Paintings and process

Art and Kittens, How Can I Lose?

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ART THOUGHT FOR THE DAY:

I have spent most of my professional life for the last ten years trying to gain some competence in the craft of oil painting. Although some artists proudly describe themselves as “self-taught”, I’m not one of them except in the sense that, in the end, we all have to figure out for ourselves what marks to make on the canvas (or other support) and how and with what to make them in order to express our vision. I’ve found that good instruction is a great timesaver, so I’ve tried to learn from those who have gone before me, either as a student in art school or workshops or by gathering a small collection of “how to do it” or “how I do it” books to learn from past and present masters. It’s those books that I plan to “draw” on in order to share some of what I have found useful, valuable and thought-provoking over the years.

So, we will begin with a quote from Robert Henri’s (pronounced Hen-rye) The Art Spirit:

“Technique must be solid, positive, but elastic, must not fall into formula, must adapt itself to the idea. And for each new idea there must be new invention special to the expression of that idea and no other. And the idea must be valuable, worth the effort of expression, must come from the artist’s understanding of life and be a thing he greatly desires to say.”

(Note: many of these quotes date from a time when women were barely tolerated in the fine arts, so the male pronoun dominates; however, that does not invalidate the content)

NEW FOSTER KITTENS!

These three came into the shelter on June 4 and weren’t in very good shape, either health-wise or willingness to be handled by people. In fact, they started out labeled “feral and fearful”. Shelter staff was able to get them to the point where they could be picked up and petted. I brought them home a week ago on the 17th and will have them until they weigh 2 pounds plus a few ounces, which is the minimum for neutering. They were at around 1 pound, 3 oz,, their coats were dry and I could feel their rib cages since they had no fat. I could feel the vertebrae on the littlest one, who was visibly weaker than his two sisters.

It is one week later and they are much improved, thanks to room to play and high-octane wet food everyday. Coats are soft and tummies filling out. They come running, demanding to be petted now and like tummy rubs. They also have names (fosters get to name their charges); Raven, Kestrel and Merlin. So, here they are at age seven weeks or so:

Raven, whose name suggested the bird theme:

Kestrel, who has vocal opinions about almost everything:

And Merlin, quieter so far, but he was the weakest of the three when he arrived

Back from the Marin Art Festival

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Although sales weren’t what I’d hoped for, things were about as I’d expected given gas prices, the real estate implosion and the upcoming election. Made back gas and food money. I sold a lot of cards and a small original. But I got a lot more out of this event than sales. My fellow neighbor artists were equally talented and welcoming. And I feel like I laid a good groundwork for next year.

The people who came by my booth in a steady stream both days were interested and interesting, as one might expect in Marin County. There was the petite older woman who, it turns out, is an doctor of internal medicine who got her medical degree from Stanford in the 1940’s. Her father supported her, but her mother didn’t, saying that she would never go to a female doctor. Oh, well, with luck we’ve largely moved on from that sort of thing.

As always, got some great stories about other people’s world travels to places like Botswana and inner travels by a woman who does shaman work. Did I say I was in Marin County?

Many people were interested in my paintings of the takhi and most of them have seen the movie “The Story of the Weeping Camel”.

Out of around 300 artists at the festival, I was just around the corner from Jeff Morales (www.jmceramics.com), a fantastic ceramic artist who lives less than 15 minutes from me on the south end of McKinleyville. Small world #253.

One of the great things about the festival were the stilt walkers in absolutely amazing costumes. They really took the event to another level and drew a crowd wherever they went. Here’s two of them:

And, of course, being a wildlife artist, the universe conspired to allow me to do a little fieldwork in the comfort of my booth. Here’s the booth:

And here’s the little pocket gopher who came up for breakfast around 9am right next to the base of my easel in the middle of my space. Wildlife watching doesn’t get any easier.

I had fun doing painting demos during the weekend. Here’s the one I did on Saturday in about two hours, counting interruptions. It’s a kangaroo I saw in a zoo. Don’t know the species:

And this is the one I did on Sunday, on and off for most of the day. Considering the working conditions, I’m pretty darned please. It’s the best cape buffalo I’ve done yet. And I’m keeping him.

