Seasons Greetings 2016

I want to wish everyone Merry Christmas and Happy Holidays.

 I have been busy the past month with lots of activities and  working eight shifts at the Three Rivers Artists Guild Holiday Show.  I also started work on a new painting that I will be entering in the Carnegie Center for the Arts winter regional juried show.  The deadline is the first week in January so my time is running out.  It is a large painting with lots of detail so I feel the pressure of getting it done. When it is finished I will post photos of it and two other paintings that I will be entering in the show.

May God Bless you all in the new year......

Two Santas

I thought I should have at least one Christmas type painting at the Three Rivers Art Guild Holiday Show.  One of my popular Santa paintings in Tucson was "Cowboy Santa".  There are lots of farms and "horse people" here in MI so I decided to do another version of this painting and see if it will sell here.  The size of this one is 10X6.

My husband and I bowl twice a week and have made friends with many of the people we bowl with and also the owners of the bowling alley.  For that reason I decided to dig out an old bowling pin I brought with me from Tucson and paint it as a gift for the bowling alley owners to use as a Christmas decoration.  Here is "Bowling Santa"  Click on the photo to enlarge it and check out what is in his bag.

I plan to start a butterfly painting soon.  The pattern is traced onto the canvas and ready to go.

Colorful Pet Paintings

I finished two canvas paintings and two domino train stations in the past week.  All were of animals.  I haven't done any cat or dog paintings in the past except for a couple of commissioned paintings I did a few years back.  I decided it was time to do both a cat and dog painting to hang in the Three Rivers Art Guild Holiday Show.  The first photo is of an 8X8 painting titled "Peek-a-boo Kitty".  

I am happy to say that this painting sold just a day after I took it to the gallery.  The couple who bought it said it reminded them of a kitty they had that used to do this.

The next painting is one that I finished yesterday and will take to the gallery soon.  I hope it sells as quickly as the one above.  I call this one "Patchwork Pups".  The size is 5X12.

For some reason the photo appears much smaller than the one above.  I can't figure out why that happens.  

Here are the two Mexican domino train stations.  Both images are small versions of paintings I have done in the past.

Three Rivers Artist Guild Holiday Show

The opening for the Three Rivers Holiday Show was on Friday, November 25, 2016.  This is the first holiday show that I am doing since I moved to Michigan.  Here is my display.

There are 20 artists taking part in this show which will end on December 27th.  The gallery looks great with a variety of wonderful art.  I am getting to know the other guild members and am happy to be a part of this group.  I worked for the first time at the gallery today and find it is run almost identical as the gallery I was a part of in Tucson.  We had a special visitor stop by today and I had my photo taken with him.

I am happy to report that I sold a painting on the opening day of the show.  It was an 10x8 version of "Mare and Foal"

Since I had an empty spot in my display, I spent all day yesterday doing another version of this painting.   I took it to the gallery today to fill that empty spot.

Now I have another empty spot to fill because I sold another painting today.  It is one of my "Desert Dwellers" paintings which were so popular in Tucson.  I was surprised that some one from Michigan liked it!

I have a cross painting that is the perfect size to fit the new empty spot. It is called "Mexicali Cross".

I also sold 2 of my new mirror compacts that my grand-daughter Laura made with my art work on them.

It is a good start to have sold things in the first few days of the show.  I hope it keeps up.

Something old, something new, something recycled.

I'm busy getting ready for the Three Rivers Artist Guild Holiday Show.  I have less than a week until my scheduled set up time.  I have so much to do.   I have to make price tags and painting labels,  I must do a bio update.  I have greeting cards to print. I have to decide how to do my display.  The list goes on and on.

 I did a few last minute paintings.  The first two photos are of what I call "old" paintings.  They are some of my best selling designs which I have painted many versions of in the past. Each version has sold.  The first one is my classic "Endless Rose" on a 12X12 stretch canvas.  The second one is "Equine Mystic".  I recently did a larger 11X14 version which I am showing at LA's Coffee Cafe. I chose to do a smaller 8X10 for this show.

I also did a new design which was inspired by a duck decoy that I found at a yard sale.  I am displaying it on my new shelf unit.  It is on the bottom shelf with another duck on a stick.

I had been wanting to do a still life painting for the holiday show.  In most of my still life paintings I feature a container of flowers with some object or piece of fruit at the base.  I knew I wanted to do an arrangement with sunflowers but couldn't decide what else to put in the painting until I had an ah-ha moment and decided on the duck decoy.  I was trying to come up with something that would look more mid-western then all my previous south-western still live paintings.  I think I accomplished my goal with "Duck Decoy Still Life".  Size of this one is 16X12

So you have seen my something old and something new, now for the something recycled.

