Hi guys! I hope you’re all having a great week! I want to share a little about what I’ve been doing over at Delicious Reads lately! Here’s the skinny: We just had our big bash for Donna Tartt’s pulitzer prize winner, The Goldfinch. I even recreated the painting that the books is about. What do you think? Remember that post about how an energy reader told me I’d be good at painting? It was so much fun to paint again! Anyway, The Goldfinch is one of my favorite books lately. We paired up with Little Brown Books as one of their Book Club Insiders and they sent us each a copy of the book. We created a whole dinner menu, power point presentation, and give-away for our discussion. You can see all the craziness from our night, including the reveal of OUR PICKS OF ACTORS/ACTRESSES FOR THE GOLDFINCH MOVIE, photos, recipes, the powerpoint (you can use it for your own book clubs) and the recap of our discussion right here: Photo Recap Part I Photo Recap Part II Our Book Review Part III Does it make you want to go out and grab your own copy?? I hope so. I really loved the book. I gave it a 5 star rating on Goodreads. Do you ever rate or review books? I wrote a post about that too: To Review or Not to Review…That is the Question. I’ve been editing like a mad-woman and spending time with family. Having a fantastic summer. Hope you are too! Until next week…. Brooke
Tag Archives: paintings
What An Energy Reader Told Me I’d Be Good At…Who knew??
I didn’t used to believe in psychic/energy-reading type abilities. I was as rational as they come, and would never have thought to engage anyone to tell me anything about the past or future or to reveal things about myself I didn’t know. Then one random dinner out to eat at Chilis flipped all my preconcieved notions on its head. My hubby and I were munching on some chips and salsa with my bro & sis-in law. Our waitress was this spunky, funny girl with pretty eyes. It’s been several years since this happened, so I’m not exactly sure how it started, but she told us that she was an energy reader. Of course we all jumped on that, asking what that meant, and listening as she explained that its similar to psychic abilities, but she can sense the energy people emit and extrapolate things about them. So of course, we ask her to “read” us or tell us some things about us, which she did, leaving us all to try to pick out just how close she was to the truth. It was kind of fun entertainment for our table. No biggie.
But. After a while she came back and explained that she was also a medium, meaning she can communicate with people who have passed away. Explaining that she never does this, but she felt the need to relay some information about someone very close to us that had passed away years ago, she gave us details she absolutely could not have known. I was riveted.
I didn’t understand how she could possibly do this. After talking with her for a while, I was so interested in this sixth sense, that I devoured a bunch of books on intuition, psychic abilities, mediums, energy reading etc. Eventually, I decided I really wanted to meet with her, just to see what she would have to say. I just wanted to understand it, because it was so foreign to me.
I set up a meeting and did a “reading,” which was amazing. I won’t share much about that here, because it was very personal, but one thing she said will lead me into what I’m going show you today. When I went for my reading, I had just started writing my series, and I was hoping that she would tell me something along the lines of, “you are going to become a wildly successful author.” (Ahhh the days of innocence, before I had any clue how much time I was going to put into this book!)
She didn’t tell me that at all. But she did ask me if I like to paint. I thought back to art classes in high school. Had I ever really painted? Not really. I did like to draw a lot. But painting… no. I hadn’t really even picked up a brush that I remembered. Then she told me that I should really look into painting because I could be really good at it.
Fast forward a year or so. There is this very vivid dream scene in my book, where one of the main characters, Maya, in on a grassy hill with these two huge pillars displaying engraved markings (you’ll just have to read my book to see what that’s all about… when it gets published). A fierce storm is about to erupt around her. The image was so clear in my mind that I decided to try to paint it.
Maya doesn’t look exactly like what I have in my mind… but it was as good as I could do on my first try:
From there, I just began experimenting and painting with acrylic whenever I had some spare time. Here’s some more-
This was one of the first ones I did, just trying things out from an image I found online.
This is the first door in a series of door I painted. This particular door is also featured in my book.
Door 2
Door 3
I painted this one for my mom for mother’s day.
This is my hubby golfing on Pebble Beach (from an epic/infamous trip we took- epic for him, infamous for me because I got food poisoning and basically missed the whole trip).
This one I painted for my girlfriend. It’s based on the sculpture (below) she loved in Australia, called “Lovers at Darling Harbour:”
These two I painted for my dad and step-mom. They each have their own half, to be displayed together.
This woman captivated me from the moment I saw her. I found the photograph online and wanted to paint her as part of a series on human emotion.
This is my sister and her husband. I painted this for their wedding.
I painted this while listening to “Empire State of Mind.”
This is one of my favorites. I just love its peaceful simplicity.
I have two more unfinished. One is of our friend’s cabin, where we vacation every Christmas, and the other one is a bookshelf with a bunch of really old books… one book will be my book, r.e.(m.)ality.
It’s been really fun exploring something I never would have otherwise. So it just goes to show, you should never limit yourself. Always be open to anything… even energy readers at Chili’s, disguised as waitresses.
What do you like to do on the side? What thing would people be surprised to learn about you? I’d love to hear more about it in the comments, or you can find me on Twitter or Facebook!