Over the winter I have been teaching an intermediate watercolor class at a gated community in La Quinta. I’ve done a number of exercises that have produced multiple paintings in a category that I don’t usually sell work in. Now that the classes are coming to an end, I have a set of perfectly good paintings in a box kicking around the bottom of the studio. So, Etsy time! Here are three paintings I put up this morning, ready to go to a new home for a reasonable price. $80!
We had a lot of visitors to the Hermosa Beach Artist Collective last Saturday evening – and sold about 10 pieces of art. Two of which were mine!
Closing reception is next Saturday. Yes, there are still a few paintings that don’t have red dots!
Yesterday evening was the reception for the Calexico 110th birthday celebration at the Carmen Durazo Cultural Arts center. The art show had 110 pieces of art in there. Fortunately it’s a big hall, and there were some paintings in the lobby of which I didn’t take photos.
The reception was well attended and there was a short speech by the Mayor, followed by a group photo of all the participating artists that were present. Enjoy the show!
“Childhood friends”
My intermediate watercolor class at Trilogy gated community is dwindling as many snowbirds fly north. Nevertheless there were a few for this Monday’s class and we painted a nursery scene, based on a couple of stuffed animals that hide in my cupboard on a little rocking chair that was once the subject of a commission.
The class all did a great job, though I think they perhaps started to understand the benefits of working in a larger format – some of their paintings had some really tricky tiny details to achieve.
Three more pairs of childhood friends.
Lost and found!
At the chalking festival, I had a lot of spare time on Sunday, sitting next to my creation and talking to people. Across the street from me a couple of youngsters drew the above in the gutter and against the curb. Inspiration indeed!
Draw your lost things.
Draw your lost things, there upon the street:
Your heart, your head, your homework, or the key.
A part of life suddenly incomplete.
Oh things! you think, oh please come back to me!
You rack your brain for where they’re left behind,
the cafe or the office or the car.
You look and look and still you cannot find
but that they’re not the same place that you are.
You turn over a glass, a wish to make,
but still your precious things eludes your grasp.
Were they stolen? Did they evaporate?
You cannot think of who else you could ask.
Your lost things’ minds might try to draw you too,
thus wishing might just draw them back to you.
It didn’t rain at my house overnight on Saturday. However when I got to Indio, I found that there had been two hours of steady good rain there. Ugh. The city people had gotten there a little earlier and removed all the tarps to let the paintings dry. They needed to be dry before we could start on repair work, so we had a little time to commiserate between each other before we could start. Rafael’s painting – Lincoln, and Bijan’s painting (we think we read each others’ minds when we came up with such similar design ideas) had the most damage.
Some damage to the right hand corners and both hands that required a little rework. The throat dried out fine. The wash marks on the ocean wrist I just incorporated.
There were still puddles around 9:30am
Lincoln needed a nose job.
Bijan’s tarp leaked, causing a lot of damage on the neck and into the clouds.
Repair work done, just in time for the judging. Except that about 2 minutes before Kathy came by, a woman let her 3 year old run through the painting. Then yelled at me for chiding him!
The last competitor finished later in the day.
Amateur entries continued throughout the day, to the extent that there was so much judging for Kathy Dunham to do that the awards ceremony was about 40 minutes late. Here were the results in the professional category. The prizes were $2,500, $1,500 and $1,000.
1. Bijan Masoumpaneh
2. Rafael Valencia
3. Jeni Bate
The artist as part of the environment. 8’x8′, chalk on blacktop. (Photoshopped to be vertical, though you can possibly now see some of the foot damage.)
