auto parts

The orange and white 1971 Chevy pickup, watercolor on 18"x24" paper and photographed in two parts, just because.
Dreamsicle truck, with your wood-lined bed, your orange-and-cream upholstery, and your unapproachable for-sale sign. It would never have been a practical relationship, even if I could've bought you. Better to hold your pristine image in my memory, to keep you as my muse.

Of course I have to show its full length, after all. How it blazed brightly in the summer sun, parked there on a hill overlooking a lake.

so much depends upon it

I completed this one recently and showed it at Open Studios last weekend. It's not the first painting of the gray wheelbarrow, but it's the biggest. Acrylic and milk paint on canvas, 16"x20". The wheelbarrow is retired for the next few months. Come late August, it will be my constant companion once again. What sturdy construction! Such durability over so many years! Officially it is the property of the Hauser estate, but I essentially seized it for the duration of the stacking season, and did depend upon it quite often.
Lest anyone think I've forgotten about another wheelbarrow I held close to my heart (see this post from Oct 2011), I still have that old metal Stow-n-Go, which I adored for its ability to come apart & fit in the car trunk. But this gray one is lighter and bigger and needs no assembly.
I'm thinking that may be enough wheelbarrow talk. No need to make people sorry they asked where I get inspiration for my work.

buoyant

beacon open studios 2013

It's that time again! This coming weekend is Beacon Open Studios, and this year I'll be showing work in my own space on Main St, Catalyst Gallery (137 Main). Five other artists will be there as well. More info is at the BOS website. Friday night is the kickoff party and exhibit of work by participating artists at Hudson Beach Glass, 6-9 pm. It's also the place to pick up a catalog with a list and map of the studios.

I won't have a lot of brand-new paintings up, but there will be a lot of smaller pieces and framed works on paper, all for sale, some newer and some older.

Sunday the 21st is also my birthday and so I'm putting in my request now for a really good day. Of course I'd like the whole weekend to be great for everyone. 

My Gulf Gas Pump painting is featured in the April/May issue of the Las Vegas-based magazine BLVDS. Here is the page-- it's an issue about travel. This came through the LV gallery TastySpace where I had a show last summer. It's fun to see my work in print, just for the exposure- I ought to make it happen more often.

blue jar; daffodil; sage

A few watercolors from the past week. Blue jar: because it has been sitting on my studio windowsill awhile after a friend spotted it at the antique store and said she must give it to me. (9"x12") 

Daffodil: because it's spring and I received an email saying, "Daffodils remind me of you." (9"x12")

Sage: because I just submitted a few sketches to the HV Seed Library in hopes of being chosen to do a Seed Art Pack, and this was one of my assigned varieties. (16"x20") Since I posted the small Eat painting and then learned it got into the Small Works show at the Woodstock Museum (opened yesterday), I suppose I'm hoping for a similar phenomenon to occur. Even if not, these attempts are good for my practice. 

piece sign

I was going to wait to post this painting until I hear if it was accepted to a juried small works show this week. But either it was or it wasn't, and I just finished the piece a couple days ago. The 36"x36" EAT was so fun to paint big, why not make it small? And what was it pointing to, anyway? Eat what, where? I thought I'd give it context. Arrows are extremely important, yet sometimes I find them funny. I feel similarly about cake.  

This one is 8"x10" acrylic. 

Cake detail.

eat

I never know if the photos I post are too huge and take too long to upload, because it always looks okay to me. Anyway, this is my newest painting, oil on canvas, 36"x36"! Underneath the oil paint is a layer of milk paint topped by a matte varnish. This is not visible in the photo, but the process created a simultaneously smooth and nubbly rough texture that I really liked.

green bicycle

This painting (18"x24") is from 2008, which predates the blog, so I don't think I've posted it here. If so, I guess that means I just plain really love it. Still have the painting, a tribute to my beloved green bicycle. I ride most of the year but very rarely in the winter months, and it feels so good to finally be out riding again, around town or across the bridge. Along with acrylics I used clay paint; it was a sample can of zero-VOC house paint that dried to a hard matte finish on the canvas. It also seemed an appropriate medium for such an environmentally-friendly mode of transport.