Queen Anne's Lace in acrylic

Queen Anne's Lace  6" x 6" acrylic

Another painting for the Attleboro Expo for the Senses, this study of Queen Anne's lace makes for an enjoyable subject to paint. I'll probably try a few more variations of these flowers from some photos I took lat summer.

Attleboro Expo for the Senses

Lilacs  7" x 5" acrylic

Thanks to a good friend Kim, I found out that The Attleboro Arts Museum is working with the city of Attleboro to create the Expo for the Senses at the end of this month. Luckily I was accepted as an artisan for the event, and will be selling my paintings and prints from a booth there on Saturday June 26th! The Expo runs from 12 - 5 pm and there will be music, food and handmade arts, crafts and jewelry for sale. The event is free and outdoors in downtown Attleboro, MA.

I have some pastels that I am framing for the event, but am juiced to create a bunch more paintings this month. Here's the first one I painted to get in the groove - back to acrylics for a bit. I'll be working on lots of small canvases to keep the work affordable, and it's really fun to paint quickly, and see progress in a short period of time. This first piece took me around three hours. Our lilac tree lost a few branches earlier this year, so I cut all the flowers and got them into water as fast as I could. Lilacs don't last too long once cut, so I took lots of photos to make paintings of later. I really like the yellow/purple combination.

I'll be posting more artwork as the paintings progress. I've been back to work on my Heart Art project as well, so I'm looking forward to lots more art blogging!

I am Ms. Crankypants

So one of my goals is to be a happier, more productive artist. I really want to be creative, leave anxiety and worry behind me, and be actively working towards the future I want.

Today, however, I am Ms. Crankypants.

We have two beautiful Australian Shepherds and two cats, and one of them has given me poison ivy. The dogs are the most suspect, based on the location of my rash. It seems that I ran my hands through somebody's fur and then unknowingly spread urushiol oil over parts of my body (including my face) when I got ready for bed. And I am not a happy camper.

My husband has checked the dog run, pulled anything looking suspicious, and with the advice of our vet, washed the dogs with Dawn dish detergent. I have laundered and wiped down anything I have touched that might carry the oil, and it looks like the rash has stopped spreading, so we are successful in that at least. I've been scrubbing down with Zanfel and am working on drying out the rash with a cream from the doctor. I just prepped some oatmeal for a bath that I am looking forward to tonight.

Husband is working from home this week, which has been helpful to me, but can't be too much fun for him what with my current state. It's somewhat depressing to be covered in itchy rash, and off and on I am pretty damn irritable. After one particularly low moment in which he said something along the lines of: "Well, I'll do what I can but it's challenging to get rid of the plants", I think I lost my mind and yelled some demand about him being more positive and to just lie to me and say it will get better (!) for the sake of my sanity. I eventually regained my senses, but it's been rough.

Since that outburst, hubby is doing his best to lift my spirits with much joking and poking and general silliness. He has also been kind in telling me that he thinks I am beautiful (hard to believe it when parts of your face look like sandpaper). I truly hope none of you out there get poison ivy, though it is unfortunately likely some of you will. I am looking forward to feeling human again soon.

Recycled Art Show!

Things have been busy lately, on the digital art side. I haven't been submitting as much art work as I would like to local shows though. So when I saw this one I jumped on it. West Side Arts in Providence is holding a "green" exhibition, Reduce, Reuse, Recycle. All of the art included was to be made with 100% recycled or repurposed materials (plus paint). 

I had a little lead time on this one, and I just felt like experimenting, so I created two pieces - and they will both be included at the show!!

Seasons  8" x 29" paper, found plant spikes, gloss medium and thread

Spiral  8 1/2" x 8" cork, pins, antique buttons and acrylic

A lot of the work on "Seasons" was just rolling up paper into enough tubes to create the tapestry effect. I grabbed all of my junk mail and then started with colors that jumped out at me. I tried to limit the slices of paper to be within large areas of color to intensify the color story. I made the tubes thinking that I would string them on these plant spikes that I salvaged from the garden.

