More mini-paintings

Landscape 2  3 1/2"x 2 1/4" acrylic

I finished the second mini-landscape. I like the bright blue of the sky in this one. It's also feels good to complete some work so quickly. The surface areas of these little paintings are so small that they come along pretty easily. I'm doing my best to keep the style loose and not whip out the 00 brush trying to make ridiculous details.

Landscape 3  3 1/2"x 2 1/4" acrylic

My wonderful husband just returned from a visit with family out in Las Vegas. While he was out there he kindly took many photos of the landscape. This mini-painting is based on some photos he took from Red Rock canyon. He also brought back some beautiful shots of exotic florals that I am dying to paint. I'm looking forward to painting some botanical studies of flowers from our garden. I have a large hydrangea on the desk right now, with a pastel about halfway complete. Now that the weather has cooled a bit it is much more enjoyable to paint in the studio. It's 80 degrees in here now, as opposed to the 99 degree heat I was working in last week.

So glad autumn is making an appearance!

Both of these paintings are available for purchase on my website:
http://www.lisakretchman.com/artpages/grass_and_sky1.html
http://www.lisakretchman.com/artpages/desert_landscape.html

Father's Day gift becomes a cool font

One of the newsletters I subscribe to is from the MyFonts website. It's a great resource if you are interested in typography. Their newsletter also interviews the people behind their fonts and gives you a sense of their training, history, creative influences and some samples of their work. I like that you get the story of the artist, and what made him or her interested in pursuing a career in typography.

This month's newsletter featured Alejandro Paul, and included a story behind his Mati font, digitized from a Father's day gift from his eleven year-old son. Enjoy!

Paintings from Vermont trip

Trees in Vermont  8 1/2"x11" pastel

I just had a wonderful opportunity to travel with my friend April, another artist, to Vermont for a few days. We spent time hiking, taking pictures of the beautiful scenery and making artwork. The painting above was the view out the back of the condo we stayed at in Stowe. I tried this one as a plein air work.

Cherries  5" x 6" pastel

This smaller still-life is one I created while my legs were recovering from a climb up Pinnacle Peak. We hiked 1.6 miles up a very steep slope - totally worth it to see the 360 degree view of the mountains and towns around. We also took a hiking tour of some waterfalls in the Stowe area, and a gondola ride up Mount Mansfield, the highest point in Vermont. I'm hoping with all of the photos we took that I'll be making some great landscapes soon. I just recently purchased a new Kodak digital camera, and discovered a few fun features while on this trip - there's a cool panoramic photo option that takes a series of three photos (the camera shows a slice of the previous photo so that you can line the next one up) and then stitches them together on the fly (!). Pretty nifty!

Both of these paintings are available for purchase through my website:
http://www.lisakretchman.com/artpages/trees_in_vermont.html
http://www.lisakretchman.com/artpages/cherries.html

Repurpose unexpected materials into mini paintings

Landscape 1 3" x 2" acrylic

Here's a little painting I created last night. I had some small pieces of card stock that came out of a business card holder that I bought a few months ago, and was wondering what to do with them. I felt like trying these out for mini acrylic paintings - something I could paint quickly and keep simple and loose. I like the idea of repurposing an item that would otherwise be thrown out (or at least thrown into the recycling bin) and making a work of art in an unexpected size.

Landscape 2  3" x 2" acrylic

Roger A. Kinnunen blogged the idea of making mini paintings on on baseball dummy cards a while back, and details his process as well. So far I have worked on these paintings with the cards flat on my desk. I gesso the cards to cover the slick surface, then add an underpainting, and build up detail. I have ten cards gessoed and ready to work with for this experiment.

Both of these paintings are available for purchase through my website:
http://www.lisakretchman.com/artpages/grass_and_sky1.html
http://www.lisakretchman.com/artpages/grass_and_sky2.html

New paintings

Boat at Menemsha  10" x 8" pastel

I happened by a gallery/store on my last visit to Putnam, CT with a friend. Silver Circle Studio is right on Main Street next to the community parking lot, and they had some space opening up for August 1st. So for the last few weeks I have been working on some pastel paintings to sell there. Saturday I brought three 8 x 10 framed landscapes and eight 4 x 4 framed mixed-media paintings inspired by the heart series.

Open  4" x 4" pastel

Shine  4" x 4" pastel

Carly, the owner of Silver Circle took in the paintings and got to work on hanging everything while Brian and I took a look about the Putnam area.

Silver Circle Studio

Just down the street we stopped in at Victoria Station Cafe for some fantastic coffee and baked goods. They have a great atmosphere with lots of couches and private nooks to sit back and read or surf the internet while you enjoy their food.

Inside Victoria Station Cafe

They also have a lovely patio out front which I'd like to come back and try out later. We also checked out some antique stores and the other artwork at Silver Circle and in town. There's some beautiful work there, and I'm excited at the opportunity to participate with the artistic community. Let's hope all goes well with these pieces.

Inside the hallway connecting Silver Circle and the other businesses on Main Street