be more details coming in March.   

If you have any questions you'd like to ask that I can answer in a future blog, you can either post them in the comment section below, or send them to my email  dizzybear73@gmail.com  

Webstore: http://dizzybearcreations.storenvy.com/

Direct link to all blogs: http://dizzybearcreations.blogspot.com/

Twitter:  https://twitter.com/DizzybearC

Pinterest: http://www.pinterest.com/dizzybear73/

Facebook:  https://www.facebook.com/dizzybearcreations

Ello:  https://ello.co/dizzybearcreations

E-mail:  dizzybear73@gmail.com

Ice storm, ice skating, vampires, dueling, and marriage.

Since last week's blog, I'm back in the studio painting away like a crazy man.  I should be finishing a painting today.  Yay!  :-)  Making myself not show anyone the new paintings, and waiting until March to start releasing these new paintings, is proving to be a lot tougher than I originally thought it would be.......  A couple of friends popped into the studio yesterday to say hello, and I let them see one of the paintings I'm working on, to get a little feedback, as the style is a bit different.  They both really liked the new painting.  I do too, which makes me happy as I had abandoned it 4 or 5 months ago, putting it on the scrap heap with all the other paintings that haven't progressed well enough for me to bother finishing.  It was hard not to show them all the others, but I resisted.

I flew back to Northern AZ  from Montreal last Tuesday (Jan 6) after getting to experience my first ice storm.  That was pretty crazy.  Thick ice covering everything:  sidewalks, roads, trees, cars frozen to the road, doors sealed shut....
All over the city, people were without electricity, due to trees falling, under the weight of the ice coating them....  On my last full day there, I went to get lunch with Michel who had returned to work that day, walking for a couple of miles on top of solid sheets of ice to meet up with him.  It was really more of a controlled sliding scenario than walking.  I slipped many times, usually, and luckily, near things I could grab onto to keep from falling.  Miraculously, I only hit the ground twice.  Hurt my arm a little on one of the falls, but it's feeling better now.  I've gotten pretty good at safely falling in the last year, thanks to roller hockey.

After lunch, I popped into a drug store and bought some spikes designed to strap onto the bottoms of shoes.  I've only ever seen little old ladies wear them, so I was surprised they had them in my size, but truly glad they had them, definitely a game changer.  I was stomping all over the city wearing them, even catching a couple of slipping people while walking around.  I was surprised to see as many people out trying to traverse the streets and sidewalks as I did.  While I was in Montreal, the Verde Valley (where I live in Northern AZ) received 6 to 10 inches of snow, and it pretty much closed down the area.  We're not used to snow here, so nobody really knows how to drive in it, unless they've transplanted here from the north, to get away from the kind of
weather we ended up getting here.  I missed all of that storm, coming home to only a couple patches of snow left in my yard.  I left the shoe spikes in Montreal for Michel to use since he had to stay behind.  He loves them, but he's still looking forward to moving to Arizona in the spring, and leaving the Montreal winters behind.  It was kind of neat to see people ice skating around the streets and sidewalks of Montreal though, because they could, and it was easier than walking.

I've done three partial winters in Quebec, and they aren't any fun.  It was during my first winter up there though, that I met Michel, and experienced my first blizzard too in the same weekend.  I'll tell that story in a few weeks in the blog containing the painting "Winter Wonderland", since that painting contains a nod to the day I met Michel.

I've had a lot of people think this week's featured painting "The Duel" is a representation of Michel and I.  If anything, it would more represent the man we were renting a room from and living with at the time I painted this.  He was interesting, but not in a fun way.  His name was Rony, and he was from Haiti.  He was unemployed, paid his bills by renting out rooms and collecting handouts.  He was almost always home.  When he did leave, it would be to run and get food at the corner convenience store, or to "go on job interviews".  I happened to be going out one day when he was going on one of these job interviews.  We headed off in opposite directions, and when I got a few blocks away, I realized I had left my phone back at the apartment.  I stopped, got a cup of coffee at the nearby Tim Horton's and turned around and went back, only being gone for about 10 minutes.  When I got back to the apartment, he was in boxers on the couch, yelling at a soccer game on the tv.  He'd get all dressed up a couple of times a week, and then just walk around the block a couple of times, telling everyone along the way about his big job interview and then come back home, never having gone to a job interview.  Michel and I found it a little amusing, and confusing, that he would go to the pretense of going on these "job interviews".

We only lived there a couple of months, as he was constantly complaining that we didn't hang out with him enough, once even throwing us out of the apartment for it, only to change his mind 20 minutes later.  Between the constant knocks on the door to our room to hang out, the constant flow of passing strangers he'd invite off the street to come hang out with him in the apartment, always leaving the front door unlocked, blasting music, always throwing dirty rags in with our clothes in the washer, and on and on, we ended up leaving pretty quick.  We only put up with it so long because of the location, and the room was big enough for me to have a large area in which I could paint in our room, while Michel was at work.  With Rony always pestering me though, it was a nightmare to work on paintings in that apartment.  There were a couple of times a gun would have been handy, but being Canada and their laws against people owning them, I didn't have one.  haha.  I'm totally kidding, but there were several times I would have liked to have punched him in the nose.

