Starting out to become an Artist....

I'm struggling with this blog thing but from what I gather it's a good idea so I'm giving it a try.

I thought I would start at the very beginning of my Artist blog adventure with my family, my Greek family, that should say enough right there!

Anyway, I started drawing at a young age, my father was an artist, two of my cousin's are artist's and my aunt Helena is an artist.

I grew up on the South Side of Chicago with my grandmother, who grew up in Greece and my mother who's an American born Greek (you can only imagine what it was like, there's a whole other story here).

We didn't have much money, like most in my neighborhood, so instead of art classes, while in high school I won a scholarship into beauty school, (tells you what kind of high school I went to) but my heart was in drawing and painting. So, for 3 years (it took me longer than normal, cause I skipped all the time) I attended one of the top beauty schools in downtown Chicago (big deal, I didn't care, my Greek aunt Angelina made me go). I finally got all my required hours and never took the state exam (Greek tempers were flying over that).

I wanted to attend art classes, which I managed to do but had to quit the classes to find work (or a Greek husband, I chose work). So in my spare time I painted and sketched drawings. A customer (I'm doing hair on the side) bought one of my paintings, acrylic on wood of a seaside. That gave me the courage to approach a Gallery, which I got accepted in.

I remember my first order for a personal painting, it was for a Joker from a deck of playing cards (could only happen to me), which is ironic cause within the last 20 years to today I am a high limit assistant with Poker Tournaments in Las Vegas and on Cruise ships but that's another story that I won't bore you with.

I've been lucky enough to sell many of my paintings from my website.... www.niniarts.com and from my ebay store, which is also niniarts.

I love cheerful, bright, bold colors...My motto is: When in doubt paint it red !

I like to sign my paintings... NiNi, which is one of my poodle's names, it's short for Athina (Greek of course) but I do sign the back with my Carol signature... My married last name is not Greek, of course (that was a problem but they got over it).

I adore vibrant colors and that's what most of my artwork is about, color certainly makes the world more interesting.