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.

Day 6 - 30/30 MYA Challenge + Chelsea Center & Planting Fields Arboretum

Today's Challenge is to make a badge for your blog or website. I've already got a bunch of links on the right side here, I don't have a website – yet – so I thought I'd make a specific link to the Original Art section of my Etsy Shop.

So off to ippicy.com to make one. (The truth is, I can make this in photoshop with no problem, but I thought I'd try out the interface.) It's a great  site/tool if you don't have Photoshop or similar and need to create a collage or a web button, correct an image, play with effects, add type or a frame, etc.
Upload a picture (or use one from the collage assignment), choose edit, and you are given lots of photoshop-like editing choices. Click along the top and the options for that category will come up on the left. When you have what you want, just click save.
Voila! Here it is - and you can see where I put it on the right side.

Walking and Painting at Chelsea Mansion & Planting Fields Arboretum
After getting some work done yesterday, I went off to enjoy some sunshine.
Walked around Chelsea Mansion for a while. (Here's more on Chelsea.)

I always wonder what the grounds once looked like. This is near that hidden gazebo, 

and the little hidden pet cemetery. 

The mansion (and it's reflection) are so pretty. 

There were Canada Geese and Mallards, a couple of HUGE turtles (not snapping turtles). 

Catbirds and cardinals were singing and the chipping sparrows were checking the apple tree blossoms for all sorts of little bugs.

It's nice to see they've fixed the fountains. All the lions around the outer edge were spurting water.

The old greenhouse. 

I didn't have time to paint as they close the gates at 4:30. :-(

So, off to Planting Fields Arboretum. How beautiful is this dogwood?

There were lots of people there. So many weddings wandering through, enjoying the beautiful day and the next wave of trees - lilacs and dogwoods, cherry and apple trees and the last of the daffodils are in bloom. The fountains in the formal gardens were working here too. 

I found a quieter spot on a bench, looking back towards the house.

I tried to keep it simple, but did a nice pencil drawing first.

After about an hour, here's where I was at. 

Be sure to check my facebook page for a better look at the sketch/painting.

Time to go. On the way out, I noticed that the rhododendrons are just about ready to burst. 

I'm looking forward to that!

There's more on Planting Fields Here