Wow, I completely forgot about this one!

I was weeding through layered Photoshop files of all of my paintings this morning, looking for older pieces that I could offer at a discount through the Guild. The Guild is working with all of their artists on offering a "Studio Sale" next month and I was trying to find whatever pieces I have to be included. And I came across this painting. It is entitled Trio and although it was sold years ago, it took me by surprise because I had completely forgotten about this one. I am not a landscape artist, but I have made a couple of feeble attempts. It's funny, I didn't think this painting was that good when I painted it and was happy to sell it on eBay (back in the day when I did such things) for a pittance. But now I rather like it. It does not grace my website, so I thought I would give it some exposure here on the blog.

The Little Reclamation that Could…

…inspire! Small and simple, this little painting was a spontaneous creation earlier this week. What I enjoyed about painting it was that it just seemed to happen naturally. Paintings in the Reclamation series are usally premeditated, planned from layout and color scheme to exactly which type and how much material I have to mold or sculpt for the assemblage. With this piece, I just gathered a few unused embellishments and sort of threw them on a 12" x 12" canvas. The colors evolved on their own, I only knew that I wanted it to be light on the top and darker at the bottom. I am so pleased with it that I now want to atttempt doing something similar on a much larger canvas. So I am now creating more of the circular pieces for that.

So here it is, my latest in the Reclamation series entitled "Just a Bit Further":

Pierre Paul Gallery

Four of my paintings have been consigned to this gallery in Ann Arbor, MI. Here you can see Reclamation #22 (top center) and Sticks & Stones #31 (bottom center). I am hoping to get photos of the other 2 on display soon. It's always exciting for me to see my work actaully hanging on a wall!

The front of the gallery. You'll have to click on this image to enlarge it, but if you look really closely, you can see my paintings through the window!

Reclamation (top) and Sticks & Stones #31 (bottom) are centered.

Reclamation 15 (top) and Industria 11 (bottom) are on the far right.

Stumbling Block

Switching back to figurative work the past few weeks has interrupted what little flow I had going for my abstracts. But I truly enjoyed doing those pieces, in fact continued on with a small piece for my friend Kevin, who’s birthday was last week. I painted “Red-haired Girl" especially for him:



So now I am left a bit torn. I have been doing research, reviewing and updating layouts for my Reclamation series and all the while thinking about doing more figurative pieces. Unfortunately, this split focus results in almost no focus at all and I really haven’t gotten much done this long holiday weekend. Mainly I have been escaping by attending barbeques and the like, avoiding the studio. But I suppose an artist needs some R & R once in a while.

The Artists' Reception

The artists' reception was held last night at the Alex Haleigh Gallery in Gardena. It was quite nice. They had drinks and snacks and live music! Oh, and ART of course! The show's title is "La Figura" so not surprisingly, much of my current available work did not fit the theme. Fortunately I had time to create a couple of new pieces for the exhibit: "Blue Angel" and "Bouquet", (the far left and right paintings). The center painting, "Hairdo" is from 2004:



Several friends came to help me celebrate. Thanks everyone, it meant so much to me!

Here my sister Dianne looks at art:



Kevin and Buddha display my art:



Kathye and Kirby came by:



Good friends, good times:



Art appreciators mingle:



People are checking out my art:



Other artists got to display their art too. Cool stuff:






All in all it was a good turnout. Unfortunately, I didn't get pictures of my friends Marsha and Ilga who also attended. And the one and only picture of me was too blurry to post. But I so appreciated those who came by for taking the time to do so. It meant so much to me to see you all there!

My goodness, it's almost been a year…

…since I have posted anything on my blog! Lots has happened since my last post: I agreed to return my old job but the problems that caused me to quit in the first place worsened. By December of last year I was miserable there once again. Then, through pure happenstance, I got a new job that suits me much better. What a relief! And now I have more time to paint.

I am exhibiting three pieces at Alex Haleigh Gallery in Gardena:







The reception is this weekend, the show will be up until the end of June. For more information, visit their website:

http://alexhaleighgallery.com/

When All Else Fails…

…just paint what you like.

That's what I have been telling myself lately as I lose ground in the battle against my painting block. And it has seemingly worked. At least I have painted a couple of paintings this week.

The first painting was of Mitzi, a fictional subject based on a found photo. I loved painting this one. Once again, there was a point within its creation where it started to come to life and I was so focused, so involved, so engrossed that I actually missed a meal! I have already posted her to my portraits website, but I'll share her with you now as some may not have the exact address of that site. So here she is!


And so today I painted another dog painting. I had started this one day last week, but paying work delayed my finishing it. So today I continued with it. This one is not quite finished yet. In actuality, it is painted on a 20" x 24" canvas, but I have cropped it because the rest of it isn't finished yet. And now that I see it cropped, I rather like it and may not do the extra bits I had planned for top and bottom. We'll see. But again, this was a delight to paint and also again, I was so focused I missed another meal. Here it is:


I realize that this is not high art, but at least I am painting. Not only am I painting, but I am truly enjoying it, something I haven't felt in a while. Especially while working on paintings for the publishing house. But I'll have to get back to that this week.