Art & Craft Fair this Saturday!

I'll be at the Winter Wonderland Art & Craft Fair this Saturday. I will have my boxable paintings, plus my cards, glass flowers, glass hangers, new glass Christmas ornaments (3 styles), a bit of fun holiday jewelry, and with luck, my two paper mobiles. I think I've figured out a way to hang them above the table!

And for the first time, if their wifi setup is working, I'll be able to take credit cards. And whatever comes back home with me will be going up on my Etsy site next week.

I'd love to see you there!

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.

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!

Showing at the Clackamas County Fairgrounds

I'll have five paintings on display at the County Fair in Canby, OR, August 18-23—two mixed media paintings and three acrylic paintings. Some friends who are great watercolorists inspired me to enter. It's a fun fair with an amazing range of art, craft, and hobby displays.

Ardenwald Holiday Bazaar Tomorrow!

I'll be at the Ardenwald Holiday Bazaar tomorrow, Saturday, November 22nd, from 9am to 3pm. That's at Ardenwald Elementary School in Milwaukie, SE of Portland. I'll have my latest paintings from this summer and fall, two dozen glass flowers and and over a dozen hanging garden ornaments. I'll also have dozens of 5x7 greeting cards of my paintings and photo art. I don't know where I'll be in the fair, but look for glowing buckets of glass jewels!

I'll also be ready and eager to talk about both my books for sale on Amazon, "First Aid For Your Menopause Emotions," and my new animal adventure story for kids 5th grade and up and anyone who loves animal stories, "Take The Wind Up With You."

If you get there, please say "Hi" and let me know you saw this on my blog. Thanks!

Inspired by Autumn

Fall Fantasy

I was playing more with watercolors, try out my new hake brushes, and decided to use them (but not the hakes) on an inspiration I got this last weekend. I wanted to do an abstract of leaf shapes, but then as I was drawing it out I decided to make one of them more realistic. I stole its coloring from one of my O Isami leaves, so it's all pretty made up. But it does represent how excited I am to see the fall colors, especially in the local maples, and the leaves coming down in the wind. I love leaves, but I'm a sucker for the bightly colored ones. I really love them.

As long as I'm posting, I'll put up a poster for the next art fair I'll be at, in SE Portland at Ardenwald Elementary School on Nov. 22, and a couple of other things I've been working on lately.

I'm not sure if this painting of the grape arbor at Villa Catalana is finished, but I'm done working on it. It's as good as I can make it now.

Grape arbor in summer

I wanted to share my first painting with the hake brushes, not because it's any good (it isn't) but to give you an idea of what your first experiment might look like. It is possible, and fun, to use them to get something that looks like tree foliage. I think I can get better with them in time. At least I've still got the back side of this that I can use for another painting.

First try with hake brushes

I used to do watercolors before I retired, and I do like not having to throw the dry paint away. But, when you screw up something on an acrylic painting, you can always just keep painting on top of it. So they're both fun, in their own way.

Cha!Cha!Cha! show extended through August 31st

Good news! My show at the Cha!Cha!Cha! Restaurant in Milwaukie, OR—at least a portion of it—will be up until the end of August. Seven paintings are still hanging there. Two were sold and the other three are back at home or on sale on my Etsy site. The two that were sold are:

Forest Sunrise

and

Cascade Waterfall

I've been working on a new project—the cover for my next Kindle book release, coming soon. I'll have the first attempt done this week. I have two really different ideas and I might end up trying both of them before I decide for sure which to use.

Back to work!

Mixed media paintings on display in Milwaukie, OR

Cha!Cha!Cha! Restaurant - Home of my first solo show, July 1-31, 2014

A dozen of my big mixed media paintings are spending the month of July in the Cha!Cha!Cha! restaurant in beautiful downtown Milwaukie, just a few miles south of Portland, OR. The show opened yesterday and won't come down till July 31st. Most of the paintings in the show have appeared on this blog, but a few are older ones which were done before I started this.

I'm really thrilled to have my first solo show in this wonderful Mexican restaurant. Mexican food has been one of my most favorite kinds of foods since I was kid, so I have many decades of happy memories of sharing Mexican food with family and friends. Being here feels like a big thumbs-up from the Universe to me. The owner and manager of the restaurant, Carmen Mojica, has been really great to work with and is very supportive of local art and artists. And, the food is great and very affordable—and the margaritas are, too.

So if you're in the area and just a little bit hungry for good Mexican food and lots of bright colors and friendly people, pay a visit to the Cha!Cha!Cha!, at 11008 SE Main Street in Milwaukie. It's just one block off the 99E, between Oregon City and Portland. For hours or reservations, call 503.659.2193. They also do take-out!