The Best Break

There was no studio time this past week. I didn't paint. I didn't work the gallery. I didn't post anything. What I did do was get in the car with the hubby and drive to Texas to see some of my favorite people. Distance from children and grandchildren hurts the heart during the best of times but during a pandemic it's especially hard. We hadn't seen our babies in a year and a half and that's just way too long.

My lovely daughter and grandson.

Granddaughter silliness!

Our little guy loves painting, drawing and origami so of course we had to have a fun, artsy afternoon along with the swimming, karate classes, gymnastics, and water balloon fights.

On the way home we stopped in Tallahassee at the Signature Gallery to pick up some of my work to swap out with Gallery B in Ocala. Soon I'll be shipping some new work to the Signature. It's good to move work around and keep the galleries fresh. And now that we're back from the trip I'm ready to PAINT!! I have so much I want to do. I have some abstracts to finish for Signature, new landscapes to do, a new nest reference I'm dying to work with, and a portrait commission to start. 

Sometimes the best way to get inspired and motivated to paint is to stay out of the studio for a while. Take a break, think about other things and do something completely different.

Now I'm ready.

C

What's up 2017?

Was there a January? I don't know. It's just a blur now. I know some amazing stuff happened like having some good sales from my oh so wonderful Signature Gallery. I can't even tell you just how much I love them! Thanks to them, I had to get busy painting some more - oh darn.

Paynes Prairie

20x20

The locals know this place. Sometimes on trips between Ocala and Gainesville I'll stop and walk out on the dock on 441 and take pictures. When I have more time I'll go into the park and climb the lookout tower for a different view.

Garage Apartment

12x24

Since starting this bird nest series I've been gifted numerous nests from friends. This one came from my neighbors garage. It really is this shape. It was high up in the rafters in a corner and it looked like the bird wanted to fill the entire beam. It included bits of white fuzz that looked like batting and some pieces of blue and pink yarn.

White Feather

6x6

I've also been given lots of feathers so I thought I'd play with those. This is the first one- starting small. I'm not sure yet where I'll be going with these so stay tuned....

So those are 3 of the 10 pieces heading up to the gallery in the next week.

Then.... I was contacted by the Macon Arts Alliance Gallery asking if I would send some work to them for their upcoming show in March. Yay! They specifically asked for nests and florals so....... 

These are 2 of the 9 pieces heading that way later this month. And in case you're wondering, no, I did not paint 19 paintings last month. I was busy but I do like to sleep too. Some of the work is inventory I already had here in the studio.

Cubby

8x8

This is a crazy little nest made from horse hair. My friend Jean brought a couple of these in to class one day. She said she can tell which of her horses sacrificed hair for the little bird by the color of the nest.

After the Blossom

18x18

This was actually done from a friend's photo. I don't usually work that way but she had some beautiful shots and she gave me permission to use them. I wanted to play with the combo of pink and gold. Gold, anyone surprised? 😁

So there ya have it. That was January. Unfortunately the first week of February kicked my butt. I was sick in bed with a rheumatoid arthritis flare up. Any other artists out there dealing with a chronic condition that likes to interfere with your life? I'd love to hear from you. How do you deal? Anyway, now I'm back to feeling human again and ready to go. It's time to get some work boxed up and out of here and then back to the easel. Next time I'll share the landscape diptych I'm working on. Would you believe it doesn't include gold leaf? 

Giving thanks in more ways than one

Well I don't know about you but it's been a crazy busy time these last few weeks. I guess it always is in the time leading up to the holidays. I know my gallery rep has been busy. I want to give a giant shout out to the Signature Gallery in Tallahassee. Because of them I've had the best month in art sales yet. 5 Swallows, pictured here, along with 5 other paintings found new homes recently thanks to their efforts. The folks there are the kindest, hardest working, most ethical I've found in the gallery world so far so thanks to Vera and the rest of the crew there. I love working with them!

What else am I truly thankful for? I had the most amazing Christmas surprise ever. My daughter and her hubby decided on the afternoon of Christmas day that they would pack up my two grandbabies and the granddog and drive straight through all the way from Dallas TX to my house in central FL. On Monday I saw a black dog coming up the front steps of the house. I thought - that looks just like Maddie but that can't be. Next thing I know my daughter's face is grinning at me through the front door glass. Crazy!!!! 

Needless to say there were lots of tears and laughter and hugging and squeezing. The best part.... my son and his family were already here because we were celebrating Christmas with them on Monday so the house was full and happy.

Did I plan to paint this week? Yep. Do I care? Nope. Sometimes, plans you have for painting or other job stuff, can go right out the window when you can have the joy of kids and grandkids for a few days.

I hope you all had a lovely Christmas and wish for you a very Happy New Year! See you in January.

The "catching up" post- painting, portraits, coloring books and censorship

Wow, almost a year to the day since the last post! That is way too long!
So what have I been up to- let's see.....

Painting, painting and more painting.
Did multiple portrait commissions.
Designed and published the Masterpeace Mandala coloring books- yes, my husband and I put our skills together and jumped on that bandwagon.
Had a solo exhibition at the 567 Center for Renewal in Macon GA.
Changed a few things around on the Etsy shop
Spent a week at the beach.
Spent a week in Ohio with daughter and grandkids.
Spent the holidays in Texas with my other daughter and grandson.
Spent 3 more weeks in Texas helping my daughter when she had baby #2.
In between those trips there was more painting and working on my website.
Teaching art classes on Mondays.

I think that's it. I don't think I left out anything major. And I think the traveling will slow down this year. Of course it would be a huge help if my daughters would just move to FL!

Ok, back to the work.....

The landscapes

Golden Edge

12x12

Gold Sky Woodland

12x6

Spring Pink

12x12

These are some of the newest paintings from my studio. I'm having fun with the gold leaf again- can you tell? :) Sales at the Signature Gallery in Tallahassee and the Macon Arts Alliance in GA have been picking up- yay! My next step will be to add another gallery to the list. I'm not sure which area I want to approach so if you have any ideas about where my work would fit in, feel free to share.

The solo exhibition

BFA

48x36

This is one of the pieces from the Silent Voices series. I have 16 paintings in this series so far, all the same size. This was the group of work for my solo exhibit in GA. It caused quite a commotion and 3 of the paintings were censored from the show!! Every weekend for the duration of the show the paintings had to come down and were rehung on Mondays- not kidding! If you want to see the pieces that were censored and why, check out the post I did on my other blog. To see the rest of the pieces in the show, go to the Symbolic page on my site. 

The portraits

I've done several portrait commissions but this one I did for myself. My granddaughter was hanging out at the house with us one night. She had wrapped a blanket around herself and was just being goofy and making faces. I grabbed the camera and took a lot of shots and decided to compile some of them into the 6 Faces of Maxine. It's colored pencil on red Canson MiTeintes and let me tell you.... skin tones on red paper is a challenge!

The coloring books

Coloring books?! Yep, we made coloring books. There are actually 3 coloring books and 3 coloring journals. We thought it would be fun to make mandala designs and patterns inspired by line drawings of the masters. So far we have Da Vinci, Michelangelo and Mucha. In the journals we have pages that are lined and some unlined and some that have coloring designs or edges. Since this kind of work is not something I normally do it was quite the learning curve for me. Getting to know the programs required to do the designs took some time but once I got it down it was a lot of fun.

I think this catches us up and hopefully I can get back to posting here on a regular basis now that life is getting a little more regular again. So in the meantime, check out the links, leave comments here or there.... let me know what you think. And Happy 4th of July! Hope it's a great weekend.