New Art

It has been brought to my attention that I have not posted in a bit! All of three days I think!! I ahve a piece to share that has been finished for quite awhile. I could not post it before as I had created it for apublication that had asked for submissions. The theme was Life Is A Beach. Apparently they got pictures of pieces form over 220 artists and they chose 12 pieces for publication. So I am not alone in being passed over! I can't get things chosen if I don't submit pieces and I will not get chosen every time- that is for sure.

So here is my piece, titled "Her Bliss". This is a mixed media collage that tells the story of my daughter's love of the beach. She is quite happy near any running water, even if it is only the hose, but she LOVES the ocean. I based this piece on three photographs that I took during one of our annual Cape Cod road trips. Blogger has insited three times on publishing this picture on it's side (so I said Uncle) sorry that you have to trun your head!! I wanted to share how I had used the photograph of the beach umbrellas to launch the work.
This is all done on an 11x17 canvas.


I took that Rt 6A image from another photograph, printed it out on regular paper and slapped it down.


I also added bits of newspaper articles and parts of images from local Cape Cod newspapers and a piece of a topographicval map of the Orleans Eastham area. If you click on the photos to enlarge you can pick out some of these details.


The two images of Becca were printed out on silk after a bit of editing and enhancing with various filters on Photoshop.

Here are some closeup details:


All of the holes in the shells are found holes- I found the shells that way- work created by various sea critters. I added bits of needlework and stitched the silk images to felt backing to give some depth to the machine stitichings. I wanted to frame the pictures just a bit and used the stitching to do that.


I am really quite happy with the results and I am thrilled to have created this piece even though it was not selected for publication. Now we have some more art for our own collection!






And now for something completely different!

I am continuing to take watercolor painting classes with my good friend Ariel Freeman. She shared a newly finished piece with us during our last class. She had recieved a commission to draw a Buffalo, in pastel, for a woman who had grown up in the midwest with Buffalo on her farm. I asked if I could take a picture of the piece and she allowed me to. Now I will share with you! Ariel is really getting lots of good recognition lately and she sold the piece that she had submitted to the Feast For the Eyes Show, on opening night!!



I just love this piece!! Isn't he just wonderful??? We got to see many buffalo up close and personal, when we lived in Oklahoma. The kids and I were even lucky enought to bottle feed a rejected calf!! I am very lucky to be able to take classes with such a talented and supportive artist!!!

I still have much to do along the organization of studio lines!! No I am not yet ready to show pictures of a stream lined and deduced stash art space- it has gone on far too long. I plan on diving in yet again this weekend. SIGH!!!

Cosmos, For the last time!

For this painting at least! I have had four classes for Painting White Flowers and I am not sure if my piece is doen yet. It may jsut have to "BE' for awhile. I may actually decide to crop off the whole right side. Ariel says no ,but I am really not happy with that part of the painting.
First I must share a picture of my teacher, Ariel Freeman, discussing the painting that she was working on during our sessions. Her reference picture was of pale pink mums but they had a lot fo whitein them and the whole point of the lessons was to learn how to work with white light colors. Her painting is absolutely stunning and she has it posted in all of it's stages on her blog , here. We have our classes in her studio space at Liberty Town.
Now for my painting. Here it is after 4 lessons and several extra hours of work. Serious watercolor painting takes quite a bit of time as you have to wait before painting certain parts till contiguous areas are completely dry. This requires patience and waiting and when one has up a head of steam to paint, one wants to paint , not wait! For this reason I have actually started on a second piece- we will see if that one goes anywhere.



I will show you the parts that I am the most pleased with! I am really pleased with the center of the main focal blossom.


The second area that I am pleased with is the lower blossom that is behind the focal blossom.


IF I do crop this piece down, I would probably do it this way.

This is definately the strongest part of the painting and I am not happy with the blossom down to the right that is so far in the background. This piece has taught me a big lesson: just because something is a certain way in your reference photo, one does not have to include it in the finished piece. To start I thought that the fuzzy blossom balanced the composition, now, not so much. Oh well, paint and learn!!!

"Elizabeth's Pansie's"

You must consider this one of your big treats for the day!! This glorious painting was done by my good friend Ariel Freeman. Ariel is also my fabulous teacher who is holding my hand through the hurdles of painting watercolors. She is an outstanding teacher!!! You can see more of her wonderful work here! on her blog you can see an amazing stepped out process of a pastel that she has just finished. It is a stunning portarait of a buffalo- just magnificent!!!
Last Spring Ariel came over to my garden to take some pictures. This painting (done on clayboard) was done based on one of those pictures . Those are my pansies!!! I can only dream that my paintings will ever be anywhere near as amazing as Ariel's works. But we all must have dreams and goals to aim for!!!