A Happy New Year 2013--Return to Art

Happy New Year!  

I love the holiday season. The winter celebrations are lovely--full of family, fun, food and festivities, but I miss my studio time. I love returning to the studio to create art, think about future paintings, and, like today, plan for upcoming exhibitions.

I currently have one painting heading to Fallbrook Art Center's 4th Annual American Signature Exhibition and another painting going to an invitational exhibit at the Umpqua Center Art Association in February. I also have things in limbo like a proposal in to Jacobs Gallery and a painting or two out to juried competitions. Those are just waiting games. But I do have a definite upcoming exhibit at a local restaurant, Zenon's Cafe in Eugene, starting on January 15.

Zenon's is a popular, upscale restaurant in a busy area. I think it will be great exposure for my paintings. Typically, I paint on a fairly large scale, but I want to offer customers some smaller and less expensive pieces as well. 

Last April at Carla O'Conner's workshop, I learned a method of making a lovely small painting and a mono-print. First I cover hot press watercolor paper with metallic gold gesso. The second step is to paint on the gold with gouache (opaque watercolor paint.) Once that is dry, it becomes a plate which is transferred onto damp watercolor paper, making a mirror image of the original.

Below you see the walking heron going both east and west. These are 4.5 inch squares.

 

In the last couple of days I have made a few more of these little gems. The four below are 5.75 inch squares. 

I visited a fellow artist, Marilyn Odland, the other day to get her great ideas for framing these to make the best presentation. I'll show the framed pieces in a future blog.

 

 

San Francisco Gallery

Mike and I just returned from a four day get-away to San Francisco. The primary purpose was to transport 5 paintings to a San Francisco gallery where my art will hang for 3 months. The secondary purpose of our trip was to have a couple of fun days in a city.

We left home on Wednesday, driving well past dark to Vacaville, CA where we found dinner and a room. I'd arranged to meet at the S.F. gallery on Friday when they opened, and we had only a 1 1/2 hour drive to make from Vacaville.

Being on Blue River time, we arrived early at the gallery and waited a few minutes for someone to arrive. (It's crazy to us that stores don't open before 10 or 11 o'clock.) The gallery,The Artist's Alley (http://www.galiara.com/), is on Mission Street, between 4th and 5th. Luckily it was very easy to find as it is just off the Bay Bridge in downtown S.F.,  across the street from Bloomingdales.

We were soon meeting with Rachel, the young woman I'd been talking to for a couple of months. She opened the gallery and showed me the space where my work would hang.

After dropping off the paintings we went to our hotel, checked in and decided to look at some other galleries in the city. We found one building full of small galleries, each showing just one artist's work. What was amazing to me, was that the norm in these galleries was to be totally ignored by the staff. Each gallery seemed to have one or two people sitting behind a computer, never looking up. We finally found one gallery with a very friendly person who was informed about the artist's work and was open to sharing that information. The more he spoke about the artists, the more interested I became in the art. Now that's the kind of gallery to be in!

We also enjoyed some street performances,

riding cable cars, and going to the California Academy of Sciences. Another thing we really enjoyed in S.F. was some amazing food!

On Friday, my art was up on the walls, and we attended an event being held at Artist's Alley, celebrating Filipino Recognition Month.

We left San Francisco on Saturday morning and visited my niece and her husband in Davis. We had a great day there looking at bees (Kim's work) and visiting a walnut orchard (Carolyn's work). I now know a lot more about both subjects. Since they were harvesting the nuts, we were able to see big equipment and giant sorting machines.

Here we are having lunch in Winters where the temperature was around 78 degrees.

Kim and Carolyn

Mike and me

We left Davis yesterday morning. The sky was clear, the sun was shining, and the air was warm. We drove about 9 hours to get home to Blue River where it was already dark, raining, and building a fire in the house was the first order of business.