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!

A Few More Additions

Barn Near Patterson Road Road, 2009, Oil on Cradled Panel, 4x6

Well, today I got nine unsold, small format paintings back from a local gig, so I just added them to my sales blog. Last ones!

The half off sale was more successful that I ever imagined, in fact I was pretty much totally ill prepared for it! First I messed up the paypal code on all the entries, then I didn't add the inventory section on all of the posts so that some of the paintings sold twice before I caught it. I would like to thank those (and you know who you are) who graciously agreed to buy a different painting than the one they initially chose. But once I got that all straightened out, I think I managed to get the shipments out pretty quickly and safely and hopefully to the right buyer. Heh. Still have a few more in the pipeline and plan to get those out next week. Anyway, thanks so much to all of my lovely readers/buyers/friends, I really appreciate that so many of you want to live with my little paintings.

So it turns out that I also greatly miscalculated just how busy I would be at Christmas, while also finishing up work for a solo show (to be delivered on December 29) AND preparing for the month long residency in Vermont (leaving January 3). Good grief, someone remind me of all this next time I overbook my life, k? I might finish the last of the paintings for the show this weekend, and today Doug is in the city picking up an order of panels for me, which will all need to be prepped before I leave for Vermont. I am also planning to do some work on paper, so I need to gesso those as well. But I am trying my best to at least take a two days off from the studio; tomorrow and Friday (well, unless none of the kids want me around then I might sneak upstairs and apply a coat of gesso or two). Tomorrow is cookie day, we are going bake a zillion cookies and even if it kills me, I am going to sit on the sofa in our living all day on Friday, reading and relaxing!

And I actually do plan on posting again soon (well probably) as I have a bunch of links I want to share. In the meantime though, I hope you all have a great holiday!!!

Crazy December

Good Bones, 2009, Oil on Birch Panel, 16x16

Crazy, wacky, insanely busy week (and month) here. I am really feeling the show deadline looming and am freaking out about whether I will have enough work ready. Three weeks seems like a long time but we all know how fast that is going to spin by.

I am also thinking a lot about my upcoming residency at the Vermont Studio Center in January. The show opens on Saturday, January 2 and then I will be driving to Vermont the next day. Some very precise military-style logistical planning may be necessary for that weekend........

Like the last time I went (almost two years ago) I am planning to work on painting things that are NOT landscapes! I want to focus on the 'People You Know' series, the abstracts, and will maybe make some collages while the paint is drying.

Unlike last time, I have few concerns about sharing a bathroom, meeting people, making friends or finding someone to sit with at dinner. Turns out I am still quite sociable in the right environment and certainly being around other real live artists will help facilitate my chattiness! I still have occasional contact with a few people who work there and I also look forward to meeting fellow artist/blogger J.T. Kirkland, who will be doing a residency as well.

So currently the plan for the rest of December is to have a birthday, paintpaintpaint, have Christmas, deliver paintings for the show, prep all the panels I need for the residency, pack up a month's worth of art supplies and clothing, have a kiss or two with Doug on New Year's Eve, and attend the show's opening reception before leaving for a month.

And that list does not make me feel tired at all. Heh.

Show Prep (and neverending orange walls)

Break On Through, 2009, Oil on Birch Panel, 9x9

I am currently working on paintings for a show in January at The Harrison Gallery in Williamstown, MA. This is my fourth solo show at this gallery and I am very grateful to have this exhibition opportunity again. Sales in general have picking up a bit, so that is encouraging too mostly because I am totally running out of storage space.

I have been making good progress in the studio despite constant interruptions and my current obsession with Facebook. Heh. But the plan is to get the landscapes finished by the end of November and then work on six portraits for the show during December. While my landscapes do quite well in this gallery, the director has agreed to include a few portraits this time. I should have been working on those earlier in the fall but for some reason I kept putting them off. I think maybe I just have to breeze in at the last minute and knock them out. Sometimes that works best. And I have decided not to stress if it doesn't. I will have plenty of landscapes ready for the show.

I probably should be painting in the studio today but instead I will be painting the walls in my daughter's room today, which has become a neverending project. Will explain all that in a future post, but just so you know, today it feels like I will be painting orange walls forever.

Finally Finished Floundering (say that 3 times fast)

So a few weeks ago I packed up my new work, including the abstracts and the People You Know series and drove off to show everything to one of my current galleries then to another gallery that recently contacted me about having a show next year.

The director at my current gallery was lukewarm about the abstracts and more interested in the portraits. We spent some time discussing what should be included in my upcoming solo show and then eventually I agreed to send most of the barns and landscapes that I paint, to her gallery. I didn't expect that I would STOP paintings the landscape, I just wanted to do fewer of them and channeling the ones I do to the gallery that has historically sold the most landscapes makes sense and feels right. The landscapes and barns are still what sells and frankly I have to consider that right now. Her market is not for abstracts and portraits can be a tough sell too. She did agree to include about six of the portraits in the show, along with the landscapes, so I am pleased about that.

