Juried Show Entry

Not the best photos ever, but hopefully you can see past that and help me decide which painting to enter in a local regional show. I like (and dislike) both for different reasons. If I had more time this morning I'd add one of those little voting thingies but will just have to settle for votes in the comments. Thanks!

Chair Lady is 40"x30"


Five People is 24"x36"


PS. It is entirely possible that I may decide at the very last minute to enter a landscape or barn. Just so you know..........

What's Goin' On?

House on Route 52, 2010, Oil on Panel, 18"x18"

OK, well, spring break is over (finally!) the kids are back in school and my days are my own again. And despite this last two week blip of constant interruptions here, I do feel like I am pretty much back on track. Doing a public to do list and charting my progress helped so I will be keeping that little trick in mind in case I go off the rails again. Um, train metaphors, anyone?????

Anyway, for awhile there it was feeling like I had NOTHING going on, which was kind of messing with my productivity. However, in the last few days I have been adding things up and it looks like things are picking up. Can't give a lot details yet on some things but this is what I have going on:

This week I am finishing up a portrait that I did about a year ago and never really resolved. I am planning to enter it in a regional competition at our local arts organization and the deadline is Saturday. Not really worried about NOT getting in, although it is certainly possible that I won't, but I just want to make sure and enter something since I missed the deadline for the last two years. I have decided to enter a portrait, a LARGE portrait (40x30) for purely egotistical reasons;in the past the paintings that I have entered have been small and rather quiet and this year I want a flashy entry for once. Heh.

Today I am packing up four paintings from the 'People You Know' series that I did in Vermont, and am shipping them off to one of my galleries. This gallery does very well with my landscapes and it will be interesting to see how these go over. They will be at The Harrison Gallery if anyone out there is in the area (Williamstown MA) and would like to see these paintings in person. Way better in real life if I do say so myself.....

I am just finishing up a bunch of paintings to send to Chrysalis Gallery in the Hamptons soon. The two that I sent last year have NOT sold but the owner said she is not giving up on me yet and will be giving me a good space on the wall this season for a whole grouping of paintings, which is really the best way to present my work. They seems to make more sense when seen in a grouping. She also prefers my more abstract color field type landscapes which are not really included in my current burn out on landscapes.

I have been invited to have a solo show at The Main Street Gallery in Groton, NY in September. This was the first gallery to give me a solo show back in 2005 just a few years after I had started painting again and it will great to be there again. I will be showing small scale landscapes in the back area and portraits in the main room, so YAYY! Pretty excited about that!

And I just heard yesterday that the proposal for an exhibition that an artist that I met at the Vermont Studio Center applied for has been accepted. I'll be learning more details in the next few days and will post about it soon. I will say however, that I am very, VERY excited about this because it involves me being able to show work from the Black Painting series that I worked on in Vermont.

Black painting #99, 2010, 9"x6" Oil on Panel
Sales have improved somewhat, two large paintings have sold in the last month or so; very happy they found their "people" and of course the surprise income is good too. This also makes me feel a bit more confident that not everything I paint will just be sitting around, gathering dust in my studio.

Also, I have a possible commission for a very large scale painting. Not confirmed yet, and I may be jinxing the whole thing by even mentioning it, but hey, I feel like living dangerously today, heh.

So there you go. Another step back to my previously busy self and it feels really good!

Low on Title Ideas Today (so that's the title)

Messy studio

Well, all of a sudden it's almost two weeks since I have posted here. Sigh.

I haven't been super productive in the studio either. However, in general I have been pretty busy. Our washer broke down last week so Doug and I took the better part of a day to go shopping for a new one. We also took an afternoon to look at small barns since I am getting a new batch of baby chicks next month, plus we are also planning to get sheep or goats next spring. So trying to do a little long range planning for that. A day to take my daughter to the diabetes clinic in Syracuse. A couple of mornings in the garden, clearing out a few beds and planting greens. Mr. Wilson had to get his teeth cleaned and so a day of going back and forth to the vet. An afternoon for a hair appointment. Shopping for spring things with the girls. Doug was in the city last Friday and picked up a load of birch panels for me. Dumping them in my studio was the tipping point for clutter and so I need a day or so to clean and reorganize.

It's just been one thing after another and the rest of this week is looking crazy too.

I really have to finish up some paintings though as I have to send new work off to two galleries soon. Having a looming deadline always helps when my internal motivation is not quite up to par. So this morning I am trying yet again, to get back to work in the studio. I don't think I need a to do list to get going this time but I am not ruling one out either......

To Do List Update, Before I Bail!

Study#213, 2010, Oil on Birch Panel, 5x7

I meant to post yesterday but a ghost somehow downloaded almost 200mgs from the internet on Thursday morning (I was the only person on the computer during that time and all I did was open Facebook and look at a few news articles, I swear!) putting us over the top of the dreaded Fair Access Policy. So little to no internet for 24 hours, which is always a blessing, even though we all grumble about it.

Anyway, here is the update for Wednesday and Thursday.

Wednesday:
Wrote a blog post on Wednesday and then spent some time answering emails, paying bills, etc.

Doug and I took a much needed walk around the country block on a very foggy and cool day. Took some pictures too in which I mostly look stupid but he looks good. Posting the most decent one of us together: (in real life, our heads are about the same size, just in case you were wondering)

In the studio I painted the edges on some small paintings, finishing them up so that I can put them in a drawer, hehe.

I finished up two more of the initial ten paintings on my to do list. I would have gotten more done except the first one that I did was VERY pesky and I had to to wipe the paint off and start over several times. Bleh. It ended up pretty good though.

And I worked on the curtain hems again while I was watching TV on Wednesday evening.

Thursday:

I did two more paintings which leaves me with just two more out of the ten. My lunch with a friend/social life item was replaced with taking our cat, Hermine and our poodle Mr. Wilson to the vet. I did speak to four people (which is four more than I talked to all week) while I was there so I think that qualifies as a social outing!

And in VERY exciting news, I finished the curtains Thursday night. Took me a bit longer than I expected once I got out the sewing machine that I haven't used in about 6 years. However, after pushing a bunch of buttons, I eventually figured out how to run it without even having to refer to the owner's manual. Luckily the bobbin had enough thread in it, otherwise I would still be trying to figure out how to load that up. After I got everything set up, it only took me a few minutes to do the actual sewing part. It ALMOST made me want to dig out the quilt that I started when my daughter was born in 1997......

So today, I had planned to work on the other studio stuff, the underpainting for a portrait, drawing and starting a few Black Paintings. But I gotta be honest here; it is a drop dead gorgeous and very warm day outside and so I think I am bailing on most of my to do list today. I do plan on getting out in the garden and planting a few seeds (maybe tomorrow) but mostly I am just going to putter around in the yard and maybe take a walk. My son has a friend over and so there will definitely be chocolate chip cookies to bake later, so before I get to that I am going outside!

I will get back to all this productiveness/motivation/to do list silliness next Monday. Have a good weekend, everyone!