For A Kiss Anytime, Ticket No. 6

Monday will mark a new day. I'm very excited to begin to hang collages and mixed media in the Workhouse's Gallery W-16. They're quite a departure from the usual fare around here, but they're perfect for me to do during the cold winter months.

For this series, each has a base of tickets with a departure from that commonality: copping a smooch. They're all intended as year 'round valentines, but their flavor could suit that of either the giver or the receiver.

 

For A Kiss Anytime, Ticket No. 6

7x11
mixed media

Top Secret

It's not that I'm not painting or creating; it's that they are awaiting the revealing.
 
"Ohhhh. Ahhhh," chimes the chorus.

It's winter. I'm stir crazy!

MAPAPA Exhibit in Annapolis

Please join the Mid-Atlantic Plein Air Painter's Association at their exhibit hosted by Quiet Waters Gallery in Annapolis, Maryland. You will be awed by the talent, as I always am. The show opens January 7 and runs through February 14.

The opening reception will be January 10 from 2-4PM.

Quiet Waters Gallery is located at 600 Quiet Waters Park Road in Annapolis.

If you're not a member of MAPAPA, consider joining. The annual meeting on January 30 at Londontowne near Annapolis. It will be a full day of plein air painting and sessions not to be missed, to include a demo and lecture by Louis Escobedo and American Impressionism by Willford Scott.

Pictured, right and included in the Quiet Waters show, is Genteel Winter, a pastel painted en plein air near Ashland, Virginia.

Stepping Stones

We've just past a season where small works are popular as gallery staples and gifts.

This small work began as a 4x6 winter study of the Potomac at Riverbend Park, the section of river just before Great Falls. With the perfect pebbly frame in mind, this more fully developed painting became a dainty 3x3 gem. It's cute. It's a favorite. Love those Maggie Price grays manufactured by Terry Ludwig!

Stepping Stones
soft pastel on prepared watercolor paper with pumice
3x3
SOLD

See No Evil, Hear No Evil, Speak No Evil

Begun a few months ago during the Richard McKinley workshop, "See No Evil, Hear No Evil, Speak No Evil" speaks to the positioning of these beautiful hay bales in a way that gave them personality to me. I'd been working in big sky mode all week and this last day I wanted to paint more personally and close up. In a McKinleyesque style of judging an architectural landscape to be the best in show still life recently, this painting could also be considered a landscape cum still life.

It began as a loose watercolor underpainting on UArt 500 sanded paper.

And soft pastels fill in the rest of the story. In my evaluation, I see the McKinley influence prevalent in the soft trees pulled out of a mist, the broken line of the grass in the middle ground, the foreground foliage with an orange undertone, and the dots and dashes as details up front.

See No Evil, Hear No Evil, Speak No Evil
soft pastel on UArt 500
9x12

Off to a Great New Year

Many thanks to Infinity Art Gallery for hosting this art show and for providing me the venue for my piece, Barrett House Meadow, to receive a third place prize as well as for another pastel, Winter Walk, to be included as a finalist.

I especially appreciate the words of juror, Joseph Krawczyk, concerning Barrett House Meadow, left:

This work has a real “Old Masters” quality. I really like the impressionistic style. It reminds me of a cross between Monet and Van Gogh. The work has a very good sense of depth, and I can almost see the clouds moving across the sky, which must have made it difficult to capture as a plein air work of art. A very nice command of pastels!

 Thank you very much indeed.

Happy New Year!