Root

It's been a busy seven days. I met with an editing consultant last week, the morning after I attended an artist talk about sketch books, journaling and book making. I realize now that I want to create an art book featuring my paintings (rather than writing the story that led me into the art world). I have already used apple software to design books and I am currently exploring blurb. The hardest part of this project will be filtering down and choosing what pieces I want to include.

Red was the color of today, I completed the 4th chakra painting (I am still not sure if I will use the turquoise painting, "Vishuddha", because I don't want the owl to be a distraction and may do another version for the series).

The root chakra known as Muladhara, symbolizes our ability to ground ourselves to the physical world.

"Muladhara", root chakra, 22" x 30" watercolor

other chakra paintings to date -

Swadhisthana, sacral chakra

Vishuddha, throat chakra

Sahasrara, crown chakra

7 Chakras

Something interesting has happened with the Treescape series I started last week, I have made sense out of it (don't you love when that happens!) by using the Chakra system as a guide. I am not too informed when it comes to meditation, holistic healing, or yoga, and I have been using the internet to learn more. The colors associated with the energy force in each body region have inspired me and I am going to incorporate the violet and orange treescapes from last week with the five remaining chakra colors to create a series of seven paintings. The end result will be "1000 Trees", each painting will be an extension of the next. The Crown Chakra also known as Sahasrara, is usually represented with 1000 petalled lotus; it is the state of mind equivalent to pure consciousness.

7 Chakras, a study

In my sketch above, you can see how I painted a model with notes so that I would remember which colors were associated with specific body regions. Rather than using circular energy forms to represent the chakras, I am painting trees. Lots and lots of trees. I will have time to work on more treescapes this weekend and now that I know what direction I am moving toward, it feels good. Once all seven paintings are hanging side by side, viewing them will feel like a journey.

On a separate note, has anyone else noticed the new format for blogspot? It took me a while to figure out what was going on, and I had to download picasa in order to manage photo storage space. There are also new features I will have to learn, don't you just love technology and it's never ending "improvements"?!

Treescape #3

"Crescent Moon", 22" x 30" watercolor 

I am still wandering around in a very dense forest (in my mind) and feel the need to continue painting treescapes. Hopefully I will get this out of my system soon but for now I am just gonna go with the flow, layering color with exaggerated linear elements. I start teaching March 17 (the last class I taught ended right before Thanksgiving) and the new treescapes have been a much needed reconnection with watercolor.

Photographing unframed watercolor paintings has never been a problem for me but I have recently noticed a huge difference when the photo is taken in bright sunlight outdoors compared to indirect light. I am not sure which is best to use but indirect light is probably closest to what the painting would look like hanging on a wall under glass. I wonder what other artists do about photographing their works?

more... Treescapes

"Night Owl", 22" x 30" watercolor

I spent the past 60 hours (wow!) alone with my paints and in the mood to have some fun. Yesterday I was able to complete Treescape 02 - my primary focus was the mosaic-styled tree design created from the tape resist, combined with the linear qualities of the tree forms, layered with color. Today I wanted to add a focal point to a new treescape composition, thus the night owl appeared. I still want to work on (yet another treescape) leaving the resist areas whiter, possibly using bright shades of red next time? The Treescape series (yes, it seems to have turned into a series on my website) is about hard and soft edges, linear form, and layered color. I can tell I am going to have fun creating additional pieces in this series although right now I am a little burnt out from all my non- stop play time, I need a break from all this fun!

Another Treescape

"Treescape 02", 22" x 30" watercolor on paper

Painting with watercolor has always been my happy place and it had been a while since my paints were out. I get side tracked at times, working toward the next "winning" piece rather than focusing on just having fun and today was time for play. I love using tape as a resist, creating tree impressions that are layered with watercolor washes. At one point I felt like I used too much water and the paint was not as vibrant as it could have been so tomorrow I may do the same thing again, trying to remember to use less water.

Once the tape is down I add paint freely, it takes several layers of color in order to create depth.

Next, I took off some of the tape then added more wash color. I did not want the trees to all look like they had the same amount of paint.

At this point I thought the painting could have been complete because I really liked the linear qualities of the white, but then I decided to add even more wash color. I must have been thinking about my new purple duvet cover when I picked color today... this painting compliments my bedroom perfectly!

Art Donations

It's that time again... end of winter, and auction donation requests seem to be never ending. I decided to donate selectively this year, and today I dropped off "Full Frosty Moon" to the Montserrat College Artrageous!26 auction. About seven years ago, the paintings in the full moon series were my pride and joy. I still feel these paintings are special (and I wrote about these feelings in the first half of the book I am still working on) but it was time to let go.

"Full Frosty Moon", 22" x 30" watercolor

Saturday I am going to donate to the Marblehead Festival of Arts. Their auction donations help to finance the free summer festival over 4th of July weekend, I have always loved participating in the event. Both of the paintings below are older, and I am still not sure which will go to the summer festival, but the remaining piece will be donated to the Marian Court College annual fundraiser event.

