Chicago Art & Design Show at Navy Pier

Art festival season will be starting a few months earlier as I am getting ready to exhibit April 8-9 at Navy Pier. Fortunately, this is an indoor show and my usual stress about weather conditions is not an issue. My booth setup will be altered with the addition of electricity and track lighting (lighting always enhances presentation), and I am excited to be demonstrating encaustic painting techniques during the weekend show.

Highlighted in my booth will be 50 paintings of Buddha, viewing this series as a cohesive body of work is key. The photo below featured 20 paintings from the series last summer, and only filled one side of my booth. I plan on presenting all 50 pieces on the two back walls in my booth, keeping this series separate from miniatures and cityscapes. Making sense visually is always a challenge, particularly when I have distinct bodies of different work.

Buddha wall from last summer:

Large cityscape paintings will hang on the outer wall (fortunately I have a corner aisle and can utilize both sides of the panels), and the miniatures will be on free standing panels toward the front of my booth display, separate from the back walls. I am sharing a few samples of work below.

Cityscape:

"Approaching Michigan Avenue"

30" x 30"

"LaSalle Street"

40" x 30"

Miniatures:

"Wrigley Field"

3.5" x 2.5" triptych, 12" x 28" shadowbox frame

"The Chicago Theater"

2.5" x 3.5", 10" x 10" shadowbox frame

The show is free and open to the public. For more information visit the Amdur Productions website link below.

Chicago Art & Design Show

My newest book: Buddha

Buddha
paintings and meditations

Description:

"Buddha, paintings and meditations" is a catalog of eighty mixed media encaustic paintings depicting the Buddha. Each painting is high resolution, full page color, and unique.

"For me, the Buddha represents both the teacher and the student. Each painting was a lesson and exploration as I embraced various encaustic techniques, always trusting the process. I began to realize that although we appear different on the exterior, within one’s self we possess the same human potential."

Groupings of similar Buddha silhouettes are preceded with an explanation or meditation that led to the creative processes. This art book features a collection of mixed media encaustic paintings inspired by Buddhist thinking.

                 
 Magcloud version -                                                      

Amazon version -

It's been an educational journey, learning about self publishing and all the options available on the internet these days. Different publishing websites require different files, and until I had hard copies in hand I wasn't sure which of these websites offered the best quality paper, or if font sizes were in sync with page sizes, or if my book cover was attention grabbing, or if..... the list went on and on! Most importantly, I questioned if photographed encaustic paintings translated successfully onto paper. 

I don't feel art books are meant to be published as e-books. Maybe I am a bit old fashioned but when I want to see a colorful image I also want to be able to touch the page or better yet, see it in person. This meant I had to upload and order printed copies of the book from every website I used. 

The best two versions I have found to date are Amazon and Magcloud. Both of these websites average the same production and shipping costs, both offer copies on demand, although Amazon does produce books much quicker. The quality of the book was very similar from both websites, but if you hold copies side by side the Magcloud version feels slightly heavier, almost silkier (and I thought a better quality). 

The book is currently available on both websites and can be seen in links below.

Magcloud

Amazon