Traces of Reality

Hi, it's been a while. I've been holed up in my studio for the last month doing a lot of painting. When I crawled out from under all the paint and canvases, I hit the books getting the taxes done and prepping for something huge - more paperwork, numbers, and hopefully, after today, I can share what that is!! So until then, I want to share some other great news. I've been invited to participate in the Traces of Reality show at NOMA gallery here in Ocala.

This is an all abstract, invitational exhibition featuring moi, along with 5 other fabulous artists - my friend Robin Pedrero, Robert Frankel, Cindy Vener, Moises Brador, and Javier Loredo. 

Traces of Reality opens April 7th to NOMA subscribers and April 9th to everyone else so if you're in the area you should check out the show and this beautiful building. Click the link above to learn more about NOMA.

See you when I have more news!!

Birds, berries, a squirrel and some art.

Before I get to the art, I have to tell you about a squirrel. Yesterday, around 2:30pm, I was sitting outside in the yard watching the bird feeder. Behind the feeder and under the camellia trees was one of the squirrels that skitter around my yard all the time. I watched as he picked up a fallen, white camellia flower. He looked at it and then buried his face in the petals. He rubbed his face with the flower like he was refreshing himself. He played with it a bit and then he turned it so he had fresh petals to feel. He kept rotating the flower until he felt all of it while petals fell. When he was finished with his petal bath he settled down to nibble on the dark yellow center of the flower.

It's hard to get good pictures on the phone when zooming in from across the yard.

He's still holding one of the petals and you can see what's left of the flower.

Right after watching this squirrel's little ritual, a flock of cedar waxwings swooped down to eat the small berries on the tree to my left. As they're feasting on the berries, their leftovers are hitting me like little berry pellets. 

To my right is the bird feeder where 6 sparrows are fighting for space on the bar, a pair of cardinals are sitting in the camellia waiting their turn, and from the crepe myrtle, come flitting back and forth, a chickadee and a tufted tit mouse. Every time a space would open up on the bar, one of those two would swoop in, grab a bite and swoop back out.

The other birds I saw in that one hour outside were a pair of doves who like to walk around under the feeder and eat what spills, and a yellow throated warbler managed to find a spot to eat. The most fun was when a large group of waxwings decided to come down all at once to the bird bath for a drink. The squirrel, who had been watching, waited until they were all in the water, then he ran at them and made them all fly. This was happening all around, above me, right next to me, in front of me. And the sound - it was amazing to hear the blend of so many different types of birds, the notes floating around each other. It was truly a magical hour. 

Now, back to art. Remember the little painting from last time? I wasn't sure what I was going to do to finish it.

I started making my own collage materials. I'm using deli paper and anything that will make a mark with acrylic paint - brushes, stamps, twigs, anything with texture, even fingers. I've used collage materials in lots of paintings over the years and have a collection of handmade papers and various other ephemera floating around the studio but I thought it would be fun to make some sheets of my own mark making to make the layering even more personal. 

I cut out one of the purple circles and glued it in place. The paper goes translucent when glued so the background color shows through the stamp effect. The final touch was a stroke or two with the palette knife and white paint, and done.

All Good Things

8x8x1

wood panel

8x8

canvas

On this last one, I used more of my collage papers along with a bit of handmade paper with leaves embedded in it. I wanted a more earthy feel and color for this piece. I'm still working on a title so if you have any ideas.... shoot them my way.

And if you have a day that's pretty and an hour to spare, be sure to spend a little time in nature. Just listen and watch. There's probably a squirrel expert somewhere who can tell me exactly what that squirrel was doing but right now, I like the idea that he was bathing in the flower's perfume. 

Is there life outside the studio?

Keep scrolling and you'll see why I haven't posted in a few weeks. I couldn't tear myself away from my studio! It's a lovely problem to have. I'm still working with the sketchbook from the last post. I got some new colors in from Nova so of course I had to do some swatches, mixes, and playing. Bits and pieces of these pages have been working themselves into finished paintings. It may be recognizable or it may not, but the book definitely sparks ideas and helps keep the momentum going.

Loving these colors! I was playing with black, white, magenta, and cad yellow. Black, cad yellow and white can make the most wonderful sage greens. 