"Sunburst Lilies", 24" x 18" watercolor diptych

"Upstream", 20" x 16" watercolor

My last bit of news is that I have found a consultant to help me with editing and hopefully the consultation will bring my book writing project to fruition.

Back in town!

I had been out of town and came home today to find the small painting I had purchased from one of my blog friends, Don Michael, Jr., waiting for me.

 "Swirls" (top) and "Heath" (bottom)

I love seeing the 3-dimensional mask next to the 2-dimensional painting. The two works compliment each other and feel more engaging to me. Thank you, Don!

Last Thursday was the opening reception of the Member's Winter Show at the Copley Society of Art and because I was out of town I was unable to attend, fortunately there is an excellent blog post with a summary of the show.

Copley Society of Art Blogspot

My painting "Echo" is included, and I am thrilled to be participating in the first Copley show since I became a member in January. 

"Echo", 12" x 12" encaustic on panel

My primary focus continues to be writing, researching, and deciding if I will actually go forward with the book project. In a way, writing has become a therapy and I don't know if publishing is the end result I am looking for... time will tell. 

Short Vignette

I continue working on a book project. It's like working on a painting only instead of paints and brushes I am using words and jpg images.

One of my favorite experiences from my very first three-day Paradise City show:

"The highlight of the show for me was the sale of “Bonsai” to a lovely young couple, they fell in love with the painting on first sight. They felt an immediate connection to the work and asked me where the inspiration came from. I told them about a scene in the movie “Hero” starring Jet li (promoted by Quentin Tarantino) when two women samurai are battling in a forest. The colors change from natural forest greens into mystical golden yellows and bloody reds. The women float through space as they battle to the death … the scene took my breath away… the painting took their breath away. Coincidence, “Hero” was one of their movie favorites and they knew the exact scene I was describing."

"Bonsai", 22" x 30" watercolor on paper

Business of the Arts

Yesterday I was the guest speaker for the Enterprise Center at Salem State University in the Business of the Arts Series and I had the opportunity to share what years of working as an artist have taught me from first hand experiences. My three page outline was available for attendees, (just in case I forgot to cover all the things I felt were important once I started talking), and I realized by putting this outline together I have the basis for one of the big things on my bucket list (I didn't even realize I had a bucket list!) The outline I put together for this workshop will be the core of the book I plan to write, "Making it as an Artist ... and avoid living in your parent's basement!" In this book I will also incorporate artwork that reflects the progression of my personal growth as an artist.

124 people attended the event, and I was told the prior 2 events in this series attracted 50+ people each. There is a definite niche in the art marketplace for the business of being an artist. The first few minutes I felt all those eyes looking at me and I may have stuttered a bit but once I got into the topic I found my comfort zone and was able to go with the flow.

At the end of the workshop attendees were given an evaluation form and I will have access to the results of the questionnaire (my choice). I will also be receiving an edited video which I hope to share either here or on YouTube. Now that all this art business is settled, I am ready to get my paints out...

I took this photograph last week when I was walking my dog and plan to use it for my next encaustic image transfer, hoping to start this weekend.

Weaving the Web

The timing couldn't have been better with my upcoming presentation on February 8, addressing the business of the arts and successful self-promotion... entering selected juried shows, then hearing my work was accepted, is something that exemplifies building a resume, an ongoing work in progress. I used to think it was great being a big fish in a little sea (Swampscott being the little sea) but now bigger shows in Cambridge, Boston, New England, and even National shows have been more my focus.

My previous blog post announced the Best of Show I received at Lynn Arts (works on paper winter show). Yesterday the show postcard was sent and I was delighted to see my painting on the front of the card. The card was emailed and postal mailed to the entire Lynn Art Association membership and mailing list.

Once I received the pdf file I was able to forward it to the entire Swampscott Arts Association mailing list as well as post it on my Facebook page (and now on my Blog). The Lynn Arts website also has the card featured on their home page, and the publicity opportunities seem endless.

Another example of weaving in the world wide web occurred when Montserrat College of Art sent me an email to let me know they have been promoting my up coming Business of the Arts speaking engagement on their blog and throughout the community. 

Instructor Robin Samiljan on Successful Self-Promotion

Their blog post was connected to the Enterprise Center at Salem State University's blog post which was shared by several other local business blog posts, and it goes on and on...

I was reading the Marblehead Reporter (the local weekly newspaper) yesterday and was surprised to see my name along with another local artist, Claudia Kaufman, featured as the artists of the week. The Copley Society contacted all of the communities representing their new artist members and it was my good fortune that the paper decided to print the news. I had submitted work to the Copley Society's winter show, juried by David Brown of the School of the Museum of Fine Arts and Miriam Stewart of the Fogg Museum, and found out last week that my painting "Echo" was 1 of 29 pieces accepted to the show. The Copley Society has already started promoting the show on their website and will be doing more publicity once the show is up.

One of the main points I am going to make when I am speaking about self-promotion is the way we all have the ability to use the internet for free publicity. The possibilities are endless.