 I wanted another floral painting for the holiday show but knew I didn't have time to do one. Then I remembered I had a box of  paintings that I had taken out of frames when I was packing up for the move from Tucson to Michigan.  I found the box and discovered this painting titled "Pink Blush".  I went though my frames and decided on one that seemed to be a perfect match for this 20X16 painting.  It gave new life to a painting that has been tucked away in a box for over a year.  Hopefully it will find a home here in Michigan.

A new horse painting, new functional items and a new front porch!

I completed a new horse painting and have been working on a new rose painting.  Here is a photo of the horse drawing on the canvas and the rose painting in progress.

I have been working on the "Endless Rose" painting on and off between doing other paintings.  I had every intention of the horse painting being a fierce stallion but that didn't happen.  The more paint I added the more feminine looking it became.  The he became a she!  I ended up with a girly looking filly so I decided to title the painting "Fabulous Filly."  Maybe I'll give another try in the future to get the look I had in my mind.  Here is the finished product.

I'm trying something new this year.  I have a grand daughter in GA who has a business called LPcreaets.  She is able to put images on all types of items.  I decided to have her use my art on some  of these items.  Here are some samples of the things I will be selling at the The Three Rives Artist Guild Holiday Exhibition.  I am only showing you things with the Endless Rose pattern.  I will have other images on these functional items.  Of course, I will also have many original paintings that I will be showing at the show too.  Here are samples of a cutting board, coaster, small metal print, mirror compact, and watch. (It was hard to get a good photo because of reflections.)

I can't do a blog post with out showing off our newest home improvement project. When we bought the house we had a small covered entrance stoop.  Over the years it had sagged on one side.  We knew it would have to be replaced so decided to do a full size front porch. This job was a little too big for us to do it ourselves.  We hired a contractor to do the work for us.  We are happy to say he did an excellent job.  We love our new front porch.  We also had our driveway widen.  It was a single driveway coming in then widen out in front of the second garage door.  It was a pain in the neck to back out so we had the driveway made a full two car width.  The workers who did both jobs were the best!  Here is a photo of the new porch and one of me enjoying the porch swing we installed.

My most recent paintings,"Mr. Hoots" and "Fun with Flowers"

I completed two new paintings in the last week.  The first is based on the doodles I do when I am killing time while traveling or in a waiting room.  I have a few notebooks full of these.  If you go through my older post you will see many of them.  They are a lot like the adult coloring books that are so popular now.  I decided to do the doodle type of painting on a 16X16 stretch canvas.  I painted the canvas black then drew a pattern of crazy flowers on tracing paper which I transferred to the canvas.  I didn't have a plan in mind on what colors to use other than I  knew I wanted it to be very colorful.  I lost track of how many colors I used but I achieved my goal of a colorful painting. I had fun painting it so titled it "Fun with Flowers.  Here it is.

I have been thinking of doing a painting of an owl for awhile so that was my next project.  Here is "Mr. Hoots".  He was another fun project.  I think he has lots of personality!  Painting size is 14X11.

For those who are interested in our home improvement projects, here is an update on the newest one.  This is a job that we are not doing ourselves but hired a contractor to do for us.  We are having a front porch built onto our house.  The job should be done in a few days.  We are very happy with the great job our contractor is doing.  He is very detail orientated.  Since we do so much work ourselves, it is nice to have someone who can give us the quality of work that we want.  I'll post photos when it is done.

I won't do much painting for the next few days because we have friends from Tucson arriving tomorrow for a visit.  They had a funeral to go to in Grand Rapids which is about 70 miles from us.  We invited them to come see us on the way home.  Looking forward to seeing them and catching up on what is going on in Tucson.

More home improvements and 2 new paintings

A lot of work was accomplished last week.  The new front porch and driveway concrete work was done.  Brian and Roger finished the shelves for the stairway to our art studios and got the ceiling installed and new lighting in Roger's glass shop.  I completed two new paintings.

This painting is titled "Equine Mystic".Size is 14X11. It a new version of a painting I did a number of times in Tucson and sold.  I did this one in a different color pallet.

 I have not decided if I will show it at the Vicksburg Gallery, LA's Coffee Cafe, or the Three Rivers Artist Guild Holiday Show.  I am changing out the art in the first two places and doing new paintings for the holiday show.  I am not sure which paintings I will put in which exhibition.

The next is a large painting size 47X24 that I did for myself.  I call it "Stormy Day".  It is hanging in my new stairway.  Even though this is a very large painting, in the photo it appears to be smaller than the one above.  You will get a better perspective in the home improvement photos.

If you have been following my blog you know that we have a basement in this house which we are using as our art studio.  Even though this house is only 8 years old the stairway to the basement was pretty crappy looking.

