Art Lovers

20x16 oil on cradled panel
Ask Castle Gallery about this painting

 This was fun to paint. And pretty fitting for the upcoming holiday. Happy Friday!

ps - the frame and the molding lines are not warped... camera does that.

Corridor of Art

20x16 oil on linen
Ask Castle Gallery about this painting

This was painted a couple of years ago, but hasn't been seen publicly in awhile so I thought I'd share it again. Hopefully it will find a good home in Indiana.

Musse d'Art

 

 8x6 oil on panel

$450 framed - sold

Available at dk Gallery

Exhibit Montmartre

8x8 oil on panel

Ask dk Gallery about this painting

I am packing again. This makes 3 out of 4 weekends I will be out of town this month. Its a little crazy! This weekend is a Girl Scouts camping trip and should be a lot of fun. Our weather is just beautiful now in central Texas.

European Sculpture Court

24x18 oil on cradled panel

Ask DK Gallery about this painting

How about a little break from the big city to visit the cool and quiet interior of the Met? This view played into two of my favorites - the museum and an overhead view. This is a beautiful space at the Met. All that glass with natural light pouring in and a view to the greenery of Central park. I got there at the right time on this day!

Summer Hours

What to share? What to talk about? Well, I am painting some. Trying to work a little larger mostly. So those take more time. Its nice to live with things a little while too so I can be sure they are right before sending them out. 

We're enjoying our summer vacation. But its not all play - well - with painting it really is (or should be).
I've teamed up with V....Vaughan to lead some sketching workshops on Saturdays in June. If you are nearby do come and join us. We can talk about and teach what YOU like about sketching for painting purposes. Either  making preliminary paint sketches or value studies or mapping out your composition. You can work out many things with sketches before starting on your canvas.

Join us at Joel's Coffee House in Austin. We get amped up on delicious gourmet chocolates, excellent coffees and teas or frozen drinks first and then work for a few hours.
 

On Saturday, June 15 and June 22 we'll do it again! You can join us with your sketch supplies, or USE OURS! We will each do a short demo. Cost is $20

 

On its way to Carmel this week is this fun painting featuring a rather stern man painted by Cezanne - "Antoine Dominique Sauveur Aubert, The Artist's Uncle, as a monk" 1866 (from The Met)

 Hoodies

18x20 oil on linen

Ask Edward Montgomery Fine Art about this painting.

With the Wyndhams

14x14 oil on linen

Been in a museum mood lately. It seems a good subject to paint a little larger. I keep hearing I should paint bigger but I worry that my subjects are rather intimate sorts of settings that won't lend themselves to large works. Who wants a giant chef in a busy kitchen on their wall? But I am scaling up to give several of my galleries more options. I do think I have a contemporary feel at least, and want to push that more so I can maybe hang these larger pieces on cradled panels and not frame them.

In this piece, I painted over a bad start that I had scraped and I used some palette knife just to add a little texture and move color around the background especially. I used my fingers some too.

I sometimes wonder if its cheating to use famous pieces of art in my own art. If people like the artist featured, for example, John Singer Sargent, then they have to like my painting. But, what I most like is to paint people admiring the masters, and doing what I love to do myself.

Portrait Society

10x12 oil on panel
Available at Tidewater Gallery

I've been working on some commissions lately which I can share with you soon. For now, we'll keep looking at the new works available at Tidewater until the end of my show July 14th.

Contemporary Spaces

12x8 oil on panel

Ask Castle Gallery about this painting.

I have a lot of paintings available in the six galleries that represent me and it dawned on me that I should use my blog as a way to bring some attention back to those pieces while I am working on new works. I'm working on my First Impressions series and planning a summer exhibit of 20-30 of those in NC.

A note about the galleries I work with. They are owned and run by lovely people. If you see a painting you admire online and its available in a gallery, don't hesitate to contact them. They will be very happy to talk with you about the work. Many will work with you financially and can offer payment plans if its an investment piece [not that my works are so expensive yet ;-)]. They offer guarantees if you aren't happy with a piece, even if you do not live nearby. I have had buyers contact and purchase from my galleries out of state and had very good experiences. I've done it myself when I've bought other artist's work. So I encourage you to follow up with me or my galleries if you see something you love. Don't let it get away!

The Grand Salon

24x36 oil on linen

Available in Dallas at the upcoming Russell Collection Presents... show.

Definitely large for me! Scaling up is hard, but overall I am pretty pleased with this painting. I did enjoy the process after all and by working in sections, the brushwork remained loose and interesting. The scene shows one of the large galleries in The Metropolitan Museum of Art, NYC. Its one of the loveliest places to view fine art. And the collections, like this roomful of Manet, are amazing.

Wishing you and yours a wonderfully blessed Thanksgiving.

