Farm Fresh

January 17

Funny how I "make deals" with myself and waffle on commitments. I wasn't able to stay at the studio today long enough to paint a new painting so I edited "Rosie" and was going to call it my painting of the day (again).  It wasn't really cheating, I did use a brush for a bit...  (right)

At 10 pm I buckled down and got out the watercolors.  Using an old photo I took at Grailville, a retreat center in Loveland, OH, I painted this farm scene.  It could be in Wisconsin or any other farming community...

1/17/13  "Across the Field"  7x5 watercolor on paper

I am very happy with the editing I did on Rosie's painting.  Here is the new version:

Rosie, stage 2 (SOLD!)

I detailed the eyes & adjusted the values.  

Compare this to the old version below:

Rosie, stage 1

So here's the secret about painting.  A painting is never done.  It just stops in some interesting places.  As an artist I am fully capable of working something "to death".  One of my goals is to develope a looser, more spontaneous way of painting.  These small dog portraits reflect this in a way that makes me quite happy.  

I am grateful for the many blessings of my life as it is today. 

Start where you are

Love what you have

Do what you can

Making Lemonade

July 16

I was stuck at home due to ongoing rehab stuff so rather than being frustrated and worried about getting to the studio I got out the watercolors.  This Japanese Chin has the most interesting misalignment of his muzzle.  Must be a breed thing...

1/16/13  "Mr. Myogi", 5x7, watercolor on paper

SOLD!

Funny how painting is much easier than "thinking about painting"! I had a situation where I wanted to be somewhere else (lemons) and simply painted where I was (lemonaide).  How often do we waste our lives wishing we were elsewhere?

I am grateful for the many blessings of my life as it is today. 

Start where you are

Love what you have

Do what you can

Really Rosie!

January 15th

Well it turns out that the dog I thought was Rosie was actually my friends daughter's dog, Moses.  Kathy emailed me several images of the family pets and I mistook one fluffy llasa for a fluffy Havaneese.  Silly me!  So here is Rosie:

1/15/13  "Really Rosie", 5x5 oil on panel

SOLD!

I will probably tweak the values a bit but the most important part is that Kathy recognizes her Rosie & is happy with it.  Personally I LOVE painting fluffy dogs because the brushwork is way more forgiving than smooth coated dogs. 

I am finding keeping to my low glycemic eating plan is getting to be more of a challenge each day.  I did get in a green smoothie and did get to the pool for some exercise so all is not lost...

I am grateful for the many blessings of my life as it is today. 

Start where you are

Love what you have

Do what you can

Florida Dreaming

January 14
It seems like I am surrounded by people heading or IN Florida at the moment. Part of me really HATES them!  Not really, just jealous.  In an ideal world I would flee the Midwest by January 5 & return in early March.  We have been confused this year by 70 degree weather in January but that isn't much compensation. My daffodils are frozen again, foolish things...

So my friends have been posting wonderful photos of their vacation on Facebook.  I decided to use one of them for inspiration for this pastel:

1/14/13 "Florida Dreaming"  14x11, pastel on paper

This image is a bit dark.  I'm going to have to re-shoot most of my 30 in 30 images with good lighting & a better camera.  I've been taking these images with my Ipad.  Not a bad camera, but awkward to use at times.  I may add some birds to this before framing it.  It's not a beach scene without birds. Don't you love pelicans?  They remind me of pterodactyls as they cruise silently over the water...

Morning Pages are going well.  Amazing what you can create when you clear the crap out of your head each morning.  I am really getting addicted to having a green smoothie each afternoon.  Its a great way to get a ton of veggies and helps me not disappear into a nap around 4 pm.  Love my VitaMix!

Thanks for the kind comments on my previous posts.  Feel free to subscribe & explore the other tabs of this blog.  

I am grateful for the many blessings of my life as it is today. 

Start where you are

Love what you have

Do what you can

Another cute puppy!

Monday, January 14

Yesterday I got into the studio for several hours. Since my husband is in England on business this week there was no need to rush home.  Just me & my dog hanging out painting.  It was a dark, dreary day so being at the studio was lovely.

