Winter Setting In

I have created an Etsy treasury to celebrate winter.  Winter Mood Setting In

To me, winter represents a time of being thankful for having a warm, cozy home to come to when the weather is cold and icy and presents challenges to drive in and even to walk on icy sidewalks.  This treasury has some beautiful and special items in it, and I hope you will visit the Etsy shops represented in the treasury and see what they have to offer.  Right click on the link Winter Mood Setting In, and select open in new window.  While you're there, come and visit my Etsy shop too!  Mary Hamilton's Etsy Shop: DreamON

Recycled Art - Why Not?

Just having fun with the idea of making something new out of something old. This is the painting I had to begin with: that is, before I started thinking negatively. Negative painting, being what I'm getting at, and not having a bad attitude. This is a technique that I have used creating successive layers of negative painting, or painting around objects before, but this time I used the existing painting of the deer in the woods and only had a single layer of painting in the negative.

I was inspired by Etsy running the leaf pictures that had been configured into faces, and I thought that idea was very clever!

I have had a stash of painting starts, and paintings that need "something." Sometimes it seems that "starts" are what fits the mood, but in the last few days, I have been in the mood to do the fixing and finishing on a few of these

Over In The Clover

My painting with the deer at the edge of the trees had lost its charm for me, and it became my victim, as I cut the size down a bit and started drawing clover leaves on it, and then I painted around the clover in Indigo Blue. Before the paint was dry, I lifted some additional areas.

This new painting called "Over In The Clover" is what came of it all. It was fun to do, and sometimes doing a painting just for fun is better than struggling with one to fix the details that may never turn out right anyway.

Therapy!

To see more information about this painting in my Etsy shop, please click on the painting title.

49th Annual Glenwood Springs Fall Art Festival

While the Florida Watercolor Society is holding its annual convention in Sarasota, I am in Colorado. It's a conflict every year, but for 14 years now we have been out west and a part of the Glenwood Springs Fall Art Festival. This is a wonderful show with wonderful art displayed in all classifications and categories that takes place in the Ramada Inn in Glenwood Springs. It is the largest non-juried show in Colorado with usually two (or more pieces in the case of pottery and sculpture) of art by around 300 artists judged on Wednesday. Judges this year and their specialties are Mark Silvers, Watercolors; Liz Thiele, Oil Painting; and Mary Zimmerman, Sculpture. There are also a large number of paintings, pottery and sculptures available in the Bargain Bin that are not judged, but are great values. This show would not work at all without the hours and hours worked by volunteers. My husband and I are but two of them. It's fun to make our yearly stop at this show and renew friendships with artists at this show. My gallery paintings this year are "Fish Camp," a scene from the very picturesque Cortez waterfront in Florida, and "Beach Shoe Exchange," a sunny, sand and surf painting with white dune fences and a few stray shoes left behind. These paintings are both watercolor paintings that are 16 x 28 inches framed.

Since the original post, these two paintings have both been sold. For the availability of prints, please contact me by email or by Etsy conversation at DreamON.etsy.com. I also recently added a new Facebook fan page, The Art of Mary Hamilton which can be found by clicking on this link: (or pasting this link into your browser: http://www.facebook.com/MaryHamiltonArt ).

Front Page of Etsy This Morning

I woke up this morning to check my Etsy shop and for the first time saw an actual Etsy front page with one of my listings in it. What an exciting way to wake up! (The last time it happened, the item sold right away and I only became aware of the FP later.)

My item is called Under A Lemon Moon. It is in the second row, second item from left. Many thanks to DawnWillBreak for creating such a beautiful beach wedding treasury and for including my lemon moon watercolor painting in it!!!!! You can visit her Etsy shop by clicking here. Click on the image of the Front Page to see a larger view.

In other "Breaking News," I've added two new items to my shop today. The Sinking Sun is a 6 x 6 inch acrylic on canvas. The inspiration for this one is, of course, the glorious Florida sunsets we have here on the west coast of Florida where sometimes it looks like the sun is just melting into the Gulf. The water almost loses its color it is such a grayed-out aqua, except where the sun and sky reflections hit the water. It is so amazing to be able to live here and see such a gorgeous sight!


I also included a new mermaid watercolor, In The Deep. I just love the song, "Rolling In The Deep" sung by Adele, and also recently on Idol by Haley. So this is the inspiration for my mermaid. I was thinking about her playing and executing full rolls deep in the ocean. This painting is very close to 8 x 11 inches.



