HAPPY NEW YEAR!

It is 2011!  Can you believe it?

MiraBay Art Classes resume this week:

Acrylics - All levels
Tuesdays, 2 - 4 pm or 6:15 - 8:15 pm

Drawing with graphite, conte crayon, and charcoal
Fridays, 2 - 4 pm

Gyotaku
Saturday, January 22, 10 am - 12 noon

Sign up by calling the fitness center. 

Not a MiraBay resident?  Maybe you have a friend who is a resident and is taking the class that interests you.  Give me a call and I'll run interference to help with the signing up process.

Hope to see you soon!

Grace

Paintings for the SouthShore Arts Council Show

I plan to submit these two acrylic paintings to the SouthShore Arts Council Show at the SouthShore Regional Library.  Submission date is August 1. 

You are invited to the Artists' Reception on August 5 at 6:30 pm.

Orchid Basket

16 x 20

Banyan Cathedral

16 x 20

Redo of Painting "Outrunning the Storm"

ne wonderful aspect of acrylic painting is if you don't like something, paint over it.  Just wait until the first version is dry.  This is essentially the same composition, but color, simplicity and subtlety make it quite different.  And negative painting has improved the shapes.

1. Softening the overall painting makes the scene more tranquil, emphasizing the ensuing storm.
2. Enlarging the boat and heading it more to shore better communicates "outrunning the storm."
3. The simplification of the sky puts more emphasis on the focal point.
4. Reworking the palm tree also softens the scene.  The trunk is smooth and gray; the leaves no longer form a lollypop tree.
5. The lightening of the hammock's color and the reshaping are more indicative of an empty hammock indicating the person who had been there is also outrunning the storm.
6. The shadows are more interesting shapes and point to the focal point as do the hammock and rope.
7. Removal of the seagrapes on the water's edge allow the soft laciness of the waves on the sand.

I like it a lot better.  Do you?  Click on Comments and let me know.

New Approach to Painting

We are learning a new approach to creating an acrylic painting.  The background is painted FIRST!  Yep, that's right!  And preferably with your reference photo UPSIDE-DOWN!

My painting of the Golden Gate Bridge from Seal Rock was my first attempt.  (Scroll down to see.)

Here is my second attempt at painting using this approach.  Steps 1 and 2 were done in class.  I continued Step 2 and added Step 3 this morning. 

STEP 1:  Painted background with canvas upside-down;painted; from my black and white sketch holding it upside-down even though I am showing it rightside-up in this photo:

Step 2: Turned canvas rightside-up and began painting the objects in the sketch:

STEP 3:  This morning I continued painting the objects for a while and then painted more background using my colored pencil sketch.

Art Center of Manatee Bloomers Show

Yippee!  Both paintings that I submitted were accepted into the Bloomers Show at the Art Center of Manatee. 

The show will be up from June 22 through July 16.  The Opening Reception is 5 - 7 pm this coming Friday, June 25, at the center at 209 Ninth Street West in Bradenton.  Map 

The public is invited to the reception and to the show.  The suggested donation is $5 per person.

Palm Tree with Bird is Closer to Being Finished

My painting is closer to being ready for submission and a good thing it is!  TOMORROW is the day!

So I will submit this, "Palm Tree with Bird," and "Bird of Paradise."  Wish me luck!

Golden Gate Bridge - Seal Rock Perspective

(Double-click on Image to Enlarge.)

Here a painting done in about five hours using a technique offered by my art instructor.  Painted really quickly from a postcard.  Painted air or the "empty spaces" first paying lots of attention to shape and filled objects into the blanks afterward.

LOVED DOING THIS!

What's next?  Same process painting UPSIDE-DOWN!  Can't wait!

Grace

MiraBay Welcome Center

So proud to have my artwork displayed as part of the exhibit in the MiraBay Welcome Center:

Thanks, MiraBay, for the Honor!

My painting entitled "Bird in Paradise" will be part of the display in the MiraBay Welcome Center soon.  It will be accompanied by my photo and quote.  Please stop by and comment if you have a moment.

Stop by my Apollo Beach Manatee Festival of the Arts Booth

Now that our daughter's engagement party is over (WHEW!), I can get back to my art.

Next weekend, March 13 and 14, I will be showing my work at the Apollo Beach Manatee Festival of the Arts.  Please stop by and say hello.

Birds in and of Paradise

Both of these paintings were done from photos I took around MiraBay where we live.  It is a beautiful place.  I look at the bridges every time we enter or exit our home.  And the bird of paradise was in bloom just at the main entrance.  I walk to the bird of paradise and rest; then I walk home passed the bridge.

They are both painted around the edges so no frame is necessary even though they, of course, can be framed.  The colors are the same and they are the same size so they can be hung as a dyptic.

I hope you enjoy looking at them as much as I enjoyed painting them.

Grace

Don't Be Koi - Acrylics on Canvas

I LOVED doing this painting!

My husband the scientist says the koi is eating algae off the back of the other koi. But I prefer to think she is kissing him.

Look closely and you will see the Chinese characters for "Don't," "Be" and "Koi."

Hope you like it. Click "Comments" to let me know what you think.

We are off to San Francisco in a couple of weeks and on to China for three weeks. Lots of opportunities to learn more about Asian art and for Archie to learn more about Chinese porcelian. Should be great fun!