Preparing for 2010

What is this all about you may ask? Well I am

taking a wonderful course called "Blast Off"

from Alyson Stanfield of www.artbizcoach.com

What you see at the top is my Vision Board with

about a dozen key areas of my life as an artist

represented with photos I clipped from magazines.

I put two close up so you could see them better.

I am having a soul-searching wonderful time.

Stay tuned, this is only Day 3 of the course!

Happy New Year for 2010!

This is the view from the back of my home.

We had more snow after the big snow of last

week that gave us 22". Then most of it was

washed away by rain and warmer temperatures.

But for our New Year's Eve day, we got another

dusting, just enough to touch up the landscape

to look beautiful and wintry again!

You can see the winter sun setting and in some

ways it symbolizes the ending of another year.

I hope you can look back on your year and see

the challenges you met and the joys you experienced.

May you do and have the same for next year, but

even better!

Returning

Hello!
I have been away. Got me a new body part so I could walk better! Still recovering, but can't wait to dance again after some years of restricted motion!

I trust you all have been having a Grand Holiday. I certainly got the greatest gift of love and care from many people as well as my bionic part!

Snow Beauty

We are blessed with the beauty of snow coming

early this year. I wish you all a season of loveliness

and Love.

Me and Monet

I was listening to Garrison Keillor on Prairie Home

Companion (prairiehome@publicradio.org) the other

day and heard him do a wonderful humourous bit

on visiting a museum and finding that all the guards

were artists. Famous ones. He gets into a conversation

with Monet and without telling you the entire skit,

it ends with one of those things you just moan over...

Monet tells Garrison that 'we have no Monet to buy

deGas to make the Van Gogh. Oooooooooooooooo.

These little water lily paintings I do are my homage

to Monet. This one is 5" x 5", framed. It is $100.

Can you tell?

Can you tell where I wipe my brush?

Not too hard to see that my heavy-duty

apron gets lots of use, and that I am

right-handed!

My assistant took this shot as I was

working on a small panel which I have

taped to a piece of matboard so I won't

be sticking my fingers in wet paint!

Before dinner

Here's another of my 5" x 7" recent works.

I find that when I see the work on the computer

monitor, it always looks much bigger than when

one is viewing a small vignette of a painting in the

context of everything else in a room. I hope this

makes sense! It is framed and is $100.

The Vintage Hat

Here you can see one of my 5 x 5 paintings with

its frame. These are little gems that have often

been bought from me as gifts. This one is still

available at $100.

Sister Act II - How it looked!

Here are photos of my sister's jewelry

displays. She has a lot of new work

I hadn't seen. Gorgeous colored stones

such as jasper and sujalite (spelling?)

which is a beautiful purple stone. The

last photo is where she was showing

those in attendance a few of the ways to

use her scarf slides. You can see some

of them in the photo just before that one.

Click on the images to enlarge.

By the way, her Etsy site is Sandys Creations:

Just us the link in this blog in the right column!

More of Sister Act II

A few shots of people looking at our artwork!

Sister Act II

Here we are in front of a few of my small paintings.

It was a really wonderful experience and well

attended. So we were happy! It is always a lot

of work to put on such a show, but then you are

doing it and enjoying the friends and others who

come and all the work part fades away and leaves

you with the fun of it!

A few more of the small works for the show

As you see, I like pleasure moments and hope to

assist others in recalling theirs because of

seeing what I have painted. These are 5 x 7

paintings and are framed. They will be at the

show this weekend, Oct 24th and 25th from

11 - 4 at my studio.

Something different for me to paint!

This weekend of October 24th and 25th, I will host

an art show and sale with my sister in my studio.

This is one of a set of new small paintings (5 x 7)

that will be available framed and ready!

This truck is an artform in itself. Can something

that is rusting and basically disintegrating be

beautiful? Apparently yes!

Watercolor reincarnation

My art flat files have been housing many

watercolor paintings of mine for a long time.

Some are pieces I have kept because I like

their possibilities, not how they actually

turned out. So with a possibility of using them

as inspiration for future work, I have kept them.

Well now they are all cut up and reincarnated

as you see above! It has been quite the process,

but enjoyable and now I will make them available

for a few shekels at my upcoming shows. A piece

of original art for a few bucks!

