The Artist

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.

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.

Latest news: some good, some unbelievable

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ART TALK

Update on the juried show front-

Two of the three paintings I entered in “Spirit of the Horse” to be held at the Palos Verdes Art Center, have been accepted. One is “Takhi Stallion and Mare”, part of which forms the masthead for this blog.

The other is “That’s the Spot!, see below. It was painted from reference that I shot at Khomiin Tal in western Mongolia during my September 2006 trip there.

Update on the festival/show front-

Due to gas prices and the slowing economy, at least in California, I have pulled out of the Los Altos show in July.

I will be participating in the 10th annual North Coast Open Studios June 7-8. Please stop on by, I’d love to see you. I’ll have original paintings, prints and cards available, plus the garden is starting to look pretty good.

The following weekend, I’ll be at the Marin Art Festival. I think it’s going to be a whole lot of fun and it’s almost two hours closer to me than the Los Altos event.

My gut feeling said pull out of the first, but don’t pull out of the second.

And, now something totally unique in my 30 year career in commercial and fine art:

I recently realized how important it is to listen to that inner voice. I was invited last year to participated in the art show at the Grand National Rodeo and Horse Show. I had some reservations from an animal welfare standpoint, but decided that I would send five paintings and attend the opening weekend to judge for myself whether or not this is an appropriate venue for me.

That decision will have to wait, since, to make it short, the show was such an unbelievably incompetent mess at so many levels that I ended up crating up my work and pulling out. Yup, loaded it back in the van and brought it home.

Most of the other over 100 artists, including some from England, Australia, Italy, Belgium and Canada, weren’t so lucky. I am participating in a private forum that was set up to sort this out. As of this morning, over six weeks after the close of the show, many of the artists have not gotten their work back. At this point, work is finally starting to move out, but only because of relentless effort on the part of the management of the Cow Palace. A fair amount of what has been returned is dirty, damaged or not in the containers it was sent in. And a lot of those were expensive Air Float boxes, which are to regular cardboard boxes what real cheese is to Velveeta.

In some cases, art was removed from the Cow Palace against the express, specific wishes of the artist.

The “directors” of this show have, IMHO, lied to, misled and otherwise conned all of us. As of today, none of the three has given the slightest sign of a clue that they have done anything wrong. It’s everyone else’s fault. The stories and excuses change almost hourly.

IMHO, do not, under any circumstances, get involved with anything that they are in charge of.

If you are an artist who sent work to the 2008 Grand National Art Show or joined the Grand National Artist’s Society, you need to email Tami at artenow@gmail.com immediately.

Do not join The Grand National Artist’s Society. Do not participate in the art show at the Santa Barbara Fiesta until you have confirmed that none of the people who created this mess are involved. I visited the Fiesta website and it looks like a great event that you should consider if you live down that way!

I am not going to publish names here. Please contact me through my website if you need more specific information. As we are all learning, what goes on the web, stays on the web. Forever.

If I hear of anything else, I’ll post it here.

Final happier note:

Our doggy guest has moved on and very probably has a forever home already waiting for him with someone who had to recently put his 14 year old longer haired shepherd to sleep.

Pet overpopulation is a myth. The homes are out there, but sometimes it takes patience and some effort.

Back home and in the studio

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Got back from my trip last Thursday evening with no more than what is the usual nonsense when one flies these days. Plane was late getting to Denver, so we were late leaving Denver, which meant I missed my 4:12 connection in San Francisco. On the bright side, the airline automatically rebooked me on the next flight home at 6:30, which was good since the last flight out didn’t leave until, ouch, 11:30pm.

ANIMAL NEWS

We have a canine guest right now, a 3.5 year old male German Shepherd rescued from a seriously rotten situation. I’m doing the emergency foster while a ride is lined up to get him to his long-term foster. He’s spent the last four months with people who didn’t “like” him, so he was kept inside and forced to do his business in a room. He’s got what looks like flea allergy dermatitis. Very thin fur on his back end and tail. Also very scared at first, but totally unaggressive.

We have him on a long cable tie-down on the patio so he can have peace and quiet, but start to get used to a normal environment not filled with screaming and craziness. He’s unneutered, but very submissive. Ignores the cats. Associates collars and having his neck reached for with something negative, but isn’t head shy. Niki is modeling calm, balanced behavior and setting boundaries for their interactions, so he’s my partner in helping get the poor guy back on an even keel. He’ll be a fantastic family companion once he’s had time in a stable environment and gets his confidence back.

