Mobile Gallery In Use

With being the Official Artist of 2009 HITS Ocala, I was fortunent to get a week in "vendor row" to set up a booth and try to drum up some commissions. In the years past, the weather has been anything from too hot, too cold, too windy and almost always, too rainy. This past week we had everything, but the too hot. I remember one year when the VIP tent by the Grand Prix ring came crashing down from one of Florida's famous winter/spring storms. So with all that in mind, I took the opportunity to deck out my utility trailer and make it a mobile gallery. On Monday, I emptied it out and painted the walls. Tuesday I laid the carpet, packed it back up and set up for the week ahead. With a little music from my ipod, furniture made for small spaces and paintings hung on the wall, I felt very secure and "out of the elements" painting away in my new mobile gallery.

I have to admit, this was better than sitting at a weekend art show waiting for someone to come in my booth to buy a painting. First of all, I know so many people on the show grounds, I felt like I was home. And even in the middle of the day, when riders and trainers were at the ring, there was a lot going on to keep me entertained while I finished a portrait and almost finished a landscape. Out of the wind, the sun and on Sunday, the rain.

I had a really incredible show. And I have to admit, I love my little trailer.

Goals, goals, goals

It may seem a little late to some of you to be working on the new year's resolutions, which I like to refer to as goals. I tend to take them more seriously and they are work in progress. Goals change and can be updated throughout the year. Personally, I believe 2009 will be another tough year as far as the economy goes, but I believe that all the marketing and hard work I've been doing for the last three years will start to pay off big in 2010. So with that said, I am looking for two very strong galleries, one I believe I have found in Orlando. Until the final details have been completed, I'll keep the gallery to myself. I am reducing the number of outdoor artshows I'll be doing. Although, I will do them every year. So you can count on seeing me there. And this year, I will be marketing heavily online. I've heard a lot of nay-sayers "you can't sell art over the internet", I disagree. So I will be working as much as time allows to expand my collector base and following through the internet. We'll see if I can or can't sell artwork over the internet.

I am very excited about this year.

So far, here are the shows I will be doing this year. I may be adding a few more or deleting one, so sign up for my newsletter on my website to keep totally up-to-date.

Winter Equestrian Festival, Wellington Florida: 1-28 - 2-1

HITS Ocala, Ocala Florida: 2-4 - 2-15

Gulf Coast Winter Classic, Gulfport Mississippi: 2-25 - 3-1

Santa Fe Spring Arts Festival, Gainesville Florida: 3-28 - 3-29

Celebration Arts Festival, Celebration Florida: 4-4 - 4-5

Pony Finals, Lexington Kentucky: 8-5 - 8-9

Ocala Arts Festival, Ocala Florida: 10-24 - 10-25

Disney Festival of the Masters, Downtown Disney Florida: 11-6 - 11-8

This year flew!

I can hardly believe it is the end of the year already. This year really flew by. I will be posting some finished commissioned pieces that has been keeping me so busy. I was so fortunate to have been invited to the Buffalo International Horse Show in September in Buffalo, N.Y. where I picked up about 12 commissions, mostly Christmas gifts.

Amazingly, I have had a blast doing these portraits. I say that since a few years ago, I found myself wanting to paint other things, such as landscapes. I still love painting landscapes, but for some reason, I have a real thirst for portrait work all of a sudden.

Since the economy is so slow, I have found that my portrait work has provided a much needed income. I have plans to continue to pursue portrait work and landscapes. I will be actively looking for gallery representation next year for my work.

Here are several of my most recent finished portraits.

Linda's Dogs

Here is a larger commission that I'm working on. This is starting out as an 11" x 14" oil sketch on Masonite, which is my preliminary work for the final painting which will be 18" x 24" on canvas. This really helps me decide values, colors, composition of the final painting. It also gives the client a good idea on what the finished piece will look like so there's no surprises on either end.

I'm really excited about this piece for several reasons. I love the warmth of the colors, the setting is just so beautiful, and who doesn't love these beautiful Basset Hounds?

Yes, I still do portraits!

I have clients that I have had the pleasure to work with for almost ten years now, painting their horses, kids, and dogs. It is work that can be demanding, but I really get a lot of satisfaction out of delivering a piece and having the recipient so happy they end up in tears. It also happens to be a refreshing change from painting and hoping someone will buy it. Here are some of the portraits I've recently finished, most of these are pastels.

Second Stage of "Downtown Palm"

Here is the second stage of my "Downtown Palm". I needed to add some highlights so I knew where I was on the value scale. I've had many people, including other artists, think that I work in acrylics, I guess because I tend to be more graphic these days. But these are oils, I just prefer the feel and end result in oils than acrylics.

