Stress levels.

The studio doesn’t normally look this messy.  Actually it’s looking a bit better than it had done as 20 of the little oil paintings I had to do are drying on the line, one is on the wall, two behind me (not shown – one landscape, one pet portrait) and one on the left still in progress taking up the main project table.  While I wait for a good time to make the next round of progress on the one on the left, I’m working on exercises for a class I’m going to start teaching next month.  It’s a watercolor class and as you can see, there’s hardly anywhere to put the watercolors.

There really isn’t anywhere to put anything down! The painting on the left is on supports, with oil paints stashed underneath it.

This too shall pass in about a week when I get the large oil dry enough to put on a wall to finish drying, and by then the babies should be dry enough to stack somewhere until I deliver them next month.  (Watch for the December newsletter probably to find their destination, it’s fun!)

 

New display at Sm’Art gallery.

Alana, my wonderful gallerist at the sm’Art gallery co-op in La Quinta and Michael Angelo Hernandez have been repainting and reorganizing the gallery.  Here is my strip of wall as we finished hanging it earlier in the week.

While I was putting up a few new paintings, another new artist, Tomasso Biondi, recognized the tall sunrise on the left – he had seen it published somewhere.  If I had it published I lost track of it.  The odd thing is I don’t think it’s the first time that someone had that comment about it….

And yes, those are a couple of pet portraits at the bottom.  After I did one over the summer, Alana thought it might be a good idea to offer them.  (Yes, I can do them remotely…..)

Another fun afternoon at sm’Art studio.

This afternoon I held a watercolor collage class at sm’Art gallery in La Quinta and the group had an immense amount of fun.  We were supposed to have a fifth student but she had not quite gotten over the flu – so four it was.  As always, there are differences in the way we all perceive how to compose something.

Having fun. This is obviously not a sedentary class.

It’s an interesting class to take now that the educational ‘STEM’ mandate has been changed to ‘STEAM’ with the addition of art.  The collage process is an ideal way to learn the difference between a puzzle and a problem:  A puzzle has a solution.  A problem does not necessarily have a solution, though it may have several with differing pros and cons.  As the students moved pieces around their ‘blank canvases’ and swapped various differing shapes and colors in and out, I could almost hear the cogs in their minds turning.  Here are the finished products.

I need a bigger house….

Four panels in various stages of painting the back.

I think I’ve officially outgrown my studio.  The living room is also full of work.  On the two tables in the middle of the living room are two large panels that will become a diptych (48×36″ each panel); they have had the front and sides gessoed yesterday and the back has just gotten the first coat of gray.  They’ll be getting a second coat in a little while, and when dry will be wired and stored on a wall somewhere until the refractured watercolor that will go on them is ready.

On the kitchen table and computer table are two slightly smaller individual paintings (36×36″ each) which are there for final touch-up of the back (when I paint the actual painting on the front, I inevitable manage to get some round the edge) and glazing.  On the footstool is a box for the one on the computer table.  After I’ve photographed the one on the kitchen table that will need to be glazed also.  This painting, as yet unnamed #1143 will be the front cover for my new poetry and paintings book that is currently in progress.

#1144 awaits the next stage of construction.

Back in the actual studio, another panel is ready to have the refractured watercolor part adhered (I laid it out last night then picked up, marked and numbered the pieces).   Alternatively I could first work on the watercolors for the diptych and lay the six paintings out to dry on the bed, ironing board and stove top.  Then the house would really be full!