Last Post for 2014

I feel I need to do a last post for 2014 even though I do not have anything particular to say.  The only news is that the 30 Day Art Challenge was very interesting, even though I did not sell as many pieces as I had hoped.  There were 3200 8x10 paintings in one room.  The room was so crowded with visitors that it was very hard to see the paintings, but it was a lot of fun.  I sold seven of my thirty paintings, so there are going to be a lot of 8x10 paintings in the Artist's Garage Sale in June.  That is my favorite event of the year.

The next show I have coming up will be Local Color in February and March.  Local Color is located across the street from the Pike Place Market in downtown Seattle.  I will be showing figurative pieces this time.

I am posting a couple of new paintings below.  This first one is encaustic mixed media and the second one is acrylic.

30 Day Art Challenge

I have finished all 30 paintings for the 30 Day Art Challenge, and what I lot of fun I had.  I used several different mediums, styles and subjects, which I would not do in my normal painting day.  In other words, I played even more than usual.  I also discovered a new series that I am working on now as a result of this exercise.  I highly recommend this sort of activity to any artist.  Below are a few of the paintings that I did.  If you want to attend art walk in Pioneer Square for this event on Dec. 4, check out www.30dayartchallenge.com.  There will be thousands of 8x10 paintings all priced at $50.

Burridge Workshop Paintings

These are the promised images from the Burridge workshop mentioned in my last post.

 

Bob Burridge Mentor Workshop

I just returned from a three and a half day Bob Burridge Mentor Workshop.  Those of you who know me, know that I have taken a workshop from Bob once a year for 18 years now.  I will never tire of being around him and his work.  He is an inspiration to me and the first workshop I attended changed my life.  Since I have been attending these mentor workshops at his home, I have not attended any of his larger group workshops.  The mentor workshops only have seven artists in them.  As usual this year we had a great group of people and I hope to stay in touch with them and see them at future workshops.  This year was also different in that my friend Donna Wallace attended.  This was her first Burridge workshop and she loved it as much as I do.  I feel as though I created some really interesting figurative work, and I am anxious for the work to arrive home so that I can continue to work on it, mount it on boards, varnish, etc.  I have to ship my work and supplies home because Bobs' studio is located in Arroyo Grande, CA.  My supplies have arrived, but not my paintings.  So, I will post the paintings once they arrive and I get them photographed.

30 Day Art Challenge

I am participating in the 30 Day Art Challenge at the Toshiro Kaplan Building this year.  You can see more information about the challenge at www.30dayartchallenge.com.  I am painting 30 8x10 paintings in 30 days.  It is such fun to just paint whatever I happen to feel like doing that day and not worrying about working on whatever series I am currently doing.  I have done collage, acrylic mixed media, encaustic, my long legged people and other types as figurative work.  Who knows what will be next.  These are some of the paintings I have done so far.  The first one is Acrylic Mixed Media, the next one is Encaustic Mixed Media and the last one collage.

New Acrylic Paintings

Here are a couple of new acrylic paintings that I particularly like.  I had two abstract paintings that I no longer loved and wanted to reuse the canvases.  I just negative painted the figures and scratched in a few lines, and now I have two figurative paintings.  I have found that this happens sometimes.  Take and old painting and do very little to change it completely and end up with something I really like.

Time Flies

I cannot believe a month has gone by since my last post.  I have done a lot of painting and have participated in the Edmonds Art Studio Tour, so I have been very busy.  This was the most successful art studio tour of the nine we have had.  It was a joy to talk with the 298 people that came to visit my studio and the 4 other artists that were at my studio!  That is a lot of people to talk to and it really wore us out, but it was such fun.  The tour was successful both in number of attendees and dollars earned by the artists participating.  Below are a couple of the paintings that I sold during the tour.  The acrylic is 20x30 and the encaustic is a tiny 4x6 that I created at Daniella Woolf's workshop in July.

