Art and Blogloving

It's been a 'heavy' week.  Heavy, humid air, thunderstorms, sun/clouds a great mishmash of weather and with it comes a number of migraines for me, not so fun, but I've got air conditioning and meds so it's all good!

Rounding the corner on a few of the commissioned pieces and finished up a few abstracts.  This big fellow is hanging in my living room right now and I'm loving him!  He is for purchase but for now I'm enjoying his presence by my chair. He also looks wonderful hanging vertically. I've yet to name him, 'Big Boy' just doesn't cut it!

Also completed this little fellow, 'Resurgent' meaning to 'rise again.'  He got his name because I kept returning to add just a few more 'finishing' touches :-)  He is also available for purchase here, or email me if interested in either piece.  Both pieces have wonderful metallic undertones and just pop with life.

A little heads up, after July 1st Google Reader will  no longer exist. Now what?!  The good news is that you can keep your reading list by transferring it to blogloving. Just sign up and blogloving will import your blog reading list from Google Reader. It was simple and I've just signed up myself and am finding my way around.  You can find their help page here.  There are widgets to place on your side bar for new readers to follow you, mine is sitting pretty at the top of my sidebar so be sure to click follow :-)

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Feeling the Inspiration

12x12" on deep sided wood panel

Feeling a little Kandinsky inspired, in between working on commissioned pieces.  Fell behind on preparing for art shows this summer because of the creative block I experienced this spring, I hope never to be that cut off from creative outlet again!

24x48" in process

Got to tell you about a wonderful new product I've begun using for the final varnish finish on my acrylic pieces.  Dorland's Wax Medium. Used by oil painters as a cold wax medium it makes an amazing final coat over acrylics too.  For me it's a perfect fit for many of my pieces that I want to have that old world look, which is most of them.  I love the old masters/old world colours and depth and this product gives my work the kind of lustre I've been trying to achieve.  I use it like a paste wax, smoothing on a light coat with a soft cloth, letting it dry and then buffing it with a clean soft cloth.  A word of caution, because it's wax based it would be difficult to come in after and add more acrylics to it, so it needs to be a piece that you know is 'done.'

I'm giving a Nikon DX a go. I borrowed one of my daughter's SLR cameras to try out and take some shots of my art.  I must say I like this camera, better clarity and detail and I love my detail macro shots!

Finding Rhythm

The world outside my loft has its own rhythm that pays no mind to me or the relentless drone of traffic scurrying to gosh knows where.  If  I listen intently I hear the wind as it exchanges words with the leaves or makes the corn stalks chuckle.  I breath in and try to adjust my rhythm to match theirs.

Got one of a two part commissioned piece done.  It's not photographing well, my camera has a problem with the teal and blues, but here is a snippet.

And for those interested here is a little of what I did with the shells and driftwood.

"We seldom know where our dreams will take us, but we follow them because we must--they have wings and we take flight." Bren Thebeau

Around The Studio Part 2!

Before

It's one beautiful Spring day outside my loft, cool breezes and warm sunshine, what a day to be outside! Unfortunately I'm not!  Over the last few weeks my loft has become so clogged up I simply had to get it cleared away, especially as I've got canvas and other supplies coming and no place to store then.

Before 

Up until I began painting 4 years ago, my loft had been my library/computer room.  It has always been an oases for me, a place to get quite and reflect, curl up and read a good book or two.  As I realized the place art was going to have in my life I began to purge the room, giving away 3/4 of my library and filling the shelves with journals, paints and all the other things that come from working in abstract and mixed media.

Preparing for art fairs requires a lot of stock, so finding space to safely store finished paintings of various sizes along with everything that's needed to create them, well the loft quickly became a disaster!  It didn't help that I had to replace a coloured laser printer recently, leaving me to figure out what to do with 3 printers!

After

One corner of the room is the computer area (that's where I'm taking the photo from) I did what I could for now, simply don't have the time to purge as deeply as I intend to, but at least now I can get back to painting!  I keep the loft empty of things of value, the last thing I need is to feel restricted and worried about splattering paint on some cherished item.  It's funny, when it comes to cooking or doing other things, I keep the mess down, cleaning up as I go, but with the art it's no holds barred!  I give myself permission to splatter at will, so there is paint on walls, windows, shelves, floors, drapes.  If these things mattered I'd need to move to the unfinished part of the basement to paint!

After

And no, the floor is not vacuumed or scrubbed yet :-)

To see the computer area and where I'm storing some of my finished art aside from what's hiding under the grey sheet, see this post.

You might have noticed I decided to go streamline with my blog as well.  I'm hoping the blog will load more quickly without all the background graphics as well as be easy on the eyes and now it coordinates with my website!