Mother's Day Show

I finally delivered eight paintings to Utah Artist Hands for the Mother's Day Show. Pam has a beautiful shop with an amazing eclectic mix of artwork that I would love to be able to buy. I'm always jealous of the people who go into a gallery with the intent to buy and I always feel a little guilty that I'm not one of those people more often. Most of the artwork in my house has been acquired through the beautiful act of trading. But it's a great feeling when I can actually pay an artist for her work.

Epiphany

I'm still getting ready for an upcoming show at an art gallery right here in Salt Lake, Utah Artist Hands. I'm still madly painting of course, but sometimes I think I do my best work at the last minute. This painting is one of a pair that will be up in the show opening in time for mother's day. I love the new color palette I used in these paintings. They're inspired by vintage, Art Deco fabric that I found in a new book.
My friends and family know that I'm easily distracted, an entrepreneur by heart, and I'm not really myself unless I have a new passion to follow up on every few months. This past weekend while at a beautiful fabric store with my sister Cathy I decided to finally follow through with the passion for textiles that I've had for years. In what you might call an epiphany I decided to start designing a line of fabrics based off of my paintings, which I suppose brings things full circle considering the fact that my paintings are inspired by textiles to begin with.

Bon Voyage!

This piece, along with three others, are on their way to England. Liberty Gallery in Kent will be the first overseas gallery to display my paintings. Hopefully they find a happy home in England. Now if only I could hand deliver the paintings myself. Too bad my American dollar wouldn't get me too far.

Metaphor

I really struggled with these pieces. Sometimes a painting will just fall together, each stencil fitting in exactly the right spot, each flower the right size and color to begin with, and other times I feel like I'm fighting the whole time, exhausted at every decision, changing color and composition left and right until finally I end up too tired to paint any more. The funny thing is that it's usually these paintings that I end up liking the most in the long run, possibly because they were unexpected. They weren't the pieces I sought out to make, but were the paintings that struggled to form themselves out of the layers of paint, stencil and charcoal. No need to tell me that it's a metaphor for something larger. . .

Making a Stencil

This time lapse video shows the process of a stencil being made. First I drew the image on Bristol Board, referring to an image I had sketched in my sketch book. After I was happy with the shape I began cutting out the image with an Exacto Knife. Presto.

A Little Bit of Red

I was just about to mail this painting off, along with a few others, to Monsoon Gallery in Pennsylvania when the gallery director contacted me to let me know that they'd like to feature them in a floral show in May and June. I think the show might get some more red pieces to go along with this one.

It's not all fun and paint

I'm getting a group of paintings ready to mail off to Art Resources Gallery in Minnesota and have reached the stage in the painting process that I dread each and every time, framing and wiring. I have to admit that my husband actually cradles each of my paintings, but it's up to me to paint and varnish the edges, a task I would love to pawn off to one of my apprentices if only I had any.