Canary Islands Virtual Paint Out

Participating in blog challenges has turned out to be a lot of fun. I appreciate finding new blog friends, getting subject inspiration, and in this case finding a whole new way to explore the world. Navigating through the street views on google maps is almost as good as being there....well almost. Bill Guffey's challenge, The Virtual Paintout, takes artists around the world to find their own inspiration in a particular geographic location - but not necessarily the exact same view. In the Canary Islands, you have mountains, beaches, towns, people...just about anything that inspires you can be found here. The tool is so cool that you can spin 360 and see what is around you in all directions. You can zoom in, you can move yourself 50 feet down the road and do the same thing....So cool. I chose Carratera San Andre-Taganana. The mountains

are just beautiful. I tried to keep the watercolor loose and flowing.

Gauge

The office where I work is dog friendly. My boss has dogs. Friendly, tail-wagging, college educated, duck-retrieving labs. In the summers they go off to retriever school and earn lots of blue ribbons and in the fall they return just in time to get to go to work retrieving ducks. And in thier off time they come to the office. This is Gauge - the latest in the long line of duck dogs extraordinaire.

The Power of Red

One teacher I had talked about the power of red....well here it is! I've had this painting up in my studio for awhile and while I don't think it has the best composition or contrast in values, it certainly has a lot of energy. It is 36x36 so that's a LOT of energy. I've just taken it to the gallery that shows my work so we'll see if anyone else likes red.

Collections

Alice Thompson, one of my fellow artsts who follows Different Strokes fromDifferent Folks blog has started an alternate artist challenge called Calypso Moon Artist Movement. This challenge was to select 2 objects that represent something we collect. Since I took a pottery class in college, I have been awed by the skill and artistry of potters. It's one of those things that is easier said than done!! So since that time I have collected handmade pottery from around the country. Whenever we are in different cities we visit art fairs, art galleries and art festivals and collect pieces. As the collection has grown we have become more selective about the pieces. First they were just cool, small utilitarian pieces, but as my space has become more limited we have only purchased pieces that relect true artistry and unique style. The larger round piece here, is by Bob Smith and we bought it in Boulder Colorado. it is a huge raku piece. The tea pot was purchased in Nashville Indiana, a small community outside of Bloomington where the streets are lined with art galleries and hand made specialty shops.

So, thanks, Alice, for starting this blog and challenge! Look forward to the next one

Robin the Queen

My friend, Robin, had her 55th birthday party - no gifts, just show your love and adoration by singing songs and reading poems to her....well, I'm not a composer or wordsmith, so I presented her with her portrait!!. It was a fun party and I had fun painting her curly red hair.

But what I'd really like to see there

This is a larger (30x40) abract I did last year, that I think would really spark up that beach house. It still has those soft beachy colors but a whole lot more personality!. This is one of those paintings that took on a life of it's own as it evolved. I really had fun doing it and loved the the results. I can never paint a red - yellow -blue primary painting. I can start out with those colors on my pallette, but they always end up orange, green and purple!

Life is a beach

A friend of mine just bought a home on the Florida shore and asked me to do a painting in the soft breezy colors of the beach. This is what I did. It's not too exciting, but maybe a more relaxing effect is what she's after. I didn't have a photo reference, but I know the sands are sugar white there, so this is what I image it to look like early in the morning before all the sunbathes and umbrellas appear. acrylic on 18x18 canvas.

The Thank You Project

After the tremendous effort that Karin Jurick put into her portrait swap challenge, fellow artist Jill Polsby put together a secret thank you project, where all of us who participated in the portrait swap were invited to paint Karin's portrait and Jill put them together in a book as a gift to her. Here is my submission. You can see all other 118 portraits by visiting Jill's blog, jillpolsby.blogspot.com. It truly is a world-wide community of artists, and Karin has been one of the hubs of the wheel connecting us. Thanks, Karin, and thanks, Jill.