Painting up a Storm

    Last week I attended the Creative Painting convention, which happens here every year about this time. The convention took place at the Tropicana Hotel, but I slept in my own bed.  After all, it's only 25 minutes away.  There are so many exciting classes going on and a tempting trade floor to stroll, that I had a hard time deciding where to go next. I had a great time taking a few classes during the convention and one the Saturday before. 

 Here are two that are works-in-progress. The butterfly basket was a class with Lynne Deptula and amaryllis box with Ginger Edwards.

 I painted this blooming iris on a textured canvas with Diane Trierweiler, whose work I really admire. The canvas surface has a rough texture that was applied with a palette knife. It was an interesting experience to work on this gritty texture. 

I did finish my Song Sparrow painting with Shirley Koenig, even though she is a quick painter and am very happy with my new little bird painting. It was such a fun week and I even managed to learn a thing or two about painting technique.

Domino kitty is enjoying her new post by the window and naps in this snuggly spot whenever most mornings. 

What a great way to..........

begin the week! I sold my triptic print painting, "Under the Sea".  And it swam,... or rather flew across the Pacific to Hawaii to its new home.  Yay! I am very happy. Although I did enjoy looking at it and remembering how the paint went down and how it was to roll the paint over the fish for the printing step, I am really jazzed that someone enjoys it now in their home.  Actually she purchased it for her sister. How very nice that she bought it for a gift.

Several layers of paint were applied with brush, rubber fish, real shells, stones, cheese cloth, etc. to create this under-the-sea view. I really had fun experimenting with the paint. More is more, as they say. More paint, more texture, the more it seemed to look like I was really swimming with the fishes.

Made the smaller sections so that you could move them around in different order and the fish swim from one canvas to the others.  This was painted in 2007 for a Art teacher gallery show and has also been displayed in my home and in City of the World Art Gallery in Las Vegas.

Pull up a Comfy Chair

Here's some more texture-filled fun I had with paper mache. I was sooooo inspired by Sue Pelletier in the May/June 2008 issue of Cloth, Paper, Scissors that I had to create my own versions. I hope you like them.

They turned out very cush-ie, I think. I even had a fellow come to the viewing during First Friday at City of the World Art Gallery and say, "I know those chairs..." and proceed to name them.  What fun!

Owls in the Moonlight

Been really busy painting and getting my gallery/studio space all spruced up.  And I have been "burning the midnight oil" too. So painting some pictures of owls seemed to be the right decision.
Here are two little pictures I painted this last week. 

I had a blast painting "Moonlight Owl" canvas with acrylics.
He seems to have  alot of personality--- flapping a wing and watching out for whatever critters might happen by in the night.

Sometimes painting more than one at a time helps move the project along.  No overworking the paint and turning it into mud. No losing track of the shapes. Just filling in the images and working out the ideas, bringing the paintings to life.  

"Owl Duet". Just two owls, hanging out.

Early Spring songsters visit imaginary gardens

Spring seems to be arriving early this week. The sky has been clear and there is a faint cool breeze. And when I looked around my garden, it seemed the bulbs were being choked by the crafty crabgrass. And the crabgrass was laughing in triumph as it tried to overtake everything in it's way... Argh! What a mess!  It haunted me in those early morning dreams one has when you are slipping between sandman land and daylight. After my brief workout at the gym, I went right out to clean up the mess.

And on my painting table....
wishing for a better garden view, I splashed some gouche colors around to create these little impressionistic scenes. Added my favorite wire screening for a bitty fence, and a clay bird for personality and whimsy. Old text from a used encyclopedia, (no one uses these any more, do they?) was ripped into a cloud shape. One of my favorite things to do is rip paper. Just love those raggy edges.    Hope you like them.

"Nature is the art of God" favored quote of the day by Dante Alighieri.

"Yellow Bird Among Wildflowers"  and
"Bluebird Among Wildflowers"--Mini collages