Wednesday, November 6, 2013

Recap: Two Fabulous Art Shows

After the Blizzard, Bayville
14" x 10", watercolor (unframed), $300+ shipping 
Questions? Email me.

October was a busy month! I was in two shows...

1. The Art Guild Member Show at the Graphic Eye Gallery

Great work by Art Guild members!

I had two pieces in the show - After the Blizzard, Bayville  and  Moonrise, Orient


And I was very humbled and honored to receive the 2013 Terry Shkuda Award for Broadening Artistic Pursuits. (Thank you all, SO much!)
Kathy Shkuda presents me with the Terri Shkuda Award, with Shelley Holtzman TAG president.

For more pictures of the show, check out the photo album on Art Guild's FB page.

2. Art Guild Show at Chelsea Mansion

The Art Guild was invited to be part of a free fall concert series in Nassau County in the beautiful Chelsea Mansion - for only eight days! 


This show was quite a challenge to arrange and hang. One "room" was a tent (so, no walls to hang paintings on) and the other was the Music Room (but we couldn't hang anything on the walls). 
So we borrowed grids used in craft/art shows and bought 15 easels from Jerry's Artarama. We had a lot of fun assembling those. The first one took 1.5 hours and the second one only half-an-hour – pretty good learning curve! They're really nice looking! (Almost too nice to use for painting!)

15 easels in the front room of Elderfields

Ten Guild members collaborated to paint the Nassau County Legislative building, as a gift for  Carnell Foskey, Commissioner. Nassau County Department of Parks, Recreation and Museums for helping to get us back in our home at Elderfields. A photo of the Legislative Building was scaled (by the amazing Aleta) and gridded out. Each artist got a 10" x10" section to paint on a wood panel in our own style. We then assembled it on a wooden frame. 


This is my panel. I painted it first with three or four coats of Golden Watercolor Ground. I traced the piece of the building that was my assignment (yup, that little red roof and the top of the tree). I found a dramatic sky in my photos (I couldn't bear to just paint blue) and lightly sketched the clouds in. I painted as I normally would with watercolors. 
The surface does behave like watercolor paper. You can lift and blend in much the same way. The nice part is that if you make a horrendous mistake, you can just wipe it off. If there's any staining, you can just paint more ground over it.
To get a little more detailing in the roof, I used some colored pencil. Again, the surface behaved very much like watercolor paper. I did spray a light coat of fixative over it when everything was dry.

Some of the panels together

Bill assembles the "collage" painting as Ilene watches.

Bill shows off the framed collage painting.

Diane & Ilene with the framed collage painting.

We think it looks very cool! 

The Big DAY!

The easels look great...

...And so do the grids.

And, by the way, Mr. Foskey really liked the painting too!

The show turned out really well and we hope to do another show there next year!
The winners

My paintings


For more pictures, you can check out The Art Guild's FB page.

Sunday, November 3, 2013

Rhode Island Adventure - Painting Number One - Point Judith

Point Judith Lighthouse, watercolor
10.75"w x 8.75"h, $150

A couple of weekends ago, I popped up to my aunt and uncle's home in Rhode Island for the weekend. I wanted to explore and paint some of the beautiful places near their home, and with the leaves changing, it seemed like the perfect opportunity.

Saturday - First Stop, Point Judith 

Usually when I go to Rhode Island, it's either raining (summer) or freeeezing (winter). The last time I was at Point Judith it was December, freezing, and the wind was blowing like a hurricane. There are pix of us (somewhere) huddled around the base of the lighthouse, out of the wind.

Very "Hopperesque" isn't it?

I was delighted this time when, despite some clouds, the sun peeked through enough to get some great pictures for future reference AND I was able to do a small watercolor!



Almost finished!

Those shadows on the middle building changed completely in less than an hour!







For more info on Point Judith, click here.

Next Up: Ninigret National Wildlife Refuge