So I've been taking a little haitus from the studio, and the frozen north :) But I brought along a few projects including Old Vine to work on. These are the latest photos. It's amazing how a photo taken on a cloudy day can differ from a photo taken on a sunny day. The top one is most recent (sunny day photo), I decided to kill the moss on the big dead vine. Now I am contemplating whether or not to put leaves etc on it. Also I'm debating the color of the hills, and I think I still need to make the trees to the right bigger. Hmmmm

New Commission, Chair lift to Heaven

Chair Lift to Heaven. 18 x 20(click on the photo for a close up). Using the photo below as a reference, my client wanted this painting to convey the treasured feelings she had when riding the chair lift up to ski on Big Mountain.

I tried to think of my own thoughts and emotions when riding up the chair and infuse them into the layers. This is what came to mind: anticipation, peace, joy, the historical greatness of this thing you get to partake of, the mysterious nature of snow, the respect for and closeness to nature that skiing gives you... the thrill of speed, and excitement of finding untracked powder, feeling both cozy and tingly cold at the same time... there is a lot to capture there, hopefully I got a little bit of it for my client, but as usual I seem to have very little control over the actual outcome of a painting commission and am crossing my fingers in hope that she likes it!

What I think really came through is the mountain itself, or rather the ski run... When I look at this I get a sense of quite waiting, a glimpse of Tony Matt early in the morning, blanketed in a few inches of un-tracked snow. An intimate look at the run itself before the crowd transforms it with bustling energy and whoops of glee.

Snowstorm

Just finished this Snowy commission. It harkens back to some of my older swirly landscapes. I took a little bit of artistic license here... well... more than a little bit obviously, but hopefully it doesn't disturb any viewers that a winter storm doesn't usually come rushing over into a valley that's socked in with an inversion cloud layer... I don't even really know if that is scientifically possible... but this is 2009, anything is possible right?

Also posted updated images on my Old Vine commission and Sunflowers on Red commission

Land

Every so often I try to do an abstract. It never really works out like I imagine it will, but it's fun.

Lucky 13 Red Horse

The theme for this month's Lucky 13 artist card is "Animals". This of course made me want to embark on an epic work of arc-like proportions. I think maybe reading all those barnyard bedtime books to Jolie may have been an influence. But before I could begin to figure out how I was going to do that on a 3 by 4 inch card, I had a conversation with my sister where we talked a good deal about horses. Right after that phone call I popped into the studio and made this little painting. Click on the image to see it in a larger size.

New Commission, Sunflowers on Red 24 x24 in.

Here are some photos showing progress on my Sunflowers on Red Commission

Giveaway, we have a winner!

Using a toddler, a name was randomly drawn out of a hat and

the lucky winner of the original watercolor "Night Snowfall" is

Rebecca Anderson!

Thanks for playing everyone :)

a Little bit of Press

Hey my painted bra piece for the Save a Sister show was featured in the Flathead Beacon, cool! It is a piece honoring my late aunt Laurie Shonerd, a wonderful person and an incredible artist. I own a giclee of her gorgeous piece Calla Lily Splash which was my inspiration for the lilies on the bra. Read the article and find out how you can be a part of Save a Sister.

The show is at the Hockaday Museum of Art and is opening Saturday Oct 3rd, then it will travel around the country and come back to the Flathead Valley and be auctioned off next August.

Lucky 13 "Innocence" and Re-dos

Innocence is the theme for this month's Lucky 13 card. It's a sketch of Jolie from a photo taken when she was a week old. Funny little thing :) This one was a bit of a hurry up job because I also needed to finish these...





Apparently there are small time art thieves working within the Mexican postal system so "Water" and "Birds" had to be re-done. I like the Chick one, though the idea is a bit rough and the lettering isn't where I want it. I might use it as a starting point for something else... someday

GIVEAWAY! "Night Snowfall" watercolor

This little 4 by 6 inch watercolor piece is called "Night Snowfall" and is one of my many recent watercolor projects. Sign up to my email mailing list and get a chance to win it! Email me at benskigurl@hotmail.com with "mailing list" in the subject line. Don't worry, I won't pepper your inbox with endless arty sillyness. I will occasionally send a "new work up in the gallery" notice, or show opening invitation. You can opt out of my mailing list at any time by simply emailing me with "remove" in the subject line.

After you've signed up for the mailing list
Increase your chances to win! Get more entries in the drawing by doing one or more of the following, then tell me what you did in the comment area below and make sure you leave me your contact info.

1. Become a follower of my blog (scroll down and click the follow button on the left side column)
2. Become a fan of my facebook page
3. Blog about my art on your blog
4. Check out karenminton.com and tell me where you find a link that doesn't work (hint, the deeper you go, the more there are! I've got some work to do...)
5. Tell me in the comment section what your favorite painting in the gallery is

I will draw for a winner at noon on Monday October 5th!


Winner will be notified of win via email. Winner needs to email me back with shipping info before October 19th in order to receive the giveaway or another winner will be drawn. Winner will be shipped "Night Snowfall" unframed and wrapped in a protective cardboard square. Contest is open to everyone, however free shipping is for US participants only.

the tough part is over...

Progress as of 11/5/09 Roughed in the shadows for the vines and middle foreground. Tinkered with trees and foliage... Added lots of heavy tones to the old vine itself... Now I think it's time to break out the wine country books and study vine structures. Definitely needing to work on the right hand trees still, they look like one big dark blob... yikes

New progress as of 10/16 (just added it to the post below) The foreground is coming along...

