New Painting, "Dusk On Puget Sound" progress

Well, my new painting titled, "Dusk on Puget Sound" is finished... well almost.  I actually still need to get a good, high quality photo of it, and then varnish it, along with a few others that I've finished lately.

I finished the actual painting tonight though, and took a quick snap-shot of it to share, I'm afraid the colors on the photo aren't quite accurate... when I get the good quality photo I will post that, but for now this is the best I could do.

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Hmmm... Still Learning!

Since I've begun painting, I've always felt that landscapes were my weakness.  I've just never been very satisfied with them.  I was okay with it if I did an obviously abstracted landscape... one that was clearly not meant to look exactly real... but when it came to traditional landscapes... I just wasn't happy with my results.

Well, I think I may finally be breaking through that barrier.  I've been working on a landscape and I think I am quite happy with the results so far, so I thought I'd share the work-in-progress.  I think the real difference in this one is that I went through my photography and found reference photos to use, when before I just tried to "make up" a landscape in my mind.  I didn't try to copy any of my photos exactly, but I did use them to plan the general shape of the shoreline, hills beyond the water, and the color of sky and water.

Just goes to show you, I still have lots learn and never want to stop learning!

Here is what I have so far:

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Gallery Acceptance, and What's on My Easel

Yesterday was a great day for me art-wise. I went to the post office to ship off a painting that sold, and while I was there I noticed a gallery in town that I'd never noticed before. This is probably because I rarely go to the shopping center near the post office, there is another down the street where I usually shop.

Anyway, I went into the gallery and started up a conversation with the woman there, who seemed very interested in seeing my work. Then the owner of the gallery came in, and he was also interested. So I gave them my website to view my portfolio, and also went home and gathered up some of my paintings to show them in person. I am very pleased to say that they will be displaying 5 of my paintings!

 I've also been making progress on my Peacock paintings that I started at the art walk. Here is what is on my easel right now:

I was thrilled about the gallery, and I still am, although the person in my life who should have been most encouraging was absolutely not encouraging at all, and in fact seemed very irritated that I had taken time out of my day to bring paintings down to the gallery.  Oh well, I guess some non-artistic people just don't get it, to me, getting my work in a gallery was far more important than the day's chores, or doing a load of laundry, or anything like that.

 
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Art Walk

Well today was the first public showing of my art.  I thought it went pretty good.  We had very uncooperative weather, and I'm sure it would have gone even better if it weren't for that.  As it was I sold 2 original paintings and 2 prints.  Plus handed out a lot of business cards.

I also got a considerable amount of work done on a new painting, because, in an effort to attract people into the building, I stood outside and painted, I was under a covered awning so the rain and hail didn't bother me, and it did attract a few people into the building.

Here are some photos from the event.

Remember the display boards I wrote about? The one's my good friend helped me build?  Well here is the medium sized one, the way it is build is like an A-frame, so I could use the other side as well, but with the setup in this particular building, it worked better to just use one side.

The same was true for the large display, showed here:

The small display we where able to use both sides on, but somehow I forgot to photograph that one.

My daughter displayed some of her paintings too, and she sold one:

I also displayed some of art in various other places around the room:

Here is the painting I worked on today, its far from finished, but still I made a lot of progress on it in one day.

My daughter and her best friend had fun playing and dancing for me, and I took lots of photos, but I cropped my daughter's friend out of the photos because I forgot to ask if it was okay to post them online:

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The Chrome Monster gets a New Name.

Once upon a time there was, living in the mind of an artist, an idea to paint a picture of one of the coolest cars in the history of American cars.  So this artist, although she had never attempted to paint anything shiny or reflective before, decided to paint a Chevy Bel Air from the mid 1950's, she ended up deciding on a 1956 since she had reference photos of that year available to her.

So this artist started off, and kept telling herself that she could figure out a way to paint all of that shiny red metal, and silvery, reflective chrome.  She had no idea how she was going to do it, but just started painting what she saw, carefully matching values and colors, though she changed a few things like the photographer's reflection in the bumper of the reference photo.

It was a difficult painting, and while working on it the artist bestowed on it the name of "Chrome Monster" as she realized just how much of that challenging, shiny surface the 1956 Chevy had.  In her head, as she painted, she kept reminding herself, "don't worry, paint what you see, the printer didn't have any metalic ink, and it managed to produce a picture of chrome, so can you.".

Finally, after many days, she stepped back and looked at the painting and realized that it was done.  She was so happy with the result that she no longer saw it as monster, and instead decided to name it the "Chrome King".

And here it is:

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Chrome Monster Progress! Taking Shape!

The Chrome Monster is starting to take shape, I think for my first effort at shiny metal, and my first effort at a car, its coming along pretty good.  What do you think?

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Looking for a Gallery

I am really wanting to find a local gallery to represent my art, but so far have not had much luck.  I actually had one gallery owner look over my pieces, and actually say that he would put them in his gallery if I produced more animal art, which he said was one of the strongest selling.  So I went home and produced four of my best animal paintings, he looked at them and apologized, saying that he had filled the spot in the meantime while I was making those, and to check back in a few months. At first I was very irritated that I spent so much time preparing paintings specifically for him (see the paintings below) and he didn't end up putting them in his gallery  but then I realized that I thoroughly enjoyed doing them, and had learned that I had a knack for painting animals, which I didn't realize I had before that, so I really wasn't too upset.

Now though, the issue remains that I still don't have gallery representation.  I can keep trying to sell online, but honestly, a gallery is an artist's best bet for getting sales.  So, after the artwalk on April 13, I am going to start really pursuing that gallery representation.

   
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