The Artist's Cat

Yeah! I have my photo operation back in action!

Thank you to Chandan in New Delhi for his Dell

assistance !

Here's my girl posing in front of my impressive

art book library. If you look closely (which you

can by clicking on the image) you'll see my name

on the spine of one of the books.

This painting is 11" x 14", an oil painting. It is framed

in a simple black frame and is $400 plus s&h.

Next show preparation!

Now the Frederick show is over and the next one is end of the month here in my studio.

I seem to be having trouble with my photo downloads, so stay tuned til I get that working again.
It's always something.

I've been having fun taking bits and pieces of what I'm calling 'unresolved' watercolor paintings
and taking the parts I like to use on a new project. I'll have to get photos to post so you can
see what I've been up to.

More reception fun!

I have two cameras that I have at

my shows. So here are more views

of this past weekend's reception for

my solo show at Frederick Cellars

from the 'other' camera!

I am now in the follow up stages with

thank yous to all who helped and attended.

As well as to some who expressed an interest in

having a painting from this show. I am

happy with the results and you can see from

the last photo that my wonderful assistant

Julie and I are very pleased indeed!

Art Reception!

My art reception is tomorrow

I am really excited about this show. It is a solo show and is for the entire month of September.
I did a show at this winery last June and am so pleased to be having another one, which is of all new work for it.

Frederick Cellars (www.frederickcellars.com) is an excellent place to have an art show. The staff is wonderful and helpful and the space really lends itself to art looking good on the mostly gold walls.

I will report on how it goes and post photos of the day!

A small one

It's been a while since I was painting small panel

paintings. But here I am at it again and this one

is 5 x 7. I've been enjoying doing small ones again

and just started using a new brand of alkyd paint

which seem to be more opaque that the ones I

was using.

Show Hanging Day!

I have rarely tried to post
more than one or two photos
at a time, but I wanted to share
these with you of hanging my
current show at Frederick
Cellars winery, a wonderful place in Frederick, Maryland.

The first photo is of my assistant Julie and my friend
Linda who came to help me. Linda is our Art League's
gal who directs all those show hangings, so she knows
what she is doing in choosing and placing things that
look good together.


Here I am putting the labels on
a few paintings. The portrait in
this photo is a giclee (print) I had
made of a recent commission.






Linda and Julie getting the hook
on the painting wire!


Isn't this looking easy? They
do the work and I take the bow!
Well, I will take credit for doing
a LOT of paintings and new
work for this show. Do go to
http://www.frederickcellars.com/
if you want to know how to find this place!

A #1 Assistant!

This is my excellent assistant Julie.

She makes it possible for me to do what

I do by backing me up in the many, many

things that are required to keep an art

studio going. This is my tribute to

her cheerful spirit and superb high-

quality help. I truly could not do what

I do without her.

Now completely ready to serve lunch

Here you have the final painting, signed but not sealed

(varnished) or delivered! But that is next for sure.

I wonder if you can see what I did on it to complete

it since the last post of the entire image!

It was such an enjoyable painting to do because I

felt that I got to be there again on that really perfect

summer's day with my son.

Not a figment of my imagination

I can hardly believe that this was an actual

scene with a beautiful young woman standing

like a model looking longingly in the window.

But it was. Managed to get a shot of her before

she moved on by and have wanted to paint this

ever since. This is a small piece, just 8 x 10.

I call it "Desire". I may do a larger piece

eventually.

By the way, this shop is Yaneth Reyes at

www.yanethreyes.com

Finished with flowers!

I completed the painting of this restaurant, Isabella's.

The last touches I did on it you see here. I wanted

the spill of flowers off the cart to draw you in. I just

love this little cart and had so much enjoyment painting

it.

I will post the completed image in the next day or so.

The shots I took today were out of focus, so I have to

fix that!

Up close

Here's a detail of the painting I just posted.

I had many thoughts about what to put on

this chalk sandwich board...like "Buy me"

but thought that too silly. Also could have

said "Special of the day", could have put what

was actually on that board which was "Come

join us for lunch".

I even was toying (not seriously) with the idea

of that blackboard paint you can buy for a wall.

Thought of painting that stuff on the sandwich

board and then the owner of this painting (yet

to appear) can change what it says....

See what comes about in the creative mind?

