ATC Trade

We're doing an Artist's Trading Card trade at an art forum I belong to (Art Class Friends - let me know if you would like an invitation to join) and these are the two cards I painted for the trade.

Both are regulation ATC/ACEO (Art Cards Editions and Originals) size at 2.5 inches by 3.5 inches and both were painted in watercolor or watercolor and gouache.  Both of the painting photo references came from MorgueFile.com.  I hope the recipients like what they get as I had a lot of fun painting these. 

Attempted Rescues

 The following paintings are a couple that I started painting eons ago and for whatever reason lost interest in them.

The painting of the magnolia started out as a watercolor but was unsuccessful so I decided to see if I could rescue it with pastel.  I think I like the technique of pastel over watercolor but I'd used hot pressed paper for the original painting and there wasn't much tooth to allow for more than a layer or two of pastel.

The poppies started out as pastel but it was a painting from my first attempts at pastels and all I had were pastel pencils and not very many of them at that.  I've done what I could to rescue this painting and I do like it better than the original but  it's still not what I hoped it would be.

I guess you can tell I'm STILL in the process of organizing my studio but I keep getting distracted when I find these old paintings!  One of these days I WILL have it done - hopefully before Dors arrives!  lol

Back To Normal?

Well, the snow is finally melting and the roads are clear at least.  There's still quite a bit of the white stuff around but the patches of bare ground are getting bigger all the time.  The weather forecasters say we should be up to around 70 degrees by the weekend!  Whooo Hooo!

In the meantime, I'm still trying to clean up and organize my studio when I really need to be painting.  I have several paintings to do and have got to get cracking on them soon - I just need to be able to find my table so I can paint!

So, I want to take this time to wish everyone a wonderful coming new year.  I think I missed wishing you all a merry Christmas but I hope you had one anyway.

All the best in 2011!

Art Festival Musings

Well, the art festival I told you about in a previous blog post was this past weekend and I actually enjoyed it.

It was held in a large barn out in the country and I'd wondered if anyone would find their way out to us.  But, the show was well publicized and we had a surprising (to me) number of visitors.  There were numerous events scheduled for the same time frame but I think that actually worked in our favor as people were out and about and stopped by on their way to or from other activities.

Did I sell a lot?  Not really, a few note cards and magnets but no original art.  That doesn't surprise me though as most people don't carry around the price of an original painting with them.  But, I did have considerable interest in pet portrait commissions and hope there will be some people who actually follow through.

As I said, I normally don't like to do street fairs or these kinds of festivals.  Most of the time you work yourself to the bone in preparation, set-up and tear-down and generally, for me at least, barely make back your costs.  This time it was sort of fun though - it was fairly small as it was the first time but all the vendors were very congenial and the people who attended were in good moods.  The weather was gorgeous and we were surrounded by farm animals, including 3 gorgeous horses.  There was breathing room with real fresh air instead of crowded city streets filled with gas fumes and the sometimes unpleasant blending of food smells.

So, this festival was fun and, while not exceedingly profitable, at least I got an opportunity to give out business cards and get a little name recognition.  Hopefully it will pay off with future commissions but, if it doesn't, it was still fun!

Green Beans and Art Walks

We've been getting green beans from the garden for a while now and I decided to do a quick digital painting of one before they're all gone.  It's been too long since I've even opened Corel's Painter software and it was sad at how rusty I was even doing this simple painting.  It's all done from scratch using a real green bean as a model - no photo manipulation or anything.  I did add a shadow from the program though and didn't take the time to paint it (the shadow) freehand.  I used the gouache brush with the digital airbrush for the shading for those of you interested in the details.

A friend and I went to the 3rd Friday Art Walk in Siler City last evening and had a good time even though it was very hot out.  Siler City, an old farming town not far from us, was becoming almost a ghost town as businesses moved out to the highway and left a lot of empty stores downtown.  Someone had the bright idea to buy up all those empty stores and rent them out as art studios and galleries and now those empty buildings are bright with paintings, sculptures, photographs and various other artistic endeavors as artists from all over have come to set up shop in the town.  You can read about the NC Arts Incubator HERE.

I was fortunate to have been asked to display in one of the galleries a couple of weeks ago and wanted to go see how my paintings looked hanging for all to see.  I personally think this particular gallery is one of the nicest in town but it has a lot of various kinds of art and my paintings didn't stand out amidst the plethora of offerings I'm sad to say.

It's not that my paintings are inferior in quality or execution or anything, it's just that I tend to paint small and small gets lost among so many items.  I hope that doesn't sound like bragging or an excuse, but I do think my work is on par with other art in this gallery or any of the others in town.  I'm trying to be honest and say that there is art there that I think is better than my own and there's also art that I think is awful that's displayed there. I know you know what I mean.

If you want to check it out, here's a link to the gallery - it's called the Raleigh Street Gallery and is located on Raleigh Street (duh!) in Siler City, North Carolina:

http://www.raleighstreetgallery.com/

You can check it out virtually or, if you get the chance, check it out in person!

Crunch Time!

It's getting down to the wire as far as Christmas is concerned - is everyone ready?  I still have one or two gifts to get but don't know exactly what - do you all have people like that?  It's the ones who you don't really know that well but want to bless with a little something and you want it to be something they'd like to get.  Well, not much time to figure it out, is there?

Sorry, no pictures with this post - I have been painting a little but my scanner died so I don't have any pictures to show.  I don't know about you all but I have a difficult time taking a digital photo of my paintings and would much rather scan them.  Not only has the scanner gone south, but the weather has been very overcast and rainy so there hasn't been any good natural light for photos anyway.

As a matter of fact, we started out with a snow/sleet mixture yesterday morning and got some intermixed snow off and on for most of the day.  The temps rose overnight and are above freezing so there's nothing on the ground, thank God.  I know some people like snow for Christmas (& there's a chance for it on Christmas Eve here!) but it's a nasty four-letter word to me!

It doesn't help that everything practically shuts down here when one snowflake falls so you can't do last minute shopping or anything.  Of course, most people just jam the grocery stores for a while then stay home and watch it fall.  That's fine for them but it's such a pain to try to get to the barn to take care of Bonnie when it's slick and icy out or if you have to slog through snow.  Then, there's the extra clean-up because she stays in her stall more and ice to either chip out of the water tank or having to put in the tank heater.  She's worth it, of course, but I'd still prefer no snow!

Whimsy or Realism?

One of the art forums I visit has a post from a really good realistic artist who was not only turned down for gallery space but was basically told that her art was not any good. Of course she was devastated. Come to find out, this gallery only showed abstract art and was saying that since she didn't paint in the abstract style, she wasn't any good.

The discussion continued about different genres of art being in vogue at a particular place and time and that these genres cycle in and out of favoritism.

From what I see on the internet, whimsy seems to be the current art flavor of this period, especially for pet portraits.

One master of this type of painting is Ron Burns. I like his work immensely even though my "calling" is to realism (artists are allowed to appreciate the different types of art!).

Getting back to the post on the art forum, many of the members posted about the hard time the impressionists, for example, had being taken seriously in the art world of their time. Now we look back and consider them the geniuses of their era!

I wonder what future generations will think when they look upon this period in art history? Will they look at abstracts and whimsical paintings and appreciate them or will there be a different flavor of the century?