Saturday, March 20, 2010

Orchid Moon


Sometimes a painting just happens..in what seems like minutes. My dear husband gifted me with this orchid at the MOBOT Orchid show. It was a strange one...as they all are..not flamboyantly colored, a conservative green and white, a mere bud when it came to set up life on my kitchen counter. What enchanted me was that cup like arrangement in front, very shiny pale green, begging for a bit of white wine to celebrate Spring with...just a bit of a sip... Then there was a magnificent full moon and they slipped together into a painting.

I love it when that happens. It's like something has asked to become a painting. It's all finished, the colors, the composition, even the drawing slipped out of my pencil like a wish. I've been doing all of these portraits recently and the orchid wanted hers done, also. I need to speak to more flowers and ask if they would like their portraits done as it was such a nice change. I am sure springtime will introduce me to a few plant divas willing to pose for me. I'll be posting this one in my Etsy in the near future if you would like her to come to your house.

For those of you reading in the St. Louis area, I have scheduled art classes at the St. Louis Artists Guild on Clayton road and Masterpeace Yoga Studio in the Crestwood Mall beginning in May and June. both of those organizations are printing up their schedules now and should Be available within the next week or two. I am very excited about working at both venues as they will be very different sorts of classes. I would love to have you come and join me !

Spring is coming to my sweet home. There are daffodils blooming sunshine out at Queenie park and frogs singing their love songs out at Creve Coeur Lake. I am suddenly craving salads and fresh fruit because I want to just eat up all the colors and greens. I am very blessed with large windows in front of my desk here and I am seeing the buds on the trees and hearing more birds everyday. Like everyone else, I am so ready for spring. I want to sing and dance with the rest of the planet, but for now, I'll dance with my brushes and paint.
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Friday, March 12, 2010

Orange and Red I love

Some days it just rains. When I am done with the grey, out comes the orange and red paint. It just sneaks in there. My sunshine colors. I have actually been able to paint without any real yellows...just ochre kinds of hues, but please don't hide the Crimson or the Orange....add the gold gesso to that list. White and Payne's grey are supporting cast and deserve their Oscars, but please, we all know it's the BEST titles that are the coveted ones, the showstoppers. This pensive lady began way too serious and way too boring. She dreams of much wilder lifetimes and those dreams entangled themselves in her hair. If she looks familiar to any of you, tell me who you think she is......
Now this tattooed regal creature began as sketch you may have seen in one of my earlier blogs. I did several inspired sketches in a sketchbook project for the Art House. I so enjoyed them, I made copies before sending the book off to their library collection, promising myself I would do full paintings from them one day soon. This is the first of three. I rather like her. She is a bit tamer than the sketch, even with the facial art. There are days when this is the way I want to look. Think about going to a family gathering with those wonderful tattoos. OK you would need the brocaded cape, also. There is music floating in the red doorway behind her and the clasps on her cloak are metal stampings with stones added.

I am practicing for my dramatic painting at church on Palm Sunday. I hope that they will make a video..I may have to figure out Youtube for that one. My other news is that the packet of paintings that went to California arrived and didn't bounce back so there is some consideration going on. I am doing a hopeful happy dance on that one. This coming Tuesday I have another portfolio presentation scheduled with a Yoga center. Life seems to be moving in the direction of my dreams...and I have so many dreams. Italy calls me every single day and I have no idea how that will happen, but I have a very strong feeling it will happen....then we will see what wonderful paintings will fly from my brush after that experience. There is an art tour I have my eye on......I have even planned my travel wardrobe..all orange and red..no cool colors for that trip..just joyful dancing brights straight from my heart.
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Monday, March 8, 2010

Chasing my Muse


My muse seems to be playing hide and seek. I am tinkering around the studio, finishing a painted box for a a surprise gift, wrestling with thin paper lining and curing all ills with gold gesso. There is finishing work going on with a canvas piece. Ideas jump up, I paint wildly, then settle back to figure out what happens next. Sometimes painting is more like a Sherlock Holmes adventure where the plot just twists and turns, but follows some sort of wild logic..or a wild Muse. I am rooting through my pile of collage materials searching for the next clue.

In the meantime, I have found that one of the best ways to court the Muse is to prepare for her arrival. I used to rent studio time at an artist's printing studio in Santa Fe. Open studio sessions were a shared event with a dozen or so artists working during a scheduled time slot. This meant you had to create your plate for the printers to run in a certain amount of time...usually early...very early on a Saturday morning...after driving for an hour down a switchback road from the top of a mountain. I am framing out a slightly stressed situation and many of the artists complained that it was very hard to just sit down and start painting...or drawing or doing whatever process...it was mostly monoprinting on plexiglass sheets.

My answer to the situation..and an answer was needed because of the cost of the studio time as well as the time issues....was to spend Friday afternoon and evening creating color swatches and combinations in my sketchbook, full size cartoon drawings for subject matter and a few long searches through art history books and my own sketchbooks for inspiration. when I hit the studio on Saturday morning, fully charged on blue corn pancakes or sopapillas, I began mixing my colors, transferring sketches and creating base drawings. The surprise to all of this very carefully planned process was that half of it went out the window as I worked. I would become inspired by the very process itself and new ideas would flow into my artwork. Color stories changed, imagery evolved and very often I left with images only vaguely related to whatever I had started out with. It was pure bliss !!!!! The muse and I danced a great tango and I have to admit I sold almost every print I ever made in that studio.

So I spent a good part of this week-end cutting paper to size, mounting sheets to mat board and gessoing madly. I pulled the jars and tubes of paint that would be my palette. Once I looked through my sketches and notes, I really warmed to the process and began to find all sorts of possibilities. Suddenly I am quite sure the Muse is arranging an appointment with me and the famous admonishment to follow your bliss opens up before me.

Happy Painting.
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