Thursday post on Friday.

Last week when I finally got myself to start blogging again I decided that if I set a day to blog I would be more likely to follow through. I thought that Thursday would be a good day for it since Dad usually goes to Habitat for Humanity on Thursdays so the house is extra quiet. However, this week I was busy on Thursday, so I am writing on Friday instead. Yesterday I was helping out at the judging for the Academic Artist's Association's yearly show. It was so educational for me to see how the jurors go about choosing which pieces of art will be included in the show and/or receive prizes. The jurors this year were Doug Gillette and Dan Riccio. They made a great team and were really great at sharing their thoughts with those of us who were there as worker bees. And what a hard job they had since there was so much wonderful art there but only so much room for hanging the show so about 30 pieces had to be rejected. I am very happy to say my colored pencil piece of the marbles; "No Longer Lost" was accepted into the show. This is a national show and it is such an honor to be included.

 

 I have been doing a lot of painting but not much felting lately. I got discouraged with felt this past summer for various reasons and at the same time I was drawn back to more traditional art forms. I had such a strong craving to push paint around that I decided sign up for an oil painting class at the West Hartford Art League with Bill Simpson. I wanted to learn how to a. use oil paint properly since I had never had a class in that subject and b. learn how to do loose, less exact work. I love Bill's aerial paintings and the way that what looks like so much detail of the landscape is really just a glob of paint. I wanted to learn how to put that glob down and leave it there because my tendency was to blend the crap out of it. I found the key for me was to use the palette knife and I am really enjoying it. The class was such a struggle to get through because I was going through a really hard time with my bipolar issues and meds.
Here are the paintings I did in that class in the order that I did them.

Reflections on an icy river.

A corner of the school house studio.

The south end bridge.

Parker River Wildlife Refuge.

I also did a few oil paintings on my own outside of class.

Another one from the Parker River Wildlife Refuge.

Gloria

Since class ended I have been working on a large canvas; 30x40" I think. 

I realized that I was not painting my big canvas the way I had intended. I was painting it the same way I did a small canvas, there was just more area to cover. I had intended to use big marks. I was advised by Bill to use big brushes and squeeze out a LOT of paint. So I should have used big palette knives if I was going to do another knife painting. One problem I had was the idea of using so much paint all at once. It is so expensive! Trying to get myself to squeeze out a big old blob of paint and make big marks on this big canvas was not happening. At about this time I found The Savvy Painter. Listening to the podcast by Karen Jurick gave me the idea that I could make some money to buy more paint by doing small acrylic painting studies and offering them for sale on Ebay. So last monday I listed my first painting. Here are the paintings I have listed so far.

Abandoned 1 

Abandoned 2

Two Cats

Abandoned 3

One Cat

Water 1

Waterlily




And here is a photo of what I bought with some of my new earnings....more paint! I have another large canvas ready and waiting....