Whew! Six months have gone by

Who ever coined the phrase "time flies" was certainly right. I keep meaning to post on this blog, but never get it done. Despite hoping to change that trend in 2010, here it is February before I make a post. Let's see if I can turn it around now.

First I'll recap what happened in 2009 since my last post:

-- I won first place at a national equine art show

-- I joined Oil Painters of America

-- I chaired an all animal art show for Parklane Gallery, in Kirkland, WA, which was titled "Fur, Feathers & Fins". This was a huge, huge, (and yet again, huge) job. I have deep respect for folks who do this sort of thing all the time. The October show was great with a lot of funds going to various Pacific Northwest animal rescue groups. I also got to talk to some wonderful animal artists from across the country.

All in all it was a great experience that I wouldn't have missed, but it did have a downside. During those several months I hardly got any painting done! I was so busy working on the show, that I rarely got into my studio. But, one big perk, since there was not prior years winner for the postcard to advertise the show, the gallery said I could use one of my pieces. It was a wonderful extra for my volunteering all that time to do the show. The rescue groups involved sent out thousands of that postcard. And needless to say that painting sold! LOL. The postcard is above.

-- I did get into the Western Art Association, which means I will participate in their regular auction in Ellensburg, Washington in May 2010. Plus, the part I'm really excited about will be participating in the quick draw competition.

A quick draw is where a room full of artists (in all different mediums) create a work of art from scratch in one hour. There is beer and wine for the spectators, who wander around or just sit and watch. An announcer counts down the time. Not only at the end of the hour do you need to have the painting done, it needs to be in the frame ready to sell. So that means watercolorists, have hairdryers going, as their works are under glass. They have the mat and frame ready, dry it and frame it. As an oil painter, that means that yes, I am putting a frame on a very wet painting.

With a short break for the artists, and rearranging of chairs, the pieces created are auctioned off to the audience. I went over there and watched last year and thought it was a blast. I really look forward to doing it this year, since I am a fairly fast painter.

-- I've also been picked up by a new art gallery. It is the Fountainhead Gallery in the Queen Anne area of Seattle, (located at 625 W. McGraw St., Seattle, WA). Sue and Ron the owners are great, and they scheduled me for my first solo show in March (which is now just around the corner). Needless to say that's extremely exciting, and with the FFF show I was chairing over in October I got busy in my studio producing new artwork for the show. You'll hear more about the show when I get to my 2010 news.

I did start a facebook page, like folks have suggested. What am I doing with it so far -- nothing. I need lessons I think, and there seems to be never enough time. That should bring everyone up to speed on what I was doing in 2009. I'm sure there are things I missed, but oh well . . . .

I'll try to post again very soon with January and early February news.

Salute painting

To finish up my "Salute" painting story. These are the deep gallery wrapped canvas, because obviously I didn't want a frame on them. When Salute is hung the canvases are spaced 1 1/2 inches apart. So I made block thing (from tapping several house paint type stir sticks together) that was 1 1/2 inches.

Then I could work on a couple of the paintings at a time. I'd have them stacked on my large floor easel. Naturally I couldn't work on the entire painting at the same time, although on occasion I did try. The painting was hung in my gallery from the very start, then I would take down the sections I wanted to work on to my easel. Then put them back up on the wall. Well naturally I kept seeing something I wanted to work on when standing back looking at the over all painting. So I'd forget and go up to make the stroke. Of course that didn't work. They paintings where hung, so they would tip and move all over.

I'm the kind of a artist who works a painting all at once. I also like to work alla prima (wet into wet) and with such a large piece I couldn't do that as much as I would have liked. Areas would dry before I could get back to them. Anyway I had those canvases up and down off the wall so many times. LOL

The one downside I did find to doing such a large piece was when I went to take a photo at the Parklane Gallery (in Kirkland, WA) so that folks could see it. Obviously to fit the entire thing in the frame I had to stand quite a ways back. And therefore the viewer doesn't get to see the brushwork that went into the piece. This always happens when trying to share small jpgs, but certainly I'd never encountered it to this extent.

So for your viewing pleasure (and to show that brushwork). This blog entry starts off with a portion of one of the panels - the nose.

Hope you enjoyed my "Salute" story. I'm on to jockeys next . . . . .

The start of "Salute"

Finally getting a chance to start blogging again. I've been exceedingly busy the last couple of months. Parklane Gallery in Kirkland, (www.parklanegallery.com) where I hang my work announced that in January they would be hanging "salon" style. Which means artwork floor to ceiling. I thought instead of hanging a lot of different pieces, would it be fun to hang floor to ceiling, one image made up of many different canvases.

What a project it turned out to be. I had never tackled anything like that before. I knew in my mind what I wanted to do. I had a eight foot high by four foot wide area to work with and I wanted to do a horse and rider. My first thought was a jumping image, but the width made me think of a horse and rider more from the front doing a dressage halt and salute. My next problem was I was really short on time to try to get out and take a reference photo. I really prefer to take my own, and of course I'm very careful about copyright. I saw a photo I was interested in taken by a wonderful equine photographer named Karen Lietz (karenlietz.com). We came to an arrangement and the photograph was mine to use as a reference for my Salute painting.

Next was to divide up the image into the different canvas sizes. I started figuring it out using different standard gallery wrapped canvas sizes, with 1 1/2 inches between the canvases. Having done that (it was either 10 or ll canvaes, I made my trip to the art supply store. Well they didn't have all the sizes I wanted in stock. And because I was working up against the clock I didn't have time to special order the canvases. So I started redesigning my layout in the store, pulling canvases off the shelf. I ended up working it out and it turned out to be 14 canvases.

Back to the computer to lay out the image some more. Making it very accurate with the canvas size and the 1 1/2 spacing. After that the next stage was drawing the image onto the canvas. Now I had planned to do some photographing for my blog as this project went along. Since I'd never tackled anything like this before. That went down the road of "best laid plans". When I'm working I just never think to stop and take photos. Plus the fact that I would forget to take my camera to my studio.

My next step was to gesso the fourteen canvases to get them ready for painting. Obviously the finished paintings were to be hung without frames, as they would ruin the image, which is why I chose the deep gallery wrapped canvas.

Then I made a step that is not normally done until after the painting is complete. I wired the backs of the canvas for hanging. And actually hung them unpaintined, getting that 1 1/2 spacing correct on the wall in my gallery.

Next was to start the painting, but I'm going to save that for my next blog entry. At the top of this entry you will see the finish "Salute" as it is currently hanging in Parklane Gallery (size 3 1/2 ft wide, 7 ft. high, price $3,900), and I'll post how it got to that stage in my next entry. Bye for now, Karen