A Big Thank You

The studio sale went very well thanks to all who came by. After the paintings and posters were all hung, my house felt festive and positively brimming with color, which makes me contimplate leaving them up all year. It's too bad that I have to send the paintings off so soon. As for the posters, I've been thinking that I might just have to use them as wall paper. That could be fun.

Many Little Birdies

So many birds on my dining room table.

Studio Sale

As always, I'm just now getting around to planning a Studio Sale for this year. What would life be like if I actually planned things out in advance? I'm guessing that I'll probably never know. Is this a symptom of being artistic, or is that just the excuse I've gotten used to giving?

If all goes well the sale will be on December 11th (and or) 12th. Wish me luck!

Christmas Card

It's not easy to design a Christmas Card. Laurie, from Poems Art, asked if I would try painting up a design for their card this year. We thought it would be neat to paint it on vintage Christmas sheet music and although the idea was wonderful my interpretation might have fallen a bit flat. The first card that I designed was a bit too springy and the second just wasn't exactly what I'd envisioned. Maybe try number three will be magic.

A New Home

Here's one of the paintings that found its way over to Evergreen Gallery for the small works show. I hope it finds a happy new home. The show opens at the end of this month and I'm excited to go see what all the other artists have come up with.

Small Works Show

These little bird paintings are going to make their way to the small works show at Evergreen Gallery. I haven't quite figured out yet how I'm going to frame them. I think I'll try mounting them on panel so that they look similar to my floral paintings.
Last week I showed some to my publisher, Laurie, who took a few to photograph and possibly use in their next line. It would be a fun departure from my other paintings and I think the small size would be great for gifts. I'm also going to design the Christmas card for Poems Art in the same style. I'll be using vintage Christmas sheet music in the background. I'll post some photos once I finish it.

Little Bird

I like the way this little guy turned out.

Yellow Bird

There is something much more intimate about painting on these poems than the way I traditionally paint on wood. Maybe it's just because the scale is so much smaller and it forces me to hold the page in my lap instead of up on the easel. I've been snuggling up on the couch with a pen and paper instead of staying down in my studio where I normally do all of my painting. This is great because I'm actually getting some work done later at night while I'm usually wasting time watching TV. Stay tuned for many more of these little paintings.

Pages and Pages

I've been having fun lately drawing on the pages of an old book of poetry that I found a few years ago at a thrift store. I already love old books, but this is a new take on an old obsession. Of course, I hope that other people like them too.

Going Gray

A couple of paintings in a bit more neutral pallette.

In the Blossoms

Here are two paintings that I'm currently working on (and actually liking quite a bit). I feel like they're getting close to being finished although I might add a darker purple/blue hue to the inside of the blossoms.

Set Design

Gretchen from Poems Art, the art publisher that I LOVE, just let me know that a set director may be using A Warm Summer Day I & II in an upcoming film or possibly on television. Something must be in the air these days. I'm hoping whatever show that it's used in will actually be shown in the U.S. so I'll have the chance of seeing it.
I think in my next life I might like to be a set designer. When I was a kid, our house was used in a made for TV movie (The Man With Three Wives staring Beau Bridges and Pam Dawber). It was a pretty terrible movie, but watching them transform our house was pretty amazing.

Hello Birdie

I'm having a lot of fun painting these birds. Although I realize that as I've been focusing on the birds I've lost sight of the florals and hopefully I can find a better balance between the two. I'm thinking of bringing some of these to the small works Holiday show at Evergreen gallery in November.

Let's go to the Movies

This painting, which I originally painted for a friend, is currently being used in a German movie that is being filmed here in Utah. This is the third movie that has used some of my original paintings, yet I've yet to seen anything of mine on the big screen. Every once in a while I'll see something on TV, but I'm still waiting for that awesome moment on the silver screen.

Tweet

A good friend of mine from high school got married this past weekend and this is the painting that I gave her for her wedding present. I'm always a little embarrassed to give a piece of art as a gift because it's a little presumptuous of me to assume that they'll want it, but I like knowing that my friends have a little piece of me in their homes, so they get it whether they like it or not.

For the Birds

I wouldn't say that I've become bored with my floral tapestries, but I have felt that they needed to move in a little bit of a different direction, so lately I've started incorporating images of birds into the mix. So far I've been both excited and perplexed by the process. It seems that it should be easy enough to integrate a bird into a painting of flowers, after all, the two are so often found together in art, but I found it to be a little bit more challenging than I had anticipated. Challenging yes, but exciting as well. Here is the painting that I worked on at the Vegas Market. The bird was very different while I was there and I've tweeked it alot since I got home. I'll be posting more bird images very soon. Stay tuned...

Vegas Market

Wow, they really do things big in Vegas. This past weekend Propac Images asked me to come to Vegas for the World Market trade show to paint live and sign limited edition prints. I thought I knew what to expect from a trade show, but this was no ordinary show. It was gigantic. The World Market in Vegas, where the event is housed, is comprised of four huge buildings (as tall as sixteen stories) all packed with showrooms on every floor. I had the chance to walk around a bit to look at some of the other showrooms, but even during my two hour tour I only made it through about one twentieth of what there was to see.
Thank you to the people from Propac Images. You were so gracious and made me feel right at home.

Something New

This piece is going to a show at Alpine Art that opens this Friday, August 21st. It's been a while since I've felt like I branched into something new and this painting feels fresh to me. I realize that it's still in the same vein of the genre that I've been working in for a long time, but I came about it at a different angle and the result is exciting to me. I'm hoping to get a good response from it because I'd like to paint more pieces that are similar to it.

Writing

My friends and family know that I'm a very fickle person, flitting from one project to another; one passion to the next. My poor art has been put on the back burner for the past couple of months as I've been working on some writing projects (my other art form). But not to worry, I finished the short story and the essay that I was writing for the Writers @ Work Fellowship contest that I enter every year and now I will hunker down and get back to working with brushes again.