The first thing we did was to remove the door and door frame to give it an open concept look.  We put hardwood on the floors and the pop out wall straight ahead and tile on the landings.  We painted the walls.  I then designed the shelves and Brian and Roger built them.  I had fun decorating them with books and items that have special meaning to us and also some fun yard and thrift store finds. We no longer have the feeling of going to a basement but to a place where we spend much time creating art. Here is the finished entrance to our art studio and a closeup of the shelves.

The last photo is of the ceiling and new lighting in Roger's glass studio.

We still have more work to do to complete the project like trim work.  We still haven't decided on what to do with the floor.  They are unfinished concrete.  Roger keeps rubber mats on his side because he does most of his work standing and they are easy on the feet.  My side is splattered with paint spills from my messy work habit.  My suggestion is concrete paint but Roger would prefer something more finished looking like tile.  At this point we will keep the floors as is.  We have more home improvement projects that take priority so that decision will come later.

The contractor who is building the front porch has us on the schedule to start the end of this week.  I will post photos when it is done.

I am not sure who reads this blog but to whoever you are I hope you are enjoying our new adventure that we started with our move from Arizona to Michigan.  We loved our Arizona retirement life but there comes a time when life circumstances change and you realize you have to step out and do something different. Thus, our move to Michigan. We have been here a year and as we look back we realize this was the right thing to do.  I'm sorry to say that many of our friends from AZ have passed away or gone into assisted living or sold their house and moved closer to family like we did. " To everything there is a season..." Ec. 3:1

Another new painting for LA's Cafe and a preview of our latest home improvement projects.

When I finished the daffodil painting from the last post I decide to do a painting of the tree that I use as the logo on my Michigan business card.  When I painted it to use on my card I did a small canvas with a white background.  I keep that painting in my files (not a computer file) just in case my computer crashes in the future.  I realized I had never used the pattern in a painting to sell.  I thought it would be a good one to show at LA's Cafe along with the daffodil painting which I did to replace another painting I sold a few weeks ago.  We went to the cafe today to have lunch and drop off the two paintings.  Surprise, surprise!  I was handed $$$$ for another painting that had sold.  That was a very profitable lunch!   Here is a photo of "Flamboyant Foliage" my newest painting.

The biggest surprise was when I found out which painting had sold.  It was one of my desert scene paintings.  Roger had talked me into showing it at the cafe.  I didn't think Southwest themed paintings would sell here. He was right and I was wrong. I will take one of my cactus paintings the next time I go for lunch.  Here is the one that sold.  "Desert Oasis" is one of my Tucson award winning paintings.

It has been a busy week with all the home improvement projects. We have a contractor working on the front porch and Brian came to help build the shelving unit for my basement stairway.  Here are a few photos of the works in progress.

They poured the footer last week then came today and poured the pad for the porch.

It will have to dry for about a week before they can start construction on the porch.  In the mean time we will have to enter the house through the garage.

 The first photo is of Roger & Brian constructing the boxes which will make up the shelves and the second photo is of the boxes in place on the stairway wall.  They are anchoring them down as I am writing this.  All the trim work will be installed and the finished painting will be done in the next day or so.  Brian said they would have to dry for a couple of days before I can start decorating them with all the stuff I have collected.  I can't wait to get started.

Before he leaves, Brian will help Roger install the ceiling in his stained glass studio.  I am excited to see all these projects being worked on.  We are already thinking of our next project which will be a re-do of the downstairs powder room.  We are having such fun working on this house!!

New Daffodil Painting

With all the home remodeling going on I don't have as much time to devote to painting.  We are having a new front porch built and our driveway widen. We also have been working on the stairway to our basement work shops.  The outside work is being done by contractors and the inside work we are doing ourselves.  Because we are depending on other people and the weather for the porch project, it may be awhile until the job is completed.  On the other hand, the stairway should be done soon.  I'll post photos of both jobs when they are done.

I finished two paintings since my last post.  One is for myself which will hang in the stairway.  I will wait until that project is finished before I post a photo of the painting.  The other painting is one I did to hang at LA's Cafe.  I decided to do another version of a painting I did in 2012 for a cancer awareness exhibition at Ventanta Medical Systems in Oro Valley, AZ.  The title of the painting is "Daffodil Dreams".  Here is the new version.

The one posted below is the original painting I did for the 2012 show along with the artist statement that went with the painting:

  The daffodil is a symbol of hope for a future where cancer is no longer a life threatening disease.  I dedicate this painting to all those involved in cancer research who will make this "daffodil dream" a reality.

I sold the painting early in 2013.  If you go through my older posts you will find the this painting along with another one of a butterfly that was part of the cancer awareness exhibition.

