New sign

Today along with gesso-ing my large panels and getting them ready for a triptych painting, I thought I'd put up a mock up of the house sign I'm doing for a lady here in Long Beach. She's a transplant from the Seattle area and saw my earlier sign - see Pub sign posts in archive)and I had to put her off till I finished my move and set up my studio. Now all that's done, I have the mental room to concentrate on her design and do a color board - part watercolor part color pencil full size image of how it will look. I'll be meeting her tomorrow and we will add or subtract based on what we see here. Then next will come the actual painting on a piece of her found driftwood and a partially deconstructed cedar board.

I'm looking forward to the Encaustic demo on Saturday, February 27th at 9:30 at Arts and Cultural Exchange in Astoria and then later the Gallery opening on Saturday March 13th in Astoria at the same location.

I've also got some smaller paintings going and will post as soon as they're finished. I need to move on to a new series of work in both encaustic and acrylic and I'm not there yet. Like some of my other art friends, it takes a period of thinking, feeling and experimenting time to find that series of thoughts and concepts that click. See the links I've posted to the right to go visit some of my favorite artist and non artist blogs.

I'm back

I've got my studio(s) back up now and am just finishing up sorting supplies. It's been like 2 months down and the creative devil is gnawing me from the inside out.

I've had a young man helping me push boxes, bins and tables into just the right place for creating masterpieces both in my garage and in my inside office studio. I got 2 inspiring magazines in the mail - Ornament with a shimmery egg on the front showing jewelers and beaders inside the covers and Surface Design all about felt this time.

And it isn't that I lack customers either since I left one client hanging until after my move to finish her gorgeous house sign composed of dolphins and seahorses - I'll take a pix to show. Both of my local art hanging places would love to see some larger brand new work, and I've got a new gallery gig for March of my "Legacy of Trees" series in Astoria at the Arts and Cultural Exchanges new gallery space.

So I'm bbbbaaaaackkkkk! :-)

Stormy Bay

Here's a typical picture of the deluge like rains, low cloud cover and wind we've been having here. To live here you must love this kind of weather and you need to have several inhouse activities that really turn you on!

Which makes it the perfect time to a: unpack boxes (this is where the real deluge is since we moved into our new house just before Christmas) b:unlitter yourself-that is go through your belongings and simplify by throwing out or giving away 1/3 of your belongings and c: set up your art studio(s) in my case it's 2 different locations - one where I can vent fumes (say garage) and the other that's warm and dry d: knit e: read. Preferably the last 2 by a lit fireplace.

For men though, going to Home Depot seems to be the activity of choice. Something about rain and the smell of lumber and all those tools.

After all that rain yesterday and the rain and wind to come which has been forecast for the next 7 days, it dawned today with a beautiful sunrise which I hope to be able to show you shortly once I find my download cord. It's these wonderful winter sunrises that are so inspirational here whether you're a painter or not.

ART NEWS:
My encaustic painting class did not fill though there were 7 very interested people. The recession/depression has hit our families hard here and money for classes is scarce though interest is high. So Julia of Arts and Cultural Exchange in Astoria has suggested I do a demo on February 20th instead and so I will.

My "Legacy of Trees" series will be hanging in the Arts and Cultural Exchanges new gallery space opening in March for 2 months. It will be seen for 2-3 Artwalk nights.

I have 5 small paintings up at Old Trading Post Coffee Shop - a gathering of artists, antique collectors, knitters and Heritage Museum folks as well as 15 paintings up in Azure Day Spa. There always lots to see and do here for people who want to get away and take a breather on our lovely coast.

January 2010 - the resolutions

Well as part of my first blog of the new year, you all will note that I have changed my blogging name to Waxing Rural which just seems a lot more fitting to where I am both physically located and where my head is.

It seems like all the blogs I look at have great resolutions for the new year and I applaud this. Jokingly at first I have been emailing friends and family with my top 3 resolutions of the year and these follow directly from our recent move.

1. Eliminate printing everything out on paper which not only is bad for the environment but means you have to save and try to re-find those pieces of paper and they are just impossible to find when you are 59 years old as of December! So my alternative is to create some directories on my computer to save things and we'll see how this works in 2010

2. Get a cell phone for god's sake so people can get me - this is a problem for my husband as well as for friends and clients since I am rather reclusive and elusive at the same time. (By the way, this one is done as of 2 days ago, breaking a long standing vow never to have a cell phone -the most demonstrable item of my former and hated life)

3. Simplify my life by dis-accummulating material things that I have to keep track of, dust, move and make room for. I always had this goal when we moved here to coastal Washington, but the reality of getting rid of stuff that filled a 2,500 square foot house and fitting in to a 1,200 square foot house is still daunting.

