Monday August 8, 2016

It was a very very very nice Birthday weekend.  Our son was home, I have both grand puppies, I ate well, went to dinner with friends, breakfast with family, have not one, not two but three bouquets of flowers, and I got to go to my happy place:  Hobby Lobby!

I am going to try to get something framed once a month or so.  I did get another colored pencil drawing matted and  framed this weekend, picked it up today:






I also picked up a set of Inktense pencils.  Can't wait to try those!

(Not sure why these are upside down...)

Otherwise this week:  I sold another print of the Boat Rental pic to someone who didn't win it in the drawing.












And I drew a friends pug for her, and she's very happy with it.

I also started on the Chair-ity Chair.  Hubs found one somewhere being discarded, and brought it home and I think  its going to work just fine.  Here is the before...


Here is the middle... trying to use up scraps in the art room...

 

Stay tuned for the finished product.

Wednesday August 3, 2016 SPECIAL EDITION

So I told you about the Alzheimer's fundraiser that we have every year at work... I always donate a piece of art.
This year I was trying to do a celebrity portrait that probably had copyright issues, anyway, but after three failed attempts, I gave up.   This was on Sat. night and had to have it framed and turned in on Monday morning.  So I did what I had to do:  Framed up an older painting PRINT, (not even an original) and submitted it Monday morning.  It is not particularly even one of my favorites, but a lot of people have liked it.

All donations for this particular fundraiser were set up in the huge entry in our workplace on Monday and tickets go on sale on Friday morning for a Friday afternoon drawing.

Here is the reason for my special edition post today.

Our CEO, CFO and (I believe) COO all came in from Corporate for a Town Hall meeting.  When the CEO entered the building, he asked about all the donations.  It was explained about the fundraiser, and out of the 38 or 39 lots of prizes he was drawn to my painting and said something about, "we have creative people like that here"?

In the meeting, surrounded by my peers, he asked who the painter was, and made some very nice comments to me about my painting.  He loved it.  I guess it got quite a stir, because I got comments the rest of the day, and people from Corporate even wanted pics of it.

Today I smiled a lot.  I love painting and being artistic.  I do it for what it does for me.  But when someone else makes a fuss about it?   That's just icing on the cake!  I hope it goes to someone that loves it.  I heard that there was money left for tickets for Friday before they left for Corporate.

It was just an awesome feeling! Going to ride that wave for awhile.

Stay tuned!

Sunday Last day of July, 2016

Today was the Plein Aire event that I told you about.  Here was my submission:

This is where I was set up.   However most of the plein aire artists did landscapes, I did a zoomed in shot of it.    I didn't win the competition, but proud that I got out of my comfort zone and doing something different.   Got good comments and lots of kudos.

I also took my sketch books to the craft store to get some matted and framed.  I ended up doing the hydrangeas on black and the thistle I did on black.  They are awesome, and so much fun to play with mat colors and frames.  Just matting and framing them up made me feel so much like a real artist.  They look really good, and really fun to do, but this is not cheap to do.

I have the two poinsettias that will be next, but with a future paycheck. 

For the Alzheimer's auction, I threw away the idea for the celebrity portrait, and framed up one of my other prints that everyone seems to like:

So, I need to get my house in order, as it has been left behind while my head has had visions of artwork dancing around in it.   Need to do something else for a bit.

Then, onto the rest of my list.  Stay tuned!

Tuesday July 26 2016

I sit here when I have a bunch of art I have to do.  Denial?  Would I rather work at the deadlines?  Probably.  Life isn't giving me large chunks of time.  I just have these little times that I can't get painty.  Or its too hot. (it HAS been hot! thats a good excuse)  Or I just am not coming up with the drive and ambition.

Instead, I am redoing a charity piece over and over again.  Its a portrait of a celebrity which is probably against a copyright law anyway.  Guess I will give it up and just figure the universe is keeping me out of some kind of trouble.

There is another Plein Aire event coming up last week of July that I kinda said I would. 
The Alzheimers piece for the charity auction.
A desk for a teacher friend of mine.
A chair for the Chair-ity Auction.
A unicorn? for a friend.

Stay tuned.  Much more to come!

July 17, 2016

The Pet Parade and  Art Exhibition went well.  I don't usually set up to sell anything, and I didn't so I am not disappointed.  I think portraits of dogs are like pictures of your kids-You wouldn't sell any to anyone else.  If you want to make a business out of doing portraits of peoples puppies, (which I don't!) its a business too.  I set up my booth just for show.  Besides, two of the portraits are already sold.

SO, my first attempt at Plein Aire painting was a bust.  A lot harder than it looks.  No, it wasn't my paint!  But look at what I chose for the first attempt!  It is more intricate than it looks here too.
My measurements are all off. I didn't have any brown, so I had to use yellow. 

  

My proportions are all off.  Oh well.  Stay tuned!

Sunday, July 10 2016

Well, I got the pet portraits ready to go, or at least what I think I settled with.  Whew! that took about a month!  Good thing I decided to get it done, the exhibition is Saturday! lol.

I haven't had much time to do art, although have a lot on the schedule lately, but I have been playing with the black paper and the colored pencils some more.  These are 6in x 8in, and I push them to the edges, (always have... I should challenge myself to work within a framable size!)

Here are the two I have done this week while watching TV in the evenings, just to chill out:

This one is just out of my head:

This one is from a photo from a garden from someone on Facebook, named Sadie Seasongood.  I appreciate the permission from her to use her photo.

I love gardenias and hydrangeas, and the two together are just striking.  I like this one a lot!






Well thats about all for this week.  Stay tuned!

Happy 4th of July 2016!

I have been on vaca and our boys have been home, in and out, lately so haven't been able to do much art, much less posting. 

On our quick, but long-weekend vacation we went to NY and PA to see friends and family.  We stopped to see Hubs' cousin in NY and then down to see my friend Terri and her hubby, Tim, at their new lake place.  While we were there, they had an old oar they wanted painted of their dog Emma jumping off their dock.  Emma is a chocolate lab and loves to swim and so entertaining to watch jump in for a ball!  Here is Terri and I with the finished product which they now have hung up in their lake place.

Labs and lakes seem to be a theme lately, and some other friends, also have a lab that loves to jump in at the lake.  They took a shot of their chocolate lab, Gracie, last weekend and it was so cool I thought I'd ask permission if I could paint it for the upcoming Pet Parade exhibition in a couple weeks. They said yes!

I envisioned this square and large.  I found canvas and set to it.  When I showed it to them they wanted to buy it after the exhibition, of course.   So it is SOLD.  I love how it turned out and they did too!  It's a big, 40x40 in canvas and I hope they have room.

Besides that, a while ago I purchased a black small pad of paper.  At night, while watching a game or something, I will play with colored pencils on this black paper.  This thistle didn't hit me all that much until I did the background.  Now I like it.  And others do too.   I am going to continue on with playing in this little black book... its change in the norm.  And norm gets boring... (apologies to anyone named Norm).

Well, after vaca, company, and art, the housework has suffered.  I will probably spend the day today on framing up those darn pet pics, (yes, STILL) and getting some housework caught up.  There are projects in the garage calling my name, and it takes nice weather to do them, (which I have available) so who knows how the day will pan out!

Have a wonderful 4th everyone.  And stay tuned.

PS: that dog pic is really off color... here is more the colors it really is:

 I didn't realize it was so far off color.