Cuter Electrical Panels!

Hey everyone!

Hope you guys are out enjoying the weekend as much as I have been! Friday was a full day of painting, and yesterday was a full day of fun. I am so so so so happy to work 4 days a week at my J.O.B. and one day a week mural-ing. My new schedule has really been helping me to divide my time between the 9-5, the hustle, and the rest of my life and the people I fill it with. Just feeling very very grateful. *end gushing*

Anyway, this is what I did on Friday: covered two boring grey metal electrical panels on the outside of an apartment building, with flowers and cuteness. It's just such a pure and simple happiness to be able to brighten up these teeny tiny corners of the world and make them a little more sparkly. I like art that "MEANS and SAYS SOMETHING", but I also very much enjoy making art that is simply about making things prettier.

A couple weeks go I started this project - all I had done was the big pink flower on the left, and started the roses. Then on Friday, made a push to finish the rest of that whole panel, plus the other one in the last picture. I realize I paint fast. Clients remark about that a lot. I have to say though, that it's definitely not necessarily a good thing. Working a tiny bit slower is actually one of my current professional goals - in painting murals, and in my day job as a graphic designer. I can be impatient. I want to see the results, and quickly. I want to see the images I have in my mind come alive on a wall (or electric panel, ha!). I also want to get to my favorite part of the painting process sooner (everything that happens after the first layers of paint are already down). But I'm trying this new thing where I take more time to think about what I'm doing. Who knows, maybe it's the NOT thinking that will be better after all, but we shall see. #goals Ok, less ramble, more pictures. Here's what I made:

 

Happy weekend everyone! 

<3 corie="" p="">

Waterfall Hallway!

Hey everyone!

This weekend's mural was another one of those realistic-but-not, made-up-landscape types of projects. I friggin love those. When someone says (like my latest client): incorporate these elements, and make the rest up.... that is my absolute DREAM. So, the result is, I'm not sure if this is a mural of hawaii, or the columbia river gorge. But neither I, nor my client cares. It's just a colorful and peaceful way to welcome someone into my client's house. This is painted down a long, previously blank hallway from the front door leading ino the living room. So given that I couldn't back up more than like 4 feet, taking pictures of it was super awkward. So here are a bunch of shots of it in pieces. Hooray! Stay tuned... Summer mural-making is in full force!

Flowers and Money!

Hey everyone!

I just finished this mural less than 2 hours ago and I'm already posting it! I'm never that on top of blogging and yet here we are :)

This one was in a laundry room for an apartment building with "gardens" as kind of their whole building theme. I was happy to get such a bright, cheery assignment. Just simple, colorful, beautifying of an otherwise un-exciting space. Can't wait for residents to be surprised when they do their laundry! Scroll to pictures or read on for a completely separate story... ha!

In totally other news, I know a lot of you that read this thing are my friends or parent's friends in real life, and some of you may have recently supported a dream of mine. This post describes the art show benefit event I held back in March, where I displayed all the paintings in my Madagascar series, and sold prints to benefit an organization that works there, and all over the world. So print sales have been trickling in since then, and I'm happy to tell you guys that I was able to donate $875 to Population Services International today! So grateful to those of you who bought a print, came to my show, or told me to break a leg. It's been an idea that's been in my head since Peace Corps in Madagascar, and I'm so happy it happened. Thank you guys so much for your support!!! It means more to me than you know. I also wanna just say something else real quick, cuz I'm feeling blog-y:

This past weekend, I had a friend visit who was in the Peace Corps with me, and we were talking (obviously) a lot about Peace Corps. She said that when she helped interview candidates for Peace Corps back where she lives, she hears a lot of people express concern over their college majors, or area of study - "but I'm just a theater major.... can I really be of service?" First of all, you will learn a bunch of stuff during Peace Corps training that will be helpful and relevant, but also, everyone can use their skills to be helpful in the world. You could (and people in Madagascar did) help organize a play in your village to explain why it's important to protect the forest and not eat lemurs!

Anyway, point is, you can use your skills to do good things. When I was younger, I thought painting was kinda silly in comparison with more "noble" careers, and wouldn't actually help that much. Now that I'm smarter (haha), I've been able to find ways to use my art to be helpful. So don't listen to people - or yourself - who say you can't be helpful by doing your "thing", whatever that is. Ok now pictures :)

The Cow! and murals-to-be

Hi everyone!

I finished and brought this little painting to it's new home last week. Nope, not a mural - only a couple feet wide and tall! Client told me she wanted: a cow, painted in an abstract-y/unrealistic color type of style, with a tiny red barn in the background. DID YOU SAY MAKE IT EXTRA COLORFUL?!?! Let's do more like this, forever! Client was happy, and the little calf that I took the liberty of adding, turned out to be meaningful to her as well. This was a reminder of childhood memories and she said "Thank you for painting my story". That's literally, my mission statement as a muralist/artist-for-hire. 

 And speaking of that, here's a few new ideas/photoshopped sketches for murals of the future! Can't wait to get painting these babies!! Seriously, I actually can't wait. PAINT ALL THE WALLLLZ! Stay tuned to see how these actually end up - because improvising! Have a great week everyone!

