Monday, May 8, 2017

The gallery, the Etsy shop and a nest update

It's Monday morning and I'm sitting here with my coffee, listening to the birds and thinking about the week ahead. Today is art class. I'll probably just have 3 people in the studio today since a few folks are traveling. The rest of the week will be spent in my home studio working on several paintings. I usually have more than one going at a time- keeps my energy up that way.

Another thing that boosts the painting energy is visiting my gallery rep. Last week I delivered 10 new landscapes to the Signature Art Gallery in Tallahassee. They've been selling my work for a couple of years now and I'd never been there! Shame on me. So, since I had a couple of larger canvases for them this time I thought it would be good to deliver instead of shipping. I'm so glad I did. It was a beautiful day. Yellow flowers (friends from the area will know what kind they are) were blooming all along I75 with the occassional purple ones thrown in here and there- very pretty- you know those complimentary colors work so well together. 😄


Finding the gallery was very easy and what a nice place! I met Mary, the owner, and we had a lovely time visiting. Walking around, looking at the other art there, I realized I wanted just about everything in the place. Every piece in the gallery was beautiful! I truly felt honored to have my work hanging there with so many wonderful artist's work. I could've stayed all day just studying the brush work and techniques in all the other works. 

One of the larger pieces I delivered.

The 2 floating walls where my work is currently hanging. They've made room for a few of the new pieces.

So my gallery is updated and now my Etsy shop is too.

Once upon a time I was doing Friday Painting Parties. I did them for about 3 years but due to a change in the studio space I stopped doing them. I had a number of workshop demo pieces left from those parties and I got tired of tripping over the box of canvases so I added them to the shop at a special price. This week, through Mother's Day, you can get one of these paintings at a bigger discount with the coupon code MOMLOVE20 for 20% off. It really is a great deal so check it out if you're so inclined. There's a mix of subjects and techniques - take a look at the Etsy mini shop on the sidebar to see more examples.

This was one of my faves to do. It's from a photo I took on the gulf coast.

We did a gold leaf sky on this one. What a mess in a workshop! We then used palette knife to paint the rest.

This one came from a series I did called Woodland. They're all sold now, this is the last.

Nest update!

So remember the nest in my mailbox? The babies grew up and fledged but sadly, at least one of them was lost to a predator - the kitty. I happened to be home when the little ones took off and suddenly I saw the cat hunkered down over something small while momma bird was screeching and flying circles overhead. Sad. All I can do is hope the others survived. 

Once I was sure no one was coming back to the mailbox nest I cut a piece of cardboard to fit the width of the box so I could slide it underneath and then carefully pull the nest out. It took some work but I finally got it out without losing much of their construction. Once I got it out I found an egg inside that hadn't hatched. Unfortunately, I broke it when I took it out to show my granddaughter but I kept the largest pieces and put them back in. Now I have a new nest to add to my growing collection. See, this is why I have to move that box of canvases I was tripping over. Seriously..... go to the Etsy shop!

From the front

Side view- you can see how much taller it is in the back.

And of course, I've added to the collection of nest paintings. In memory of the little one lost to the kitty I painted 2 Babies this past weekend from a photo I took of them in the mailbox.

2 Babies
5x5


Well, that's the update for now...... I have lots of paintings floating around in my head so I'm anxious to get back to the studio and get busy. 

Wishing you peace and creativity.