In the Works

I have just returned from a two week cruise to Greece and Turkey.  We were supposed to go to Israel, but you can imagine why that did not happen.  I am now frantically trying to get ready for the Edmonds Art Studio Tour, which is September 20 & 21st.  More about the tour later.  I want to get a few small acrylic pieces done for the tour, as I have mostly been painting with encaustic for the last year.  There just does not seem to be any time to paint lately as other things seem to keep taking precedence.

The painting group that meets monthly at my house is today, so hopefully I will get a lot of painting done over the next few hours.  This group has been meeting for at least five years, with a few changes, and it is a high point of my month.  Edmonds artists Tracy Felix, Lynn Scott, Mona Smiley Fairbanks, Angela Bandurka, Nancy Thompson and Donna Wallace from Redmond are the group members and it is a truly talented group.

I'll be back with some new acrylic paintings in a few days!

Here is a nice shot of some of the ruins at Aspendos in Turkey.  This is just one of many lovely sights I saw during the cruise.

Gelli Plates

Have those of you who are artists discovered Gelli Plates yet?  They are really a lot of fun.  There are a lot of things you can do with them, and I have only just begun.  I have four finished pieces, and they are shown below.  They are currently showing at ARTspot in Edmonds.

Patricia Baldwin Seggebruch's Encausticamp

Although I was not registered for Encausticamp, Trish invited me down to visit for the second year in a row.  I went on the second day of workshops and was privileged to visit the classrooms of Trish, Michelle Belto, Shari Bothwell, and Judy Wise.  I also spent some time with Tracy Felix in her ARTspot store.  The artists are delighted to have a place to shop for art supplies on site and take full advantage of it.  Michelle's class were creating fascinating three dimensional forms for encaustic that I am really interested in doing.  I think I may register for Encausticamp next year so that I can take this class, as well as some others, of course.  Shari was also creating three dimensional forms with spunbound fibers.  Fascinating!  Encausticamp offers something for everyone, and I have never seen a group of artists having so much fun.  They were not only having fun though, they were creating beautiful artwork.  Yes, I think I have to sign up next year!

Daniella Woolf Workshop

I just completed a four day Daniella Woolf workshop at Coupeville on Whidbey Island.  What a treat it was to meet her and have the opportunity to learn from her.  I haven't actually had any formal encaustic training except for a class I took 8 years ago with Trish Seggebruch.  I have mostly been teaching myself from books.  It was Daniella's book that caused me to sign up for the workshop.  I had been trying to get signed up for a workshop with her at her studio, Wax Works West, in Santa Cruz, but found out she had retired from the group, and this Coupeville class was the only class she was teaching in the U.S. in 2014.  So, I feel fortunate to have had the opportunity.  I had an awesome time with a great group of artists, including my friends Tracy Fraker and Lisa JonesMoore.  I am posting a few of the paintings I created while in the workshop.  They are mostly partial images as I have not had the pieces photographed for my website yet.  These are just pictures I took in the class.

The piece above started out as a book.

Reorganized Studio

I recently inherited an artist's worktable from my friend Tracy Felix.  She inherited it from another artist, and had for the last two years kept it in the workshop area of her new art supply store, ARTspot.  In order to make more room for students, she decided to pass it on to me.  Tracy and James were kind enough to disassemble the worktable at ARTspot, transport it to my studio and set it up!  It is a great workspace for my encaustics, but the entire studio had to be reorganized to accommodate it under the only window.  Below are images of Tracy and James assembling the worktable and of how the studio looks now. 

New Acrylic Painting

I have managed to start working on some acrylic paintings lately.  I seem to be so intrigued by encaustic that I do not work with acrylic as much as I would like.  Here is one of the new acrylics I just finished last week.  I feel another figurative series coming on.

Artist's Garage Sale

The Artist's Garage Sale at the Schack Center in Everett was a smash hit again this year.  I enjoy this show so much.  I take all of the art that I have not sold and do not want to paint over and offer it at bargain basement prices.  I would rather have my paintings go to a good home, especially to someone who cannot afford to buy at the regular prices.  Unfortunately, those that do not sell, must go to the repaint pile!  There just isn't enough room in my house to store everything I paint.  I paint more for the joy in the process than to make paintings to sell.  This year 33 paintings went to new homes with people who love them.  I couldn't be happier.  A couple of them are below.

