All this and a duck race too.

This Saturday, Feb 20th, I’ll be showing and selling work at the only outdoor art festival that I show at in Yuma – at the Gateway Park at the north end of town.  Art in the Park was a fun-filled success last year but returns this year in February, a little further away from the toasty weather. This year I feel duty bound to enter the Duck Race.  Maybe the two ducks in the painting above, “Red Morning with Two Ducks”, will be a good-luck charm.  The show is open 10-5pm.  (If you’re making a day trip from the California side of the Colorado River, don’t forget Yuma is an hour ahead in winter!)

Big class in Yuma

On Wednesday evening I ran one of the watercolor collage classes at the Yuma Fine Art Center in Yuma, AZ.  (This is my first out-of-state class!!) The Art Center had advertised very well and I had a class of fourteen.  All gals!  As always, there was a huge range of ideas and uses of the watercolor pieces before them – inside the box thinkers – outside the box thinkers – box? what box? thinkers – rippers -cutters – open spacers.  I figure I always learn something from a class, and this time it was to make a longer thinner table for large classes so it’s easier to get at the pieces – and to take a couple photos of the class in case my phone doesn’t focus!

Yuma bound again.

#1095 The Early Worm… Watercolor collage on flat panel 12×12″ $180

It’s been a while since I’ve made the trip to the Yuma Art Center to restock in their gift store, Artistically Inclined – but tomorrow is the day, and it looks like I’m going to be blessed with slightly cooler weather for the trip, seeing as it is getting quite toasty here.

 

 

 

 

#1096 The Heron’s Nest. Watercolor collage on flat panel, 12×12″ $180.

I have three new watercolor collages on panel that I’ll be taking, and quite a few new small acrylics (the ever popular 4×4″ ones) and I know they ran out of The Skies of Peace and Passion a couple of months ago.

 

 

 

 

#1097 Flying over the orchid ocean. Watercolor collage on gallery wrap panel 12×12″ $250

The 4×4″ acrylics are at the end.  I can’t get the canvases at a price that allows me to sell them at $20, so this is the last batch.  I still have some though for the next few shows where I’ll show acrylics and oils.

Today it’s cloudy – I’m wondering if we’ll get an interesting sunset…. it’s been a while since I’ve seen a sky here that’s been worth the shot!  Sadly though, no hope of rain.  In the studio – I’m in progress on a refractured watercolor that will be going to Maturango Museum in Ridgecrest next month.

3:10 in Yuma

“Wave Crest” – 9×20″ refractured watercolor on float panel. $225.

I love the drive to Yuma – through desert, fields, desert and winding back and forth across the All American Canal.  I also enjoy my art restock in the Yuma Art Center Gift Store, which I do about every three months.

This time Catherine chose four of the new “Thought in a box” boxes and a few of the very latest, including ‘Wave Crest’.  Wave Crest is one of those born of a happy accident. It reminded my that some friends who have known me since before I started painting seriously comment that they can’t even draw a straight line.  Well the crest of that wave happened because of me not being able to paint a straight line all the way across the page.

While I was waiting for Catherine to complete the paperwork I was able to look around the show currently in the gallery. I’m often intrigued by techniques I haven’t seen or tried before.  The ‘dribble’ run of oil paint down a canvas confirms what I suspected about being able to paint oil as wet-in-wet. The use of alcohol inks on steel make me want to try those. The work of on Glenda Jackson with poetry and painting on and within boxes sure resonated.  I asked Catherine if she was going through a ‘box’ period of her curatorship.

Check out some of the work on their website. http://www.yumafinearts.org/  If you’re anywhere close to Yuma, it makes a nice day or weekend trip….Oct-April unless you like it toasty! (There are other things to do in Yuma, besides catching the train.)