Another patchwork painting and a geometric floral painting

I have only completed two paintings in the past three weeks.  I just don't seem to have as much time to paint as I used to in Tucson when I could do two or three paintings a week.  We are still doing more home remodeling which takes up a lot of our time.

The first painting is another in my Patchwork series.  This is "Study in Patchwork #5 (Shades of Grey)".  I decided to try something different with this one.  I only used black and white paint which I mixed in various shaded of grey.  When you look at the photo of the painting it looks like it was shot as a black and white photo but this is how it looks in real life.  It is a real departure from my usual style of using lots of color in my work.

The other painting is one of my geometric floral paintings.  I call this one "Ornamental Arrangement". It is monochromatic using a limited color pallet but not as stark as the black and white used in the one above.

I want to mention that I recently sold "Rooster Reveille"which was hanging at LA's Cafe.  In this painting I used a whole rainbow of colors.  I am happy it has a new home.

Since I last posted, along with doing the two paintings , I drew the pattern for a large stained glass window which will be Roger's next project.  He will start it after he finishes the house project that we are working on currently which is fixing up the stairway to our art studios.  We are doing the stairs in hardwood and the landings in tile along with painting the walls and doing a half wall in hardwood.  We are also building a book shelf for another wall.  It is a fairly wide stairway so we are utilizing the space to make it more useful.  I'll post pictures when it is done.

Poppy painting and my vacation

So...after we finished the hardwood floor project we went on a vacation for 8 days.  Our trip was to the Washington DC area with a stop in Ohio both coming and going. We were originally  from Austintown, OH and still have family there and, as it is the half way point to DC, we were able to see both family and friends on our over night visits.  Our son Brian and wife Sarah live in Falls Church, VA and their daughter Megan and husband Paul flew in from their home in Hawaii so we had another mini family reunion with them.

 Soon after we got back home I finally had a chance to finish the painting I had started 3 weeks before.  I call it "Poppy Trio".  Size is 11X14.

 I am not going to bore you with vacation photos but I do have a couple to show you.  We took a "Duck Tour" of DC and I took tons of photos of all the landmarks but will only post one of them that I thought was artistic.

Here is another photo that I took in Falls Church.  Brian and Sarah live in the Mosaic District on Strawberry Lane where there are lots of interesting little shops.  Roger and I took lots of walks exploring the area and when I spotted this cool art work on a wall I just had to have a photo of myself taken with my new friend.

While staying in Brian and Sarah's high rise apartment I realized it was a gallery of many of my paintings.  Because they are a military family they have moved quite a few times and every time they move I do a new painting for them.  Over the years they have accumulated a fair size collection.  I took photos of all of them but since there are so many, I decide to make them into a collage.  Here are the paintings I did for them over the past 10 years or so.

Roger has built many stained glass windows for the various homes they have lived in but the windows stayed in the houses when they were sold.  They have only kept one which is a hanging panel.  The blue stars represent the two military family members.  Brian served in the Air Force for 26 years and is now retired and Sarah is still active duty and can retire in about 4 years.  Here is the stained glass panel.

Large Home Project

Over the past year this has become a home improvement blog as much as an art blog.  At the end of this month it will be one year that we moved to MI.  Since then we have been spending most of our time working on our new home.  I haven't had as much time to paint but doing the house remodeling has been fulfilling  my creative side.  I have to admit I don't do much of the actual work, I am just the idea person.  Roger and our son Brian are the workmen in the family but in the case of our most recent project I was able to join the work crew!

We bought this house from a family who had young children and pets so the carpet was not in good condition and we wanted to change the floors but weren't sure what we wanted. In Arizona all the floors in almost every one's houses was ceramic tile.  No one had carpet.  When we had people visit from back east they all loved the floors but said it wouldn't work where they came from because the floors would be too cold in the winter.  We found out that was true so tile was not an option. We finally decided on hardwood.  After months of comparing different kinds of wood we chose bamboo.  On Sunday, July 31 we started work.  We had friends from Ohio visiting us for the weekend and they volunteered to help us pack up our chess set collection and move the heavy furniture. (A big Thanks to Mark and Mary.) They left on Monday morning and Brian arrived on Monday afternoon.  By the time he got here Roger had removed the carpet so they were ready to lay the floor.  It was easy to do because it is a floating floor and the pieces snap together.  Brian installed the sub floor, Roger cut all the end pieces and I snapped together all the straight pieces. It took one week from start to finish.  Here are photos of us working and the finished floor.

I love my new floors and all the other home improvement projects we have done.  It is really starting to feel like home.  If you would like to see the other things we have done just click on "old posts" at the bottom of each page and you will be able to see everything we have done to the house in the past year.

I thought I would show you the painting I was working on before we got into doing the floors.  Here is how far I got on my painting of poppies.  We are going to take a short trip so I will not be able to finish it until we get back.