The show will be coming up in January and for the last two weeks I have been floundering a bit about what to start with, frittering away my days and wringing my hands. I still want to work on the abstracts, to keep developing them, but I do need to get started on the landscapes for the show and then get back to working on the portraits which have been on the back burner for several months. I have been focusing on landscapes and barns for so long that it sure feels strange to have to do some scheduling on subject matter! But finally I formulated a plan: this week I decided to do one more batch of abstracts (including some little black abstracts which I will talk about next time) before I set them aside for a few months. Next week I will begin the landscapes/barns and after I have at least a dozen of those ready for the show, I'll get back to work on the People You Know series. At least that is the plan. Usually I find it necessary to have some sort of plan in place. It's not set in stone, in fact I am sure it will morph into something different as I get going and I am flexible about having to do that, but having something to start with gives me enough comfort to get started.

The other gallery I visited liked ALL the work I showed them and the director had a great concept about how to show all three bodies of work. However, nothing has been confirmed yet, so I will wait until contracts get signed before discussing that. Have I mentioned that I heartily believe in jinxes? I do.

Vacation, All I Ever Wanted

Wow, it's been so long since I signed into Blogger to write a post that I had to look up my password. I am feeling kind of sad about that actually, but yet still cannot seem to keep up with this blog. Facebook has taken me over, I admit it! I have considered making my fan page more like my blog, but haven't decided yet on that. For now, I will keep trying to post here, and will just see what happens, I guess.

Anyway, last week we went on a family vacation. We rented a cabin on Lake Winnepesaukee in New Hampshire and had a great time, even if it was REALLY cold for the first few days. (what was with the weather this summer???? cold, cold, cold) We did a lot of swimming, fishing, rowboating, canoeing, and a lot of sitting around. That was my favorite part. Heh. We also spent an afternoon doing some watercolors, finished up the school clothes shopping at the outlet stores in North Conway and drove to Ogunquit, ME for a day to swim in the ocean and sit on the beach.

And then we got home and boom! Kids back in school yesterday and suddenly I have a ton of work to do. This last year has been so quiet for me which was nice (if somewhat demoralizing) but now I have two solo shows scheduled, and a month long residency in Vermont coming up early next year. As soon as papers are signed, I will give up the details about all that!

So I have some more new work to talk about next time but in the meantime, go ahead and check out the small abstracts of 'The Reds' on my sales blog.

Working Space

Deep Tracks, 2009, Oil on Birch Panel, 16x20

I am making some progress on the paintings for my upcoming show in April. However, it looks like my husband has to do some traveling at the end of March, plus I seem to have an incredible number of meetings and appointments during the week of the 16th. So I am going to try and finish up the remainder of the work that I need to do in the next two weeks. Huh. That should be fun. I am planning to do one huge piece, a few sorta big ones-24x36-ish and maybe a few more 8x10 pieces. Those along with the ones I have finished and the eight or so that are in progress will give me plenty for the show.

But because I really have to hustle for the nest few weeks I have decided to make this a more visual blog during that time. I like writing my posts and prattling on and on and I seem to have an audience for all that silliness, but putting everything together sure can take a chunk out of my day and I can't lose that time right now. What I am planning to do is to put up finished work each day, as well as photos that will illustrate the gradual deterioration of my usually tidy studio while I am preparing for a show. I have always wanted to document that and now seems like a good time.

So this is what it looks like today:

The project tables are where I prep my panels and also paint the edges of the panels, and put on the hanging wire after the paintings are finished. It's also where I stack the stuff that I don't know where else to put.

I used to have all of my paint tubes on the top of the flat file, but I put them in a drawer so that I could have more room to stack the rest of the stuff that I don't know where else to put. Heh. Right now it is loaded with finished paintings for my sales blog and also piles of reference photos for the People You Know series. I also keep the small scale paintings that are drying in between glazes on the tabletop easels here.

I do most of my painting at this easel.

I use this easel for the in progress paintings. Right now two portraits are there, but I will need to move them as soon as I begin the large landscape panels.

They both need more work but here are some close-ups of the portraits. They look a little washed out in these photos, but you get the idea. I am very happy with the redhead in the bottom photo and Doug really, really likes the seated woman.

Here I Go

30x40

I am hoping to work on this painting tomorrow, along with another large piece from the People You Know series.

However, and I feel like I should be shouting this out VERY LOUDLY-tomorrow is also the day I officially begin the landscape paintings for a solo show that I have coming up in April at The Harrison Gallery in Williamstown, MA. This is the first time since last July that I have had an exhibition to works towards. Frankly, I am over the moon to have a real live goal again. The self imposed ones just weren't cutting it.

Time to ROCK!