Merry Christmas 2021

 

I would like to wish everyone a very Merry Christmas and Happy 2022 New Year.

I have not done any new paintings since my last post.  We are working on renovating our loft area.  As soon as our Thanksgiving company left we emptied out the loft and tore down my art studio.  All the furniture is shoved in the spare bedroom and both closets are full of art supplies.

We took out the nasty old carpet and installed vinyl plank flooring.

We have much more to do to finish the project.  It will probably be two months before we are done, and I have my art studio back. 

 I converted the puzzle table in our office to a small work area so I can paint if necessary.  I'm glad I did that because I have a commission for a painting that I will do after the first of the year.  I will post photos of the new loft when we are done.

Six weeks worth of painting & more stained glass windows.

 I'll start this post with Roger's latest stained glass window project.  He made these two windows for a neighbor.  It is hard to get good photos of stained glass because the light coming through the windows distort the colors.  

Here are close-ups of each window.  They are constructed with clear textured glass with accent colors in a soft tan color.  

For the past 6 weeks I have been painting items to show in the Owl & Rabbit Gallery for the holiday season.  I decided to paint smaller craft type items that would sell at a lower price than my larger paintings.  The first two items are cutting boards with a painting on both sides.  One side is a still life which you can show year round then you can turn it over at Christmas time and have a Santa painting. This first one is "Antique Santa" with "Sunflowers & Apple on the reverse side.

This next one has "Cowboy Santa" on one side and the other side is "Sunflowers and Apples".

I did 2 bird paintings. The first is  "Blue Jay & Berries" on a tin plaque.

This one is a 7X5 framed canvas titled "Cardinal & Berries".

I painted "Peek-a-Boo Kitty" on a piece of slate.

The rest of the items are small crosses.

I am going to take a break from painting for awhile.  Our plans are to remodel the upstairs loft area of our home.  We are going to build a permanent wall to divide the lager open loft into a third bedroom and a smaller art studio.  The first thing we will do is paint the stairwell going upstairs then remove the carpet and install vinyl planking.  After that we will put up the new walls.  I think we will use pocket doors.  We are still in the planning stages. It will probably be months before we are done.  I'll post photos as we work on this new home renovation project. 

Wishing everyone a Happy Thanksgiving.

12 Wooden Plaque Paintings

 It has been almost 2 months since my last blog post.  During that time I did 12 paintings.  What is different about these paintings are that they are on 11X14 wood plaques that were cut for me by my son Mark.  I painted these to show at the Owl and Rabbit Galley.  I thought it would be fun to try something other then canvas paintings.  I took them to the gallery yesterday and was happy to find out I sold 2 of the paintings featured in my last post.  Here are photos of those paintings. They are "Flight of Fancy" and "Basket of Beauty".  

Next I will post photos of the wood plaques.  Most of the subject matter are patterns that I have sold many times in the past.  I also came up with some new ideas and that are different than what I have done in the past.  I thought since so many people here travel to the beaches often, to try some ocean scenes.  Here are those paintings.

The first is titled "By the Sea-side".

This next one is titled "Day at the Beach.

This one is titled "Ocean View".

The following plaques were oval in shape and I painted 3 of my best selling horse paintings.  Which are "Flaming Mane", "Mare & Foal", and "Mighty Mustang".

Other best sellers are "Mr. Hoots", "Rooster Reveille", "Forest Royalty", and "Doe & Fawn".

The last two are still life paintings.  The first is "Duck Decoy Still Life" which is one that I have done before.  The other is a new pattern that I came up with because I wanted something with a fall theme.  I call this one "Autumn Still Life".

  

I will keep these paintings at the gallery until after Thanksgiving then change them out with something else for the Christmas season.  I'm not sure what I will paint for that showing.  I have to think on it for awhile. 

 It was so much easier when I lived in Tucson.  Almost everything I painted had a southwest theme and and almost everything I painted sold.  Now that I live in a different part of the country it is harder for me to come up with subjects that I think will sell here.  We are half way between the ocean and the mountains so that is why I painted the wood plaques with subjects that may appeal to people who prefer one over the other.

 The other good thing about Tucson is that there were so many good venues to show my work.  I am very limited in the places to sell my paintings here.  I love to create art but hate the marketing part of selling my art.  As I get older I have gotten lazier in hunting out new venues.  I don't like to do arts & craft shows and selling online is a lot of work.  I don't show at the art league gallery any more because I don't want to have to take my turn at working in the gallery.  Like I said, I have gotten lazy about marketing and just want to stay home and paint. I guess I will have to be happy to continue with showing at the Owl & Rabbit where all I have to do is drop off my paintings and they do all the work.

