Wednesday, May 13, 2015

Long drive to a dream

Today I set out on a new adventure and towards something I've always dreamed of doing.

An Artist in Residency.

I'm thrilled and honored to have been awarded a residency in Truth or Consequences, New Mexico. I love New Mexico! 

I'll spend my days plein air painting and then follow that with some bigger paintings created in the residency studio.

Looking forward to exploring the landscape of southern NM and creating lots of new paintings!

Day 1: drive 461 miles to Palm Desert.

Thursday, April 30, 2015

83 Bees

Actually, accurately, 83rd Bees.

I broke through the top 100 for the first time on a Spoonflower contest. Yeah! feels good!
502 entries and I was 83rd.

My Hive-rise Livin' bee fabric received a lot of nice notes too from admirers. I did not expect that at all. How nice!

Thursday, April 2, 2015

Southwest Baby Bedding Contest

... and the results are now in!

Out of 430 entries, my Desert Dots fabric design came in at #211 -  with 63 votes.
I am again in the middle of the pack, which I see as a good thing since it's only my 2nd contest ;D

I had a lot of fun designing each illustrated dot, cactus scenes and distant bluffs... now I think a trip to the desert is in order.


Friday, March 27, 2015

Illustrated Fabrics

I've been playing around with illustrating fabrics. These designs are completely fulfilling my desire to create something and then hold it in my hand... a nice change from all my illustrations for web and apps ;D


I've entered my Desert Dots fabric into the Spoonflower "Southwest Baby Bedding" contest. If you like my submission, I'd love your vote!

http://www.spoonflower.com



Tuesday, March 3, 2015

Big House, Little Painting

The LGAA, Los Gatos Art Association, Plein Air painters group meet on Monday mornings. We have a pretty consistent group showing up - whether we meet in town or down the coast in Monterey or up at Davenport. A good solid 11-15 painters I think. Unless it is the Monday of the year when we meet at a spectacular home of one of our members. 

The home belongs to David. I'll leave it at that. It's amazing, a stunning hacienda on many acres with a pond, many fountains, a carriage house, an adorable shed, plants and flowering trees... the works. It's like a trip to Tuscany. So, it's no surprise that on this particular Monday.... we had over 25 artists.

I love when OTHER painters paint street scenes and corner stores, storybook cottages and barns. I love it and I struggle to do it. Architecture is not my thing. I have painted David's home before and although I like that painting, it shows more of a slowly sinking, aged and wobbly adobe cottage in my rendering ;)

This time I really spent a lot of time on the drawing. Getting the angles, the windows right, the roof top... I think it paid off. I am much happier with this painting and can see a lot of areas where I improved in the paint application as well. Having the 'good bones' of a good drawing underneath the paint worked out very well. There's hope for me!



Saturday, February 7, 2015

Not Quite Spring Cleaning

Sometimes you just have to do a bit of wrangling or organizing before you start on something new. I think I'll tackle that drafting table next!

Thursday, January 29, 2015

Keith Haring at the DeYoung

It was such a surprise to have felt so inspired by the Keith Haring exhibit I saw yesterday. A collection of political pieces curated by The DeYoung Museum.  

There were some really smart pieces, particularly a few about technology, computers and TV. They were about the 'noise' from technology and their distraction and that they detract from life... Painted, busily, in the same value of red and green so while I look at the painting it is vibrating and shaking. Tough  to physically look at!
Thoughtful and clever and fun and disruptive- great show!