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Category Archives: art

I Have a Fairy Godmother!!!!

11 Tuesday Jul 2017

Posted by in art, gratitude, humor, karma, kindness, Uncategorized

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I know I haven’t posted in over a week. I swear, I’ll try to get back in the swing of things again soon, but my brain has been mush due to the stress about work stuff. I also swear that I’ll explain about that soon. But for right now, I’m just too excited because I found out that I have a fairy godmother!! A month ago, I saw this thing, a Body Chan, pop up in an ad on my  Facebook feed:

 

Posable figure

If you’re not familiar with the little wooden posable figures that they make for artists, this is what they usually look like.

Manikinb

It doesn’t even have a chin. And it has a stick up its ass. 

And they suck, because the range of realistic poses for them is severely limited. So I when I saw this thing, I got all want-y and posted on Facebook that I wished it was mine. And since I did, it keeps popping up all over the place because my computer is a pimp and is always trying to get me to buy its tempting shit. But I’ve resisted because, well, I don’t have so much of the monies. And also because I’m a little afraid of pimps. But it’s just been taunting me this whole time.

Today, it arrived in the mail. With no receipt. So I have no idea who sent it. I posted a pic of me with it and asked for the generous culprit to fess up so that I can thank them.

Posable figure in backage.jpg

I don’t look nearly as excited in this picture as I actually feel, but all the pics of me looking really excited also made me look really ugly. Hopefully, this adequately conveys at least mild appreciation and wonder, if not the complete and utter ecstasy that I’m actually feeling.

But it’s been 4 hours and no one has. This leads me to the only logical conclusion: I have a freakin’ fairy godmother, y’all!!! So now I’m thinking that I should start wishing for other stuff. Apparently wantiness works. Now that I have my new posable figure, who I have named Jackie (because the figure is called a Body Chan), she’s going to help me demonstrate to my fairy godmother all of my heart’s desires…you know, things like unicorns and calorie-free cheese. You never know. I might have multiple fairy godmothers with different powers like Sleeping Beauty.

I’m turning 40 on September 20th, and I’ve decided that what I really want to commemorate such a momentous birthday – no, what I really need – is 40 cupcakes.

Jackie with cupcakes

I recognize that these cupcakes, in proportion to Jackie, are regular-sized cakes, but I figure if a girl’s gonna dream, she should dream big.

Since I don’t want to be selfish, feel free to suggest things you want and I’ll wish for them for you.

Dearest fairy godmother, thank you for sending me my new best friend, Jackie. After her, you’re the bestest.

 

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Ain’t Nobody Here But Us Chickens

20 Tuesday Jun 2017

Posted by in art, music, painting, Uncategorized

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As mentioned awhile back, I have a friend who has a bunch of chickens. There was something that was bothering me about the painting I did of her black star chicken, Aretha. So I changed up the background color and added more color into her feathers.

Aretha 2

Aretha, Black Star Chicken 5″ x 5″ oil on board $100

And I decided that it needed a companion painting because Aretha looked lonely, and we all know that there’s nothing sadder than a lonely chicken. So I created a painting of her pal Victoria, a lavender cochin chicken.

Victoria - Lavender Cochin

Victoria, Lavender Cochin Chicken 5″ x 5″ oil on board

Originals available here. Prints and stuffs and things available here, here, here, and here. And if you’re jonesing for some chicken music (I mean, are any of us not jonesing for more chicken music in our lives?), I give you this:

Fiddle IV

15 Thursday Jun 2017

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The last of the four fiddle paintings doesn’t show all the wear and tear that the other ones did, but I love the curves and the contrast of the warmth of the wood next to the coolth (I know that’s not a word, but if warmth is, coolth should be) of the metal:

Fiddle IV_compressed

Fiddle IV 7″ x 5″ oil on board

Prints and other awesome thingamabobs here.

Fiddle II

13 Tuesday Jun 2017

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Yesterday I posted the first of four paintings that were commissioned of a very battle-scarred fiddle. You’ll see what I mean with the next one:

Fiddle II_compressed

Fiddle II 7″ x 5″ oil on board

Prints and other swag here.

Fiddle I

12 Monday Jun 2017

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I’ve been working on a series of commissioned paintings of a fiddle that has seen some shit, y’all. It has all these wonderful scratches and knicks and is all kinds of crazy beat-up. It’s wonderful and someday I hope to hear the stories behind the scars. The first of the four paintings doesn’t highlight the more abused spots on the fiddle, so we’ll start with that one. FYI, painting lettering sucks, but I’m happy with how this bit turned out. Painting wood grain is hard on the hands, but oddly satisfying. There’s something soothing about just drawing lines over and over – kind of like painting fur.

Here’s the first fiddle painting:

Fiddle I_compressed

Fiddle I 7″ x 5″ oil on board

Prints and other gear available here.

