Researching

and thinking today. Trying to formulate an action plan.

[sent from iPhone]

ArtWalk 2010

What a weekend! Had a wonderful and intense time. Absolutely froze,
got great feedback, experimented with my pallette, did a decent
acrylic sketch and even sold a (tiny) painting.

Our location was great, ended up introducing a lot of passers by about
the ArtWalk since we were right across from starbucks and thrifty's.
The space was great - huge windows but no heat so ended up quite
chilled by the end of the day.

There were some confused people who eventually found us after ending
up at a different spot. Apparently one of the artists at another
location went rouge. She didn't like her spot and decided to show
somewhere else, apparently near or on the way to our spot. Pretty
insulting to the organizers and volunteers who made it all possible
and to the locations who were so gracious in their support of local
artists. Kind of takes the community out of community based art.

I took the opportunity presented by the two days to really dissect the
pallette from my landscape workshop. I'm now more aware of the
character of most of the pigments and how they mix and ir is a good
fexible core of colors. I'll have to clarify my notes a bit more, and
explore the remaining few odd colors before I'll be confident to takle
the landscape again.

Saturday ended up being quite difficult as I stayed up late scanning
and framing. Then I couldn't sleep because I was too wound up! Thank
goodness I could sit all day... Not the best way to start off, really
felt quite ill for most of the day.

Sunday I felt much better and really enjoyed talking to folks about
art, my work, their work, and the ArtWalk. So many creative folks out
here in the burbs! It's always neat to see how people respond to my
paintings, even if it is a bit nervewrecking beforehand. Unfortunately
(?) I got into the zone a bit with my painting and testing so I may
have missed out on interacting at some points.

All in all I'm very happy to have participated this year and to have
met some very nice and talented artists. Which is the best part about
sharing a venue!

[sent from iPhone]

What a week

Spent the whole week in prep for participating in the ArtWalk and in an epic failure of an attempt at digitizing my images and setting them up for printing... Totally exhausted after a great weekend. Should have the brain cells to post about the experience tomorrow!

Back to basics

I'm finding myself quite confused about my notes. Part of the issue
is how much time has passed, but as I paint I can recall more about
what I had planned to do. But the other issue is how overwhelmed I
was/am about the suggested pallette. There are so many colors on it I
barely have room to mix! Going to have to study it in detail to see
if I can discover the reasoning behind it. I'm thinking there must be
a few triads in there, slightly offset from one another.

Also spent some time at Opus picking up frames and mat board. Good
thing I can cut my own mats... Yikes... Still spent over $100. I will
now officially stop complaining about doing "gallery wrap". It is for
sure the lesser of two evils!

Next in line

Figured I should finish one of my last workshop paintings before I
sign up for another one! Already started in on the sky again before
remembering to document.

A breakthrough!

Something major happened at Science World yesterday. I did a totally
unbelievably crappy sketch of a T-Rex, wereas DD did a bang up job:
Notice the three toed theropod feet and the two fingered hand.

But that is not the breakthrough, even though Dino sketching is new
for her (and myself actually, not that it would excuse my poor drawing.)

The breakthrough is that we were sketching _TOGETHER_!!!!!!!!!!!!!
That is something I didn't think would happen for _years_! A dream
come true. I am so excited! Not sure if this will transfer to non-
dino subjects, but I will take what I can get. There are plenty of
fun specimens there to keep us both busy.

In other news - will be implementing a new wordpress templated website
soon so I can have searchable tagged images and a slideshow - but
first a lot of photography and scanning has to happen.

Oh and I'm still painting the church.

Roses Finished

Well, I'm going to be looking at them for a few days, just to make sure - but I'll be needing that big palette for the weekend.

Switcheroo

Swapped in Ste. Maria - actually there is another name for this church
I've seen - must remember to look it up... Anyway - need to finish
roses before I can use the big pallette for the landscape so ended up
with the church tonight since I need live reference and daylight for
the roses. Fortunately!? I've got a lot of unfinished work to chose
from when I'm stalled on a particular piece - just grab the next and
I'm good to go! Big work weekend, I'm totally stoked!

Getting there

Working on at least changing the most annoying bits about my blog - while reading through a blogging book of all things - of course searching the Internet is providing me much more useful information and html code bits to use... The Rose painting is going to be put aside tomorrow after a quick pass on one side for the gallery wrap - I've got all of the main shading in - will need one more pass for color correction but I'll need some daylight to do so - this is the first on my plate for Saturday painting. It's going to be a busy weekend!

Time

...is not on my side. I've got to make peace with that. I have a huge list of things to do to present myself professionally at the artwalk - website redesign, business cards, possibly setting up to print some of the paintings. But the reality is that I have 10 hrs a week available to me, not 40. I'm lucky to find the time to paint - the business side might have to slide a bit.

Still on the roses, also mulled over pricing and attempted to read some website design books while DD played with trains at the bookstore. Must start doing some small modular sculpture or something more portable and process oriented.

ReErgo

Still working on the roses... Just have to keep the faith and keep plugging away - managed to work on some art related stuff while DD was busy with a craft. What a wonderful day it will be when she can paint along with me in the studio! If I had a space that was un-carpeted and spacious she'd be in there now. Finally dawned on me that I should set up my mini easel thing again (I think its actually more of a sculpture table) so now I should be slightly less sore after painting. A warm-up collage is still taped to the surface, but it doesn't get in the way! Really need to get in the studio a lot this week, hope I can find the time.