The beginning of the project

There was a range of values within the blues that I found, so I started experimenting with a gradating series of tubes, and then started looking for more shades that made a nice transition. I really like the effect, and it made me feel like this had a wintry mood. It was a little bland, so I added a vertical stripe of color that still fit the theme. 

Playing around with shades of color

Once I had this much done, I liked the texture, and thought I would expand the piece to include four panels - one for each season. And so I went back to cutting out paper from junk mail, fashion catalogs, and old magazines I had saved. Using the first piece as a model, I repeated the gradating effect with colors that reminded me of each season - greens of spring, broken by a line of pink, like flower blossoms. The summer piece was based on warm sunny tones, with a watery blue contrast. The autumn piece was deep reds and gold like New England foliage.

My project workspace

OK - let me tell you, this took a freakin' long time to make all the little paper tubes. There are 260 of them in the final piece, and I made more than that as I tested and eliminated color gradations. Eventually I got the four panels worked out, and using some thread, strung the plant spikes together. I wrapped the individual rows with a perpendicular plant spike, again with thread. 

Sorting by color

That finished up "Seasons", and I'm happy with the result! "Spiral" was a more straightforward process - I sliced some corks that I had saved, and assembled them with some pins from my Grandmother's sewing basket. They were heavy-duty numbers, so they held the cork rigidly, similar to a DNA model. Once I had the cork lined up as I liked, I painted the front surface with metallic acrylic, and embellished a few of them with buttons my Grandmother had saved. It was a much quicker project, and really enjoyable in a different way - it was less color story and more of a sculptural form.

If you are in the Providence area on Friday May 21st, consider coming to the opening reception (6 - 10pm). The show runs through June 11th. Here's the Facebook event page. Enjoy!

Sisters - second charity Art Heart

Things are progressing with my work for Olivia's Heart Fund, a charity working to fight CHD (congenital heart defect). Pixel-Artistry has been redesigning the OHF website, and it has recently gone live! I know we will be making a few more tweaks, but the bulk of the work is done, and that frees me up to put more time into the Heart Art project.

As CHD awareness week lands in February of each year, the gallery event we are planning to show the series of   hearts will be in February of 2011. Now my original plan was to render 20 hearts - each for a person or family who has suffered with CHD. It is possible to hold the event with fewer hearts, but that is my goal. OHF  has been locating families who are willing to participate, and their stories are slowly coming in. To stay on schedule, I'll have to complete a heart each  2-3 weeks. As I'm working on the artwork, I remind myself that making the paintings too complex will slow my progress, and potentially paralyze me in the creative process. So it's important to balance narrative and simplicity.

original version - Sisters  10" x 10" mixed-media

The second heart depicts the story of sisters diagnosed with truncus arteriosus. 


For this painting, I wanted to depict the sisters, as well as the branching of the heart indicating truncus. With some internet research, I found a few medical illustrations of hearts with truncus, and began thinking about the branching and life - somewhat of a tree of life emanating from the heart. I sketched out the concept in Adobe Photoshop, settling on sisters holding hands, facing this tree, which represents both the defect and the life they are living beyond it.

The printed sketch

I printed the digital sketch, and transferred it to watercolor paper, where I began an underpainting. This helps when I am filling in with pastel later, so that the paper has more tooth, and the color has a lot of impact when it's blended in. It's also helpful to me in that I can brush out the background quickly without worrying too much about it looking perfect at first. As I worked on the underpainting, I made some changes from the original sketch. The heart in the background was just too literal, so I left the truncus branching, and let the heart become a full tree.

Detail of the branches in pastel

With that resolved, I started filling in the heart center with pastel. the linework in this design was delicate, so I used pastel pencils quite a bit. I felt the tree should have more life and more color as well, so I added leaves to the branches. Because the hearts of both girls are linked by this form of CHD, I added gold-leaf hearts to each of their silhouettes.

