Silver Brush Art Show

This has been a house of near-silence.

This has been a house of rather intense focus.

This has been a house with little social networking.

This has been a house that is NOW

Ready to Go For It !

Silver Brush Art Show this weekend.

November 13 and 14, 2015

Details below.

If you are in the area please stop by. 

If not, the new paintings are up on my website.

Sharing a few here.

Seems like I had a lot of ideas, sketches, photo references 

to pull from. As a result I ended up with a

mixture of styles, colors, surfaces: from encaustic

to oil to acrylic to mixed media grabbing anything near my easel.

Some times I wonder just how many tubes of paint I go through????

This is the Biggie 36x36 !

This one is wee, 6x6, inches that is.

Encaustic and Mixed Media...loads of fun!

Lots of flowers in this show...roses and sunflowers.

Enjoyed doing five mixed media paintings of women in various stages of contemplation.Would love to see you at the show..fabulous paintings, jewelry, clay work and photography. A portion of proceeds benefit Blessed Assurance, a local day care facility for adults.  A gift of giving.

Have a beautiful month filled with Thanksgiving.  May your blessings be bountiful. 

Thank you for the support and friendship you have given to me over the many years of painting, art shows, blogging, IG and a tiny bit of FB.

Silver Brush Show, November 13, 5:30-9:30 refreshmentsNovember 14, 9:30-4:30
Weaver, Bennett and Bland
196 North Trade Street
Downtown Matthews, NC

"Oh Glorious"

It all started with the purchase of a bouquet of sunflowers.

I knew if anything was going to entice me to paint again after a long absence, it would be the GLORIOUS Sunflower!

I prepped a 24 x 24 canvas with watered down magenta and yellow-medium acrylic. A paper towel took off the excess paint.

The first marks were with willow charcoal which I find pretty messy, so I switched to diluted turquoise paint for redefinition.

It isn't unusual for me to start a painting with acrylic, setting in composition and some basic color.  Artist grade acrylics are fabulous and have wonderful color properties...and I can quickly change my mind as there is little drying time.

Pretty messy at this point, and time to re-correct drawing and

begin laying in thinned oil in corresponding colors.

I paint with large flats and occasional filberts/synthetic. Working the thick, viscous paint is sheer pleasure.

You will note the paint is "sliced" through, that is thanks to a credit card, palette knife, or small piece of hard rubber dicing up the paint, creating a softened effect.  

Now I should have left this painting about here, just finishing up the vase....but I left the painting for a week or two...then couldn't make up my mind what I wanted to do...meanwhile my Bell glass jar with water and flowers had ceased to be and I had no photo as reference.

Oops didn't realize how blurry this photo was, sorry, it isn't your eyes.  Anyway, I did an about face in all directions: gone-- water/vase, no soft side flowers, and clouds of swirling background. 

Eventually I became weary of this painting, sent a photo to Tam, my best critic ever, and expected to call it quits.

Uhhhhh, not quite the response expected.  Tam gave me some suggestions and I took it to heart.  She is pretty persuasive.

(By now I am not photographing my steps, as I was pretty much not enjoying the process like I had at the beginning.)

I think you would agree with me...this is far from my original design when I worked from life and ended up painting in the imaginary part of my brain.

From soft to stylized....

One thing I have learned: there are ever so many ways to paint a subject. None of which is correct or incorrect, but rather that you are pleased with the final result.  This painting, in particular the color has grown on me.

"Oh, Glorious" is happily framed and hanging in the RiverView Gallery.  410-939-6401