I have updated my printshop.  You can order prints of some of my paintings at www.creativecatalysts.imagekind.com - if the original is a small painting, ordering a petite print would be best.  It's hard to enlarge a 5x5 to 20x20, even if it is listed as an option.

1/13/13  "Rosie" 5x5 oil on panel

SOLD!

This little girl is owned by a dear friend of min in Cincinnati.  I have solicited a few folks for cute puppy pictures since I have 18 more paintings to go in this challenge.  I have discovered that I really like scraping lines into the wet paint. It adds a certain excitement to the image.  This was painted with a combination of palette knife, brush and "wipe out" tool.

I am grateful for the many blessings of my life as it is today. 

Start where you are

Love what you have

Do what you can

Flowers for Vincent

1/11/13  "For Vincent", 5x7 oil on panel

Saturday I got into the studio and worked on a textured canvas covered panel (as compared to the smooth gesso panels I have been using.  It is actually recycled from an earlier painting.  I had covered the surface with a dark Indian red several months ago.  You can see it peeping out around the flowers.

I love sunflowers!  They just make me happy.  I had a great deal of fun "carving" into the surface of the wet paint.  It's fun to loosen up and toss the paint around.  Sunflowers also remind me of Vincent Van Gogh.

I am grateful for the many blessings of my life as it is today. 

Start where you are

Love what you have

Do what you can

Doodles are good for the soul!

January 11

1/11/13  "Doodle Love"  5x5 oil on panel

SOLD!

I was in a crappy mood as I entered the studio due to all sorts of "reasons". It would have been easy to simply blow this commitment off.  Heck, I have decided not to eat sugar so there really weren't the usual ways open to me for calming down.  I looked through my reference photos and found a goofy doodle picture I had saved from a friends FaceBook account.  What a goofy grin on a dog!  I found that my mood quickly lifted...

It began with a transparent underpainting:

 Then I added the opaque colors...

I felt SO much better leaving the studio than I felt entering it.  Guess that art therapy stuff works, eh? (says the person who got a Masters Degree in Art Therapy in 1981!)  Funny how we know things for years before practicing them.

My morning pages are going well.  Food is a challenge and I am coping.  Baby steps...

I am grateful for the many blessings of my life as it is today. 

Start where you are

Love what you have

Do what you can

Whew! 10 out of 10!

So far,so good. I've been posting my paintings to Facebook & here. Yesterday I managed to get into the studio for a couple of hours & got out the oils again for this 5x5 panel of a goofy pug I saw on Facebook.  Have no idea who posted the photo originally though. One of the hazards of clipping photo reference from there, I guess.  I figure by the time I paint it the resemblance to the original is questionable.

Here's the photo reference:

Silly little guy, eh?

Here's my painting:

1/10/13   "For Jan", 5x5 oil on panel

Wednesday, January 09, was very busy and I put off painting until 8:30 pm.  I went back to basic black pastel, with some white added for contrast.  In Cincinnati each winter the crows from far and wide flock at sunset, heading in to down town to roost. Woe be it if your car is parked underneath the selected site because the ground is slick with crow poop in the morning!  It looks very Hitchcock as the stream towards downtown...

1/09/13  "Winter Crows", 5x7 pastel on paper

The previous post is quite long, 3 days worth of painting so check it out if you missed it!

My eating plan is plugging along. Yesterday was a bit rough but I am back on board this morning.  It's a marathon, not a sprint...

I am grateful for the many blessings of my life as it is today. 

Start where you are

Love what you have

Do what you can

Still managing to keep up!

I am having fun with the 30 paintings in 30 days challenge!  It's really interesting to discover that I can paint at home.  What I have learned is that you just paint, you don't waste time thinking about painting!  The step I have fallen down on is documenting the journey here.  So here goes.

