More drinks anyone?

I am thinking about layering paint with these. What colors, textures and values should come first and what colors, textures and values should be on top and what should transition the two? These paintings generated new ideas for this type of layering that I want to test. I am working from photographs for these and I really miss working from my sketches. Working from my sketches frees me to be more creative by separating me from the realistic representation.

MT's Chop House

I am definitely being influenced by the recent work of my friend, Catalina Rankin, on this one. Hope that she doesn't mind. I was thinking of doing a new series of restaurant themed paintings to leave and sell through the Chop House. I have shown my work there for a number of years.

Recently Sold Paintings:

Spring Arts

I thought that the morning light coming into the tent early Saturday morning was pretty. A calm before the crowds. The energy Saturday was electric, you can sense when people are really considering buying and that is exciting. Sunday, I felt people were just out taking a stroll to enjoy themselves.

I thought all you Harn docents might be interested in what I taught the preschoolers with inspiration from the African Textile exhibit.

Spring Arts

I am in Spring Arts this weekend! Really excited to be accepted into this show: http://springartsfestival.com/

I hope I am ready, things have been so hectic lately I don't know which end is up.

Open Air Arts

Here are two of the three paintings I did this weekend during Melrose's Open Air Arts. I did them in true plein air fashion and sat among the cypress trees staring into the water almost all weekend. I think it will be a special memory I'll take with me as I leave Florida. The weather, scenery and company of great artists and friends couldn't have been better.

Kites for Spring

The preschool where I teach had a kite theme so I wanted to introduce the Chinese tradition of kites to the children. It was with some trepidation I ventured into kites. Three dimension construction is not my forte. In college, I remember having fits constructing a complex box kite from thin dowel rods for a sculpture class only to have it crushed flat between heavy doors carrying it to the dining hall. My older son and I did not work together smoothly making a kite for a scout den meeting which was an embarrassing public display. But when I picked out a children's book at the library explaining the history of Chinese kites and thus the Chinese New Year, I got an idea to make the dragon kite using paper plates. This was a managable and easy medium and I think the results are quite impressive. I can see making the individual plates more elaborate perhaps with cloth or tissue paper and making some spectacular looking kites. Getting them to fly would take some engineering skills I don't possess but I feel it could be done. The only real problem I had was when hanging the plates on the ceiling. I had knots tied in the yarn to hold the plates in place along the string but the weight of the plates slid all the plates to the bottom of the string and pulled the knots too tight to hold the plates. The head of the dragon is made from a milk jug. The children were to draw wishes on the plates but many focused on animal kites and symbols they saw in the book. They really loved the book, Kites: Magic Wishes That Fly Up to the Sky by Demi.

Thinking About Paint

Another small and Woods and Water painting. My goal for the upcoming painting outside event, Open Air Arts, is to paint with abandon. Make the paintings as much about the paint itself as about the landscape. I have to really fight my graphic design training to do this and my plans always seem harder to accomplish during the event. But that is my goal and desire. There are some painters that I really admire participating, I can't wait to see what is produced. Artists coming to OAA.

Woods and Water Abstractions

I did these four little abstractions based on the water section from the large "Red Reflections" painting that I did last week. Now I am wondering if I should make one of these bigger?





My preschool glass made some pseudo stain glass for the school's window last week. Everyone loved the results.

Reflections of Red

Another attempt at water reflections from a sketch in town after the rains last week. It doesn't have the quick wet brush strokes of the last two paintings. Those strokes went well with the water subject. Quick wet strokes are pretty tough to pull off in acrylics because the media is fast drying. I have to be sure of the plan and I changed my plan on this painting a couple of times before I got an interesting surface and composition. I did enjoy the layering and acrylic is great for that. I also used a bigger canvas than usual which makes working wet harder. I don't know why I have this eternal optimism that the next painting is going to be great, so much so that I go out and buy a big canvas. Otherwise I wouldn't keep trying I guess. I wonder if I should use this painting as a study to make a more abstract version?

New Direction in Reflections?

Reflections on the Santa Fe River

This is a bit of a different approach for me. I always struggle with getting a full series or body of work but perhaps this direction will be different. I am thinking I want to do many of these very quickly. Usually I really exhaust one painting at a time, doing two to three paintings on one canvas, painting over and over and over it. So wish me luck with this new attempt. I was inspired to paint these from our last canoe trip on the Santa Fe. The water was so dark, glassy and still. Yesterday I did sketches of the rain puddles around town.