You can see the influence of this one on Quiet Time below.

I don't know where this one will lead but I'm sure bits of it will show up on a canvas at some point.

Testing out new paints. At the top I was playing with more black and yellow mixes using Hansa yellow and Indian yellow. 

This is a mess - but I like the colors. It's just a sketchbook.

Quiet Time

36x48

This one is on a convexo canvas. Instead of flat sides it has a beveled edge. I textured the entire canvas with tissue paper before painting.

Riverside

24x36

Riverside is painted on top of a painting I did years ago. I kept the basic composition but pushed the colors and values. I added drips, dots, and a band of interference color that shifts depending on the way the light hits it. 

Coastline

10x30

I don't usually work on this extreme shape but I was gifted the canvas by a neighbor and loved it!

8x8

This one was a bit of fun. I do love circles, they show up in almost everything but this time I thought I'd add leaf shapes too. Is it done? Who knows.

8x8

The mess of a page? I told you I loved the colors - creamy yellow, light bright greens and blues with a kick of purple. This is where it's going so far. I'm still deciding what else to do with it. I'm also playing on a different surface for me. I picked up some cradled wood boards and wanted to see how I felt about painting on a rigid panel. Do you have a preference? Wood or canvas?

12x12

I went for a muted palette this time. I still wanted the bright yellow but I wanted to tone down the bright pink and make it more of a dusty pink. For the black accent I used ultra matte BLK3.0. To set off the flatness of the black I finished the rest of the painting by using a satin varnish. I'm still deciding on a title for this one. Feel free to leave suggestions in the comments below!

After a month of studio time, February started out with a full art immersion. Friday night was First Friday Art Walk downtown and then Saturday, hubby and I went to the Mt. Dora art festival, then on to Orlando to Sam Flax for supplies like that wood panel I'm playing on, and we got back to town just in time for a lovely reception at 8th Ave Gallery. New supplies, looking at fabulous art, and talking to other artists is a reason to celebrate and the inspiration continues....

Now I hope it won't be a full month before posting again. I'm trying to be better about it. I'm not exactly sure what's up right now but I feel like something is shifting. Maybe my work is moving in a new direction. Maybe something is brewing. Do you ever have that feeling that something is changing but you can't quite put your finger on what it is? Hey, maybe I'm about to have a creative breakthrough!! It would be cool to think so. Or maybe I'm just reacting to stress and hiding in my studio feels like the best place to be right now. I really don't know. I'll take it either way because I'm painting and most importantly, I'm learning. If you feel compelled to make stuff - just go do it. 

A studio soul sister and 6 reasons to enjoy your sketchbook

In the last post I showed you a few little snippets of a painting I was working on. I finished it and it's still got a lot of color! It doesn't have a title yet so if you have any thoughts, feel free to share in the comments. It's 20x16x1.5 and the image continues on the sides of the canvas. To me, this feels like a field of flowers in spring. 

This one was done, so what next? I wanted to do something different for the first week of the year.

Remember this post? I talked about getting the creative juices flowing again by playing with some small, loose abstract compositions. Some of those little experiments were finished and displayed. Some of them I didn't care for enough to show but I didn't hate them enough to throw them away either. 

After the holidays I sometimes hit a bit of a slump in the studio so when that happens I like to read about and watch other artists for inspiration. You can always find a cool tip or tool to play with that excites the mind. I browsed through my art book shelf and also started watching YouTube videos. There's so much out there. One artist that caught my attention was Louise Fletcher. Oh my goodness, she's like a studio soul sister! She even uses pattern tissue in her layers like I do. 

In this video she talks about how she uses her sketchbook to develop ideas. She does the same kind of exercise that I do with mini abstract compositions but then she takes the leftovers and saves them in her book, makes notes, and uses them for reference. Brilliant! I gave it a go. 

In this next one, I'm testing out some new paint I just ordered. I've never tried Nova paints. They're an acrylic made in CA. I ordered a few colors to try them and I will be ordering more. The colors are wonderfully saturated. They come in jars because they're not heavy body acrylic. They seem to have a viscosity somewhere between fluid and soft body acrylics and have great covering power. I'm happy with them so far and will add them for certain techniques. For some texture effects, the heavier body paints still work better. 