Monet’s Garden

06 Tuesday Jun 2017

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Part of the river cruise that I took last month included a day trip to Giverny and Monet’s garden. Everything was lush and gorgeous and we got good weather and it was pure, unadulterated heaven. In an effort to not be totally derivative by just recreating his waterlily paintings, I opted to paint some of the flowers I photographed instead. There were so many different kinds of tulips I lost count. Here are 2 quick paintings I did based off of a couple, one fairly delicate and one big and bold:

Monet's Garden tulip painting

Monet’s Tulip 8″ x 6″ watercolor on paper

Orange Tulip

A Tulip For Jolee 12″ x 12″ acrylic on canvas

 

Granted, They Should Be Thanked

05 Monday Jun 2017

Posted by in art, book, culture, gratitude, kindness, painting, Uncategorized, writing

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You may remember that, last year, I applied for and received a grant to help me publish Fractured Memories. I realized that I never properly or publicly acknowledged who provided the grant, and I want to do that now. The United Arts Council of Raleigh and Wake County essentially sponsored the book with a generous grant. I’m preparing my final report for them now that the book is complete and out there for the world to see, and realized that I definitely spent way more than the grant awarded, but it was absolutely invaluable in two ways: 1) it allowed me to justify taking some time off from teaching classes because I knew that it was paying for me to hire my instructors to cover those shifts, and 2) it affirmed for me that the project was worth pursuing. We all need a little external affirmation now and then, and getting it from an “official” arts program gave me more confidence going into the writing and publishing process.

So a huge thank you goes out to the United Arts Council of Raleigh and Wake County for helping achieve a dream and further my career as an artist in many senses of the word.

YouTube Book Review

04 Sunday Jun 2017

Posted by in art, blog, book, culture, dementia, Fractured Memories, gratitude, karma, kindness, Uncategorized

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Brittany, from BrittanyReads, posted her spring indie author wrap-up on youtube, and included a review of my book, Fractured Memories. So now you don’t have to read the review, you can watch it, because screw reading, amiright? Oh, wait. The review of my book starts at around 4 minutes 45 seconds. Please go show her channel a little love, and check out some more indie books!

Rouen

02 Friday Jun 2017

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One of the things I like about painting the places I’ve visited, is that it makes you stop and examine the details of the things you hurriedly snapped photos of as you wandered around in a daze exploring a city. I tend to take photos with paintings in mind, so there’s not a ton of cropping or other editing necessary. But I’m still so busy photographing everything I find even vaguely interesting, that I don’t process what I’m seeing fully. So, I love sitting down with a paintbrush, examining the photos I’ve taken, and recreating the photo in a new way. Sometimes I’ll do the same scene in different styles, sometimes I just create a quick sketch, and other times I get really detailed with it.

These two paintings are of the same street in Rouen, France, but from opposite ends of that street.

Painting - Rouen 2

Rue Malpalu, Rouen, France 8″ x 6″ watercolor on paper

Gene

Painting - Rouen

Rue Malpalu, Rouen, France II 6″ x 8″ watercolor on paper

Generally, getting shots of a street without people in it is a challenge. I take a series of shots from the same angle so that, as people move in and out of view, I can see what’s there when the people aren’t in the way. That way, if someone is blocking a doorway or some shutters in one shot, they won’t be in the next, so between the several photos, I can get an accurate idea of what that doorway or shutter actually looks like. Then I can selectively add or delete people as I sketch out the painting.

Pere Lachaise Cemetery

01 Thursday Jun 2017

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After my crisis where I thought I’d try not painting for awhile, I realized that that’s stupid. I just can’t not paint. I’m still in a crisis as I try to figure out how the hell to sell all that art, but I can’t stop making it. Today, I sat down and did a little painting of the Pere Lachaise Cemetery that I visited on my trip to France last month. At the end of our river cruise, my mom and I tacked on a couple days in Paris because our cruise didn’t include a couple of my favorite spots on their tour. One of those spots was the Pere Lachaise Cemetery where all sorts of famous-y-type people are buried. It’s fun hunting down the various graves, but honestly, even if you don’t look for any one marker in particular, it’s a gorgeous, peaceful stroll. There are huge, monument style markers, mausoleums, and small, more modest headstones. Some date back to the 1800’s, and some are more recent, and they are the final resting places for everyone from Moliere, Chopin, Delacroix, and Oscar Wilde, to Jim Morrison.

A couple tips for anyone interested in visiting: if you take the metro, get off at the Gambetta station, not the Pere Lachaise station. That will allow you to enter the cemetery from the opposite end, which means you’ll be walking downhill most of the way through the cemetery. If you’re visiting in the summer, wear bug spray, because the gnats and mosquitos can be intense. Fair warning: if you don’t have a map and wander around long enough, drunk guys will offer to show you to various graves and expect payment when they get you there. Their English is generally good enough to get basics across to you, and, honestly, we had fun chatting with our “guide” as he weaved us through the cemetery, but there is some haggling at the end for how much you pay them. Start low, because they’ll ask for more.

Anyway, here is the painting I just knocked out – one of the shady paths through the cemetery:

Pere Lachaise Cemetery.jpg