Award at Palos Verdes Art Center Show!

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I just found out that “Takhi Stallion and Mare” as seen at the top of my masthead, has been awarded third place in the show “The Spirit of the Horse”, which is currently on view at the Palos Verdes Art Center in southern California. My newest takhi painting “That’s The Spot!” was also accepted into the show. You can see it by scrolling down a few entries.

This is my second award. Last year, I won a Juror’s Choice Award from the California Art Club for “Made In The Shade”, soon (as of tomorrow) to be available as a limited edition giclee.

And here’s a favorite takhi photo from Khomiin Tal. Plans are starting to gel for the September trip. David and I leave on August 24. I’ll start a countdown on August 1st. I’m hoping to blog from Mongolia.

New Paintings, Book Review, Camera Drama cont.

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Took the Nikon D70 and lens in to our local camera store. Classic good news and bad news. The lens is fixable and is being fixed. The camera body could have been, for half what it cost new, and then I’d have a repaired (after having hit the pavement hard ), four year old camera body for the Mongolia trip in September. I don’t deliberately abuse my equipment, but it does end up with stories to tell. So, I sucked it up, decided to trust the gods, and bought a Nikon D80, the follow-on. It’s, uh, killer great. In general, it’s just more of everything than the D70. Larger file size, bigger ISO range, etc. So far, my favorite part is the bigger monitor. Very handy when photographing paintings.

Which I just got done yesterday. Here are a couple of the newest. The bison is called “Autumn”. I shot the landscape in Yellowstone last year at the end of September as the season changed. It went from sunscreen to snowing in 48 hours. The coyote, also from Yellowstone, doesn’t have a title yet. If you provide the winning suggestion, I’ll send you a pack of twelve assorted greeting cards with my art on them.

BOOK REVIEW

I promised a review of “I’d Rather Be In The Studio!”, by Alyson B. Stanfield, who runs ArtBizCoach.com, so here tis:

How many of you fellow artists out there: try this show/run that ad/enter another competition and hope that somehow, sometime, lightning will strike and you’ll sell out your show or a collector will buy ten of your paintings or a big gallery will hunt you down and beg to show your work and you’ll be on your way to fame, fortune and winters in the Bahamas or, in my case, Hawaii?

Ain’t gonna happen. How many of us have held ourselves back with this kind of magical thinking? Honestly, it really just gets in the way when you think about it. If you’re waiting for the Fine Art Fairy to come along and sprinkle you with Success Dust, then you’re probably not actively building your career in an effective, organized way. Which means you’ll continue to flail around and wonder where the money is going to come from for that next tube of Cadmium Red (for you non-artists, that’s one expensive color!).

You can “join the artists who are ditching excuses and embracing success” for starters by reading Alyson’s book, the subtitle of which is “The Artist’s No-Excuse Guide to Self-Promotion”. What I like about it is the active voice, the practical steps you can take and why they are important.

The contents are organized around all the excuses Alyson has heard in her career working with artists both as a museum curator and now as a art marketing consultant for artists. Some of the excuses include “My art speaks for itself” (no, it doesn’t), “I have no idea where to begin” (start with your art), “There aren’t enough hours in the day to do it all” (organize your information) and, of course, “I’d rather be in the studio!” (start by defining success for yourself). She then addresses each one with specific Actions, which include exercises you can do to start to get the hang of it.

One of the things that surprised me at first was her emphasis on The Mailing List. Sure, I have one and when I want to send out postcards, which I do a couple of times a year, I ask my husband, who maintains it for me, to do a label run. I put out a sign-up sheet at events and shows and he faithfully adds the new names for me. And…that’s…about….it. Sound familiar? Did Alyson ever open my eyes to what a mailing list is, can and should be and how absolutely fundamental it is to a successful career as an artist.

She has a website and a blog (and tells you in the book how to make the most effective use of both) and she does private consultations. I was going to go that route until I read the book. I could tick off so many changes that I need to make already that I’ve decided to implement those and then run it all by her to see how I’ve done and what I still need to do.