The latest underway!

Even though I have barely posted anything for some

weeks now, I HAVE been painting. Since the MAJOR

house content sort out that took 6 weeks out of this

summer, I have painted, but not at my usual rate.

This is a piece in progress which will be the centerpiece

for a solo show in September at Frederick Cellars, a

wonderful winery in Frederick, Maryland.

This is a scene in that wonderful town...moments

of pleasure on a weekend afternoon with your loved

ones!

This painting is 30 x 40 inches in size...painted on

canvas.

Rescue

What does a baby bird rescue have to do with the Joy of Art? I guess I would just say that this relates to the art of living. And to see a tiny fragile living thing barely alive, and to rescue it and restore its vitality, well that is art of its own kind.

This little robin owes its life first to my cleaning lady who found it in the street fallen from its high nest, and then to my son who lovingly fed it and placed it in the tree on a bit of towel until its parents started feeding it again. In a few short days, it was able to flutter and fly and so very soon was gone from being close-up in our world....into the large world where we hear many birdsongs around us.

Reappearance!

Where have I been you may wonder! I have been involved in a major project at my home to get things that are left from my dear parent's lives sorted and distributed. It has taken many weeks and a great deal of what I envisioned has now been done.



I have done some painting which I will post soon. But that had to take a back seat while I poured the coals on!

Now I am working to get a great deal done for solo show in September. So not on blog very often yet as you see!

The last step

Here is what we artists must do after

the piece is completed. Photograph it

for our records and for using in our

promotion materials.

Some of us may be qualified to do a

professional job of it, but here you see

that I am having it done by a professional

instead of doing it myself.

It can be shot indoors with special

color-keyed lights, or in this case, using

the natural spectrum of daylight.

I must say that as a painter, I have

long felt that when I had completed a

work, I was DONE! But there are more

things that one has to consider before one

is truly DONE! This is one of them, and

getting it sold is the next!

Tearoom painting in progress

As you see, I've developed a lot more of this piece

since the previous post. There is a 'feeling' I'm

after in this painting that is what the magic is all

about in art. It is the reason I like original art

on my walls instead of prints. I can feel the magic

from the artist imbedded in the paint. And to my

way of thinking, in a print, you only get the physical

image, not the soul of that artist shared with you

through a magical vibration coming off the paper

or canvas.

There is still LOTS to do with this painting before

it is done.

"Tearoom" in progress

This is the current state of this painting. You can

see that I have scrubbed thin layers of paint as

I am working out the tones and subtle colors of

this piece. It is always very interesting to see if

what I have been cooking up in my head actually

appears on canvas. So far so good. Stay tuned!

Completed Portrait

This is the completed and accepted portrait.

When one paints for others, and most especially

when it is a portrait, it is a joint affair. One must

please oneself in terms of one's art goals for the

work, but also one must meet what is wanted

by those who commission you to paint. When

both or all parties are satisfied, it is the most

wonderful thing to be an artist.

Cat painting nearly done!

Several posts back, I showed you the sketch on

canvas for this painting. Since then I worked on

it at a demonstration I gave a few weeks ago.

She needs a bit more tweaking with whiskers

added and some attention to the pillow, but then

that is it! What shall I call it? "Here's looking

at you"?!

Portrait close to completion

There is a point when I know I am

almost done with my work. All is now

in place for the final elements which

bring the entire work where I wanted

it to go from the beginning.

This is rather like the last movement

of a symphony when you hear the

various parts of the orchestra bringing

the melody to a crescendo, building to

that point of total focus and feeling.

The sketch and story of 'Tearoom' painting

I have had this painting in my head for a long time.

I took some shots of this tearoom a couple of years

ago and have not been able to get it out of my mind

because of the atmosphere of the place and the

lighting. And because it has in it a sort of timeless

feeling of all the ladies who ever shopped taking time

to sit with each other and chat and share some

delicious sweets while resting their feet!

The photographs are not great, but they serve

me just enough for me to invent what I want it

to be. We'll see how it goes.

It is a rather large painting. I will have to check

the dimensions...but I think it is 28 x 32 or so.

Bigger than the recent ones I have been doing.

Also, the settee at the back just grabbed me as it

was the most unique little piece with wood carved-

inserts. It had as much presence as the people,

maybe more!