Local Color Show

Some of my encaustic paintings are being shown at Local Color, across from Pike Place Market, through July 31.  For directions go to www.localcolorseattle.com.  I show my work at this venue once or twice a year, and it is a fun place to go for coffee and to enjoy the art.  Several artists show their work at the same time, and this time one of them is a friend, Cheryl Waale.

Matthew Robert Salon Show

I  have a show hanging at Matthew Robert Salon through August.  Some of the paintings in the show are below.   Feel free to stop in anytime they are open.  They do not mind visitors walking through the salon to look at the art.  For directions go to www.matthewrobertsalon.net.  I am showing with my friend Nancy Thompson.

Edmonds Arts Festival

The Edmonds Arts Festival juried show was spectacular this year.  I base that comment on how many of the paintings I wanted to buy.  I restrained myself and did not purchase any because I came home from the artist's garage sale last weekend with four new ceramic pieces.  I cannot seem to help myself.

My piece from the Edmonds Arts Festival Juried Show is pictured below.

I also was selected as one of six local artists to donate a piece for drawings that were held at the Festival Preview Party.  I was there to draw the winning ticket, and it was won by someone I know, Susan Southwick.  It was a fun evening, seeing lots of people I had not seen for ages. 

Edmonds Arts Festival Preview Party

This is an encaustic piece I just donated for a drawing that will take place at the Edmonds Arts Festival Preview Party.  For more information on this event,  go to www.edmondsartsfestival.com. 

Six Paintings of Six Sisters

I do have some acrylic paintings to show you that I forgot about.  I don't know how I forgot about it, because I spent a long time on this project.  I was commissioned to paint six paintings of six sisters in the style of my long legged figures.  Here are two of the six.  I don't know if you read this blog Linda, but thank you for the commission.

More Encaustic Paintings

I am gradually getting back into doing more acrylic painting lately.  I also just got a new Gelli Plate so will undoubtedly be doing some printing.  However, in terms of images, I only have encaustics to share with you right now.  I will have some acrylics shortly.

Beeswax and Bees

I took my encaustic paints to Palm Springs this year instead of my acrylics.  I set up outdoors as I always do, and everything went fine for about a week.  After that I noticed a bee that kept swooping around me.  It didn't concern me because I didn't bother it and it didn't bother me.  Unfortunately that scout bee told all his friends that he had found a feast.  In a few days I was surrounded by bees and they were feeding off my paintings, my table, my equipment, because I have encaustic all over everything I use.  They were even attempting to feed on the griddle and the tins of paint on the griddle.  I would find little bee bodies in my paint.  Obviously, I was not going to be able to continue painting outdoors.  It had never occurred to me that this would happen.  I painted outdoors in Palm Springs in October, and there was not a problem.  I don't know anything about bees, but perhaps they were dormant then.  Or, they didn't have as good a scout as this group of bees did.  What do you call a group of bees?  I spent three weeks in the desert without being able to paint, which was really hard.  I couldn't paint inside because there just wasn't a good place to do it.  The encaustics will not be visiting the desert again.  Below is my table top with one of my pesky visitors chowing down.

How Long??????

I cannot believe how long it has been since I last posted here.  Time seems to just disappear.  I continue to work mostly in encaustic.  I have been experimenting with putting encaustic on acrylic paintings, which you are not supposed to be able to do.  It does seem to be working.  Below is one of these experiments.

I have also managed to get a few abstract acrylic pieces done over the last couple of months.  If it were not for my painting group once a month, I probably would not be getting these acrylic paintings done.  Everytime they come, I have to clean up my encaustic area so that there is room for everyone to paint.  There are seven of us if everyone makes it, and my studio is not that large.  Once the encaustic materials are put away I manage to get a few acrylics done.  You will find one of the most recent below.  Unfortunately it does not photograph very well.  It has a very glossy medium over it that looks great, but doesn't show well in the image.