Two Awards and New Paintings for Owl & Rabbit Gallery

I was honored to find out I won two awards at the Burlington Artist League Senior Art Competition.  I took second place with "Flaming Mane".

 I also got an honorable mention with "Patchwork & Pansies"

This now makes a total of 15 awards I have won in various art competitions since 2007.  I won 10 while living in Tucson, 1 in Michigan and now 4 here in North Carolina.

The Owl & Rabbit Gallery in downtown Burlington has been a good venue for showing my art.  I change out the paintings about every six weeks.  Here is the newest group of paintings that I painted for the gallery. I did two paintings each of different subject matter.  The first 2 are "Beautiful Butterflies" and "Flight of Fancy.

The next two are "Decorative Cross" and "Small Decorative Cross".

Here are "Turquoise & Topaz" and "Fun Flowers"

These two are "Basket of Beauty" and Sunflowers in Burgundy Vase"

I also decided to show a small 5X7 painting I did a few months ago called "Bird & Blossoms" but I forgot to take a photo of it.

When I took this group of paintings to the gallery I found out I sold "Fanciful Feathers" from the Southwest themed paintings I showed last month.  

I have a number of projects I am working on now.  As always, I'll do a blog post featuring them when I am done.

Grand-daddy's cat and 2 paintings for family members

 It has been 6 weeks since my last post.  I have been busy with lots of projects in that time period and am finally getting around to a new blog post.  

Here is the story of those projects which is that of  Grand-daddy's cat:  

For as long as we can remember Roger's parents had this cat sitting on the floor of wherever they lived at the time.  We are not sure when or where they got it but I'm guessing it could be at least 60 or more years old. They may have lived in West Virginia when they got it or maybe when they moved to Ohio in the late 1940's 

 Our kids called Roger's father Grand-daddy. When he passed away at age 80 in 1999 our son Brian asked if he could have something to keep in memory of Grand-daddy.  He was given this cat. Brian was in the Air Force at the time so the cat became very well traveled.  I know for sure that he lived in Arizona, Illinois, Texas, Virginia, Ohio, and it was in his last home in New Mexico that the accident happened.

Shortly after Brian & Sarah moved to New Mexico, when they were out of town, their house had a water pipe burst and if flooded the whole house.  Everything they owned was damaged but the cat was still okay, that was, until the workers came into the house.  The workers had to rip out all the drywall and took all of Brain and Sarah's possessions and threw them in a pile in the middle of the house and covered them with a tarp.  The cat did not survive the rough treatment.  This is what happened to him.

Brian was heart-broken when he discovered the shattered cat.  When he told us what had happened he mentioned that he thought he would to an online search to see if he could find someone who could repair the cat.  That is when I reminded him that when I lived in AZ I had repaired some statues and other broken items for some friends and that I would like to give it a try.  He boxed up all the broken pieces and sent them to me. The above photo is what I found when I opened the box.  I immediately said a prayer and then got to work.  

I started with the largest pieces which were the back end and tail which were in two pieces and the paws which were also in two pieces.  As I put pieces together I had to let them set over night to dry and fuse together.  Each day I put a few more pieces together until I got top part done. 

The next step was to get the bottom together.  It was in quite a few pieces but, with Roger's help using his glass grinder, I was able to get the final pieces together.

The last step was the cosmetic part which included filling in the small holes where the pieces were shattered beyond repair and then painting over all the patch lines.  Here is the finished results.

I was blessed in the fact that I remembered I had taken a photo of the cat when Brian lived in San Antonio. It was like doing a puzzle, having a picture of what it looked like before was a big help. Lastly, I put in in a basket with a nice cozy lining.  I also gave him a collar and bow.

I will instruct Brian and Sarah to keep him in his basket and to put him in a safe place to prevent any future accidents.  I think he has used up the last of his 9 lives!

The other projects I did were for each of my daughters-in-law.  Sarah commissioned me to do a patchwork painting in shades of grey.  That is what I titled this painting, "Shades of Grey." I know this looks like a black & white photo but it is what the actual painting looks like.

Leslie had two panels in her family room coffee-table that she removed and requested I paint my "Beautiful Bird and Blooms" pattern on them.  Here is what the finished product looks like.

I have also completed a number of other paintings in the past weeks which I will be taking to the Owl and Rabbit Gallery soon.  I will do a blog post featuring them soon.