Transitions I - VI

Here are six non-representational paintings I did for a contemporary art show starting on Friday night and going for a week.  All of the paintings in the show are $99.00 or less.  There are some really interesting paintings in the show and if you enjoy contemporary art, it's worth a visit.

These six paintings are painted to flow together but also stand alone as individual paintings.  They can be hung vertically, horizontally or even in a circle (with all six) because the design is continuous through all of the pieces.

These are acrylic paintings on 12" x 12" gallery wrapped canvases with the sides painted black and they don't need frames.

Here are pictures of the individual paintings.

Transitions I

Transitions II

Transitions III

Transitions IV

Transitions V

Transitions VI

These are hung vertically in the gallery but the above pictures show them in their horizontal position.  At the gallery, they are turned 90 degrees clockwise for the design to work vertically.  The picture of all six at the top of this post shows how the design transitions between the canvases.

The regular price of these paintings is $150.00 each but during this show only, they are $99.00 each or all six for $550.00.  

Here are two more paintings that are in the show:

Lichen

24" x 8"

Acrylic on gallery wrapped canvas, no frame needed

$99.00 for this show

Drifting Kelp

14" x 14"

Acrylic on gallery wrapped canvas, no frame needed

$99.00 for this show

The show is at the Orange County Center for Contemporary Art in downtown Santa Ana.   The opening for this show is this Saturday, Oct. 2nd from 6:00 - 10:00 p.m.  This gallery is part of the Santa Ana Artists Village and the first Saturday of each month (this Saturday) is their art walk from 7:00 - 10:00 when galleries and artists workshops are open to the public.  There are wonderful restaurants here also and it's a fun evening out.  I hope you can stop by the OCCCA and say hi on Saturday.  I will be there for sure from 6:00 to 8:00 and then I'm going to check out the other art and food venues myself.  I hope to see you there.  I will also be there on Friday night from 6:00-8:00 but if you come that night, the art walk won't be happening.  This is a grab and go show so some of the artwork may be purchased Friday night and gone before the art walk.

 The address for the OCCCA is 117 North Sycamore, Santa Ana, CA  92701 

A Great Workshop

Last Thursday, Friday and Saturday I attended the best workshop ever.  Leslie Saeta and Dreama Tolle Perry have very different painting styles so having these two teachers instructing was like going to two workshops at once.

The first day, Dreama demonstrated her painting style and we all used a photo she provided and did a painting using her palette colors.  She has such a beautiful, loose style and her paintings just glow.  Trying to create paintings like hers would take years of practice (for me) but I was pretty happy with the looseness I achieved with my attempt since my painting style is so literal.
Here is the painting I did that first day.

That first night, after teaching all day, Leslie and Dreama cooked a wonderful dinner for us.  It was so nice to spend time with everyone and get to know Leslie, Dreama and the 19 other people in the class  better in such a beautiful, relaxed setting.

On Friday, Leslie showed us her palette knife painting technique.  She put a very detailed photo of 2 boats on our easels for us to paint.  I thought she was crazy!  I was a bit stressed wondering how I was going to paint such a detailed photo, being the "I've got to paint everything I see" artist that I am.  It was easier than I thought and I'm pretty happy with the result.

That evening, Leslie and Dreama cooked another delicious dinner for us.  I must admit, when I first heard about this workshop, the fact that 2 gourmet meals were included definitely sealed the deal and I knew I had to sign up.

On Saturday, Dreama and Leslie had us play musical easels.  They set up a different photo of one of their paintings at each easel and we started at our own easel to begin the painting on a 6" x 6" canvas.  Then, after a couple of minutes, the music stopped and we moved to the next easel, taking only one paintbrush, a palette knife and a roll of paper towels with us.  This continued until all of us had worked a little on each painting.
At the end, we went back to our own easel and they let us do 3 strokes on the painting and then we had to stop.
All of the paintings turned out really well.  I love that I have this painting as a souvenir of this wonderful workshop.

If you have the chance to take a workshop from them, I would definitely recommend it.  They have one coming up in Atlanta in February 2011.  Also, check out their blog, Artists Helping Artists  and listen to their weekly radio talk about marketing your art.

Goin' Home

We were flying home from a trip to Mexico a while ago and I had my camera with me so I snapped some pictures out the window.  I think this view was taken pretty close to Puerto Vallarta.  I liked the way the horizon curved.  Being up that high gives such a cool perspective of our beautiful world.

Goin' Home
Image Size 18" x 30"
Watercolor
Unframed
$375.00

Silk Coconuts - Silk Painting

Here is a silk painting that I did this week.  It is 25" x 25" and can be worn as a scarf (the edges are sewn) or my intention was to stretch it and frame it as I do with most of my silk paintings.  I took WIP pictures of this and made a Flikr slideshow from it.  You can see them by visiting their site here.  This silk hasn't been steamed yet.  The colors will become more intense after steaming.
By the way, if any of you know how to get a Flikr slideshow to play on a blog, please let me know.  I would be much happier if the pictures were here rather than having to send people to their site.


Also this week, I was thrilled to receive 1st place in watercolor at the annual Tustin Art League member show for 'Wavering Muse' which is shown below.

I posted her a few months ago.  Even though she's a bit crazy, this is one of my favorite paintings and it was really fun and challenging to paint.