Both of these photos are clickable. Hope you have as much fun dreaming when you see these as I did when I was painting them!

Season 10 American Idol

One thing you probably don't know about me is that I am a huge fan of American Idol.

What's different this year? The new group of judges selected probably the best contestants ever!

Although I didn't hate Simon Cowell, still I thought he could cut the contestants to the heart with only a few words. So I can't say that I miss him, especially with the new judges this year. The entertainment value provided by the judges on the show has gone way up.

I've always enjoyed Jennifer Lopez in the movies, and she seems to be a grounded, genuinely kind person as a judge, at least so far. Stephen Tyler is fun and unpredictable, and I am enjoying his personality. The fans love them both. Jennifer has started giving some technical advice which shows her classical voice training. Stephen needs to bring more in the way of advice to the singers as well. Randy Jackson, the experienced judge here, needs to give some real constructive advice. He tends to want to pigeonhole certain contestants into a mold when this early, it just seems they might be trying to show what a broad range they possess when they switch song types from week to week. Other contestants seem to get a pass when they switch from Blues to Rock, etc. Really Randy!

That said, this year I feel the contestants were much further along and polished than in previous years, at least not until towards the end did they show as much poise and stage presence as they do this year. The voices are better, and most any of them will probably have a future singing somewhere.

I know everyone doesn't feel the same, but hey, it's only one person's opinion: ME. My son confessed that Simon sometimes was the reason he watched the show.

The guys: I admire James Durbin having overcome Turret's and Ausberger's Syndromes to get into this competition in the first place, so I'm watching him with great admiration and interest. He has a really nice voice which he has shown, in addition to his preferred hard rock style. Scotty McCreery is a deep-voiced 17 year old who sings pretty good country, but it's hard to feature that mature voice coming from the face! Paul McDonald sounds a lot like Rod Stewart, and he has had a couple of rough weeks, but escaped without any scars from judges so far. Jacob Lusk can pull off a Luther Vandross song with seemingly no difficulty. Stefano Langone has a career in Vegas with his vocal style. And then there is Casey Abrams who in addition to his wonderfully intense singing possesses a great sense of humor and is so likeable. Jacob and Casey have the early lead. Stefano and Scotty are right in there too.

The girls: I tend to root for underdogs, and right now Haley Reinhart is someone I like, but she has an uphill battle convincing the judges she knows who she is. Naima Adedapo will also have a tough road and we will have to see if she can correct her tendency to be flat - that is her pitch is. Lauren Alaina and Thia Megia are the young ones, only 16 years old. What big voices they both have: one country and one more of a ballad singer. Pia Toscano is the favorite of the girls right now.

Well, there you have it - my opinionated opinion! I'd love to hear how you feel!

A Glimpse Of My World Tonight

As I sit here contemplating the world from my window tonight, I am thinking, "What could possibly top this for a studio view?" No, I'm not in jail!!! These are built-in partitions in the windows, and the view of sunlight playing upon the palm tree as sunset nears is pretty much all right with me.

Other than that, I have been painting, in acrylics, lots of grapes and grape leaves on a variety of surfaces from masonite panels to 4 x 4 canvases. Friends have been collecting corks for me for years, and I am planning to use them in some kind of art -- for years. About now, the corks are multiplying much faster than the artwork! So this week's project is to use some of them!

So here are a couple of my projects which are nearing completion. Here are a few of the little canvases which I am planning to mount onto a masonite surface which has been textured with acrylic gel and then painted with black gesso and with gloss gel. Wow! That didn't do it for me at all! I decided to back off and paint it with a warm brown, and then wiped and blotted some of that off of the panel. The glossy black surface looked terrible with the paintings and corks. After I took this photo, I decided to add a few corks. At this point, I have not glued anything down, but I can say I am getting close.

In the next photo, I have painted the grapes and grape leaves in a different style on a masonite panel. Yesterday, I had fun dremeling holes in everything I could get my hands on. Then I went to Michael's in search of some raffia, only to find they had no raffia in the natural color, but I found narrow ribbons on sale, so I bought 3 colors of those, and today I attached ribbons and a nice bow to the project and called it "done." The photo was taken "in progress" and before it was finished -- for sure! In this one, I decided no corks!
The dremel holes were drilled at the top left, and the presentation is vertical, with tri-color ribbons of gray green, lavender and natural, and a bow.

These have been fun, but there are Oh, so many corks to use. I fear, the fun has just begun!

Not sure where I will show these, but Etsy is probably not the venue this time!