Now these seem like very worthy resolutions but here a couple more that I found out there in the ether that I especially liked:

Start everyday from a "yes" point of view, meaning get up everyday willing to embrace the positive spin rather than the negative or crabby spin. It's surprising how easy it is to fall into the negative but negative doesn't help you find or seek answers,or joy, or acceptance. So this one is one I'll adopt.

Become healthy self - not a thin self, not a certain weight self, not an athletic self (all of which deny the many years of dieting, running, walking, low carb and low fat foods I've done or eaten) but instead be as healthy as I can be, as pain free as I can be, as benign as I can be right here and right now. I think this is worthy one too.

And then finally I really will blog nearly every day and put up plenty of photo's and painting. I'm also going to update my website more often too so folks can link to that and see all the work. I PROMISE!

Mixed Media Collage - what"s going on?

So, can any of you tell me why these small little collages 8 X 10 and 10 X 10 have not been juried into 2 shows? One up in Kirkland at Parklane and one down here in Canon Beach - both were collage exhibitions. This makes a difference to me because I can't get a fix on what the reason is they are not getting in to shows. Is it because they are too small? Is it because they are not considered fine art? Is it because they are too bright? Is it because they are too detailed? Is it because they each have words, some of which could be construed as a message - titles are Work, Life Spice; Planet Asia, Peddling; Earth Revisited; Sculpture Gate; Raku, the Source? Is it because of quality? Also look at several of the collages in August blogs - these 2 were the latest not to get juried in.

So readers, what do you think? I've never not been juried in before in any exhibition that I've entered so I'm at a loss. These are paintings I've just started doing this year and are interesting to me because I can use lots of different techniques and is a way for me to express detail. Are these a dead end? Do I stop doing this kind of work altogether? Please, your comments are appreciated!

Ta...Da.....Pub Sign

So here is the finished Pub Sign. Well actually 2 signs exactly alike which were hung on either side of an old sign which remained in place. We had the hanging and unveiling last night with some local friends over for some delicious soup, pizza and a fresh peach pie.

It took about 104 hours from start with initial consultation to hanging. In real life it is a little more yellow in the background than what it shows here. By yesterday when I was taking this picture the weather had started to become overcast and unfortunately today it's going to rain buckets and the wind is already fierce with 30 mph gusts.

So my next project other than teaching my upcoming classes and finishing our house is to assemble 18 paintings and start showing them to galleries. I'm really going to focus on finding regional representation even though this may be an uphill battle in this economy. First with my encaustics I think and 2nd with my newer large acrylics on canvas. They would find different galleries I believe who would be interested - no overlap.

It's interesting to realize that I do (and probably most artists do) go through a little bit of a depression after the completion of an intense bit of work - even if you're really happy with the final result and are glad to see it go to a good home. It's coming down from intense focus and intense work and intense creativity, but it's also natural and it does pass. The way I get through it without letting it overwhelm me is to clean up my studio and reorganize so that I can move on to new projects. This little time away allows me to figuratively clean out my mind too and get me some free space so to speak to allow for a fresh new idea for the next painting project to emerge. And it inevitably does. If the clean up time doesn't seem long enough, I take the time to blog, to update my website which needs to be done and to make some more business cards to hand out. Now is actually a good time to market and use that left side of the brain.

The Pub Sign

The Pub sign has taken over my life! I've been working on it almost 6 hours a day since August 15th and I have just 5 more days until it has to be done. It's going up at the start of a one day festival here in Ocean Park in the center of the Long Beach Peninsula. The one thing about it other than how great it's turning out is that I got introduced to the One Shot Oil Enamel paints which are what outdoor sign painters typically use. The solvents are hellish but the paint drys to a wonderful shiny silky smooth vibrant color that I just love. I wear my paint respirator but still. Anyway the sign is actually two signs - each side identical or nearly so.

The man whose sign this will be had strong inclinations for the plants he wanted shown and they have turned out fabulous. One, the Gunnera - or Dinosaur Food, I nailed spot on and so far he's happy with it. Today I'm on the final background and then there will be the topcoat.

Check back for a picture - it's so much better than the concept sketch I did. And in the meantime I finished the workplan for a Mixed Media-Getting Started class to be held in Astoria on October 17th. And I've been encouraged to do an Mixed Media-Next Step class in December, an Encaustic Introduction class in January and perhaps a spring series. I'm really looking forward to this -- and of course painting, encaustics and moving in our new house by christmas!