Detail of the gold leaf hearts

The last element was to complete the outside edge around the heart. I've been trying to create a vibrant, radiant effect for this portion of the paintings. This was completed with layers of soft pastel, transitioning through several colors. I really like the way this painting worked, and so I feel it is complete. It tells enough of the story to invite the viewer in, and perhaps ask for more.

Layering of pastel for the outside edge

You can read more about the OHF Heart Art here, and you can support the charity here.

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UPDATE!!

As referenced here, I decided to make a change to this piece. 


At the time I created this heart, I was torn on whether to include symbolism for a third child who was not afflicted with CHD. As the painting was detailed already, I opted to focus on the two CHD sisters. But after some thought, I decided to incorporate symbolism for the third sibling. 

updated art - Sisters, 10" x 10" mixed-media  

As I pictured her looking out for her sisters, I thought perhaps she should be there, looking over them from the background. I envisioned her as a brilliant bird nested in the tree, watching over the girls.

detail of the nesting bird

Luckily I was able to add this symbolism as another layer over the branches using pastel pencils. The paper still had enough tooth to accept more detail, and I think the bird is just conspicuous enough without overpowering the design.

Focus

Wow! It's been a while since I blogged. My intention was to be posting at least every week, with some new artwork. But things have gotten busy on the digital side of my business, and so my focus shifted away from the  blog for a while.While I am grateful for the opportunities to bring in some regular business, I do not want to lose sight of my artistic goals. It's important to me that I balance the digital work with painting and creative pursuits.

So the further I get from creating my own artwork, the further I am from happiness. At least I have been able to create a few new pieces during my blogging hiatus. Since I am so far behind on posting the art, I'll try to catch up from where I left off a while back.

My husband and I were visiting with family in Attleboro, and we took a walk downtown to check out the Attleboro Arts Museum. Lucky me! Not only was the gallery there open, but they were having the opening reception for their Celebrating Diversity show (sweet!). I got a chance to check out some very inspiring artwork, see the museum space, and pick up information about their upcoming events. By the way - there was some fascinating work at the diversity show, and one of the first displays there was a series of small sculptures - Army of the Imperfectly Dressed by CA Stigliano, who was my wood carving teacher at MassArt! Something about art and my MassArt connections coming around again makes me feel like I'm on the right track.

After the show I became a member of the museum, and created two mixed-media pieces to submit for the 2010 Spring Flower show at the end of March. ...and WOOT! Both pieces were accepted! Since the theme of the art show was Light and Dark: a Celebration of Contrast, I worked from some of my flower photos that had heavy contrast and I hoped would make decent compositions.

Queen Anne's Lace  8" x 10" pastel

This first painting is soft pastels on black paper. Of the two, it was my husband's favorite. Someone at the show liked it as well, as it sold during the exhibition!

Sunset Blooms  10" x 8" mixed-media

This second painting is mixed-media - I started with a loose acrylic underpainting on a watercolor block, and then layered soft pastel over it. I really love the color of the flowers, and thought the deep blue would make a nice contrast. This piece was selected for a merit award by the judges (WOOT x 2!). So I have to say, I'm very happy with how things went at this show. The painted work by all of the artists was fantastic, and the show also included floral and landscape designs from several local businesses, each inspired by classic pieces of art. There were some really creative interpretations of the theme.

I have some more new work to post, so I'll be back on the blog (tomorrow, hopefully) to continue with the catch-up session. Some personal pieces, as well as more work on the Heart Art for the charity show coming up in 2011.

Revisiting portraiture

Now that I have some more time to devote to pastel work, I've been able to create some portraits of my own family and pets. The first is of one of our Australian shepherds, who is a beautiful  black tri-color. The other portrait is of my husband Brian from a trip we took to Martha's Vineyard last spring. Both are soft pastel on toned paper. Enjoy!

Marley  12" x 16" pastel

Brian  9" x 12" pastel