Tuesday, January 8  (Working at home)

"Three for the Road"

8x10, pastel on Wallis paper

I used my sketching set of hard pastels for this piece. What this means is that I left my 300+ piece pastel set at the studio and brought a much smaller selection home to work with. That way I made sure to put everything away when I was done, out of the cat's curiosity path. It is refreshing to me to discover that I can, indeed, paint at home even if the light is not perfect or my husband is home. Imagine what I could have done if I had only realized this! ;-)

Monday, January 7  (At the studio)

Every Monday morning I host an "open studio" session where I am joined by women who want to paint but not at home (sounds like me!)  We meet from 9:30 - noon and help each other improve.  It's a lovely structure that gets me into my studio at least once a week.  With this challenge I hope to be there more, otherwise its just an expensive storage unit!

Once again I decided to use the painting techniqes I learned with Dreama Tolle Perry.  I chose a 5x7 gesso board and laid in a transparent, dark underpainting.  I then worked with lighter opaque colors.  The reference photo was quite challenging since my cat is in an odd foreshortened position and the fake lambswool bed is really hard to paint.  All in all I was happy with the results though.

"Hanging Out"

5x7, oil on board

Sunday, January  6  (at home)

"Bend in the River"

5x7, pastel on paper

Last summer I took a pastel class with Kay Hurley (www.mkatherinehurley.com/) and had great fun exploring new ways to handle one of my favorite painting materials.  Kay showed us a method of doing black & white painting with a black pastel and an eraser to manipulate the grays.  My reference photo was a foggy twilight scene of the Ohio river with a very well known church steeple as landmark.  Folks on the east side of Cincinnati will recognize it.

Saturday, January 5  (at home)

"For Leslie"

7x5, watercolor on paper

I was inspired by a photo Leslie Saeta (http://lesliesaeta.blogspot.com/) posted on Facebook of her new puppy, Sport.  Since she inspired me to do this 30 Paintings in 30 Days challenge, I thought I would paint her new baby. The challenge here was to differentiate the yellow dog from the kaki sofa...

So now I'm caught up in this saga! I am also grateful to report that I have released 10 lbs & 8 inches from my body since January 1.  I chose to weigh & measure the morning after an outrageous New Years Eve dinner, so I know that a lot of this was water weight. And I am grateful that it has gone "poof" (making me less "poofy"!)  Eliminating refined carbs and most sugars has been helpful, as has using my Vitamix to create green smoothies each day.  You can consume a lot of veggies if you blend them into a drink.  I prefer this to juicing because I consume the fiber instead of tossing it away.  I got my Vitamix on ebay.  I hear the Ninja blender sold at Costco is also excellent. 

I am grateful for the many blessings of my life as it is today. My motto for 2013 remains 

Start where you are

Love what you have

Do what you can

4 Paintings in 4 Days!

So far, so good! I have managed to continue writing Morning Pages, eliminate sugar from my diet and paint daily.  Strangely I am doing more watercolors due to limited time in my studio.  Having fun creating 5x7 paintings...

I have been listening to archived sessions of the Artists Helping Artists podcasts on www.blogtalkradio.com - it gives me a chance to hear Leslie Saeta with Dreama Tolle Perry as co host on the early 2012 episodes. It's great to hear Drema smile.

So my painting on January 3rd was of one of our cats, affectionately called "Moo" because he is a big as a cow at 20 lbs.  This is watercolor over a pencil sketch

January 4th I painted angel wing begonias, also from photo reference. This a pencil sketch, enhanced by fine marker, then watercolors. Really fun to schmoosh around with the paints.

so far, so good on the New Years intentions.  These shots were taken with my iphone with simple lighting.  I intend to take better shots in daylight next week.

30 Paintings in 30 Days?

I have decided to join Leslie Saeta (http://lesliesaeta.blogspot.com/) in her January challenge of 30 Paintings in 30 Days.  About 250 artists are playing & posting their images on her blog.  How fun!  So far I am 2 for 2.