In the one below I grabbed some twigs from the back yard and used them like brushes to scribble on the page. I like the loose, organic feel of the marks.

I've always kept a sketchbook but I haven't used it as much in recent years and I usually just use it for graphite sketches. Now I'm enjoying this sketchbook practice for a few reasons.

1.   It helps me to work out design ideas for future paintings.
2.   I can work out color combinations and mixtures.
3.   I can try different techniques before taking them to the canvas.
4.   I can save all this to look at later when I need some inspiration.
5.   I make notes about what works and what doesn't so I don't have to reinvent the wheel when I'm working.
6.   No one ever has to see my studio work book unless I feel like sharing. I'm free to experiment  and play and if it doesn't work, I learned something. If it works, I learned something.

The new year is starting off with lots of inspiration, learning and fun. I hope you're having a great start to your year. Check out some more of Louise's videos and let me know if you find any other cool artists to watch. Let's go 22!

Don't stir the wasp nest!

What happened to this month?! Was it really Dec 1st last time I posted? So, what I did this month..... rememeber the wasps I was battling? They won another battle but I won the war. 

I managed to snap a pic of these nasties before things got really ugly.

After pouring the powder and moving the birdbath over the hole, I thought they would be trapped but it didn't work. I wanted to do something that wouldn't harm the camellias that are right next to the nest so I was looking online and saw that a glass bowl placed over the opening would trap them. You have to do things like that early in the morning while the temp is cool and they're down inside the nest.

I put my heavy robe on and headed out. With the glass bowl in my left hand, I grabbed the bird bath with my right and pulled it out of the way. Well, they were waiting for me. Before I could put the bowl over the opening, a huge clump of them came zooming out. I dropped the bowl, it broke against the bird bath, I ran while they chased and stung me. Luckily only 3 of them got me - one on the earlobe and 2 on the leg. I saw them crawling all over the robe so I threw it off, left it in the yard and ran inside where I smacked several more off my pj's, stomped on them and had to get the bug spray to kill the one buzzing in the kitchen. 

Before all this happened, I wanted to do things organically, no poison. My husband suggested gasoline. Of course I said no. I can tell you that after the pain of being stung multiple times in that very traumatic incident, I told him he could throw a molotov cocktail down there for all I cared. If I lose a few trees, so be it. It didn't get that dramatic but I did call the pest control guys. It took them 4 trips to the house but the nasties are finally gone. Lesson learned. Do not bother the yellow jackets. Call a professional.

And yes, art happened too....

Remember the painting of my granddaughter from the previous post? Here's her sister with her mask. Fun! 

My husband Mark is also an artist and he did a special outdoor sculpture project in collaboration with IHMC - Institute for Human and Machine Cognition and OEU - Ocala Electric Utility.  Look above everyone's heads and you can see a bit of it - the human hand and the robot hand. It's a steam punky kinetic sculpture so the robot hand moves up to meet the human hand. Here's hubby cutting the ribbon at the unveiling. The last weekend of working on this project in our yard was also the same weekend of the wasps. After I stirred them up I was terrified they would go after him and the others working on the sculpture. Thankfully they didn't bother the guys but they stayed mad all day, swirling in a huge cloud over the opening of their nest. Nerve wracking!!

Second Spring

20x16

I painted a couple of new pieces too. This one is part of the group from this post, lots of hot color.

And then I had to play with texture and drips. I was still feeling the warm colors but went with more red and pink. Doing these non-representational, textured pieces are a break for me. They help me loosen up and keep things fun and exciting. I can't seem to paint the same thing over and over again. I need change.

The highlight of the month was going to the Appleton Museum to see the Mucha exhibition. I went with my friend Kelli who studied printmaking in college. She was able to explain in detail about the process that Mucha used for his posters. I had no idea they were so large and the process so tedious! The exhibit will be at the museum until January 9th. If you can make it, it's a must see. 

The bonus at the Appleton was the Christmas display. My youngest daughter was a ballerina in her dance school days so I had to get a photo of this display because of the legs and feet on the table. The display is so whimsical and fun, a perfect way to say Merry Christmas!

I hope you all have a wonderful week, a very Merry Christmas, a Happy Holiday however you celebrate. Spend time with your loved ones, eat good food, play and be happy. 