Van Gogh

We are exploring Van Gogh's work in my preschool art class. Has their ever been an artist so universally loved by all levels of artists? From novice to professional everyone loves Van Gogh. I read a biography of Van Gogh and he had several causes for his mental illness. He seemed to experience emotions so intensely and that energy comes across in his paintings. He experienced very little acknowledgement, only selling one painting in his short lifetime but he had the unfailing support of his brother to sustain his painting. He wanted so badly to connect with people: first trying to be a pastor, then with women that didn't love him and fellow artist Gauguin. Now he connects with people through his art, wish he could have known that when he was living.
In class, I just told the children that Van Gogh had sunny days and rainy "sad" days. When making the flowers we talked about texture, opaque, transparent and recycling.

New Painting- Sunshine Path

I have been working on this painting since before Christmas. So glad to finally post it. It keeps changing, I probably should move on. Also happy to announce I got into the Spring Arts Festival April 9th and 10th. I believe my new display system really helped me to get accepted.

Painting on Fabric

Happy 2011!
I wanted to share some fabric painting that I did on place mats for Christmas gifts. I created the shapes by cutting them out of marker paper then painted the paper with acrylic paint, fabric medium and a brush. Then I pressed the painted paper down on the fabric and rubbed on the back with the wooden brush handle. I was delighted to see the brush strokes translate on to the fabric when I lifted the paper. I set the paint with an iron.

New Display System

I have a new-to-me display system and will be able to show in style at my next festival.

New Painting Series

I finally finished one of the three paintings I started for a new series I am attempting. I haven't had a lot of luck with series work. I intend for the paintings to be very similar but they start going in wildly different directions. But I had fun and I am happy with this first one. I wanted to my landscapes to take on symbolic meanings in particular have a path represent life's path. This is a common metaphor for example "being over the hill" but it is such a clear visual representation of past, present and future. I had a lot of ideas about the unknown future being over that hill. Visual symbols ranging from hope to dread. I didn't intend to put a figure in this painting but just appeared and I decided to go with it. I kind of wish I hadn't because I was apprehensive about how it would turn out and had a lot more fun painting the background but I like the painting.
Also I included some of the latest from my preschool art class. We spent about a month on Matisse. His life is a great one to study about overcoming life's obstacles and loving your surroundings. His art teaches great lessons on pattern, line, shape, composition and color too. Great stuff.

Commissioned Painting

Last week, I did this commissioned painting of the La Chua Trail on Paynes Prairie. The best part of the experience was taking a walk with my son on the trail to gather sketch material. We saw so much wildlife and the prairie was exploding in yellow wild flowers. I didn't do it justice.

Busy Fall

I love Halloween for all it's opportunities to be creative and let your imagination run free.

And these are some of the creative things we have been up to in preschool art class. We looked at two children's book illustrators: Saxton Freymann and Eric Carle. Freymann illustrates with fruits and vegetables so we created some tomatoes with play dough and black eyed peas for eyes. The children enjoyed taking pictures of their creations and I displayed them on a digital frame. We also looked at the well known children's book author and illustrator, Eric Carle who wrote The Very Hungry Caterpillar. We painted papers using several different methods to create textures. Another day, when the papers were dry we tore them and filled in a butterfly shape.

New shape paintings

I feel like I ended up at the wrong destination on the painting journey with these new works. I feel like I am illustrating instead of painting which would be a great predictable style if I got hired to do a children's book or similar work. But I would like my personal painting to be more unpredictable and process oriented. I wonder if you take an idea too far that you start turning in a circle? Or if you don't know how to proceed you choose a familiar path which would be a circle because it is a place that you have been before.



My son was asking a lot of questions about the blue dog: Is he lost? Is he lonely? or does he live in the wild? I hope he thinks he is lost but not really far from the right track.

Bright Warhol

As always the preschool artists surprise and delight me with their creations. I showed the children some of Andy Warhol's work and we read a great book for children written by Andy Warhol's nephew, James Warhola. I used the school's affiliate church's pastors as our "celebrity" faces. Fun results.

New Etsy Shop!

Check out my new shop on Etsy. I love shopping on Etsy!
I have been thinking about starting this for along time and decided to just jump in. I am nervous about having all the information covered so please visit the site and tell me how I can improve.
http://www.etsy.com/shop/carolhbarber
Thanks so much!