Recuerdo Frida, Sweeping off the dust

In a perfect world I would be posting progress work on paintings but that precious combination of creative energy and extra time have been elusive lately! We have been doing the final re-texturing and painting job in our kitchen so, while Kim, my most excellent friend and owner of Artistic Interiors fine finishes is mudding away, I have been busy doing things like taking down my spice shelf and wondering how I ever let it get so cluttered.

This is my Frida Shrine. As I was dismantling my kitchen, I took it down and realized I hadn't dusted it in quite a while, which, when you burn wood for heat like we do, equals quite a lot of dust after a few years! So I shined it up and did a little repair or two and realized I should have done it a lot sooner. The shrine is something I did a while back, I think it was for participation in a Cinco de Mayo show or something, but I never put it in because I decided not to sell it. I don't have enough time to really discuss my thoughts about Frida Kahlo. But I will say that her art, and her story greatly affected me, and helped shape me as an artist. So I thought I'd share the prayer I wrote on the back of this shrine.

Let her suffer no more
Love her as the masses now do

Grant her soul the peace
that it never had upon this earth

Grant her soul the awareness
of an endless feast
of joy and beauty

Grant her soul long life
in the hills of heaven

Sleep Frida Sleep

Proof of Spring Fever

I think my favorite flowers (aside from my cherished African violets) are the giant rusty peach colored tulips that come up in the backyard every spring despite numerous attempts by our dogs to kill them. I look forward to their faithful blooms even more than the daffodil and lilacs, although you can't beat the smell of lilacs. I did this 10 x 10 inch painting this week to indulge a little and soak myself in that spring thought.

Wine Lover, this girl needs a tan

I've been working on tonal stuff mainly, getting her skin layers on. Right now she looks how I feel, PALE. I love winter, the snow outside is so pretty but oh how I would love to just skip mud season. I'm having Vitamin D fantasies right now. I want to dig in the garden, lay on the grass and let my toes dip in the lake... Sigh...

Wine Lover Update

Did some detail work on the dress and worked some highlights into the face and fixed the hand a bit.

St. George's Guardian Angel

This here is number 4 of the lucky 13 cards. The theme of this card is "Saints and Sinners". My idea here was to do a St. George vs. the Dragon type theme but for some reason one night I got all fired up trying to do a softblock print after I watched a grittyjane tutorial, (she's got a ton of great how to stuff on youtube) and I ended up sticking a print of the little heart angel on my card. So then, I thought, well oops, but I still wanted to do St. George. So I titled it "the heart of St. George" figuring she could be his guardian angel or something, whatever works at this point! So I kept on with my theme and here it is, in all it's wacky unorganized-ness. I always admonish myself that one of my weaknesses when it comes to art is not thinking things through enough, and this is a classic example!

Lucky 13 Birds and Dreams

I am a part of a group of artists that are doing a round robin sort of thing. The way it works is each artist gets 13 cards and an envelope and has a theme for which to "artify" the card for each one. So you work on whatever theme corresponds to the number of the card you have, pop it in the envelope and send it to the next artist. When you're done you'll have 12 pieces of art by other artists. It's a fun way to get to know the other artists in the area, and I thought I might share a few of the cards with you as I do them. The first theme was water, and I did a silvery rain cloud on that card but neglected to scan it, so that one's missing, but the next theme was Birds, and the next after that was Dreams.

Filling in the shawl

Last night I finally got down to the business of working on the folds and draping of the red scarf. I also filled in shadow areas, and worked on the dress a little bit. It's still got some areas that need work and shadowing but overall I'm happy with how it came out.

GOLD RUSH

I just traded that little painting I did last month for the most gorgeous set of ruby and gold earrings. Now, anyone that knows me knows I have a little jewelry addiction... a small problem, nothing to worry about. But with this economy crackdown, (Banks toppling equals less paintings being bought, straight up) I haven't been able to indulge, so when my good friend Deja accepted my proposal of a trade I was pretty excited. Check out her beautiful jewelry at Deja's designs

Research for Wine Lover II

Here is a little insight to the modeling side of arranging a painting. I should have done this in the first place since I have the perfect model for it. But at the time of doing my original Wine lover painting I used an old victorian postcard as inspiration for the figure. It was of a greek looking lady looking at an oyster I think - weird! I think that's why I never got the angle of the shoulder quite how I wanted it because I basically had to improvise the whole right (skier's right) arm. I'll have to dig it up and post it on here because it is interesting... Anyway, this is my research photo of Sara graciously posing so I can study the draping of the red shawl for Wine Lover II. I'm hoping Jolie will be a good little napper this afternoon so I can lay in some sketch work! *Sigh* I love painting...