Small To Large

Original small painting, 5x7

I did this small painting a while back..last Winter I think. I always liked how it came out and while looking for some other painting I bumped into this one again. After looking at it for a few minutes I decided to try and use it as a reference for a much larger version. Originally it was painted in a vertical format but I wanted to try an do more of a horizontal/rectangle format. In the end I liked that larger version of the painting and was happy I tried to stay close to the look of the small painting. Too many changes would have made the larger one a totally different painting so I'm glad I stayed with what inspired the larger painting.

The smaller version shown with larger 24x30 painting

The larger painting went along really well and was finished alla prima in 3 hours. The only thing in the larger painting I really changed was lightening the grass and bush. I also added trunks and small branches to the bush this time. It's a nice typical fog clearing morning in the Santa Ynez valley.

California Art Club Show

            I was fortunate enough to get two paintings into the CAC show down in South Pasadena. This was a great looking show, lots of killer work in it, and a nice gallery too, The Fremont Gallery. If you click on that link you can get the info on the show but it ends this Sunday so you'll have to get over there quick to see it.
           I apologise for announcing this so late but I have been going round and round trying to update my website with no success. For some insane reason there is a glitch in either my web authoring program (Netscape Composer), my FTP program (Ipswitch) or my web hosting company (Earthlink) and damned if I can figure out which one it is because everything looks fine. About the only thing I can see fault with it my page title in my source code online is and it is on my Composer files and FTP files...that doesn't make sense....and yes, I've dumped my cache in IE so it's not that. Got any ideas???

          Anyway...here is the show card...and yep, they used one of my paintings for it, too cool!

    

Finally!

          Well, I've been more than tardy with posting on the blog here. I used to have 2 main galleries I was in but one had to shut down due to the economy. That shut down left me with just the one but it's a great one to be in. Naturally, when they say jump I ask how high. I'm going to be the featured artist for the month of September there so I've been working on larger paintings. Galleries like em' big....and a lot of them too. I've been fortunate to have made sales during the year...sporadic, but none the less sales and right now any sale is good news.

          Living a life of selling art enough to pay most of the bills and have some left over to buy art supplies to keep going is not a fun one but it could be worse. My last job had me working 10 hour plus days and that left little energy to paint at night. I'm thankful for any sales. Being an artist is a tough life and if you like living large you're in for a big dissapointment. Luckily I came from "meager" so I understand and can handle "meager", haha.

          Last November I was in our Artist Studio Tour here in the valley and sold a few of the little paintings...5x7 and 6x6. That led the local art museum in the next town over to ask to carry my little ones in their gift shop. That's worked out well, once in a while a small check arrives and I get to drop to my knees with arms raised a shout "YES!". I trust more than a few of you out there have gone through that experience...it's pretty nice when it happens....wish it happened more.

          Since last Spring I have made frames, searched for better frame prices...always doing that, experimented with new frames which has led me back to my usual frames, haha., made it to a couple of artist friends shows which was fun, repaired my French easel which broke a support for the back leg, built a French Companion for my French easel...so easy to build. I also lost my best little camera for taking shots of the artowrk...it sort of works but not...can't take a pic with it so I had to buy another one on eBay to replace it...newer, larger megapixels and totally sucks for getting good shots of the artwork. I miss my older camera so bad I'm about to buy another one if I can find it. It's 5 or 6 years old and that's' like 20 with the ever constant changing technologies. I used to laugh at the fact that if you bought a new digital camera by the time you got home and unwrapped it they would have already come out with a newer one with more megapixels!...no joke.

         So....I'll try posting more here on the blog. Sorry to anyone who has been checking it. Life and other obligations can sometimes get in the way and you have to prioritize...been there, doing that now.