What is really all comes down to as far as she is concerned is that you have to own your own life and career and take total responsibility for it.

So, to check out Alyson:

www.artbizcoach.com (Alyson’s home page)

www.artbizblog.com (Alyson’s blog, obviously)

www.Idratherbeinthestudio.com (the book)

THE GARDEN

And just for fun, the oriental poppies are blooming in my garden. It’s raining today, which we badly need, so the poppies really add a “pop” of color outside my studio.

What a trip….

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Finally got a chance to sift through my images from my trip to Missoula and Denver. Here’s what it was like at Denver International Airport on May 1, which was my outbound leg. The airport was closed down for almost an hour due to heavy, blowing snow. Then we were number six in line for de-icing at twenty minutes per plane. Had never seen de-icing before, won’t mind if I never do again- Happy May Day?

My camera luck ran out in Missoula. Digital SLRs and lenses don’t go well with pavement, so one of the Nikon D70s and the 28-300mm go in for repairs today. In the meantime, I couldn’t stand the thought of going to the Denver Zoo sans camera, so I went to a nifty camera store in Missoula and bought a Nikon Coolpix S10. Same file size as the D70, 6mg, 10x super zoom, decent “shutter” speed, supposedly. Well, we’d see about that. Fifty bucks for a 2gb card and I was set, I hoped.

I really put it through its paces and I’m very impressed. It wouldn’t do the job out in the field, too slow, but for anything that isn’t moving too fast, it did great! Here’s two images that will show what it can do. The first was through plate glass with no polarizing filter. And yes, those are piranha. The second is a snow leopard who was pacing back and forth waiting for mealtime. I couldn’t get quite what I wanted in terms of variety of leg position, but the focus was decently sharp. The image is more than good enough to use for reference.

And finally, A RECENT VISITOR, at 7:30 in the morning a couple of weeks ago out by the pond. Niki and two of the cats came out with me to see what was going on. We all went our various ways without incident or excitement.

Great time in Missoula

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Getting here got interesting, but the event has been terrific. Got caught on the ground in Denver yesterday when a May Day “blizzard” went right over the airport. Everything was closed down for about an hour and then I got to take pictures out the window of the plane being de-iced.

The OPA event is headquartered at the Holiday Inn Parkside. Great place! Big comfortable room, pleasant efficient staff. There was a small barking, whining dog in the room next door this morning and within a half hour of it starting, they had staff going around the restaurant trying to find the owners.

Yesterday’s activities included a talk by Peter Trippi on one of my all-time favorite artists, John William Waterhouse. I first saw his “Lady of Shalott” at the Tate Gallery in 1987. Then I got a personal critique of my work from William Schneider, OPAM, which was very positive. I’ll be taking a shot at getting into the national show next year. Finally, there was an information-packed presentation on ways that painters can use Photoshop. I’ll be blogging about that as I try what I learned for myself.

Then it was time to walk over to the Dana Gallery for the big opening of the Oil Painters of
America’s national show. Two hundred of the best contemporary paintings that I have ever seen in one place. Very inspiring and a little daunting. The weather was warm and beautiful and the gallery was packed. About a dozen red dots too. Very encouraging since the economy has essentially ground to a halt.

Time to go back to the Dana Gallery for morning demos, then marketing info this afternoon.

It’s Show Time!

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Here I am at the Residence Inn in Pleasant Hill, which is about a half-hour east of San Francisco. Tomorrow, Saturday and Sunday I’ll be about ten minutes south in Walnut Creek doing their spring art festival. We used to live here in the late 1980’s and come back for occasional visits, so I more or less know the area, which is handy.

The Residence Inn is nice because it is in a quiet area and the room has a full-kitchen. So, I hit the Whole Foods store this afternoon. I won’t have to eat out unless I want to, which will save money.

I have no idea what to expect with the economy heading into the tank. Gas down here for the premium grade I need for the Eurovan is running around $4.10/gal. Home foreclosures are off the charts. A well-known wildlife artist once described himself in a workshop I took with him as “a luxury goods manufacturer”, which is probably about right. Serious buyers of art tend to have fairly recession proof incomes, but there is so much uncertainty in the world right now. Food riots, for heaven’s sake. So, we’ll see how it goes.