“The Duel” was the 6th of the 16 paintings I painted in 2012.  The story of how it came about is a bit less fun that what other people have come up with though.  After seeing the movie Abraham Lincoln.  Vampire Hunter, I Googled Abraham Lincoln to find out more information about his real-life son.  While reading the search results, I noticed a link to the story of Andrew Jackson’s duel, I guess the connection being that they were both Presidents. Whenever I search for something on Google, I always hit the "image" button as well, to see what pictures pop up.  That's how the idea for a lot of my paintings come about; the pictures that come with the random searches I find myself doing all the time. There were all sorts of awesome pictures of
dueling on Google, and it just seemed like a good idea for a painting.  This is the fastest painting I've ever done.  Everything just seemed to flow, beginning to end.  The background is simple, there's not nearly as much detail as my other pieces, and yet it is the second best selling image of all my paintings.  I've not had another painting come as easy as this one, so far.

Direct Links to the prints of "The Duel"
available at the Dizzybear Creations Webstore

The Duel 5x7 click here

The Duel 8x10 click here

The Duel 11x14 click here

My stock answer for the people that still ask me if this is a painting of myself and Michel,  I now joke and say: “yes, 10 years after our wedding.”  I really didn't intend for this painting to represent us though, but because of how often it is thought to be us, I'm going to do a painting in the future similar to The Duel, but in the upcoming painting, Michel and I will be wearing the Steampunk costumes we wore to our Quebec wedding.  No pistols though, he'll be dueling with a sword, and I'll be dueling with a ray gun, like we both had at the wedding.  I'll be doing two different versions, one with representations of us in real life, for personal use and for the invitations of the Arizona wedding, and a second painting, a day of the dead version, with us as skeletons.  Cant wait to paint them, but there's many others I have to paint first.

The second painting being featured this week is "Archway Bride and Groom".  Part of this paintings history can be found in my first blog, and can be read by clicking here.

The gallery that sells most of my artwork and jewelry, Sedona Green, used to be located in a smaller, upstairs location, but in 2009 he was able to move his gallery to a larger, street level location, but in doing so, had lots of extra room to fill up.  In the upstairs location, he only carried a small amount of my wares, but while helping him move his store I offered to temporarily fill in all the extra space he had with my windchimes, jewelry, ornaments, paintings, dreamcatchers, and such.  Just to help him out and make the store not look so empty, until he could fill the store up with other items.  Everything ended up selling so well at the new location though, that he let me be the main artist of his shop, and we expanded my displays.

I had painted 6 or 7 landscapes of Sedona, AZ since that first art show in Jerome, AZ, but found landscapes weren't nearly as fun to paint, nor sell as well.  He wasn't a fan of my day of the dead paintings, at first, but let me put in a small display of them, even though he liked the Sedona landscapes I had done much better.  The day of the dead prints outsold the Sedona landscapes, by a huge margin.


Since I had so much space to display my work, and the prints of the older day of the dead painting were selling really well, I decided to do a couple of new dia de los muertos paintings to add to the collection.  I was wandering around in the town of Jerome, and in one of the store's windows, I saw these cute, little Dia de los Muertos figurines, and went in to look at them.  I ended up buying 4 and used these as the basis for four, still-life paintings.  That store, Jerome Jewelry, now carries my art prints.

The "Archway Bride and Groom" was the first painting of the four paintings based on those figurines, and was the only one of them that didn't feature a Sedona, AZ background.  The idea for having Sedona in the background came about during a conversation with Mike at Sedona Green after he saw "Archway Bride and Groom", and he commented on how surprised he was that the Day of the Dead was outselling the Sedona landscape paintings, by such a huge amount.  At the time he really wanted his store to have a heavy Sedona theme, so he was happy to see that the next four paintings combined the two themes, having Day of the Dead figures, with Sedona, AZ backgrounds.

Prints of all the paintings shown here in this blog are available at the webstore. 
"Archway Bride and Groom" is on sale this week for 50% off.  It is available as a series of specially reprinted, limited edition, hand signed and numbered prints. Limited to a series of only 10. 

You can see the other limited edition prints by clicking here or visiting http://dizzybearcreations.storenvy.com and clicking on the "Special Edition Prints" link on the left hand side.

"The Duel" is available in 3 different sizes and is also discounted for one week only.

Two more paintings next week! Thank you again for sharing my artwork/posts with friends that you think would like my artwork, on your social media accounts:  Facebook, twitter, blogger, pinterest, tumblr, ello....   

It is INCREDIBLY helpful in getting my artwork out in the world, and is greatly appreciated. 

As a little thank you to those who've been reading this blog, when I start releasing the paintings in March, I'll be beginning a trivia contest, asking questions that you'll be able to find the answers to in my blogs.  There will be more details coming in March.   

If you have any questions you'd like to ask that I can answer in a future blog, you can either post them in the comment section below, or send them to my email  dizzybear73@gmail.com  

Direct link to all blogs: http://dizzybearcreations.blogspot.com/




Webstore: http://dizzybearcreations.storenvy.com/

Blog: https://dizzybearcreations.blogspot.com

Twitter:  https://twitter.com/DizzybearC

Pinterest: http://www.pinterest.com/dizzybear73/

Facebook:  https://www.facebook.com/dizzybearcreations

Ello:  https://ello.co/dizzybearcreations

E-mail:  dizzybear73@gmail.com