Malheur Wildlife Refuge Mural... and birds!

Hey everyone!

Happy weekend!! So the post from last week, kinda goes with this one. The forest mural I posted last time was for the same client as this one; one mural inside, one outside. My client for these was a major bird-watcher person, so I was super nervous I would get some bird details wrong. They passed her test though - ornithologically correct! Man that's a big word. 

This one was super fun! Challenging to try and make this mural for her closet doors go with all the other colors she had going on in her room - different artworks too. It was a good challenge though, and got me to focus on slight color variations, and more neutrals than I would naturally go for (I know it's still pretty colorful though... I have a problem). Anyway, super fun couple of projects, I loved pushing the paint around on these. Delicious. 

Next time, suuuuuper long hallway mural and a few more consults coming up. Excited to hear new client's ideas :)

TREES mural!

Hey everyone!

I wanted to share my latest mural in pictures. This one was soooo fun and relaxing to paint! People ask me a lot what my favorite thing to paint is. This is kind of it I'd say: playing with light, playing with brushstrokes, painting organic and natural things. Only thing that would have made it more fun and an ultimate answer to that question, would be if I could have added some kind of surreal, not-really-the-way-it's-supposed-to-look-in-real-life element to it. But, ya know, clients. I'll save the crazy for when I don't have one. ;) Hope everyone had a great weekend! More murals to come very soon. 

Corie

Early stages look like a forest fire! Hmmm

Getting there!

Installed on client's fence surrounding her hot tub!

My Art Show Happened!!!!!!

Hey guys! 

I just read an article about how a lot of people are stuck in this cycle of accomplishing things and needing to always be moving forward and working towards the next goal. We don't always stop to just say: "hey, I just finished/achieved a thing!" before trying to get to the next thing. I just want to take a minute to feel excited about a thing I just finished. 

I displayed a series of 13 paintings that I've been making since 2010, when I returned from the Peace Corps in Madagascar. The paintings tell the story of my life there. I showed those paintings, along with drawings that Malagasy friends made me while I was there, for 2 weeks here in Portland. On March 24th, I invited my friends, family, and others in the community to come see the show, and also watch me narrate a slideshow of pictures from my time in Madagascar. March is Peace Corps' birthday - in March of 1961, President Kennedy made Peace Corps official, and started sending people overseas. So, Peace Corps as an organization, likes to help Returned Peace Corps Volunteers (RPCV's) have events like mine in March. The goal is to "bring it home" - to tell stories and share other parts of the world with Americans, that they might not know much about.  Peace Corps' main goal as an organization is literally, "World peace and friendship" (so 1960's.... either that or so Miss America). So a big part of that goal, is just sharing what you learn from living in a different culture, with people at home who may not know anything about that culture. So that's kind of why I did the presentation, and I think it went really well! Almost 80 people came! Lots of RPCV's attended - only about half of which I actually knew. I had all of them stand up and say the country they went to, and the years they were there. Pretty emotional to see all those RPCV's in the audience stand up - their support means a lot to me. 

It felt so cool also, to be able to show a series of paintings that are so deeply personal to me. I am a commercial artist; most of the time I am making art, I am making it for someone else, the way they ask me to make it. Don't get me wrong, I thoroughly enjoy that - getting to help people solve their visual problems, or brighten their spaces with art, is very fulfilling. But when I have something I want to say to the world about something I have personally experienced, it also feels incredibly fulfilling to see those feelings come alive on canvas. People's responses have been great, too, which is always nice. I'm not yet ready to sell any of the originals (who knows, maybe I will try to show the series again at some point). So I made a ton of prints of my work, and have been selling them both at the event, and online here:

www.etsy.com/shop/coriehinton

So far, I've made almost $800 in profits from selling these prints, and I am getting ready to donate it all to an organization that I believe in very much. Population Services International is the single most impressive charity-type organization I saw while in Madagascar (and that's saying something, because there are a lot!). PSI actually walks the walk of being a sustainable development agency. I never met a PSI employee in Madagascar who was not themselves, Malagasy. They work to improve health conditions for people around the country (and also all over the world - their headquarters are in Washington DC). I once went out with a group of PSI-employed sex workers, equipped with PSI fanny packs full of contraception info and supplies, to a park where younger, more inexperienced sex workers often found clients. Peer-to-peer education. PSI also hires Malagasy pop stars to make hit songs and music videos about health topics such as maternal health. Then, PSI educators will go out to rural villages with generators so they can play those music videos for people, as part of their presentations. Anyway, I could go on and on about PSI and their work... they're just really great. So if you like my art and wanna support a great organization, you can buy a print from me from the link above, and I will donate all the money I've made so far in one big chunk at the end of April. Or, you can go to www.psi.org and donate to them directly :) 

Anyway, just taking this moment to stop, exhale, and feel proud of what I just worked hard at making happen. It's been a great few years of painting and was a great event. I'm so happy I was able to do it and so thankful to everyone who came and helped me make it special. I won't ever feel really "done" talking about Peace Corps (sorry, friends!) and probably will continue to paint about Madagascar throughout my life. BUT, this whole thing has given me a bit of closure, too. Yay. 

Onward!

Annoyed at Mom-a-razzi