Headed North

What a surprise!  Just a quick update to say that the painting, Mackerel Trio, was purchased and is now headed to Maine -- good thing, I bet they will love being up there.   I really appreciate my artist friend (CC) for buying them and helping me face down the challenge of painting fish from real life.  It was fun!

Mackerel Trio

p.s. Wow there are now 218 artists signed up for the September 30 in 30!  Click here to see them all.  

30 in 30 Challenge!

I can't believe I'm actually doing this, but what the heck . . .   You all know I love challenges and hope I can meet this one without too many "yucks."  Artist Leslie Saeta is running a September event to paint 30 paintings in 30 days.   Including me, 174 artists have already signed up.  Each thumbnail will take you to the artist's blog and gallery.  You can click here to see them all (scroll down a bit).   Leslie is an amazing artist and has quite a following so I'm sure you'll enjoy the virtual gallery she is creating with this challenge.

The hardest thing for me is figuring out what to paint.  Leslie has the great advice to plan everything out ahead of time, make a schedule, provision for contingencies / pitfalls, expect emergencies, get organized, commit, and just do it!!!.  Sounds like an artist Project Manager!

More to come. . . .   I plan to post most (if not all) to Daily Paintworks and put them on auction.  I am getting "out of the box" and painting things I'm not used to and just going-for-it in the spirit of the challenge.  Egads, 30 paintings - feel free to comment your "what to paint" ideas, I definitely need them!

Well in case you need a painting to motivate you (a blog always needs some sort of eye candy, don't you think?), here's one on auction that I cannot believe hasn't been gobbled up yet.  One of my favorites.  

Salsa Plan 
on auction

Okay get ready for daily blog emails for a while, Enjoy!

Lemon Party

Love this bowl of lemons!  The store had bags on sale for less than $3.00 which is shocking because the loose ones are 75 cents each around here.  Probably even more surprising, they were juicier and smoother on the inside than the huge, individual ones.   Bought them for a special family dinner to host my son-in-law’s parents visiting from the Netherlands.  A wonderful evening!

Really enjoyed painting this setup - got out one of my last remaining RayMar panels -- a very "toothy" surface which I don't particularly like, but guess what, I loved the outcome.   Same thing happened with another painting so may just have to buy a few more of them.   To me it's like painting on gravel covered in sand and stuccoed vs. painting on an ice rink!  Oh my, what to do.  I guess it goes without saying, that I have square bowls to go with the square plates. 

Lemon Party

Enjoy!

Moonflower Madness

I have been madly in love with Moonflowers for years.  That they open at dusk and are so delicate is just fascinating! They are the size of saucers much bigger than morning glories.  Every year I start seeds indoors and set them out in patio pots as soon as possible.  For those of us with a non-green-thumb*, these are quite easy to grow.  I’m sure there are a few YouTube videos on the topic. Once they start blooming, there are two or three a day until the weather gets too cold in the fall. Even though I’ve grown these for years, I never before noticed that they have a kind of a starfish shape in the center.  It was way fun painting that part. If that isn't enough, the leaves are shaped like hearts!  What's not to like?  Including a reference photo so you can see the starfish and sort of see the heart-shaped leaves.  

 Moonflower Madness
see DPW Auctions starting Friday 8/23

* okay, I have a green thumb, but it is ‘cause it’s covered with paint – usually Viridian, Phthalo or Sap Green!  Ha, ha. 

Reference photo

Enjoy!

Vacation -> Hamilton Bermuda

Painted a lot lately and it feels so good.  I hope I can keep it going!

We love Bermuda and went again this year.   