Yesterday, January first, I got up early and did 3 pages of freehand writing (aka "Morning Pages") to start my year off right.  I also resolved to avoid sugar and carbs, adding low glycemic back into my life.  I weighed and measured myself to get a baseline and got on with my life. *sigh* It's amazing how quickly weight can come back on when you start eating in old sugary patterns...

As part of my resolutions I decided to add a little fun to the structure and get out the watercolors.  I can paint with watercolors at home because they are (mostly) non toxic.  Easier to keep cats out of them than oils or pastels.  So I set up a still life with a clementine, pomegranate & an apple and got to work.  Much to my surprise I have a better, more relaxed way of handling color now.  I guess all the crazy workshops have become part of my methods now. What a nice surprise.

Here is the still life "set up", using window light

Here is my final image

Today I went to the studio to work in oils.  I selected a photo reference of  my dog, Bubba, taken when he was sporting a Mohawk. Notice the cool panel holder I am using to paint the small 5x7 panel.  It makes it much easier to handle small format panels.  You can also see a larger painting behind it that I have been working on.  This painting was supposed to be a Christmas gift to my brother in law but since he has no clue I'm working on it there's no deadline.

Now you can see the underpainting of dark, transparent colors. 

This really helps the white dog become more interesting.

Now I start laying in the opaque colors.

I liked it well enough to sign it, but continued to play.

I think its done now. I softened some of the brush strokes and adjusted the darks. It's really fun to work quickly with wet paints / colors instead of taking days, months or years to finish a painting! So this is my day 2 painting for the challenge.

I also managed another day of Morning Pages eating veggies...

Stay tuned!

Great end of year painting completions & sales!

Recently I completed a commission for a Chiropractor who had agreed to barter services for our daughter when she was eleven.  Our daughter is now 22, so this agreement has been pending for years and years.  At the time our Chiropractor wanted to wait until her youngest son was older before giving me a photo to use for a portrait.  A year ago she sent me a jpg of her two sons, then ages 3 & 5.  They are now 8 & 10, so you can see how this assignment has been pending.  On a positive note, my ability to paint figures & portraits has increased over the years so she did receive a much better painting than I could have produced 11 years ago.

Here is the original photo:

Initially I decided to work from an 8 x 10 print to create a 16 x 20 painting.  That way I could use a 1 inch grid on the reference to a 2 inch grid on the canvas to transfer the image.  I am amazed at how easy it is to create an image if you take the time to use a grid.  You just draw what is in each square and magically the image appears.  Of course, once you start painting the lines disappear so you have to adjust the painting with brushwork, but gridding is a great time saver, in my opinion.  I also used orange paint to prime the canvas to "kill" the white before starting to block it in.  I later found the orange pretty distracting and covered it up. Sometimes having a bright color "peek" out between brushstrokes adds liveliness to the painting.

Working upside down is also a terrific way to lay in an under painting. It keeps you from getting distracted by small details as the painting develops.  I found myself stuck at this point and became distracted by my pastels for a while.  A few months passed...

In November I attended a three day workshop with Dreama Tolle Perry (see previous blog post) that re-energized my commitment to painting in oils.  I came home and used some of the skills developed in that workshop to get cracking on this commission.  I was thrilled to deliver it just before Christmas.

I call the image "Looking for Trouble" because two boys with sticks usually are!

The client was very happy with the painting.  I could have fiddled around with it for a couple of more months, but once she saw the image and loved it I knew it was done.  Artists are rarely DONE when they stop painting!  The important thing is to keep starting new paintings and learning new things, not simply repainting one painting over & over again.

This has been a wonderful fall.  I have been blessed to sell 4 paintings recently plus delivering this commission.  It gives me great pleasure when work goes out into the world to new homes!

Here are the pieces that have been sold:

Last Light, Pastel

I failed to get a good image of this piece before framing it.  This is a bit dark but captures the feel of it.  I love the water just at sun rise or set.

Autumn Up North, Pastel

This piece went to the same collector as a surprise for his wife for Christmas.

Both of the paintings below sold during the December Essex Studios Art Walk.

