Getting Warmed UP

"Barn Shadows"




"Have Barn. Let's Play."

Fun with wall colors

The most creative thing I have done lately is choose paintings to go with the existing wall colors in our new home. I love the strong colors on the walls and they surprisingly really make the art pop. I left numerous paintings for sale in Gainesville at MT's Chop House and Paddiwhack. Chuck at Paddiwhack will let you take the paintings home and try them with your wall colors to see how you like them before purchasing. Try a little color today!

Commissioned Chair

Three siblings commissioned me to paint a chair for their Mother's Birthday. As a Mom, I knew she would be touched by her childrens' thoughtful efforts no matter how it turned out, so I took on the project. For me I wanted to paint the chair to get me through our move and the idle time between waiting for the first closing to happen and getting our moving truck. But that first closing didn't happen and we have decided to take on two mortgage payments as we wait for a buyer down in Florida and keep our house in Virginia. Now I am thankful for the money I made on the project and will carefully spend each dollar. How quickly things can change but it makes you appreciate every opportunity.

Show Cancelled

I will not be having an art show at the Tioga Art Center next weekend. The space will no longer be an art gallery after this month because it has rented to another business and I am running into more than anticipated with the relocation to Charlottesville, VA. However if you ever wanted a painting from me, now is a great time. I am motivated to give moving sale prices this month. Thank you.

Plans for Moving the Art

Looks like I will have a private sale at my house until June 10th then the show will move to the Tioga Art Center from June 11th until June 26th. Monday June 27th, I'll figure out what I am leaving at Paddiwhack and MTs Chop House. Then I will pack the truck and head to Charlottesville, VA.

Moving Sale

One time only moving sale until June 11! I am excepting "make me a deal offers" on the works for the sale. I have these at my house and will be having a yard sale with a neighbor on Saturday so that would be a great time to come look. I also have a lot of great pieces at MTS Chop House from previous series. I will continue to show new work at Paddiwhack and will come to town for a show once a year. I am looking forward to continuing ties with Gainesville but need to prepare for the move. Please contact me for more infomation. 352-871-2688.

I wish "blogger" had a better photo album option. I have a photo album of the works on my facebook page.

10 min Sketches

I tried to draw the children at the preschool in 5 min. sketches but they turned into 10 min. sketches and missed up my schedule and plan. My son said "we didn't do much in art today" but then he was sketching me at the breakfast table this morning, so I believe the class was a success. Does anybody remember the children's show that used to come on t.v. with a man drawing a story as he told it? I loved that show, I learned to draw eyes quickly from him.

Digital Number 2

My son said she looked sad. I am glad he said that because the young lady and I were listening to a speaker talk about the state of Haiti and world hunger when I did the sketch. Sketching actually helps me listen.

art articles

I got this email and went to the link and thought it was interesting trends, I have heard of some of them but hadn't seen them all in one place. My name is Emma, and I write articles for Accreditedonlinecolleges.com I thought of you after publishing our recent post, “10 Emerging Art Genres You’ve Probably Never Heard Of” and wanted to see what you think about it. Your readers might be interested on weighing in on the topic too: if you’d like to share or mention the post on your blog, let us know how it turns out!


Thanks,
Emma Taylor

I got this email and went to the link and thought it presented interesting trends, I have heard of some of them but hadn't seen them all in one place. But what I was really excited to find was the list of books to read if you love art history. I love reading biographies of artists and knowing more about them and their circumstances.

Joseph Cornell boxes

I wanted my last art project with the preschoolers to be extra special and it was so much fun. The innate creative genius of children never ceases to amaze and delight me. I showed the children the work of Joseph Cornell, an American artist who brought assemblage to the forefront as an art form through his work done in the 1940s and 50s. We cut and tore magazine pictures the first week and then the second week the children brought in "treasures" from home to glue in their boxes. It is hard to not show a picture of all of them, I loved them all.











Joseph Cornell on the web: http://www.ibiblio.org/wm/paint/auth/cornell/

New Digital Art

We are in the process of moving and getting settled will probably take all summer. If we get the house that we are intending, the long term plan is to build my studio in the loft of the barn on the property. It will be paradise one day. But to work towards the goal, I am looking for a graphic design job. My baby is going to kindergarten next year, so it is a good time. I love the school we believe he will be going to, it is centered around the arts. He will love it and if I was homeschooling, it is just how I would want to teach. There is also an engineering club perfect for my older son.

So while the "studio" is in boxes, it is a good time to do some digital art. I am influenced by Jose Merello's work in this first digital painting. For my graduate thesis, I compared the process of painting to the process of working digitally, so in my mind I am writing my thesis all over again. For my next chapter, I would compare how using a nearly monochromatic photograph as a layer in Photoshop is similar to acrylic glazing for it's unifying effects. Blah, blah, blah ; )

New inspiration

http://www.merello.com/

Jose Manuel Merello, this artist is all of my favorites rolled into one: Odilon Redon, Chagall, Matisse, Picasso and Kandinsky. He is all of those at once. I can't read Spanish but I think he is deceased. Love him, the end. I can't wait to start fresh.

Cups in the Cupboard

One of my goals in painting has always been to achieve a messy, loose style of painting. This is a conscience counter to the tight illustrative work I did for textbooks. I think I am getting some messy meshing of the paint here by applying the colors mostly all in one sitting and letting them blend into each other. This is a way of painting that comes pretty naturally for oil painters but takes some foresight with fast drying acrylics.

I do miss the transparent layering I was doing in the large "water reflection" paintings. I am not sure how to achieve this in painting solid masses. I can easily see the layering in reflected water: there is below the water surface, the water surface and then the reflections floating on top but not quite sure how to translate that to an apple. Maybe think of the back and insides of the apple?

Layering on Wood

I like the way this painting has large areas of color with little bits of many colors showing around the edges. This is a departure from paintings I did last year with many patterned shapes of color covering the composition. They looked kind of like stained glass. I like the contrast of big areas of color to small areas of color in this painting. I wonder if I can do it again? I had given up on this painting and started scrubbing in areas of color and then it started to work.

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.