Open Studios Wrapup

I pose with "Mother's Tea" which sold the first day

Part of my display, including "Two for Tango" and "Mujer del Gaucho," sold on Day 2

My flower bike welcomes patrons to the studio

A lovely Mother's Day gift from my dear friend, Pam

We had a lovely second day of Open Studios. I sold nine paintings and numerous cards. My fellow artists had good sales as well. The crowds were steady. Bob did the greeter duties on Sunday. Both Bob and Arleta were terrific at their job. I had to show you my flower bike, which was a lovely gift from my co-workers when I retired. It's a true "fixie" for any of you who might know cycling lingo.

Since then, I've been super busy going to drawing class, meeting some social commitments, and doing a brown bag lunch session on commuting to work by bike requested by IBM at their Silicon Valley Lab. Tomorrow we teach a second session at IBM Almaden Research, and Thursday we work an energizer station at the Caltrain depot in Morgan Hill for Bike to Work Day, followed by breakfast at the Specialized Bicycle Company headquarters.

I am continuing to work on the closeout of the show. I am just getting my house back in order and trying to find a place for unsold art. I am doing thank you notes to the collectors who bought art, and recording sales for my business records. It's interesting to analyze what sold. I sold a still life, a very modern experimental piece, two dancer-themed paintings of people, several florals, and a landscape. All but two were framed and two were unmatted and unframed. Cards also sold very well. A special of four for the price of three was very popular.

Hopefully I am back to creating art, not doing the work of art, soon.

Another Gaucho Woman

"Mujer de Gaucho 2"

Watercolor, 13.5" x 20"

While in South America, I painted a gaucho woman dancing in a modest sized format from snapshots I took of gaucho dancers . You can see the first sketch here: http://mary-artadventures.blogspot.com/2009/02/south-american-art. My second one has a bit different background and lighting. I will be showing this piece in the Silicon Valley Open Studios.

We are having glorious California days and I want to get out and a take some photos of the wild flowers. Yesterday we took our bicycle class on a 50K ride along the valley's eastern hills. They were so green in the sunshine. Later they will turn golden (as we like to call them); think raw sienna or ochra. I should have brought my camera along. Today I had to spend some time buying a dress for Bob's daughter Jamie's wedding, so hiking the hills is not possible today. However, I was pleased with the speed with which I found the dress, as I am not a shopper.

Argentinian tango dancers

" Argentinian Tango Dancers"

We returned last night from a conference in Washington, DC. Yesterday morning before leaving I had a bit of time to complete this painting. Bob and I take ballroom dance classes, and I love art that features dancers. While we were on the cruise in South America, we danced every night, but we could only watch at the Milonga (the Spanish word for a venue for Argentinian tango) as South Americans did beautiful renditions of this dance. We only know Ballroom Tango, which is really quite different. We saw a wonderful tango show on the ship, and the following day, the performers taught a tango lesson. We ended up taking two private tango lessons from the performer's brother, Leandro, and his wife, Sol, in Buenos Aires, and they were excellent teachers. Now we are signed up with an instructor at our dance studio for Argentinian tango. George used to teach tango in Buenos Aires.

I mentioned two artists in my previous post and added a link to Jean Pederson's blog. The link had a problem, but is working now if you would like to check out her blog and her website. She is a wonderful artist.

Sailing Chilean Fjords

" Chilean Fjords 1"
Chilean Fjords 2

"Bob as the ship approaches a glacier"

These two watercolor sketches are the result of spending many hours sailing through the Chilean Fjords. Our captain told us to be up before 6 as we would be pausing near a glacier. Dutifully we ordered some , fruit, and rolls from room service and took our places in the increasingly colder and wetter air on our balcony. We knew we were getting close when we began seeing the ice floating by as you can see in the picture of Bob.

I grabbed my paints and sat on the balcony trying to capture the terrain. The atmosphere literally became a part of the picture. The moisture left the dots and the paint moved around a lot. The second picture shows the high snow-capped mountains along the coast of Chile. I don't often do pure landscape without a sign of man's existence. However, we passed hundreds of miles of gorgeous landscape with nary a sign of human life on shore. Of course, that is what makes this terrain so very special.

South American art

"La Mujer de Gaucho" watercolor sketch

Ushuaia, Argentina

Las Mujeres de Gaucho photo

My charcoal sketch

I managed to do a bit of sketching in graphite, charcoal, and watercolor, while traveling almost 5000 miles by cruise ship around the lower latitudes of South America. Ushuai, Argentina, on the Grande Isla de Tierra del Fuego, is the southernmost city in the world and a frequent staging area for expeditions to Antartica some 800 miles away. We took a shore tour that included a trainride at the end of the world, a gaucho show, and a visit to the Tierra del Fuego National Park.

We were surprised at the quality of the gaucho show which was in a rustic barn with a visibly amateur stage setting. However, the young folks were anything but amateur in their ability to perform. I took the snapshot of the women, which is not very clear, but good enough for reference materials. A few days later I used the viewer on my camera to do a charcoal sketch, selecting the woman in red as my subject. I then created a grid, which is straight in person I might add (pardon the camera skew), and redrew my composition on a watercolor pad. I did this painting as a sketch for further development in my studio. Interestingly, you might agree with me that the charcoal sketch is a better rendition. Note the positioning of the body and head. In fact, I want to improve upon the charcoal sketch to nail the dancer's body mechanics. That's why I like to do multiple sketches and paintings.

Now that I am home, I plan to do a series based on the sketch where I vary elements of design as taught by Mike Bailey and Myrna Wacknov. (Check out Myrna's blog for her latest workshop slide show to see the results of her instruction this week. Fascinating!) I also have several wonderful source pictures for gaucho men for future reference.

Tomorrow I will share a few little sketches I did in Buenos Aires.

Days at sea

"Days at Sea"

South American Cruise

We arrived back in town Monday afternoon from Buenos Aires, Argentina, after a wonderful cruise around the southern regions of South America. We have never travelled by cruise ship before, but figured seeing the Chilean Fjords, Patagonia, the Straits of Magellan, Tierra Del Fuego, Uruguay, and Argentina, and rounding Cape Horn in the lap of luxury just might be fun to try. Then we stayed in a small Bed and Breakfast in the Palermo section of Buenos Aires for 7 days where we got to pretty much fend for ourselves with our poor Spanish to prove to ourselves we are still capable of independent travel.

I did some sketching and some painting while on the ship. This piece was fun to do and qualifies as experimental. We spent many multiple days at sea without stopping in ports and there were lots of activities, but many people truly enjoy just relaxing. One day I sat in a coffee lounge and did a bit of surreptitious sketching. The following day I stamped watercolor onto cold pressed Arches using toilet tissue. After the paper dried, I drew freehand with a micron pen. I decided to throw in Bob doing the same activity -- reading/sleeping in our stateroom. I then applied some color to parts of the drawings. I'm not sure where this will take me in the future, but Bob really liked the whimsical quality of "Days at Sea."

I have much catching up to do on everyone's blogs, my e-mail, and egad, my taxes. This will take some time.