I guess the moral is, if you really don’t want an animal, don’t just ignore it and stop caring for it, do what it takes to get them to a place where they have a chance to get a new home where they will get the love they deserve. Sheeh, is that so hard?

ART TALK

I had a great time sketching and photographing at the Denver Zoo, along with getting to see the Robert Bateman show at The Wildlife Experience. There were so many of his iconic images- the snow leopard sitting on a cliff as snow swirls around, the orca amongst the kelp, the storks at dusk with the shimmering band of gold water, plus some of his early abstracts. He is the living master in wildlife art when it comes to design/composition and the sheer beauty of his painting. Very, very inspirational. If you are in the Denver area and you want to see the best in animal art, see his show.

There was also a small room with paintings of African subjects and I was tickled to quickly realize that I had at least met, if not studied, with all of the artists: John Seerey-Lester, John Banovich, Simon Combes and Daniel Smith. I think I feel a lion painting coming on!

In the meantime, here are some of my sketches from the Denver Zoo. Most of them took less than three minutes, if that, so no time to doodle around. First I try to capture the gesture of their pose or movement, then add things like eyes and fur texture. Last is value, Sometimes I end up adding the modeling and “color” while I’m having lunch. The lions were very fit for zoo cats, but I’ll still “tighten” them up by referring to lions I photographed in Kenya.

The horses are my beloved takhi, of which three were out when I was there. I had seen domestic yaks, but these were the first wild yaks. They manage ok in The Mile High City, but in their native (shrinking) habitat, they thrive at 15,000 feet plus.



The Party’s Over (for this year, at least)

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What a great two days I’ve had here at the OPA event. Everyone made this first-timer feel very welcome. I met so many artists who not only do great work, but are terrific people too.

One of the nicest things about the morning demos, besides seeing “how it’s done” was that we, the artists, mostly had the whole gallery to ourselves. It was so packed last night that it was hard to really appreciate a lot of the work. This morning we could all wander around to our heart’s content inspecting paintings, talking shop and watching the other artists work.

This afternoon I attended` back-to-back sessions presented by Alyson Stanfield who runs artBizcoach.com. She’s written a book called “I’d Rather Be In the Studio: The Artist’s No-Excuse Guide to Self-Promotion”. The morning session was “Getting Comfortable Promoting Your Art” and the afternoon was “How to Use Email, Websites and Blogs to Amplify Your Online Presence.” I’ll review the book after I read it (it only seems fair), but I can safely say that her presentations were packed with useful information.

For any other artists reading this blog who want to make a living making art, let’s face it, we’ve got to deal with the marketing part. Alyson takes the intimidation factor out of it and makes a very convincing case that not only should we being doing proper self-promotion, but that we absolutely can do it effectively and still get in our easel time.

Tomorrow I’ll get to spend time with the Mongolian scientist I met on the Earthwatch project I did there. We have kept in touch, but haven’t seen each other since then. I’m hoping to learn more about conservation work in Mongolia and how my art can support that, along with just getting to learn more about a country that I’ve come to like very much.

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.

Here and then gone again

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Back for two days and leaving for Montana tomorrow for the OPA national show opening weekend. I’ll try to blog while I’m there since there are a variety of interesting sessions planned.

I really enjoyed the show in Walnut Creek overall. Sales weren’t good, though. Wallets are locked down. I watched people pick out a $3 card and then put it back. This in a town where it seemed like every other car on the street was a Porsche or a Lexus. And it was hot. Even the locals were whining a little. The temperatures hit 80F+ on Saturday and Sunday. I did have some potential buyers come by, so I think that the show will be well worth doing for the next couple of years, at least. I saved money by staying at the Residence Inn in Pleasant Hill and buying my food at the local Whole Foods store. It was nice to go back to the room and kick back without having to figure out where to go for dinner on a weekend night.

My neighbor artists were great. Both use glass as their media of choice. Kevin (www.kevinmark.com) makes fabulous one-off pieces of jewelry and Chris (www.studiozayante.com) makes vases, cups and cool glass pumpkins in a variety of colors. Never seen a cobalt blue pumpkin before, but I liked it.

The main action was on Main Street. I was one street over on Locust on a corner space with a nice shade tree. As is usually the case, there was an ebb and flow of people, so I did some sketching. Haven’t done this kind of thing in a long time, so it was good practice. Here are the four unedited pages that I did. Maybe it will encourage you to try it. None of them took more than a few minutes at most.



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.