Off to the Studio Center!

Feather Study, originally uploaded by Sweet Enemy Art.

Vermont Art Week starts today!
I'm taking a short break before I load up the car with tons and tons of stuff and head to the VSC. It's gorgeous weather outside, though chilly.
The laptop will stay behind with Arkonbey but I'll bring my camera, so next week there will be a post (or two) of images documenting my time away away away!

Oh Wow Oh Art

Using the "trick yourself by treating yourself" idea, I started the day with a quick blog-roll checkup, a local errand, and an early lunch at the local cafe while working on my artists statement for two bodies of work, and then I hit the library and found:

Almost as head-spinning as a quick trip to the Met or the National Gallery, I spent at least an hour  pouring through Phaidon's "The American Art Book" which is a hefty tome and a worthy one too.

What a delicious selection of works, all arranged alphabetically by artist; almost everything from the early early days to the present is at least touched upon.  Here are two favorites out of many:

Joseph (Guiseppe) Stella (Tree of My Life) on top, Ammi Phillips (Portrait of a Young Woman, Possibly Mrs. Hardy) below.  

But aaaaaaa!!!!! my brain is full to overflowing with images, and I have to get at least something on paper.  Today.  Now.  And since I've checked off three other things on my to-do list (call 7Days, call the insurance people, write something for the blog, oh, hi there...) I think it's time to do just that.

Until then.

Mark your calendars, art fiends!

A little drum roll please, as we announce the:

Memorial Day weekend has lots of enticing events, but if you're able, consider attending this one!  

It's state-wide, so wherever you are in VT on May 29th & 30th, you'll probably see the ubiquitous yellow signs directing you hither and yon.  

Much remains to be done as the clock ticks its way towards that weekend, so it's nice to check one thing off the list.

Other things I'm happy about lately include:

--The Vermont Artist Week at the Vermont Studio Center in Johnson, where I'll be for a solid week of art making very VERY soon.  

--The one-day encaustic workshop I attended at Studio Place Arts in Barre last week, at which I made lots of mess, but sort of found my groove at the end.

--My Etsy shop, which is that much closer to actually getting done (I know, THAT'S been a long time coming!)

--Arkonbey the Awesome, who came to my rescue with his design skills last night, and will also be giving the Sweet Enemy portion of our Obscurius site a nice facelift soon as well.  It's pretty great as-is, but it's time for a re-arranging and updating, as with most things.  

--Daffodils.  Daffodils and crock-pots, though not together, both make me happy.

That's all till next time.

What happened to the fishes

Mixing paint in front of people is something I'm not too scientific about:

But the nice thing about this technique is transparent glazes are very forgiving...here I am wiping something out:

(Thanks to Lynn Powers for these demo images!)

And here's where the painting is now, with a bit more color glazed over the gray underpainting:

Now here's what's happened to my fish painting.  I think it was a case of too much paint, not enough paying attention, or "do not listen to Brave New World on audio book while painting, it's too much." 

Below, the original underpainting.

And here we have the current status:

Other than being choosey about what you listen to while creating, may I offer this advice as well:

Keep the initial color values light, light, light when glazing.  And be careful how much detail you add in a small piece, lest you end up with a cramped painting.

Monday night paintings

Three pieces that had their genesis during my Acrylic Underpainting demo on April 27th. Really all I came home with at the time was two pieces of matboard: One had been an example of tinted absorbent grounds, applied with a squeegee so two contrasting colors blended, the second piece was just a soft iridescent reddish-orange background.  The first has now been cut in two, and the second is becoming ever-more sparkly.  The shimmer is really obvious in the last image.

A last look before bedtime, originally uploaded by Sweet Enemy Art.

Since then, the pepto-bismol pink half is now the acrylic drawing on the right.  Here's what it looked like a few days ago, as I discovered that Absorbent Ground on a textured matboard is a surprisingly forgiving surface when using a dipping pen:

And last night I held my breath and started putting in some more color.  It is always hard to make that jump, but I remind myself now that it's worth it.  Besides, Absorbent Ground is very forgiving if you're applying thin washes at first.  

This one, the "fairy-tale drapery" piece, is more of a mood piece right now.  Great fun was had with the spray bottle and some blue matte acrylic, but not sure yet what will be in the center.  Thinking of the Arabian Nights, perhaps.  It's always a blast to look back and see how my paintings started, because in the end, this painting will hardly resemble what you see now.

Right behind it, is the tree painting I'm working on (visible in the center of the top photo.)  So far there have been about six layers of varying colors, and heavy usage of masking fluid.

Next up, I post what happened to the purple fish painting.  Yikes, we'll see if it can be saved.

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Farewell Boo

The studio just isn't the same without you, to say nothing of how empty the house feels.  I miss hearing your tiny heavy paws come padding up to me and the tap-tap as you asked to get on my lap. 

You only twice ever got in the paint, you were content to stay countless hours with me, as long as you had a good place to curl up and my water-glass to drink out of.  Every painting I have ever done you were there from beginning to end, or at least it felt like it.  Even when you were underfoot, I loved that you just wanted to be "with."
You used to mew for us when we got too far ahead of you on walks, now it's us looking for you.

Love you, babe-cat.
Thank you for everything.  Thirteen years went by far too quickly.