Winter Workshop Rescheduled

The winter weather was horrid which forced the rescheduling of my Portland workshop!

The good news there is plenty of time to sign up!

Margaret Godfrey: "Adding Content to Your Art Mixed Media"
Wednesday-Saturday May 3 - 6, 2017
$395 four days Limit 20 students
http://margaretgodfreyart.com/

Call (503) 228-0706 Oregon Society of Artists to Register.

If you have been to many art shows, you have probably seen a number of subjects painted over and over. Roses. Sunflowers. Trees. Children. What can an artist do to make their flower, person, landscape or abstract stand out from the others? What is YOUR message and how do you make your art unique? I want to help you find that element for your art.

So what will we do in the workshop (besides having fun, of course)? First, I will share my own method of digging into subject matter by gathering resources. Not only does it push back Alzheimers, but I find different ways to tell a story. My goal is to help participants do the same. My hope is that each artist finds ways to explore ideas, discover symbols, create a unique language to put more content into their art.

In preparation of this workshop I challenged myself  by choosing a common critter to paint. The Hummingbird. I wanted to create several small paintings telling more of this bird's story. It is the challenge of "what can I say that will make my painting unique?" How can I tell more about this fascinating little creature that we are all so familiar with? I began by looking into what I didn't know about this bird. 

Gathering Resources

An Anna's hummingbird egg is .5 to .6 inches long. Also the bird lays just 2 eggs. So I started with a stamp to scale. I started to put together one/half inch oval with part of an oval to create a border stamp. Stamps are a great way to personalize your art--something I will share at the workshop.

I thought of their small size and ways to paint in a way to convey the scale of the tiny bird to humans. My mind went to the summer when my husband and I sit in our yard late in the afternoon--we are often startled by the buzzing so near our ears as a hummingbird flies in for a drink at the feeder. Sometimes you can feel the wind created by their small busy wings. I used my husband's ear and painted it in proportion to the bird's size. Can you almost hear and feel this little guy?

Another great way to get inspired to paint is through words. I found this haiku poem that presented a vision of two creatures being almost paralyzed with surprise in a close encounter. 

And more hummingbird paintings and ideas are coming. Come join us in May when the weather is milder!

Painting Accepted: Blue Moon Heron II

Blue Moon Heron II

23 x 18

Transparent Watercolor

This painting was accepted into the Watercolor Society of Oregon's Fall Show by juror, Linda Doll. It will hang among 80 other paintings in Bandon, Oregon at the Southern Coos Hospital October 4 through December. I am very happy that my painting was selected and will be hanging at the convention where I will hand over the gavel to a new president of the WSO. 

Viewers may recognize this piece as being very similar to a previous painting, Blue Moon Heron, which was not a transparent watercolor painting, therefore ineligible for exhibitions which require a picture painted only using transparent paints. For non-painters, this is confusing, I know. There is a certain quality to a strictly transparent watercolor painting, that is both challenging to the painter and lovely on a piece of watercolor paper. Where other paints cover up the paper, transparent watercolors soak into the paper, leaving a jewel-like characteristic to the colors.

I hope many of you will see this and other paintings in person in Bandon. The Oregon Coast is a wonderful destination for a fall vacation.

How We Roll--A Summer Camp/Raft Trip Part I

On June 30 we headed out on a 5-day camping trip with our son-in-law, his three children and a fourth grandchild. We were pulling a trailer with all our camp gear plus 3 rafts and equipment for our raft trip down the Middle Fork of the Salmon River. Our son-in-law was pulling his pop-up trailer behind his minivan. Our caravan was quite a sight I'm sure--suburbia meets the Blue River hill-billies.

Mike had planned our trip by renting cabins around Oregon on our way to Idaho using recreation.gov. So these cabins vary in sizes and upkeep. Most have housed Forest Service folks in the past, and some are on high elevations providing wonderful vistas.

The cabins vary in appearance from "creepy" to "adorable" to quote the granddaughters. Creepy included bugs, spiders, and deserted barns full of various animal turds. Adorable included cottontail bunnies, baby birds in a visible nest, and a great creek to play in.

Creepy 

Adorable (inspite of name--Murderer's Creek)

We were traveling during perhaps the hottest week of the summer. At the end of a day sitting in a car, to arrive at a new cabin/campsite, when the temperature was 106 degrees, Hannah wasn't the only one who felt like having a fit. But after a good night's sleep and a cool morning, all of us felt refreshed and ready for the next day's adventure.

The great thing about a trip like this is that the grandchildren get a different view of of the world. We covered a lot of territory and saw some of the most rural parts of our state. We saw desert, forest, mountains, lakes and rivers. We saw wildlife: elk, deer, antelope, cottontails, bald eagles, sandhill cranes, and one marmot. I know they will remember this trip for all they saw and did on this vacation including meeting this precious foal in the ghost town of Granite, Oregon.

We crossed the border of Idaho on July 3 and picked up my daughter, Rachel, at the Boise Airport. With another 2 nights of camping, we ended up at Boundary Creek (at nearly 6000 ft. elevation) where we launched on our Middle Fork raft trip, taking 11 year old Angelica with us. The Carter family saw us off, and then after pulling the pop-up trailer up and down the mountains of Oregon and Idaho, went home to trade in the minivan for a 4-wheel drive!

My Oregon studio

It's not that easy getting settled back into my Oregon home. First of all the shock of reentry, holidays, family get-togethers, unpacking both art and personal belongings have consumed my time. All of the family and holidays were wonderful diversions, but now it's time to get back to creating art.



One obstacle has been the cold weather and snow. Here is the exterior of my art studio, which is in our barn.









But once inside the studio, it is warm, comfortable and well lit.



But no matter how wonderful the space, I've not yet felt inspired. As I settle in here in Oregon, I trust I will begin to get my creative spirit back. It's not the first time I've experienced the struggle of adapting to a new place and new situation. Although my home in Oregon is neither a new place nor new situation, the two year break from here has given me a whole new experience to draw from.



Here's a start that I was happy with, but an hour later I felt I'd ruined it. Oh my!