I had a great painting day last saturday! Four hours of painting and I arrived at the fun part, at least for a little bit I won't have to make any tough decisions. I can just happily paint leaves and grasses and mustard flowers and trees for a bit. I'm leaving the forefront and vine until last. The only problem still bugging me is the scale of the trees. My next move will be to do some subtle corrections there...

Old Vine Painting

Little by little....

Little Red Pig with Wings

I collaged and painted this little red pig straight onto a cool little frame I found at a garage sale. It's a bit rough around the edges but I like it.

Happy White Flowers

I had this painting hanging around in shades of blue and black for a long time... It was sad, and it was starting to get at me to see it hanging so drab and forgotten in the back corner of my studio. So yesterday, during a particularly gloomy rain, I dragged it out, scrubbed a few happy glazes over it and now here it is, with it's lovely new clothes.

Sunnies on Blue

This is Sunflowers on Blue . It's 24 x 24 inches and was painted on a really thick, heavily woven cotton which was stretched on a thick wooden frame, so it's hefty.

If you're feeling a little deja vu ish about this painting it's probably because I've done it thrice before with a red background. I like the composition of my original sketch so I keep going back to it. On a side note, I was recently commissioned to do another sunflowers with a red background soon to stay tuned for that one :)

Old vine

Since it's been a while I thought I'd put up a pic of the latest progress on the "Old Vine" commission. This painting has been putting me through my paces. I did several layers in the middle ground trying to get it to make sense, but it still needs something. I might have to make a major change... however, my other worry is that when I end up getting to the vine itself and putting in it's leaves etc. the painting might become too busy... sooo I may opt for simplification of the middle ground at this point. That treeline on the right is not working for me... At any rate what it amounts to is me staring at this for hours a day and getting no work done. So I'm going to tackle the middle ground today once Jo goes down for her nap and see where I end up...

Wine Lover II Completed!

I finally did it! Nothing like a deadline to get those last few hours in! This commission took me two years to do, that's pretty long for me. Thank you Deja for being so patient!

Lucky 13 Corn theme

This month's lucky 13 theme was Corn. I thought corn... hmmm, how many different ways can you interpret corn! That's the beauty of doing this project though, it gets you to think wayyy outside your comfort zone.

I had a flood of ideas for this one, but the image that kept revolving in my mind's eye was "imprint" which is what I titled this piece. It's basically just a straight ink imprint of a lovely piece of corn, which I rolled over a few times with different colors, glazed a sepia and then fixed with a spray poly. I like how it turned out like a pop-ish abstract, usually I have an extremely hard time getting my creative mind to loosen up enough to get a successful abstraction going, so I was pretty happy with this excersize.

Lucky 13 Icons

This month's Lucky 13 theme is icons. I hemmed and I hawwed, pondered and mused and finally I realized I'd better just get something done, so I did a quick graphite sketch of Audrey Hepburn, icon of style and sophistication. To bump the arty factor up a notch I filled in her top with black acrylic paint and did a warm white acrylic wash in the background.

Glacier Lily

I've been doing some preliminary sketches and watercolors for a glacier lily painting, this is my favorite so far...

Ready for your closeup?

Click on the images to see them in more detail

Beatrice

Miss Jeanie
Ella
Clare
Olive

Elegant Annie

Here are some close up shots of the art dolls I've done so far. 3 and 4 are Gritty Jane patterns and the others are my own that I adapted. Whenever possible I recycle materials to make these little gals, but I'm still trying to find the happy medium between doing these art dolls that are sculpted and painted to something made from more natural materials that Jolie can gum to her heart's content. I was watching antique roadshow and they had an old wood carved doll head that they talked about. Some sweet old lady made them for the local kids then later turned it into a full on company, still with the heads carved by hand, she attached them to cloth bodies but very few of the bodies survived.

Dusk Inspirations

These little forrest watercolors were inspired by the view out my bedroom window. I don't really get to see much of a sunset, but I do get to see the most beautiful dusk framing the trees in greens and blues, blending up into the deep night sky slowly filling with stars. I was planning on making the sky filled with glow in the dark stars, but the paint had other ideas. When I dotted them in they looked a lot more like snow, which is probably more realistic anyway ;-)

Watercolor Dolls

It's been a while since I've done a new post because I've been busy getting a group show together featuring local artists doing art in the theme of "art for baby". We had the opening last night and a good time was had by all. My mom has been visiting and her help with the show made it so easy.

Unfortunately my camera died a dented death so I'm going to have to wait and see if I can get the pictures off of it. Above are a few scans of some doll designs I did as an addition to some acrylic nursery sets and cloth dolls (again, pictures pending). I've been having loads of fun getting back into Aquarelle watercolor sticks, watercolors and pencil, and oil pastels. It's a lot easier to do work on the kitchen table when you've got a toddler needing something every ten minutes! So the easle painting will have to wait till I can get some help.

Lucky 13 Words

The theme for this month is words, but I could only think of one word. :)

Olive

Here is my latest art doll. Her name is Olive. She enjoys smiling, plaid, and hanging around...

Lucky 13 Envelope

OK here it is as promised. An example of a lucky 13 envelope and it's contents. The first is "Water Saint" by Kage Harp (who is also the owner of the beautifully decorated envelope). The second is the Birds themed card by Abigail Garner, and the third is "Dreams Give me a Chance to be my Real Self" by Wendy Anderson, the fourth is "Leaders of the Saints and Sinners" by L.K. Christensen and the 5th is "Embrace Chaos" by Stephanie Pointer.