shelli fitzpatrick – The Art of Shelli Fitzpatrick

The story of my artwork

I don’t make moments, I make them better.

A pack of white wolves stand guard over the overgrown ruins of a castle. Art print by artist Shelli Fitzpatrick. — The castle guard is an artwork by Shelli Fitzpatrick and prints are available at shellifitzpatick.com

That may sound like an arrogant statement and I really don’t mean it that way, so please bear with me while I explain.

One of the characteristics of my work is that I very often create scenes that never actually happened in reality. Because I specialize in photo manipulation, I often take scenes from more than one image and meld them together to create something that only ever existed in my imagination and now in a particular artwork such as this one titled “The castle guard”.

Yes the castle was real and so were the wolves but they were never really in this same setting that I created in this image. And I don’t mean to sound arrogant at all when I tell you that I much prefer the scene I created to the photos of reality that I used to create this work from. So please forgive me if that is how I come off to you.

What I do is scour sites that offer free to use images with a CC0 license or that are definitely public domain trying to find art worthy images to use to create one of my works with. Then I take these images into my software, cut out what I need and put the parts together into the scene I have imagined. I then apply extra editing to add an artistic touch such as impressionist style or watercolor or whatever effect I am looking for.

My go to software is not AI as some of you might think, but rather I mainly use GIMP and Art Rage. Occasionally I will use Watercolor Studio or Ink Scape and even more rarely I use Krita.

This kind of work is not the only kind I create. There are times when I use my own photographs as content or I just free hand create minimalist paintings, but that is a subject for another post.

I am very grateful to the photographers who donate their images to CC0 licensing sites like Pixabay and to the art museums that have released so many works to open access collections so that artists like me are able to source great images to use when making artwork without worrying about copyright issues.

I do try to donate to the original photographer or museums when it is possible for me and especially if an artwork that I used their content to create has sold. But I do it anonymously for obvious reasons.

I hope you have enjoyed this behind the scenes look into my creative processes and if you love this artwork or would like to see more of my work, please visit my official artist website at www.shellifitzpatrick.com

Autumn Descending

loose brushstrokes abstract artwork in autumn colors of orange, yellow, brown and white with the look of colorful banks of foggy clouds descending — Buy a print HERE

As orange is descending like a thick fog it chases the green away, replacing it with warm golden shades of autumn. It teases with it’s beauty for a short time and then quietly disappears as the grays of winter take over the landscape. Try to take the time to catch her while she is still here… but if you happened to miss her I captured a glimpse for you in this abstract artwork called Autumn Descending.

This work is available as wall art and also on home decor and stationery at my website.

On Finding Inspiration

a perfect blue summer sky with puffy white clouds digital oil painting — *Summer Clouds in a Blue Sky by artist Shelli Fitzpatrick*

For an artist inspiration is so important, but there are times when it seems to be very hard to find. On days like that I find that I just need to step back from “the studio”, which as a digital artist happens to be my computer screen and I will get outside and look at the sky.

The first digital artworks I ever created were done from my photographs of the Oklahoma sky. It is a constant source of awe and I like to think of it as the Creator’s everchanging canvas of new and beautiful works. It never fails to inspire me and I always find myself snapping iphone shots to use as future mixed media for some of my own new works.

So when I have spent too much time inside and I am getting artist block, all I have to do is walk out the back door and look up and suddenly I start to feel fresh inspiration again. I hope you will try it!

Where some of my abstract ideas come from.

four abstract artworks depicting turbulence — See my entire collection of abstract artwork here

I was just looking at some of my abstract artworks and I noticed that many of them have a wavy turbulent sea theme. That got me thinking about why I create so many pieces that have a tossed and unsettled stormy vibe.

Okay, right here I could get deep and spiritual and say it is a reflection of my inner feelings brought on by the instability of my surroundings in the world, but that doesn’t explain the pieces I created long ago when things were relatively peaceful in my life. I could also say it was a subconcious inner longing for the sea, but that is far from the truth since I am from Colorado and the beaches I grew up with were the rocky shores of cold mountain lakes.

Then I rememebered a time in my past when I was working as a laundry mat attendant and we had those huge triple loader washing machines that have a round window in the front and you can see the colorful clothing being tossed about in the soapy sudsy water. I recall wishing I could capture those kind of scenes with a camera or paints, and all of a sudden, now I know why I tend to create those kind of abstracts over and over again. It is my way of trying to recreate those images from my memory. Not very romantic, I know, but it was kind of surprising to realize it while I was musing.

On Beating the Art Blahs

At the moment winter is setting in where I live. The leaves are drying up and blowing away, the garden is frozen and dead. It is cold inside and out and inspiration seems to have gone with the leaves. As I sit here bundled up in front of my blank computer screen trying to drum up some inspiration to create more artwork, all I can think about is how cold my toes are and how blank my mind is.

So where do we find inspiration on the bleak blah days like this? Sometimes I like to visit online art museums and libraries to look for old vintage art. That never fails to get my creative juices flowing.

Also, and I hope it won’t sound crazy, but sometimes I just go back over my own artwork because most of the time when I am creating a piece of artwork, I have more than one idea going on in my head. Since I can only follow one path at a time, when I go back and revist some of my older work it jogs my memory of the path not taken and I can sometimes explore that avenue as well.