On the (much) brighter side, I got a “VIP” personal tour of Andrew Denman’s one-man show at Pacific Wildlife Galleries this morning from the artist himself. It’s fascinating to stand in front of one of his originals and hear him talk about how he did the work. Very inspirational. Made me want to run home and get in front of the easel, but since I get home on Monday and leave for Montana and Colorado on Thursday for a week, it will be close to the middle of May before that happens.

But, this weekend, I’ll get to meet lots of nice people and talk about one of the things I love most, painting!

Feathers and Fur

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Look who came to visit yesterday morning. She, at least I think it was a “she”, had accounted for at least one goldfish and two large frogs before she left. I’m a little concerned since I was able to go outside with my camera and she didn’t spook until I was about 50 ft. away. They usually take off at the first hint of movement.

ART TALK

Here’s my latest painting, which I’m calling “Morning Break”. It’s one of the cheetahs that I saw when I was in Kenya in October of 2004. Cats really know how to relax in the morning sun, especially after a big dinner from the night before. I like long horizontal panels and this pose was perfect. Spent a lot of time on those spots. I don’t want to paint every hair, but if the edges are too hard the spots look pasted on. It took four or five repaints to get them looking ok.

One sees a fair number of cheetah paintings in the wildlife art world, often with poorly drawn heads. The proportions of the head and the body are very odd. They almost have to be drawn “wrong” to look right. Their default ear position is with the ears down and back, but it is tempting to prick them up. However, that would be a giveaway that I didn’t understand how body part positions relate to behavior. This cat was clearly relaxed, so the ears needed to be down.

I used three basic references for this one. One for the background, one for most of the cheetah and one with just the front legs. In this position with the body parallel to the picture plane, the legs will be coming toward the viewer and must be done in correct perspective. I didn’t like what was in the main reference, so I hunted through the rest of what I have (371 images) until I found something that would work. With luck, you can’t tell from the finished painting.

FESTIVAL NEWS

I will be at the spring art festival in Walnut Creek next weekend, April 25, 26, and 27. I also just found out that I have been accepted once again into the Los Altos festival I did with great success last July.

Like many people, I’m trying to avoid buying stuff made in China. It’s not easy. But for any of you reading this who do festivals, I have found a good source of (Made in China, though) market umbrellas, Just Umbrellas. They are in Yuba City, which is not far east of where I live. Good prices, good products, fast service.

Show news!

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I just received notice that my painting “Thompson’s Gazelle” has been accepted for “Art and the Animal Kingdom XIII” at the Bennington Center for the Arts. This is the third year in a row that I have gotten into this show, plus twice into their “American Artists Abroad” exhibition. John Seerey-Lester, who I have studied with a number of times over the past ten years and who knows African wildlife very well, to say the least, was the guest juror, so that makes this one quite special. You can see the painting on my Feb. 26 post.

ART TALK

So, here’s one example of the kind of reference I got at the San Francisco Zoo this past weekend. Just about filled a 1Gb memory card with the antics of these two sisters, who were orphaned up in Montana and have found a home in San Francisco. They played up a storm in the water for about ten minutes. I wasn’t sure what would happen shooting through the thick glass, but other than a slight cool cast, they’re not bad. Upon review, as expected, no one of the photos I took is quite what I’m envisioning, but parts of them are excellent.

The gorillas were very active, as were the penguins. Got some kangaroos in mid-hop. Big cats pretty much flaked out. It was amazing to look at the enclosure walls closest to the public and realize that Tatiana, the Siberian tiger, was able to go straight up and over one. Now there’s more concrete wall, glass and heavy cyclone fencing secured with cables. Signs everywhere with shushing lips and others with the prohibition about teasing or harassing the animals and a phone number to call to report any such activity. Quite a few times, I heard parents quieting down their children. In general, it seemed quieter and more polite even on a busy weekend, which made the zoo a pleasanter place to be, really. Nicer for the animals too.