Another leaf mobile!

I am having more fun with mobilizing my painted leaves! These are two-sided like in the first one, but backed with a made-for-them custom painting with extra-bright inks, and green coated florist's wire and real swivels (which don't do much because the leaves weigh too little to have enough momentum).

Sadly, I'm out of ceiling hooks, so I had to hang it from the ceiling lamp. If I keep doing these, I'm going to have to make some kind of hanging rack, I guess!

Vine Maple Mobile #2 Ink & colored pencil on 2-ply rag paper, with black wire $60
If you'd like to purchase this mobile, please contact me at patriciaryanart.

A leaf mobile

I finally have a use for the leftover parts of failed ink-and-pencil paintings that I've been saving all these years because they were too pretty to throw away—making mobiles out of them. This house has an old hanging lamp hook in one corner that I didn't want to hang anything heavy from because it would bonk me on the head when I'm picking up a guitar off the rack. The now-obvious missing piece is a nice lightweight mobile:

It has a magical turquoise leaf:

This one's as simple as you can get, but I've got plans for bigger ones. More fun!

Vine Maple Mobile #1 Ink & colored pencil on 2-ply art paper with copper wire $60
If you'd like to purchase this mobile, please contact me at patriciaryanart.

A very arty party

If you could do a combined show with any other artists you know, whom would you pick? Ones who like your art as much as you like theirs, whose work is excellent, yet plays so well with yours that the impact of every piece is elevated? Friendly, outgoing artists, articulate and interesting, people you'd want to be friends with no matter what their field is? I am that lucky with this show.

I know because several of the attendees said so, that Leslie's photographs and my paintings showed them a single subject through two very different visions. Roxanne, the gallery owner, had said after we finished hanging the works that she was happy about us combining them, letting the designs and colors rather than authorship dictate the arrangement on each wall, approaching the show as a collaboration. I was beyond happy that the viewers got it, that they saw why we did what we did.

We had a full house of friends most of the night, including a lot of artists, many of whom I'd never met. I had so many great conversations that my head is still spinning. I offer my heartfelt thanks to everyone who came.

I wish I'd taken more pictures!

The Light Taking Form show is up!

All ten of my paintings and (if I remember right) sixteen of Leslie Ebert's prints are hung in the gallery! The official opening is Saturday, October 3rd, from 6 to 9 PM, but it will also be open for Oregon City First Friday Night, October 2nd, from 5 to 8PM. Leslie and I will be there both nights, and I think Amelia Armitage will be there as well to present her lovely organic sculptures.

I didn't take any pictures last night when we finished, but I will get some this weekend. We decided to intermix the paintings and photos so they play off against each other, and my impression last night was that it's kind of a mind massage to look at them together. There's a lot of commonality of colors, plus the shared theme of Light and Form, but a very obvious difference in the appearance of the works. Where the mixed media works are very matte and brightly colored in an abstract-painterly way, Leslie's prints glow more subtly, although there is plenty of color in them—where the light hits them they softly shine with iridescence, so it feels as though you're seeing the show outside in a park, with the sunlight playing around you.

If you have a favorite color, it's in this show.

Last painting for the October show is done

Refuge

22"x30" Ink and colored pencil on archival cotton paper $500
You can purchase this painting HERE.

I just put the last touches on my last new painting for the show next month. Time to put the pencils away for a while. I'll be posting the announcement for the show this week. I wanted to use different colors from the reds of the last two. There was actually another new painting but it took a nose dive a couple weeks ago. I may be able to rescue part of it, but almost half of it is ruined.

It happens. The colored pencils are only so forgiving. I may try it again; I did like the composition. But not right now.

I'm getting ready to embark on the set of illustrations I want to do for my book Take The Wind Up With You. I have a list of about 15 ideas, but I've really got to work on my eagle- and mouse-rendering skills. I haven't done any action drawing since my horse-drawing days, sixty years ago. I'm thinking of doing them digitally, if I can manage that. Wish I could channel N. C. Wyeth.

A new blog about music

I was going to post a new entry about my first song release on Soundcloud (where you can hear the whole song) and CDBaby (where you can purchase it,) but as soon as I started writing it I knew it was going to turn into a whole blog.

Please go take a look at it!—all about my songs. Thanks!

Ribbons at the Fair!

Fern Lake won 1st in Mixed Media class.

Foggy Fall Morning won 1st in Acrylics class.

Canyon Night won 4th in Mixed Media.

My paintings got three ribbons at the Clackamas County Fair! Two of my watercolorist friends also got prizes this year, one with three and one with four. I was just glad that they had air conditioning units in several places in the building. I bailed out at 11:30 when it was 95º and came home to cool off and start watering the garden.

All the displays will be up through this Sunday. There are hundreds of paintings and photographs, plus many other beautifully made art and craft items.

Thank you, unknown judge at the Fair! And thanks to all the volunteers who staff the exhibits and make the whole event possible. What a fun event!