Examples of this kind of thing can be seen in my portfolio where there is more than one style of art made with the same image. Below is an example of two different styles of art I created using one of my floral photographs as a starting point. I hope this post helps you find new ways of getting inspired when you are feeling empty and blank by reviewing your own artwork and revamping it into totally new pieces of art that might reach a new audience you wouldn’t have appealed to before.

Wild Wildflowers Colorful Botanical Art by Shelli Fitzpatrick — Get prints of this art here

Comicbook Wildflowers Botanical Art by Shelli Fitzpatrick — Get prints of this art here

The Struggle: we all have inner struggles of some kind. Here is mine…

example of modern digital abstract art — Click to buy a print of this artwork.

There is a very real struggle that goes on in the life of a visual artist. That struggle is between creating and promoting. For instance, I know that if I want to sell my art I need a promoter and since I can’t pay someone to do it for me then I must be my own promoter. And in the world of online art sales one of the most touted ways to do that is to blog about your art and life as an artist.

Here is where the struggle comes in. Many visual artists are introverts who have a hard time writing about anything and especially their own art and life.

We generally don’t want to draw attention to ourselves and will avoid having the spotlight. However if we ever intend to sell any art we must get it out there in front of potential buyers and collectors.

Ah, the struggle is real, especially for me personally. So with this post I just wanted to put that out there for the reader in the hopes that you will have patience with artists like me who go long periods of time without a new blog or social media post.

A passion for the past

I am a lover of history and nostalgia and much of my work reflects that love. This is a piece I created of a village that has a definite historic flavor and I tried to make it feel like an impressionist style even though my tools are entirely digital. I am always striving to make digital art that doesn’t look digital.
I’ve included the description I wrote to go with this image on the day I posted it to my website because I was feeling the role of a storyteller that day and I hope you enjoy reading it.

It goes like this…

“An impressionist style view of a medieval village as seen from a hill overlooking the town center. There is a tall spire on the cathedral dominating the other smaller houses and buildings with their charming red rooftops. The community sprawls out over the rolling green fields and hills to a range of mountains in the distance.

In your imagination zoom into the center of the bustling main street and hear the sounds of hawkers trying to lure you to buy their goods and carriage wheels clattering on the cobblestone pavement. Smell the aromas of flowers and street vendors cooking meat on spits and bread baking and fresh horse manure from the horse drawn buggies and coaches.

Feel the excitement of a day at the town market in the late afternoon as things wind up for the last of daylight, everyone preparing to close up shop and go home. A quick look at the cloudy sky seems to warn of coming showers. Time to find a bed for the night…”

Autumn is a Lady

Autumn is a Lady is a modern contemporary abstract piece I recently created and when I was finished the title jumped out at me. I remember thinking what a great book cover it would make and how if I were a writer, I would write a novel of the same name just so I could put this art on the cover.

It is available for purchase in many print formats at my website.

#BuyIntoArt

Black Eyed Susan

Her name is Rudbeckia but you can call her black eyed susan. She is wild and free and loves to snuggle up with an Indian blanket on the side of a hill or in a meadow. She has long golden petals and beautiful brown lashes and though she resembles her cousin the sunflower, she likes to think she is more fun. You can become quite attached to her and love her all summer long but don’t cry when she goes away for the winter. She promises to return next spring.

She allowed me to capture her in this pretty abstract artwork so that you could have something to remember her by. Click HERE to get your botanical print of the beautiful wildflower named Black Eyed Susan.

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The Definition of Art

See more abstract art at my artist website

What exactly is art and what does it mean to us? Well it turns out there isn’t one definitive answer to this question. You can ask a hundred people and get a hundred different answers.

I thought it would be fun to see how some famous artists answered this question. Here’s what I found.

“The purpose of art is washing the dust of daily life off our souls.” -Pablo Picasso

“All art is but imitation of nature.”
-Lucius Annaeus Seneca

“Art is not what you see, but what you make others see.”
-Edgar Degas

“Art is the signature of civilizations”
-Jean Sibelius

“Art is a line around your thoughts.”
– Gustav Klimt

“To be an artist is to believe in life.”
– Henry Moore

“Art evokes the mystery without which the world would not exist.” – René Magritte

“Art should be something that liberates your soul, provokes the imagination and encourages people to go further.”
– Keith Haring

“The richness I achieve comes from nature, the source of my inspiration.”
– Claude Monet

“If I could say it in words there would be no reason to paint.”
– Edward Hopper

“I saw the angel in the marble and carved until I set him free.”
– Michelangelo

“My opinion is that the best thing would be to work on till art lovers feel drawn toward it of their own accord, instead of having to praise or to explain it. “
-Vincent Van Gogh

“The only time I feel alive is when I’m painting. “
-Vincent Van Gogh

“I found I could say things with color and shapes that I couldn’t say any other way – things I had no words for.”
– Georgia O’Keeffe

“I paint flowers so they will not die.”
– Frida Kahlo

“Photography takes an instant out of time, altering life by holding it still.”
– Dorothea Lange

So with that, I will end this post with my own quote about art.

“Art is not what I do, it’s who I am. If you cut me, I bleed art. “
-Shelli Fitzpatrick

What is your definition of art?