www.juliemello.com

Hi friends, Julie here… I just wanted to take a moment to say hello and invite you to my new Facebook page Julie Mello Art (www.facebook.com/juliemelloart) and tell you a little about what I’m doing. Some of you who have known me for a long time will know that I’ve been in and out of the art scene over the years in different forms… photography, digital art and, if you’ve known me long enough, you might even remember when I carried a sketch pad around with me when I was a little kid! I even took it on family vacations… I remember one year we went on a family camping trip at Easter and I spent an entire afternoon making a very detailed drawing of our campsite. I decided it would make a nice gift for the Easter Bunny who was coming that night. When we got home a few days later and began cleaning the camper, I found the drawing hidden under one of the mattresses. I guess we all know how that turned out!I’ve now turned my artistic focus to painting, which is something I have always wanted to do and, unlike the drawing, never really did as a child. I can only remember doing one proper painting when I was little… My mother had some paints, I think they must have been oils, and one time she gave my sister and me each a canvas to paint something for our grandmother (it must have been her birthday or Mother’s Day or something). I painted her a big, blue flower. Some years later we were helping Nonnie paint her sewing room and I saw that flower painting in there… it survived a long time! I don’t think my mother must have enjoyed the experience though, because the offer to use her paints was never extended to my sister and me again. We must have made quite a mess! I got back into art… into painting… quite by chance. I was chatting or texting with a childhood friend about his artwork (hello Colby Foreman if you are reading!) and I mentioned my longtime desire to learn to paint. He suggested I look into online learning, like the tutorials on YouTube, so that’s what I did. I flicked through lots of them and found the Australian artist Rod Moore and The Learn To Paint Academy. His teaching style really resonated with me and I’ve been learning from him ever since. That’s been 2 or 3 years now. I’m finding that what I really like to paint are landscapes and seascapes, especially of views here in New Zealand and Australia. However, I just finished a challenge with Rod’s Academy that included a couple of still life paintings and one was flowers… the first flowers I’ve painted since that one I painted for Nonnie way back when! So I hope you will join me – say hello and tell me if you like something I’ve painted. I’m excited… hope to see you there!