I have paintings in three upcoming shows beginning this month: *This Friday, August 12, from 7-9 pm is the opening reception for the Atlanta Fine Arts League 5th Annual Juried Exhibition. This exhibition highlights representational works by artists from Georgia. My painting, "Self portrait in red", will be included in the show: Opening Reception at the Roswell Visual Arts Center Gallery inside the Roswell Area Park 10495 Woodstock Road Roswell, GA 30075 *My painting, "Bananas", will be displayed at the South Cobb Arts Alliance's 24th National Juried Art Exhibition Show at the Mable House Art Center in Mableton, GA through October 3rd. The opening reception is scheduled for August 20th, 5-7PM.
*Three of my small works will be at the Ferst Center for the Arts "Miniature Perspective Show" through September 28th, This is a mixed-media collection by emerging and established visual artists. Opening reception: Wednesday, August 24th 6PM at the Ferst Center for the Arts at Georgia Tech.
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Lauren and I have had a great gardening season -- well, maybe not as good as we had hoped, but still pretty good. This was the first summer that we had our own yard; sadly I choose the wrong spot for our main garden and our brussel sprouts and green beans failed to produce anything. We did get some radishes, but our best harvest has been our tomatoes. A couple of our plants look like they could snap at any moment due to the weight of so many tomatoes. My special project was a couple of cantaloupe plants. I wasn't sure if they would do anything, but we had great luck, we have been eating some of the sweetest and juiciest cantaloupe. We even had enough to share some with our neighbor. We were also happy to see a bunch of beautiful gladiolas come out in our from yard. Our neighbor told us that she helped the last family who lived in our house plant them a couple of years ago. We had red, purple, orange, a few yellow and a bunch on white gladiolas. I was glad to paint some of them. Oil on Canvas, 24" x 20" It was a bit complicated to paint them. Because each flower on the stem opens and wilts at different times over the course of a few days, I had to rely on photographs of the gladiolas instead of painting directly from life, as I did with the glasses and the orange. I'm glad I worked this way - by the time I finished the painting, the purple gladiolas at the bottom of the stem were already dead and the little buds at the top had opened into beautiful flowers. Thanks for looking, please contact me if you have any questions or if you are interested in this or any of my paintings. Last week was the opening of the 2011 Decatur Arts Festival. There was a great turnout for the opening show and there was a lot of great artwork. I am happy to report that my painting, "Getting Ready for Next Season" received an Honorable Mention Award. To see some of the great artwork from the event, go here: http://www.facebook.com/media/set/?set=a.10150257328577952.370069.296817767951
The closing reception is this Sunday, June 5, from 5-6pm. I'll be giving a short talk about my work. I'm happy to announce that my painting "Getting ready for next season" is part of this year's Decatur Arts Festival Fine Art Exhibition at the Dana Fine Arts Gallery at Agnes Scott College running from May 24 'till June 5. The opening reception is tomorrow May 24, 5-7 pm. On June 5, from 4-6pm, is the "Last Call" event where a few artists have been invited to talk about their work. I'm honored to be one of the artists invited to speak. In other news, this morning while watering the tomato plants I had close encounter with nature. I found three little baby rabbits hanging out too close to the tomatoes. They were so little and so brave that I was able to pick one of them up for a few seconds, it was a great morning. I've been asked a few times about the thing I miss the most from Nicaragua. Most of the time I say my family, friends or food but if you ask me this time of year, I'd probably say not having to deal with allergies. It all started last year but I had forgotten how bad allergies can be. Ok, now to business... I wanted to show a little bit of the process that goes into creating a painting. I like to set up my composition and paint directly from life, but sometimes that's just not possible. I worked on the painting here using a series of photographs I took the last time I was in Nicaragua. My brother had brought bananas from my sister's coffee farm (banana plants and other trees are planted among the coffee plants to shade the coffee plants). I set up a still life composition using the bananas and my mother's old wooden box in order to take photos. Using the digital images, I drew on newsprint and then transferred the image to the canvas. Next, I applied a thin layer of burnt umber to the canvas and let it dry. Then I added the local color to each element in the painting starting with the background, then the wooden box, and finally the bananas, working to get the right values. Once this step was complete, I began to paint the next layer, adding detail and adjusting the values and colors as needed. The background is very simple, so I was able to move soon to the wooden box. Because the box does not have many details, it offers a good balance to the detail and movement in the bananas.
After a couple of days spent working on the bananas, I was finished with the painting: |
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