My creative life has been quiet the past couple of weeks although I recently began working with oil paints. This picture is my second oil painting, done in class yesterday. I find oils very freeing. I seem to be able to work with them quickly - much more so than pastels or textiles. The instructor works without mediums so we just put the paint on our palettes and go for it! I'm in love.

My latest work in progress pastel painting. That pink fruit is known as dragon fruit - very cool color! On another note...I have some batting in a dye bath right now and plan do some intuitive hand stitching on it tonight. I miss those quiet evenings where I would spend hours meditatively stitching.

I have a friend who takes some great photographs. She often catches images of old, rusted antique and vintage items. Many times when I see a photograph of hers the first words out of my mouth are 'can I paint this?'. She recently emailed me the photo above wondering if I found it of interest. Yep. See the outline drawing below. We're considering creating a show that highlights her photographs and my paintings of them. Might be kind of cool.

This Magic Moment

This past Saturday was the reception for my show at the Wallkill River Gallery. As the emerging artist (or emerger as I like to joke) my work was featured in a separate room right across from the main gallery. Shawn Dell Joyce and Carrie Jacobson were showing in the represented artists rooms.

The photo above were my pieces highlighted on the mantel. The 'stack' are small framed textile pieces.

This is another wall with more pastels and a textile piece.

A wall with textile pieces.

The wall of abstracts. While I received many, many wonderful thoughts and comments on all my pieces it seems as if the abstracts were a hit with both men and women. People wanted to know my techniques and how I created all the layered effects.

And the three of us (from left to right) Carrie, Shawn and me. Oh and that magnificent painting of cows behind us? Carrie's.

The same framing method (like I used for the ATC in the post below) works just as well for larger pieces. The textile focal piece on this one is about 13x14"" and it's secured to a 16x20" painted canvas that's inserted into the black chunky frame. I really do like this presentation.
Hanging my show today in the gallery today!!!!!

I finally found a way to display ATC's that take them beyond their small size. I stumbled upon these frames that work perfectly with a 3/4" thick painted canvas inserted into them. I think this presentation looks clean, polished and modern while showing off the textural elements of this mixed media piece perfectly.

On another note I hang my show at the Wallkill River School tomorrow. It's been a creatively busy last couple of months trying to get art finished for this. All told I finished 4 (or is it 5?) acrylic abstracts, 9 (or is it 10?) pastel paintings, 2 largish (for me) textile pieces and 6 of these small textile/mixed media studies. I wish that I had a few more things but it is what it is!

A little mini painting I did yesterday...measures 5x6" from frame edge to frame edge. I think I'm going to post this for sale in my Etsy shop and see what happens. I haven't updated that shop for ages - time for some new merchandise!