Well excitingly I said goodby to this painting at the Emerald Downs Equine jury-ed exhibition.  I am a little sad to part with it.  I've become a bit attached and now there's a rather large bare spot on the wall of my bedroom.  I suppose I will have to paint another......

I hope  I can be forgiven for a bit of boasting, I'm mostly righting this for my benefit.....   This painting received second place at a jury-ed show at PLU (very exciting!) and I didn't impress the judges at the  Emerald Downs show, but I know many of the viewers enjoyed it and I heard more than one person make plans to buy it.  (If that doesn't make you feel good I don't know what would)

One woman told me she wished she was ridding the palomino..... another gentleman excitedly began telling me about a carousel he liked that had the rings and everything..... One of the Emeralds owners of told me she sees much of the same thing at the art show and this piece was different and imaginative......I think one of my favorites was a couples staring at it with their glasses of wine saying the concept really blew their mind. (maybe there was more than wine involved) lol!

 Just a few more pieces I had yet to post......The painting is from my first painting class so it's a bit of a throw back, still I am pretty pleased with it.

 This is a two tone screen print, I used an older sketch I've had lying around for a few years, I always figured I'd find something to do with it.  I still may make a painting of this image with a few changes....

 These mermaids are the result of my first woodblock print! I think I'm in love with this media!!!! very exciting!!!!

there are four anemones in this painting, the fourth is the central flower called an..... anemone :) The larger blue one is currently hanging up at PLU.

 Did you know Octopi do indeed have gardens,  they also enjoy flower arranging....

above and below .... swim through the air and fly in the sea

 

Not the greatest of pictures but this painting is my response to John William Waterhouse's work.  There really is so much more detail that needs to be done but it's finished at least for now.

I wish this image was also sharper it's a bit fuzzy but I plan to  update this blog with better photos..... this painting is also hanging at the PLU gallery.

Heres another older one, I documented my progress on this piece which still remains to be completed...one day I'll come back to it.  The reason it's posted is because it's actually related to my newest piece which I will be sharing shortly :)

 

I found the texture for the mermaids fish half at the Asian super market,  I wanted to recreate mackerel's scales.... 

This is it so far but I have a list of things that still need to be done......

I'm going to start off with a bit of a story, as stories are what my paintings are about.  This particular one begins with a particular carousel horse,  I purchased from....how should a I put it?  a junk dealer and sort of antiques dealer.  The man owned an apartment complex and he collected both items people left behind as well as a number of really priceless art pieces he had picked up in his travels. He had a few exciting tails of his own.

 This picture of the carousel horse,  I found it wedged behind saw horses and some building materials.  At the time he was covered in multilayers of peeling and chipped paint. He was mostly white with some horrible pastels shades of green pink and yellow showing through. He was a sort of sad looking creature with his head carved downward  and pitifully tailless.
I was immediately excited.... I mean what an opportunity. I quickly determined he was carved from wood and figured he could be a great beginner project for me as I  couldn't make him look much worse.
Sooooo getting to the point I purchased him and spent hours sanding him down.  There must be something satisfying about chipping away old paint, because my barracks roommates saw me chipping and sanding and quickly jump in too.( Thanks Guys! :)   Eventually I got to the fun part and repainted him.   After removing so much white paint I figured enough with white, I made him a buckskin and for a finishing touch I bought him a show horse extension, so he could have a tail too :)


and well long story short this little guy inspired my carousel horse painting....

At this point, I knew the painting needed something and on suggestion .......

.......I cleaned it up a bit added a few highlights and added some moonlight