It is my intention to participate in a painting challenge in January.  I will post here how it goes.  Meanwhile, have a healthy & prosperous 2013.  May you be who you are, love what you have and do what you can do!

Learning a new way of thinking about painting...

Recently I was honored to be able to attend a workshop with Dreama Tolle Perry at the Artists Attic in Lexington, KY. (see www.dreamtolleperry.com)

I knew I loved the colorful, juiciness of Dreama's paintings and loved reading her blog posts.  I definitely suggest you sign up to receive them as well.  I have been able to travel vicariously to both France & Italy by getting her posts.  I really admire that her workshops are always full and her paintings sell like hotcakes.  I knew I could learn from her attitude about marketing her work.  The first thing I discovered is that her "secret weapon" is her husband!  He helps her handle the sales aspect of the workshops while she does the inspiration & teaching portion.

The Artists' Attic is located in Victorian Square, a fascinating development near Rupp Arena in downtown Lexington.  Parking was very easy & I loved exploring the galleries and shops during our lunch breaks.  (www.artists-attic.org/)

Dreama had a great way of leveling the playing field each day by having us all work from the same reference image.  The 12x12 demo painting was also the same image.  I enjoyed not being "attached" to the image.  It allowed me to focus on painting instead.

Unlike many other workshop experiences I have had, Dreama painted the demo in stages rather than paint all morning while we watched.  She showed how she started a painting, then had us go paint.  Then she did the middle layer & we painted it too.  Finally she added the "sparkle".  Her process is "wet in wet" or alla prima (all at once).  No waiting for the oil paint to dry...

The first layer is dark but transparent.  This allows the white of the gessoboard to sparkle through the paint:

underpainting with transparent colors

 Looks pretty rough, eh?

Next layer we start adding some opaque (non transparent) colors and begin defining the shapes more:

 The idea is to let the under painting peek through and influence the new layers.

Final, signed painting

 It was fascinating to let the colors play together and NOT get all hung up on exact portrayal of the image.  Quite frankly I loved it!

Here is a group shot of the images created in the first day of painting:

On the final afternoon we worked with our own images, aka flying without a net:

Transparent underpainting

middle phase.  Dreama helped me define the umbrella

Giverny Tea Shop

All in all the workshop was time well spent.  At one point on the final day I was feeling really whiney about my painting & Dreama said "I've seen your painting & you're fine.  Stop whining!"  With a smile of course!  Sometimes we just need someone to say "have faith, it will turn out just fine..."  I think professional artists just know that every painting goes through the "uglies".

Marion's Print Shop is open!

I have decided to work with ImageKind to offer reproductions of some of my work.  The print shop web address is: www.creativecatalysts.imagekind.com

There are many options to choose from and prints offered are archival.  Have fun exploring!

Click here for Marion's Print Shop

http://Creativecatalysts.imagekind.com/
You can also order merchandise at www.cafepress.com/creativecatalysts
Click here for Marion's CafePress store

HINT: images look better on white tshirts.  I found the fit a bit small so you might want to order one size up as well.  If you are unhappy with your order CafePress will easily accept returns.

It's exciting to be able to offer these options!

This is my latest pastel, inspired by a photo I took last May while at Monet's garden in Giverny, France.  It is 16x20, on an Ampersand grey sanded panel.  It is not complete but is coming along nicely.  I have so many photos from this fabulous trip.  Thanks to Verdis Norton & ASEA, Rob & I were able to spend two weeks in Paris with one night in Giverny.  Here we are in Monet's Garden:

Being associated with ASEA is an honor and Rob continues to be supportive, especially after he won this trip at the ASEA 2010 "Launch" convention at the Paris Resort & Casino in Las Vegas, NV.  As an artist, being able to explore Paris was a dream come true.

As you can see, I was less thrilled to be at the top of the Eiffel Tower!  The view outside was amazing though...

Hard to believe this trip was almost a year ago.  It seems like yesterday.  I dream of wandering around Paris & Giverny.  Of the people, food & landscapes.  Travel truly does expand your mind and open your heart.