Jennifer Sandquist

i spent a good hour laying out the starlight painting you see here in a larger format... 3 feet by 4 feet... and as i was filling the sky with an aqua blue... the canvas literally disintegrated... i guess it came into contact with something it shouldn't have since i primed it last fall... anyway... that set me back a while... but I like the way it looks here with the murky gray instead... 

i haven't felt weird in a long time... like the kinda weird where you have no idea why you are reacting the way you are... or why you are turning green... why you suddenly have no idea what to say... why you feel really not funny... like if you could watch yourself from the outside in... you would wonder... who is that squirmy person... wriggling around... making everyone uncomfortable... it's me

i need to dance 

i was in chicago last weekend... it's one of my favorite cities. i think that a big qualifier for me as far as favorite cities are concerned is water... i would prefer the ocean... but there's nothing quite like sky scrapers butted up against channels and rivers in the downtown of any city... milwaukee, chicago, pittsburgh! 3 of my favorites... all share that... for me i guess it's about the coupling of nature and urban living... but also about home/convenience meeting up with escape/travel... in theory... you could hop on a boat in any water based city and zoom off into the sunset... at the drop of a hat... and then just as easily find your way back home again... that arrangement sounds ideal in so many ways.

insomnia is back... seems like the days are sooooo long when you only sleep for a couple of hours... 

this little guy thought it would be fun to hang out with me this morning...

feeling happy and inspired... like there's not enough hours in a day... i like to feel like that... 

i am currently completely obsessed with this song... i have loved harry nillson for something like 25 years... but have somehow never heard this song until yesterday... it begs for an adorable music video... hmmmm

how do people have kids? 

i don't understand how anyone... could ever... have time to do anything... make anything... or go anywhere... if they had to take care of kids... in addition to themselves. more than once this week i have turned to someone next to me and said... wow... life is so much work... it's really hard sometimes to carve out time for yourself... i can't imagine how anyone can do that, have a job and raise children all at the same time. practice i guess.


last night i sorta freaked out... i started working on a few things and had a really rough time of it... i was extremely frustrated... to the point of tears... it reminded me of one of the first times i ever sat down to paint seriously... i spent hours working... and then cried to my boyfriend afterward saying that i was never going to be able to learn how to make anything... that i might as well give up... he laughed at me... and said... jen, you can't expect to just sit down and know how to do this... but, i do! i do expect to just sit down and be able to do it. i expect that i should be able to do anything i want to. maybe that's cocky... but... i guess it's this attitude that has kept me going... if i anticipated i would fail... i wouldn't start in the first place... so i always anticipate i will do great things... if someone else can... why can't i

his advice to me then... is the same i cling to now... if it's frustrating you... walk away... but come back again... with more energy and determination the next time... but come back again... often... you can't build anything in an hour... 

so my frustration last night... led to insomnia around 2 am... which led to a stack of drawings around 5 am... which led to a coffee cup filled with water color brushes at my desk today... which led to these...

which led to confidence... which led to ideas... which leads to tomorrow... and the next day... which leads me back to my art again and again

my little sister is getting married! i can hardly believe it myself. it seems like it was just yesterday that i was ordering her around and forcing her to do dance routines and skits for my parents... making her play games like... school... and barbie mansion... and... restaurant... i still recall one saturday at my grandma's house that i convinced her it would be "fun" to turn all of our books into a library complete with card catalog... ya... sorry jess...

anyway... it's coming up really fast! she picked up her dress last week and i mailed the invitations for her bridal shower. i couldn't be happier for her. for a million reasons... but the number one reason is... SHE IS HAPPY! really really happy.

jess is getting married out of state and i am trying to earn extra cash to cover my airfare and hotel... when i had this weird realization all of a sudden that i have paintings in spades. i have piles of paintings at work and at home... and so i have decided to hold a sale. a nifty fifty sale. if you have seen one of my paintings at a show or on my website in the past... and maybe it was just a little out of your price range... this could be a great chance to purchase it for a fraction of the cost... every single painting on the nifty fifty page is $50. no matter the size or subject matter.

if there's a piece that you've always been interested in but it's not included in the nifty fifty... please email me... now more than ever i could be in the mood to make a deal :)

as always i still accept trades and barters... so even the other starving artists out there are welcome to shoot me an email... you know who you are...

watch the nifty fifty for updates and additions in the month of March.

i will leave the page up until April 1st... but once something sells it's gone.  these are all originals and there are no prints. i have included some of my very favorites!

NIFTY FIFTY SALE

if you have any questions about the sale... please feel free to email me: reachtheartist@gmail.com

i found some of my old gifs... more show and tell

and one of my favorite old stills from that same year...

i discovered a cache of old photographs today... here are a few of my favorites that were long forgotten

... and the art i made at that same time... that has also been lost somewhere in la la land...

i sold these 3 pieces last night. i like seeing them here all together. i remember when i painted them... and strewn them out on the floor of my studio... it was a late late cold night... and i realized how neat they all looked scattered there... like holding down the shutter as you watch someone dance around the room... a few years ago i was obsessed with gif animations. i have since lost all of the old ones i made... but now at work i use video editing software a lot... and want to play around with it again... it would be fun to watch all of these little devils flash one after another in a short animation.

this blog has become increasingly stale... it's been too long and my paints are dusty... but tonight looks promising!

i haven't spent much time painting this winter... but i have been doing a lot of thinking... planning... changing... living... laughing... without all of that... there's nothing much to paint about