The Abyss

Once in a while I want to get away from my tightly rendered representational paintings and try something non-representational.  This was done on 200# cold press Waterford paper, which I really like.  I worked most of this painting wet on wet and this paper doesn't buckle at all.  It has a velvety surface and most paint can be lifted and the paper re-worked quite a bit.  This was a fun painting but I had to keep reminding myself not to make it become something specific.  It's a bit more dramatic looking in person.  The colors look a little washed out in this photo.  

The Abyss

Image Size 15" x 22"  

Watercolor

Unframed

$290.00

Pink Pink Pink

I love Hollyhocks but haven't planted them in my yard for a while because the leaves always get rust and they don't look very good so I decided to paint them instead.  I used Ampersand Aquabord because it always makes the paintings sparkle.  The paint sits on the surface and the white reflects through the color  very strongly.  I hadn't worked on any aquabord larger than 5" x 5" in the past and this one is 11" x 14" which was a little more challenging.  It's hard (for me) to get smooth washes on larger areas so painting the blue sky was frustrating at first but I finally got it to look the way I wanted. The color is not smooth but I like the texture.  It's also easy to lift color and play with the color values on the aquabord.

I had to let this painting sit for a few weeks because it was looking really "sweet".  I have that problem when I paint pink flowers and blue sky.  The flowers were a very cool pink so I added some warmer pinks and crimsons to take some of the "sweetness" out of it.  I'm happy with it now.

Even though this is a watercolor, I have varnished it with a UV protecting varnish and it can be framed without glass.

Pink Pink Pink
Image Size 11" x 14"
Watercolor
Unframed
$160.00

Fun Art Week

This was a fun week for art.  On Monday, Peggy, Donna and Cheryl, three of my watercolor artist friends came over to paint.  The painting below is what I painted.  It is watercolor and gouache on a canvas panel that has been coated with fiber paste, an acrylic medium made by Golden.  I'd never worked on it before and one minute I was enjoying it and the next I was cursing at it.  Most of the colors were liftable but some were not;  I would probably use it again.  I like the texture that it created and it is fun to experiment with different supports.

Ruffles

7" x 5"

Watercolor and Gouache

On Wednesday, I went to see the Pageant of the Masters in Laguna Beach.  If you've never seen it, it's pretty incredible.  It's a theatrical production recreating works of art using real people and once it is shown in the correct lighting, it becomes very 2 dimensional and really does look like a painting.  

Yesterday, some friends and I went to the Irvine Museum, one of my favorite museums.  The Irvine family owns about 2000 paintings and they are shown in the museum in different exhibits.  The exhibits change several times a year and they have traveling exhibitions also.  I believe that most, if not all, of the paintings are done by California artists from the California impressionist period which was from the late 1800's through mid-1900's.  I love impressionism and a lot of these paintings were painted en plein air in the Southern California area so they show the pristine beauty before all of the building took place.  The colors and style are exquisite. 

I finished the week out today by painting with another dear friend.  Margery was my mom's best friend and is the mother of one of my wonderful friends from high school.  Margery and I try to get together to paint every week.  Of course, sometimes we do more talking and eating than actually painting but that may be why it's so much fun.  I have been planning to try doing a 20 minute sketch to submit to the 20 minute challenge for quite a while.  I'm not much of a drawing fan and I tend to be a very slow painter so this was something new for me.  I rose to the challenge and cut some plumeria (again) from Margery's yard and set the timer.  I was going to post it here but can't bring myself to do it because, well.... because it looks like it was done in 20 minutes.  If you would like to see it, please visit the 20 minute challenge blog.

Serenity

This is the last of three paintings I've done for the virtual paintout challenge for August.  I've really enjoyed Prince Edward Island's beauty.  This scene has a calmness to it and I think I would like to live here surrounded by a river and these tall trees.  This is another palette knife painting.  The canvas was painted red and once it was dry, I started painting with a paintbrush but quickly switched to the palette knife.  Do you think that is a sign that I've become a palette knife addict?  Will I ever be able to use a brush with oils again?   The brushes just don't seem to have the appeal that they once did.

I like the way the red is showing through, especially in the sky.  I think I got carried away with the paint in the foreground and covered more of the red than I had intended.  Anyway, this was another fun painting to do and I do have the URL for this one so I can post it to the virtual paintout blog.

Serenity
Image Size 8" x 8"
Unframed - gallery wrapped canvas painted on sides, no frame needed
$110.00 including shipping in the U.S.

Prince Edward Island

Here's another painting I did for a virtual paintout submission.  Unfortunately, I didn't save the URL of the location which is a requirement for submission.  Oh well...
This is such a pretty island.  I've done 3 paintings of this month's location.  I'll post the third one for my Monday painting.  I'm pretty proud of myself for having an extra painting this week.  This one is a small sketch done with pastels.  This was done on archival mat board that was coated with pumice gel.

Prince Edward Island
Image Size 5" x 5"
Pastels

Plumeria Vignette

More plumerias.  You're going to get tired of seeing this flower.  I have 2 more plumeria paintings in progress.  This one was done for the Tustin Garden Club.  The plumeria that I posted last month is going to be the cover art for their yearbook and they needed an art piece for the inside.  Usually I do pastels on a sanded surface but this was done on the back side (less textured) of Canson Mi Tiente paper.  I prefer the sanded surface but it's always good to work on different surfaces.  Plumerias are such happy, sweet smelling flowers and they always remind me of summer so I guess that's why I'm so into painting them right now.

Plumeria Vignettes
Image Size 5.5" x 8.5"            

Pastels