How This All Started

The Beginning of It All

I've always been a lover of color and art. My bedroom as a kid was blue, in my first apartment I had bright blue and white curtains, and in my first home we painted the door bright fire engine red. Being a lover of art was inspired by my mom in some ways. She was always working hard to see I got everything that I wanted, but something she always made time for was stitching. The colors she used always fascinated me even as a small child.

Later on when she got me my first camera I took pictures of everything that stood out to me, which was normally nature or architecture.  Traveling to Italy in 2015 really inspired me not just because it was my first time going to Europe, but the architectural design and colors were breath taking.

I have hundreds of photos of everything, but the ones I love the most are the ones with contrast. Or ones that have bright colors together. With my art I do the same thing. I love color, and I use it anywhere I can. I do challenge myself and do black paintings as well as more gentle ones, but in my heart it's always going to be a riot of color going on.

I think this is what kind of started my interest in art was how buildings looked. With their colorful doors, or interior design that was eye catching. I wanted to be able to express myself the same way if that makes any sense. I used to think I was horrible at art, but I now know that's because I completely suck at realism. Where I've found that I shine is abstract painting. 

I've done the sunsets and water scenes that I'm sure we've all done, but that first time I used my alcohol inks was a magical experience. Funny enough I'd been saving pins of alcohol ink paintings years before I actually bought myself some inks to dabble with. I think what attracted me to them is that you cannot do the same thing twice. I loved that because I've heard from other artists they lost their love for a certain medium because they were asked to replicate one painting or another. For me, while I do commissions and I ask folks to tell me which paintings they'd like for me to use as a reference - I cannot and will never be able to re-create those paintings, so what I make in those commission pieces is something close but never the same. 

I think in all of us is a little spark that we want to set free, and I feel that I've been able to do that and express that with my abstract paintings. It was scary as all hell when I first started showing people my work, and while I'm still very young in terms of how long I've had Seven Olives Designs things are becoming less and less scary.

I'm glad that I decided to take a chance on myself, and gave myself the space to explore - because the outcome to me has been glorious.

Hope your day is fantastic and I can't wait to talk to you again soon.

All the best,

Olivia