Blog

Day 7. Because

"Just Because" 8x8 oil on canvas In the past, when stuck, I would paint a small bird on a small canvas. But now I turn to slightly larger canvases of flowers. Because you don’t have to get their shapes just right. There are no eyeballs that if misplaced will throw the...

read more

Day 6. More than one thing can bloom.

"Look Within" 4x4 oil on canvas I went running this morning in search of my heron. Turns out maybe she doesn’t live in the same exact spot every day. She moves. I keep waiting for her to fly up out of the ditch where we first met. I keep waiting to be surprised again...

read more

Day 5. Daily painting: What’s worst is best

"Comfortable Ground" 4x4 oil on canvas When I started this month, I thought perhaps all my paintings would be of great blue herons in some form. There was the one that appeared to me on my run, rising like a promise of places yet to be traveled. And then I filled my...

read more

Day 4. Some blossoming, some wilting

"Here for all of it" 6x6, oil on canvas I painted those flowers on day 3 because the first two attempts at other subjects were a disaster, and I somehow find flowers to be reliable (you can check out my reel below if you are interested in the part of instagram that...

read more

Day 3. Doesn’t everything die and too soon?

"This Fleeting Moment" 6x6, oil on canvas When I was in highschool, I used to tell people not to get me flowers ever. They don’t do anything I bemoaned. They die so quickly, I argued.  But I hadn’t started making art yet back then, and I didn’t yet appreciate things...

read more

Day 2. Your flight has been delayed

"Take Flight" 6x6, oil on canvas This is the painting I thought I would create on day 1:  the Great Blue Heron not just sitting there idly but taking off in flight perhaps on its own 31 day excursion. But on day 1, my time was extra limited, the tools I normally use...

read more

Day 1: Attention is The Beginning of Devotion

"Devotion" 5x5, oil on canvas A few days ago, I was on an early morning run down a usual route, and about a mile or two in I saw emerge from the large ditch that lines the train track, a Great Blue Heron. The great part is already in the name so let me make sure I’m...

read more

Maybe She is You

"In This Sacred Space" 30x40, oil on canvas A couple weeks ago a husband and wife came into the gallery and looked around. The wife was interested in the painting that starts this post, but the husband said paintings of women had to be of someone specific that he knew...

read more

Tis the Season: How the Light Gets In.

My inbox is probably a lot like yours. Sales. Last chances. Hurry. Limited time only. Last day to get it before Christmas. As someone who sells a physical product to real people, who ships, and markets, and undeniably hustles I have this to say: I absolutely get it....

read more

A mother and an artist?

I keep hearing this same thing. The very best part about having an art gallery is all the people I’ve been privileged to meet. This tiny space in this tiny town has hosted some great conversations, and there’s one that keeps happening. On several occasions, women I’ve...

read more

A Blessing for Rest

I’ve been into blessings lately. Not the #blessed variety of social media where pictures of wealth, health, or beauty read like advertisements for some magical and exclusive elixir that feels just out of reach. I mean the kind we confer on one another as if to say:...

read more

Why I came around to art prints

I was an original-only holdout for quite some time. I equated art print with what you can buy at Hobby Lobby or Home Goods. And then my artist friend, Gretchen, sold the original of a watercolor I loved and wanted before I could grab it from her site, so I bought and...

read more

The 31 in 31 is coming! (sort of!)

How it all started... It’s 2013 and I’m having dinner with my best friend at our current favorite restaurant in New Orleans. I had recently told my therapist that I want to be an artist. Like, for a job. To my surprise she didn’t laugh or, as the next door neighbor...

read more
Artist, Enneagram, Bird.

Artist, Enneagram, Bird.

On a long drive last month, my sister introduced me to the enneagram, which my brother had introduced to her. Ask my husband, and he will tell you that the Hopkins siblings are an intense bunch. We do not do or take things lightly. This is no exception. If you are not...

read more

Places.

I named this painting “The Places We Will Go” because I was thinking of my youngest and our early bike rides together. The countless ones with him in the seat or trailer attached to my bike, then his own shaky, training wheels ones, the even shakier sans training...

read more
How long does it take to make a painting?

How long does it take to make a painting?

  That’s the number one question I get from people. How long does it take, they yearn to know, as though the painting’s worth is in its hours of toil. I’ve been thinking about it, and I’ve got a follow up question– What does it matter? There’s this story about Picasso...

read more

Why (and how) I’m breaking up with instagram

I started selling art nearly a decade ago, and back then the classic buzzwords were facebook and blog. Instagram was like a pretty foreign exchange student at a middle school, and we all wanted to sit at her lunch table even if we weren’t exactly sure how to...

read more

Leap (step) of Faith.

"Leap of Faith" 30x40, oil on canvas I named “Leap of Faith” before I painted it, and I realize now that the figure is less leaping and more just walking. Strolling even. But one foot in front of the other down some uncertain path, how often does that feel like nose...

read more
Painting in a series and what it taught me

Painting in a series and what it taught me

I have always painted in series. When one subject or idea strikes the proverbial gold, I keep digging. But not in some organized, focused way. I flit from this to that. Some series have lasted years, others hours, and I tend not to focus on just one series at a time. ...

read more

Start small

We were sitting on the second story porch of a cabin built into the side of a hill looking down at a one-day-past-ten year old casting his fly rod into a catch and release pond. The mountain air was a relief to our tired Mississippi lungs used to breathing in only...

read more
Let it take the time it takes.

Let it take the time it takes.

In May, my husband and I made two years of marriage. I was painting at two weddings in New Orleans so we decided to stay there an extra night to celebrate. It was Memorial Day weekend and the crowded streets and busy restaurants proved less than relaxing for my...

read more

Break the rules before you (un)learn them.

If you were once one of my art students, you can preemptively put your finger underneath your jaw and apply a little pressure– just to keep it in place for what I’m about to say.  Most days lately, I go into the studio without a plan or a sketch. Without so much as a...

read more

A whole decade of loving you.

It wasn’t easy, the way you came into the world. I started labor on a Saturday afternoon. You were born at 8:03pm that Monday. Your dark, straight black hair covered your entire head and even came over your ears a little. They put you on my chest and I wept. The truth...

read more
A Softer Place to Land

A Softer Place to Land

I was looking through an old journal recently, skimming it for inspiration. What kind of inspiration I was looking for, I’m not sure, but even though I’m not a very consistent journal keeper, I always know I can go back and find some insight you can only get by...

read more

Fresh Air.

“Sometimes I need only to stand wherever I am to be blessed.” ― Mary Oliver, Evidence: Poems   I like painting at weddings. I like performing. I like mixing paint and spreading it on a surface with a knife, and I like what doing it so often has done to my ego–...

read more
I got lost looking at the peacocks.

I got lost looking at the peacocks.

"Leaves a Trail Behind Her" 36x48, oil on canvas I wrote about how I got the title for this painting on instagram back in October. I told the story of how when I was a kid, okay not just a kid, a young adult too, my Dad used to say quite often, "Oh that Denise, she...

read more