Corridor of Art

18x14 oil on linen

Available soon at Tidewater Gallery.

My poor friends. Everywhere we go, they might be subject to posing for me and end up in a painting. This is my dear friend Tess, who attends lots of arty things with me. Here we were at the McNay Art Museum in San Antonio. The collection is quite nice and part of the museum space is in the founder's beautiful early 1900's Spanish Colonial home.

Upcoming Show - Russell Collection

Home Again

Back from a whirlwind trip to Boston and Woodstock, Vermont. Boston was fun to explore, though a bit rainy!



Woodstock is such a beautiful town and Wojtek, Studio 47 owner, is the loveliest host. The show was beautifully hung and the choice of artists meshed well. I met Maryanne Montone Tursi who paints beautiful landscapes and Gillian Tyler who creates a variety of impressionist scenes.



The opening went really well. The gallery is in an old mill, which was used at one time to grind linseed oil for paints! Its a gorgeous space right next to the stream and on the main street of Woodstock.



My wall o'art. Really cool to see it all hung together. A lot of hard work and thought went into it and I was really proud of the results.



Sunday we explored Quechee Village, the Simon Pearce glass studio, Quechee Gorge, some backroads, and downtown Woodstock before heading back to Boston and a way-too early
flight Monday morning.

Honorable Mention

10x12 oil on linen (mounted)

Ask Studio 47 about this painting.

I thought this was a fun scene. Its from the opening reception at the Salon International show in 2009. The painting with the award was by one of my favorite artists Diane Massey Dunbar. I believe it was at the Greenhouse Gallery that I saw one of her paintings of a grocery scene that was really so unique. She really captures some strange lighting in settings like the grocery or carnivals. Things I like to experiment with too. Speaking of, I have some images from the rodeo carnival I should look at again.

Arrested by Art

16x20 oil on linen

My final version. Comments were about half and half on the floor... but I felt like it needed to be darker. It is true to my initial "wow" reaction to the scene. A very kind follower gave me the info on the painting too. It is "Black & White" by Franz Kline. Part of his decade+ long series of them... so who knows where this one falls in the line.

As a side note, I would own this piece or such like it. I love abstract art - the action paintings or the color fields. Its so expressive, duh. I think also that its is actually difficult to create and something so very far from what I do that I would rather own it, than representational works. I can DO those... I can't do this. Probably has to do with being too miserly with paint. And too much of a perfectionista.

TOMORROW - Moses Botkin Monthly Challenge paintings!!

Admiring Monet

18x18 oil on linen

This will be available in Carmel at Edward Montgomery Fine Art in a week or so.

Castle Gallery Reception

What a wonderful reception Thursday night at Castle Gallery.
What a warm welcome. I got to meet collectors, some fans, and some other wonderful artists. It was so neat to hear stories of how my work had inspired memories and to hear people's response to my "vignettes." I only wish I had more work to show them. Its the end of summer though and my studio is rather empty. I painted as quickly as I could for them though and took some work still wet! They will be permanently fixed in those frames.




The large surrounding landscapes are not mine but Randall Scott Harden's.



Besides the evening at the gallery, I had an invitation to meet Fred Doloresco and see his personal collection of early American masterworks. It was quite a collection! Besides that I got a glimpse of his studio as well and what fun it is for an artist to get to see how another artist works. His space was much neater than mine. Mine is shameful right now and soon I must get it set to rights before I fall and break a leg in there.

Contemporary Gallery

12x8 oil on panel
Available

I am packing up for my trip to NYC! I am excited to get into some cooler weather for one thing. I have things all planned out; painting the West Village, a lengthy visit to the Met, some time in Central Park, maybe a ferry ride, lots of sketching, and kicking back in some good wine bars. Any recommendations for food/drink in the city?
:-)

I'm meeting up with Phil Levine and some other artists. I am undecided about taking my laptop, so don't yet know if I will post during the weekend. We'll see how my packing goes.

Renaissance Men

12x12 oil on panel

This was done last week. I have been painting some, in snatches. I don't know the lady in the portrait on the wall...reminds me of Lady Macbeth. Anyway, the subject is from the National Gallery of Art in D.C.

In the free time I have today and this weekend, I am going to try to organize this awful mess I call a studio. Didn't I just do this?

Docent Tour

20x20 oil on linen

I am not sure this painting is "right" so I thought I'd share it and get some feedback. Please give me your honest critique!

I am having such doubts of late. But thank you all for your wonderful comments and support. There is nothing like a support group to let me know my doubts are natural and expected. And given that my day was spent in research, talking to insurance advisers and taking my husband for more blood work, I have not had much time to think in the right brain.
The main thing I love about this painting is Mary Cassatt's painting "Little Girl in a Blue Armchair" and I will no doubt put it in a few more paintings in the future. Her relaxed pose makes me feel more relaxed.