Sales

Sales have been few and far between this year.  This is partly because I am just not doing a very good job of getting my art out there.  Every year I seem to drop some show that I have done for years.  Most recently, I stopped showing my work at the Kirkland Art Center Store because I hadn't sold anything there for so long.  I also did not participate in the Kirkland Studio Tour this year.  So, you can see the trend, and the result is fewer sales.  So, I wanted to share that I am selling in one place, ARTspot in Edmonds.  During the past week they sold two paintings, including the one below.  Thank you ARTspot.

                                                         

New Acrylic Paintings

At last I have finished some new acrylic paintings.  When the painting group that meets at my house came last week, I put away my encaustic supplies and tools.  As I indicated in my last post, I decided to leave them put away until I painted a few acrylic paintings.  Below are two of the paintings that I completed.   They are both painted on boards that already had at least one painting on them, so they had great texture to work with.

Perhaps New Acrylics?

I had to clean up my studio and put away my encaustic supplies so that there will be room in my studio for my monthly painting group.  I can't work on my encaustic painting when the group is here, so I will be working on acrylic painting.  I am going to try to take this opportunity to get started on some new acrylic paintings.  My plan is to not get out the encaustic supplies until I have completed a few acrylics.  I have not been able to tear myself away from the encaustics for the last three months, and I do not want to give up the acrylics completely.  So, we shall see what happens next.

I don't have any new acrylics to post, so I will post the last one I completed.  What should I name it?

The Continuing Saga of Encaustic Painting

No matter how I try, I have let another month go by without writing.  I guess I am just too busy painting!  Mostly I am still trying to learn to paint with encaustic.  It is a steep learning curve for me, and I need to try some new techniques.  I am wearing out the techniques that I have more or less mastered.

This one is 6x6 and is simply a piece of paper that I made and encaustic medium.  I should make some more of this paper, as I really like it.

This is one of my favorites though it is very simple.  It is 5x7 and is an encaustic monoprint.  I need to do some more of these, as this was my only successful one!

This was a monoprint that I adhered to a board and then added more encaustic over it.  I did a couple of these, but it was a difficult technique to complete successfully.  I kept tearing the paper.  I like the look though, so will keep at it.

That's it for now.  I hope I will be back with something new to show you in less than a month the next time.

Edmonds Art Studio Tour 2013

The Eighth Annual Edmonds Art Studio Tour is this weekend.  I can hardly believe that we started this so long ago.  Nor can I believe that it is this weekend.  I have just barely managed to get ready in time, and I am usually very good about doing a little at a time over a few weeks.  Not this year.

This year I will be showing my long legged people, abstract landscapes and encaustics.  A few of the paintings you will see if you come this weekend are below.  I also have a few encaustic cubes that have resulted from all of my recent experimenting with encaustic painting.

Still Immersed in Encaustic

Well, I am still heavily into encaustics.  I haven't painted with acrylic for a couple of months.  I guess I needed to expand a bit.  I am very frustrated learning this new medium, but I am also having fun, so I guess I will continue.  There is a steep learning curve, and I am having to do a lot of reading.  The best sources I have found are Patricia Seggebruch's books and Daniella Woolf's first book.  I have been experimenting with a lot of the ideas from the books and some are coming out better than others?  What I really need is a workshop, preferably a five day one.  I haven't found anything I am interested in before the first of the year.  Daniella Woolf will be having one in early 2014, but I don't have a date yet.  Patricia's Encausticamp is not until next July, and I can't wait that long.

Here are some of the pieces that I like the best from all my experimenting.  As you can see, I am into black, white and red right now.

More Encaustics

I am still buried in encaustics, trying to remember what I learned 8 years ago with Trish Seggebruch and experimenting with new ideas.  I am primarily making messes and scraping the wax off to reuse!  However, I am keeping some of them.  Here are a couple of the ones that did not get scraped.

The third face down does not still have a glop of wax on the eye!

Encaustic Painting

Recently I spent an afternoon with Tracy Felix at ARTspot playing with encaustic.  I have not painted with encaustic for about eight years and swore I would not get involved with it again.  I love the look of encaustic, but it is expensive to work with and can be toxic if you are not careful about temperature and ventilation.  You also use a torch!  Since I know myself well, and know that I am a very careless artist, I chose to just not use encaustic.  Now, however, I am hooked again.  So far I am keeping the window open, watching the temperature carefully and not using fire!  Below are a few of the pieces I have created.  I am really only experimenting at this point as I have much to learn. 

Burridge Workshop

I spent four days at Bob Burridge's studio in June, and had a great time as usual.  These studio workshops only have 7 artists rather than three times that, which can be the case at some of Bob's other workshops.  I have been attending Bob's workshops for I think 13 years, but it might be more than that.  I find him inspiring and I love to watch him paint.  I was not really prepared this year to work on a particular body of work, which I should have been.  I had been so busy playing with encaustic and paper clay that I had not given it much thought.  Therefore, my work in the workshop was everything from non-objective abstract to abstract landscapes to figurative.  I am posting a couple of them below.

Edmonds Art Walk

I was the featured artist for June art walk at ARTspot.  Tracy just sent me some photos from the event, so I thought I would post one of them here.  It was a fun evening, with lots of folks to visit with, even though it was pouring rain the entire time.  There are some intrepid souls who venture out despite the weather.  They are the true Northwesterners.  See Tracy and I below.

Edmonds Arts Festival Juried Show

I had two pieces selected for the Edmonds Arts Festival Juried Show this year.  They are both below.  The first one, called "A Pair and A Half" won an Honorable Mention.  The second image below is the other selected piece and is entitled "Mardi Gras".

"A Pair and A Half" can now be seen at ARTspot in Edmonds.

Local Color Show

I am still catching up with all the art events that I have failed to write about over the last few months.  I have a show up at Local Color across the street from Pike Place Market.  It is an all figurative show and will be up through the end of July.  The show consists of two types of figurative paintings, the first being the long-legged people like the first image below.  The second being the more ethnic looking people represented by the second image below.

It seems I have all but abandoned my blog since I have not written here since February.  So, I will have several entries to do all in a row.  The first is that I spent March 15 to April 15 in Palm Springs.  I do not like to write about being out of town, while I am still away, and then suddenly it is months later.  Palm Springs was wonderful.  We did not have a day under 80 degrees.  That is just fine for me because I spend the entire month either in the swimming pool or reading and painting beside the pool.  The first week I was there I took a five day workshop with Gwen Fox.  Gwen is a lovely person and she has taught me a lot about design.  Since I do not have a formal art education, I have never learned much about design.  A lot of it I do instinctively, but when it is wrong, I don't always know why.  Below are three of the paintings I completed in Gwen's workshop.  I completed a lot more sitting by the pool the rest of the month.

Figurative Work

Well, it is back to the long-legged people with a twist.  I seem to come back to these folks every once in awhile.  There must be something about them that I am not done with.  Here are a few of the latest.

Trees

Thought I would show you a couple of the tree paintings that I did for the show at Mukilteo Art & Frame in December.  I painted four paintings for that show, and they were all completely different.  The vertical piece above is done with a faux encaustic finish, which I haven't used for a long time.  I liked it so much that I am working on a larger version of this painting, which is only 12x18.