I've gone dotty

I shared a few close up pics of a new painting on my FB/IG stories yesterday. I wanted to share again here too because when you look at the entire painting it can be hard to make out some details. I mentioned a couple of posts back that I'm playing with a paint shaper tool to add a bit of pointellism. I just dip it in the paint and .........

What I'm doing isn't the true definition of pointellism - "a technique of painting in which small, distinct dots of color are applied in patterns to form an image" (think Seurat) - but using dots to enhance and add texture to a painting.

Below is the finished painting. If you enlarge it on your screen you can see where I painted the dots. Like the gold leaf I sometimes use and the textured gesso I put on the canvas before painting, sometimes seeing a painting in person is best. A painting can be experiential and doesn't translate as well in a photo. 

still deciding on a title

18x24

20x20

The 2 paintings above are the newest so I don't know what to call them yet. If you have any ideas I'd love for you to share them in the comments! I got on a warm color kick too. Looking back on past work, I seem to have gone through a "blue" period. It seems like everything I paint is mostly blue or cool colors. I don't usually pay much attention to trends, even my own apparently but when I noticed, I decided to play with some hot color for a change. We'll see where things go from here. 

Shimmer

20x20

acrylic and colored pencil

Shimmer was finished before I started the other 2 pieces so it's been added to my website along with the one below that finally has a title. It reminded me and many others of fire so Rekindled became it's name. It makes sense too because I seem to have rekindled a love for hot color!

Rekindled

20x30

And this one below..... I just remembered that I added it to the site but forgot to title it. I've been so focused on painting that I forgot all about it. It's more abstract than the others. Hmmmmm, something will come to me this week while I'm doing other things. I've been super productive in the studio the last couple of weeks so maybe I'm just getting ready to take a few days off with Thanksgiving coming up. My youngest daughter and her family are flying in and I'll have my local grandbabies here with me since they're out of school. It's time to focus on getting some work done around the house and wait for new canvases and gesso to come in the mail.

14x11

I hope you have a wonderful week. Enjoy being with your loved ones, eat good food, relax, and laugh a lot! Happy Thanksgiving!!

It's Experiential

The little abstract painting below was a piece I did a few years ago. I liked it then. It's where I was at the time. Looking at it again recently, along with a number of other ones, I decided it wasn't what I wanted anymore so I started putting more layers on top, sandwiched between layers of thick gloss acrylic gel. In those layers I also scribbled with graphite and colored pencil, and dribbled alcohol to lift color. If you look closely you can still see bits of the original painting peeking through so scroll down to see what happened to it. 

When the last layer of clear gloss dried I added a final touch.... accents painted with BLK3.0. This is the most matte black paint I've ever seen. It absorbs all the light so you don't even see the texture that's underneath the paint. I love the contrast between the matte black and the high shine of the gloss gel. 

One thing about this kind of work where you have layer upon layer and extreme contrasts, it's hard for all the details to come across in a photo. It's so experiential, it's best to see pieces like this in person. Below is a detail shot and then a couple of pictures at angles so you can see the difference between the shine and the black areas. 

The original painting was called Time Passage 11 so I guess I'll call it Time Passage 11 Redux. There's more experimenting to do so stay tuned for a few more of these. I just added this one and one other to my website so check out the abstract page to see more. Of course I have some new bird nest paintings in mind too, and some landscapes. So many paintings to do!

Happy Wednesday and I hope the rest of your week is spectacular.

C

Fresh Eyes

I'm working all the angles this week! I just finished a commission for a nest painting. I'm working on a landscape and I'm playing with layers on 5 small abstracts. If you paint, do you like to work on different things at the same time. It may seem unfocused to do that but for me it makes perfect sense. While layers are drying on the abstracts I can be working on the other two paintings. If I feel stuck with something on the landscape I can always switch to the nest and work on it for a while. When I go back to the other piece I feel like I have "fresh eyes" and can resolve whatever the problem was. 

This nest is 20x30 and heading to a customer in Virginia.

An abstracty landscape in progress. I'm not sure how much more I'll be doing to this one.

5 little abstracts in progress. I'm REALLY not sure how much more I'll be doing to these. They're still speaking to me. Do you listen to your paintings?