A little bit about me...

Hi and welcome to Art by Denene!

I am a wife and a dog mom.

Things that make my heart smile... art, clouds in the sky, rainbows after a rain and watching live animal cams (especially live bear cams). Although I am not currently able to do so, I also like traveling, gardening and crochet. 

I have enjoyed creating art (doodling and coloring) since childhood. For several years in my younger adult life I was a manicurist. My favorite part of that job was the nail art. I loved coming up with new things to paint on nails.

I didn't go to art school. I'm a self taught artist. 

I didn't start out painting in watercolor. I actually started with acrylics. I never tried oils due to the smells. I suffer from chronic pain and have various health issues (some of which includes pain in my hands and arms) and when it all started I gave up painting (and many other things) altogether. I can no longer paint for extended periods of time and I found that having to stop often became not worth the effort. Having the paints constantly drying up was so wasteful and the cleanup after just added to my pain. I decided to see if watercolor would be an easier option for me. While I still have to work around pain levels and for short periods of time, I have found that the cleanup is easier and I am able to start and stop as I need to without wasting paints/supplies. So that alone makes it a better option for me. There's also just something about watching the paints move in the water across the paper that I love. It was definitely a learning curve and so different than acrylics. I had to unlearn the way I painted. Painting in watercolors is basically doing everything opposite the way I would with acrylics. I know that many people find watercolors to be challenging ... It's not the easiest trying to fix mistakes made and you can't just paint over them like you can with acrylics. I've admittedly had to start completely over on paintings many times in frustration. Watercolors can be unpredictable but that's also the beauty of them. They have become my preferred painting medium ... Well that and digital watercolor. 

Painting digitally came later. It came about during a period of time when my husband and I were living in our small travel trailer. Between us, our three dogs (at that time) and all of our things that could possibly fit in our small 18ft trailer, space got crowded fast. While I would occasionally still carve out a small area to use my watercolors I decided to try painting digitally on my iPad. I know that "digital" painting nowadays is often done using Ai or some kind of image editing/altering software. I use neither. My digital art is still hand drawn/painted by me and still takes me just as long to create. It is just drawn/painted on my iPad vs paper. When I paint digitally I will then have it professionally printed on high quality archival paper (the same as I do for prints of my traditional watercolor). 

I still paint in both traditional watercolors as well as digital. Which way I choose to paint just varies depending on the current situation and my mood. 

Thanks again for checking out my website and for your interest in my artwork. 

I hope you have a wonderful day!