I also prefer to have about three paintings going at once and rotate until all three are complete. It keeps me fresh and while one painting is drying, I can work on the others. I do use mediums, either Liquin or I've been using a new medium, Rapidry. Rapidry is very much like Liquin, only less thick, which I like better. This allows me to keep working on these paintings and can get them finished quickly.

New Painting

I have been captivated by shadows lately, and this painting is exciting to me because of the colors in the highlights and the shadow and how the shapes work. I really love Palm trees for their natural graphic shapes and wonderful colors. This painting is now "blocked in". Meaning the first layer of paint is on the canvas. This took me three days to do, that includes the drawing. This is a 30" x 40" painting, which is the size of my Grand Palm.

I have 4 commissions left to do. My goal was to finish 6 of the 7 that I have right now by the end of May. I believe I may finish 2 more by next week, my Celebration painting took a little bit longer than I had anticipated. But I'm really happy with the outcome, so it was well worth it.

This will have to fit in between the other paying paintings, as many of these have deadlines. But I'll just keep plugging away.

My Latest Commission Chronicled

The Finished Piece (left)

The Celebration Art Festival was a great boost for my career, and one result was a meeting with a new customer/collector who has commissioned me to do a painting for his beautiful home in Celebration. Initially, we talked about just a landscape, but as we collaberated more, my client decided to add more wildlife. One of the most rewarding parts of a commissioned piece like this is when the client is so involved. The ideas that the client adds to the concept contributes so much personality, it really is fun to work on these projects. Our initial meeting was very important for me to really get a feel of what the client was looking for. So I met with them down in Celebration, and decided to do a plein air painting for them to get the process started. It's always a good idea to do a small sketch before the final piece. Sometimes I do several, but this one just clicked so well and my client knew what he had in his minds eye - so it really worked. Here is the small plain air painting done on location.









Celebration is full of birds, turtles, ducks on top of the beautiful setting of the lake, water and trees. So as we talked about the painting, we decided to add more of the birds and other wildlife that makes Celebration so special. We added the Blue Heron in the left corner, a bird drying his wings, ducks, and another blue-colored bird. I added a turtle in the water too! Here is the first stage of the painting blocked in. The final size is a 24" x 30" oil on canvas.

STAGE ONE













STAGE TWO













STAGE THREE

A Couple Days Off

I took a few days off to spend the end of Spring Break with Kayleb, my almost 15 year old son, husband Bob and my friend from Ringling, Dave Anderson.

Dave graduated as an illustrator and has recently worked with Bob on a few projects. So it's great to be reconnected again. Dave lives down in Cape Coral near Ft. Myers. We initially wanted to stay on Sanibel Island, but after reviewing the hotels expenses, we decided that Ft. Myers beach looked just as nice and much more cost effective. So we stayed fronting the Gulf and enjoyed the nice weather and the sound of the waves.

While Bob and Kayleb played on the beach. I did a few little paintings. It was very relaxing and enjoyable.

I'm not really into laying around in the sun. But this was a perfect opportunity to take some photos and do sketches for my up-coming shows. The next one is in West Palm Beach, SunFest, and the Hampton's Art Festival, in New York. Both are on the ocean and it will be nice to have landscape paintings that remind buyers of their neighborhood.

I'll be painting more plein air, I really enjoyed working on these paintings and have just joined the Plein Air Florida and will be participating in the "The Treasure Hunt" for MCA and Shasta here in Marion County.

Here are some additional photos from our hotel room, it was a great hotel and beautiful weather.

Celebration - The Best Show To date!

In spite of very wet weather, this was a wonderful show for me. Not only was one of my paintings chosen for the poster art, advertising, program art and promoting me as the featured artist. But I had my first WIN in a prestigious juried art festival. A new piece, "SUNLIT FOREST", won first in the painting category, which is a welcome success for me. I won $1,000 in prize money, a blue ribbon, but better than all that, I won an opportunity to be a part of "The Masters" at Disney. "The Masters" is a very distinguished accomplishment for many artists, and a personal goal since I began dedicating my career to painting. A goal I knew might be difficult and take some time on the circuit to achieve. So to have this opportunity with only 3 shows under my belt, well, I can't be happier.

Celebration is an oasis in Orlando. The entire community is landscaped, meticulously taken care of and are very involved in putting on a first class art show. The Patron's party was double from the previous year, I was told. And every volunteer was helpful, cheerful, and made a point to stop in making sure every artist was doing as well as they could.

This was my biggest show to date in terms of sales. And I think if the weather had been better, sales would have been much stronger. On Saturday, the rain started at 3:30 and at times were very strong, but Sunday rain started around 2:00 and never stopped. Around 4:00 we packed it in, as the rest of the show did. But I will be back and hopefully we'll have nothing but cool breezes and sunshine.