Menagerie Boutique

I recently became a participating artist at the Menagerie Boutique. The Menagerie Boutique is what I would call an alternative gallery brand new to the Phoenix area. It is located in Goodyear, which is the SW part of the valley, at McDowell and Lichfield Rd. The grand opening is October 17th. The owner is Cindy Keogh and she is approaching the sale of art in a unique and imaginative way. Cindy has two rooms connected by a hallway which will include hung art. Each of the two rooms has walls painted different colors. She has brought in a collection of eclectic pieces of furniture, some antiques, most from her home. She plans to set up vignettes with the furniture to showcase the art as one would possibly see it in their homes. I think this unique approach will appeal to customers and decided this was a venue I wanted to try as an artist. The gallery website is currently under construction, but should be active soon. (http://www.menagerieboutique.com/). Please check out this new gallery and my work there. I would love to hear what you think!

Art Challenge

The Arizona pastel Artist Association has initiated a new event this year in the form of an "Art Challenge". There are three cycles of the Art Challenge during the year. For each cycle up to 10 artists can sign up to participate. The participants are given an object or set of objects. All participants receive the exact same object(s). Each artist then has two months to create a painting that incorporates the object(s). After two months the participants bring their finished pieces in to the meeting where a discussion is held that examines the resulting paintings in terms of composition, color choices, concepts, etc. It is a learning and fun activity for both participating and non-participating members. I decided to participate in the first cycle. Our object was a glass goblet that was tinted green. This worked fine for me because I have been really enjoying painting with the colors of green and purple of late (artichokes, eggplants, etc.). After a shopping trip to AJ's grocery store, I composed and painted the painting above. My problem is that I am so happy with the results that I decided to enter it into our fall juried show. If it gets juried into the show it will not be available for the discussion at the November meeting......which means I would have to do another composition using the glass. I will have to start thinking of other compositions.....just in case!!!

Bulldog Cliffs

This is a piece I did plein air out in Bulldog Canyon in the Tonto National Forest 2 weeks ago. It just needed some finishing touches in the studio which I did this morning. Bulldog is one of my favorite places to paint. It is very much still as nature intended. You need a pass to access the area which only has a couple of 4-wheel drive roads through it. The entrances have gates with padlock codes which are given to you 6 months at a time. There is a herd of mustangs that travel this area that we have seen twice. This canyon borders the Salt River which attracts wild life. Hope you enjoy this piece as much as I did doing it.

Sunflowers

Finally finished! This was a tough piece for me. The sunflowers themselves were a gift from good friends as part of a larger bouquet of flowers. The sunflowers were so eyecatching I just knew I had to paint them. I isolated the sunflowers and the deep purple flowers that so wonderfully accented the sunflowers into a vase to take pictures. I was happy with the resulting photo and even happier with the watercolor underpainting as I shared with you in an earlier blog entry. I was actually worried about ruining such a great foundation for a pastel painting. Maybe it was that fear that set me up mentally. I like the finished piece....but it was a painful process. I painted and left it for days...painted again with new ideas and left it for days....this continued more than a few times. Some pieces just flow from the pastels with no effort.....and other pieces fight you all along the way! As long as I am happy in the end I guess I can't complain too much about those that are a struggle. I hope you like the results!!

Small Works Continued

Surprisingly I find myself having a lot of fun with the small works approach. I was so pleased with the "Artichoke" piece that I decided to try another vegetable that also uses purples and greens....an eggplant (besides....I love eggplant). I used the remaining half of the UArt 500 grit paper sample I received at the IAPS Convention in May which is 5" x 7". I went to the Wet Canvas Reference Photo section and found a photo of eggplants that met my needs. Small works are so much fun because they are not long term projects. I completed "Eggplant" in about 3 hours with a little more tweaking the next morning after "sleeping on it". I have some samples of UArt paper of different grits.......I may just have to try some more vegetables!!!

Small Works

I work almost exclusively on 9 x 12 paper as I do so much plein air painting. The 9 x 12 size is easy to transport in my backpack or tote bag. I have been planning to do some pieces in a larger format to add variety to my work as I prepare for the Hidden in The Hills Studio Tour I am participating in this fall. However, I have been noticing more and more art shows for small works. I found myself intrigued about doing a smaller piece. This was fueled by the fact that I had received a free promotional pack of the new Uart paper at the International Association of Pastel Societies Biennial Convention. The pack included four sheets of the paper in various grit sized 7" x 11"......so I had the paper. Now the topic. It didn't take long to decide what to paint......I have had a hankering to paint an artichoke since last winter when I took a class where one of the other artists in the class painted a beautiful artichoke. I had purchased an artichoke and taken photos....but planned on a large painting. Now I decided to paint it in a small format......7" x 6". I sketched the piece and created the watercolor underpainting yesterday. This afternoon I completed the painting in pastel. Here's the results....."Artichoke".

California Dreaming

I have just gotten home from a driving trip to California with my husband. We were gone two and a half weeks. During that time we visited with our sons and their families, but we also spent quality time in three of our beautiful National Parks, Sequoia, Kings Canyon and Yosemite. I collected enough inspiration and photos to keep me painting for a long time!! I must admit that I found some of the scenary too awesome to try to capture in a painting. Mother Nature has much more skill than I could ever hope to have!! I do have some photos that I plan to work from, but they may not see the light of day!!!

We spent a week of the trip at a condo on Bass Lake in California just south of Yosemite National Park. The lake is truly beautiful. It is at about 3400 ft. above sea level with beautiful conifer forest surrounding it. I did a couple of paintings during the week. I think I am finished with this one which I titled "Bass Lake Shoreline I". Here is the photo of the scene, my thumbnails, my sketch and the painting. I have put my name on it....but may still do some tweaks after I look at it for awhile.