Studio Shots

Well, I went to unplug the computer and it began to work, so I thought I'd get these images up while I can.

These are photos taken of my studio right before Open Studios began last Friday night. I put up everything I have done here. I hate having blank walls! And after having a day of feeling that my work is very trivial (much of the work that the artists do here has so much content, while mine is more about observation and my response to it, meaning that I do landscapes, still lifes, and now portraits, in a fairly straightforward manner) I decided to embrace my "barn ness" and on Friday afternoon I did the underpainting of a nearby barn that is displayed on my easel. What the heck! Also, in this shot you can see part of a large still life I am working on. It's on canvas, stapled to the wall and I have to say that I am really enjoying working like that. I wish I had wall space at home. Anyway, it's a piece that I started when I was floundering with the figures, because I wanted to keep working on something, anything.



The rest of these are long shots of the portraits I have been working on. I will post better shots soon. I also want to talk more about what I am doing with the figures and will try to do that sometime this week. I am really cooking with some figure paintings right now!

Open House

Farm Structures, 2007, Oil on Panel, 12x16

I have had a busy few days which is why I haven't posted since last week. Despite the fact that I am frantically trying to finish up work for my show in January, and still have much to do to get ready for the holidays, oh like, you know, go shopping for gifts for the kids, Doug and I decided to have some people over for a bit of a holiday thing. Since I lost three days in the studio, this decision proves that I could be somewhat unbalanced. Heh.

I spent all day last Thursday, cleaning out my studio (everyone likes to see my studio) and sorting through a lot of junk and also through what seemed liked a million paintings that have come back, unsold, from various galleries. I learned that the world will not stop rotating if I throw a few lousy paintings into the garbage. We also cleaned the house. Well the downstairs anyway.


Friday, I did some baking, while Doug shoveled the driveway, by hand, because naturally we had had a good snowstorm on Thursday and we have been really lame about buying a snowblower or hiring someone to plow us out whenever it snows.

Saturday was a really enjoyable day, with many visitors, a warm fire, food, drink and the occasional embarrassing song playing through the stereo on my ipod (I confess to owning more than a few one hit wonders from the seventies), and I even sold a few of the paintings that had been returned from the galleries and were sitting around waiting for "their people" to find them. I was exhausted after all of this so it was lucky that we had yet another snowstorm on Sunday and I didn't have to actually go anywhere. The girls and I worked on a really tacky Christmas themed jigsaw puzzle all day.

Thanks to everyone for coming by, it was fun!

PS. I am also exceedingly happy to now have a clean studio to get back to work in. There are actually empty surfaces!

Sunday is For Road Trips

Two Trees in Front, 2007, Oil on Panel, 16x20

Sunday was the perfect day for a road trip. I decided to go visit Gary at his Open Studio, which is only about a two hour drive from our town. This time I took my son, Julien as he was very interested to see a potter's studio. He has taken pottery for years and LOVES his throwing class. He is deeply disappointed to be missing the fall pottery session due to playing on the football team. A football playing potter-our kids are well rounded! Anyway, Julien is pretty good company when he is not in his I-know-everything mode. I tortured him with my ipod on the way there and he tortured me with his ipod on the way home. Every time Lucinda began to sing he let out a loud, irritated sigh and I was lucky enough to hear each and every song ever recorded by Weird Al Yankovic. Heh. I never expected that I would ever have to listen to "Like a Surgeon" or "Eat It" ever again. I nearly wept with relief when he switched over to his other playlist that included The Beatles and Modest Mouse.

We had a lovely visit with Gary and his wife Maude. They are very nice and it was fun to see their purple house as well as Gary's studio and work. He gave a couple of demonstrations on his pottery wheel which were cool and my son is all jazzed up to throw a pitcher or a tall vase rather than the bowls he has been doing. Oh yeah, and we did a little shopping!

The late afternoon light was incredible on the drive home and I stopped a number of times to take pictures (which elicited more deep sighs from Julien). Good timing because I have to begin another batch of paintings today for the Pittsburgh show today and I could really use some new images.

Ok, I did my social thing, now it's back to work!