This is a wonderful building at a main intersection (Queen and Front Street) in the capital city of Bermuda.   I love how both the shadow and sunlit sides are so vibrant. Every day we would venture into the city for great food, sightseeing and taking the ferry to other parts of the island.   All the buildings in Bermuda are painted in dramatic colors, but this one really stood out to me.  I haven’t painted many buildings, and this was much harder than I expected, but imagine it’s like the rest of this craft – the more you do it, the more familiar you get.  I hope to do a few more and incorporate a looser style  (which I prefer!).  Oh yeah, if you go to Bermuda be sure and get the Fish Chowder – it’s on every menu, so not to worry about where to go for it.  

Hamilton Bermuda - Gosling building
see DPW Auctions starting Sunday 8/25

p.s. This year we went at the end of July and landed smack on the biggest holiday in Bermuda.  It is a four day event and almost everything is closed!  Seriously every shop and practically every restaurant is shuttered for most of the time.  The hotels are open and our favorite restaurant was in business so we survived!  A feature of the celebration is a two day cricket match which was quite delightful.  It's so funny because they only have two teams, switching East vs. West every year. They make it pretty clear that there's no need to understand the game, care about who's winning, what time it is, or what happens next - it's all about hanging out with friends and family, taking a break and being happy!  Love that.  On our way home, we asked "so who won the game?"  The response was well uh it was a tie because uh it rained too much.  See the end didn't really matter anyway, but the fans definitely know which team they root for and made another life-time memory!

This is the doorman at our hotel - quite a character and knows what a Bermud-i-ful Day means!

Update and News

Okay, I haven’t painted lately, but planning to do so today – nice rainy, got nothing else to do kind of day!

About the shows I mentioned a few weeks ago.  One is quite unusual – Amazon Web Services is opening an office building in Herndon and asked the local art community to submit art for their new office space.  An employee panel voted on the accepted art (nearly 300 pieces) and then the other employees will vote on the ones Amazon will purchase.  The piece I submitted was not accepted, but I volunteered at the “intake event” and got to see some incredible art and meet quite a few artists.  I am still WOWed at how rare it is to meet so many artists and talk with them about their art.  

The other show, Art at the Mill (Berryville, VA), is in October.  It is held twice a year, about 300 artists and over 1,000 pieces of art – plus it's a wonderful season to head out to the Shenandoah Mountains.  I am thrilled that two of my pieces were accepted!   

Complementary Pair  
20 x 16 inches, oil on canvas

Redheads for Tea 
6 x 6 inches, oil on Gessobord

One last note – another blog carnival featuring A Day in the Life of several artists, is below.  I opted out, but I bet there are some interesting stories . . . .    oh, I heard there might be a few giveaways worth checking out.

Cindy Michaud	Jo MacKenzie	Christine Parker	Marla Laubisch
Joanne Grant	Kevin Larson	Cindy Williams	Sharon Graves
Sally Binard	Karen Johnston

Enjoy!

Let's Get the Party Started

This one was so much fun to paint.  The grape tomatoes from the farmer’s market were looking for trouble and happened upon the jalapeno pepper who wanted to start a party.  They huddled together and made a plan, then headed off to find the rest of the team (oh, I mean ingredients).  Guess I better go hide the limes I’m planning to paint!

Salsa Plan

This painting will be added to the Daily Paintworks auction on Sunday 8/11.   

Life is joy you make one moment at a time. . . 

Recharged!

Getting back into the swing of painting now that we’re back from a wonderful vacation to Bermuda.  Going to try painting a few of the photos – the colors are so fabulous and the island so beautiful.  I suspect it will be a bit of a challenge switching from painting real life / still life, but ready to dive in.

This is a do-over of a painting because the panel was damaged on the first one. So very disappointing and I think added to my lack of painting mojo.  Hopefully that’s behind me now!  I am mesmerized by these beautiful royal blue, gold rimmed plates we found on our honeymoon.  I think you know I LOVE grapefruit.  Not too many of us do, but hopefully we all at least like looking at them.  I am enjoying the fact that I get to keep the first one despite its flaws. . . 

Luscious Elegance #2

This painting will be added to the Daily Paintworks auction on Saturday 8/10.