I have been busy since my last post painting a series of 8 southwest inspired paintings. Roger was busy installing a new patio at the side of our house.
When we first moved here we had a small parking area on the side of our townhouse. It wasn't long before the land behind us was developed to add more townhouses and the parking area turned into a road to get back to the new homes which put us on a corner lot. That side of our yard did not look very nice. It was covered in pine straw and had no plants. We wanted to make it look better because so many people were passing by in cars or walking. Now, when people who ae taking walks pass by they stop and tell us how nice our new patio looks. We have met many new neighbors this way. Here are before and after photos of that area.
When we lived in Arizona most of my paintings featured southwest subjects. I sold 100's of these paintings over the years. When we moved back east I started painting other subject matter. Roger has been encouraging me to do some southwest paintings so a few months ago I did a saguaro painting and took it to the gallery and to my surprise it sold. That got me thinking that maybe North Carolina people like southwest art so I decided to do a series of some of my best selling AZ paintings to show at the Owl & Rabbit Gallery. I took the paintings to the gallery yesterday. It will be interesting to see if any of them sell. Here are the new paintings.
OH NO! I just realized when I was searching my file for the other two paintings that I forgot to take photos of them. I will have to go to the gallery to do that. When I do, I will post the photos.
I have one more painting that I added to the collection that I did in AZ. It is one of the few that had not sold before we moved away. Here it is.
I am happy to say that three of the Patchwork and Flowers paintings that I featured in my last post and showed in the galley sold.
I had another small project that I did for a neighbor. She had taken a trip to Florida with some friends. They went to the beach everyday and set up their chairs under a colorful beach umbrella. She took a photo of the chairs and umbrella and asked me to paint the scene on some shells she had collected. They were to be gifts for her friends. Here is a picture of the shells which I painted with the photo she gave me.
My next painting project will be a couple of panels that go in a coffee table that belongs to my son and daughter-in-law. They want me to paint them with my bird and flower pattern. I also have been collecting some furniture pieces that I want to paint and I must decide what kind of painting series I should do to replace the southwest paintings at the gallery in a few months.
I'm not selling my art at the same pace as I did in Arizona but am glad I am selling enough to keep me busy. Part of the problem is that I am not putting much effort into finding new venues to show my art. I love to paint but don't like having to market myself and my art. I don't want to do art & craft shows anymore and I don't want to do a web-page to sell online. Tucson was very art-friendly with many places available to show art. I was at the point in my art career where I had places asking me to do shows so I didn't have to continue to search for places to show. It is hard to start over in a new place where I am an unknown artist. For now, I will be content to show my art in the Owl & Rabbit Gallery. I guess I am just too lazy to try to search out other places to show.
