Sharing Within The Artist Community

Yesterday was an opportunity to gallery sit in the co-op I belong to in Holmes Beach on Anna Maria Island, FL, Artists' Guild Gallery.  I say opportunity, because it is fun to be there and talk with the visitors coming through.  Many of the folks who visit art galleries are also artists.

On this occasion, I talked with an artist from Natick, Massachusetts who was quite congenial, and I was reminded once again of how generous most artists are to share techniques, supplier information, photo opportunities and so forth with one another.  She mentioned the fact that when a group of artists paint the same subject, each painting will still be different, and this is so true.  Each one looks at a subject with a unique eye for discovering the depth and texture and color and intensity it offers and views with their own emotional makeup and life experiences.  We also bring a different skill set and different materials to the endeavor.  It's amazing to observe the differences we come up with in portraying the same thing.  (Of course, I am talking about painting a true subject from life and not copying someone else's work that has already been done.)

I do find that most artists are quite giving with one another, their experiments with techniques, telling you what colors they've used and how they approached the work.  Maybe part of this comes from the isolation of creating, and we are just happy to have someone to talk with who speaks our language.

After closing the gallery for the evening, we visited nearby Cortez and took photos of the beautiful scenery with our cell phones and enjoyed a nice dinner at water's edge while listening to live music.  What a great day!

Palm Island

As I was sitting at the Artists' Guild Gallery yesterday, I painted this landscape of Palm Island. The day had started out pretty cool, and having the door open early felt pretty chilly, but as customers came and went and sales happened, the temperatures heated up also. It was a good day with enough of a lull at times to paint, but also quite a few visitors kept me busy.

One comment still has me chuckling. A lady said that she thought my husband was posing for me. Well, hello! Unless he looks like a tree, I think he was just sitting there reading. People can be kinda funny, I think!

This one is available in my Etsy shop, DreamON. Click on the photo of the painting for a link to my shop.

Life Under Construction

I took this photo a few minutes ago of a beautiful yellow Hibiscus blooming outside. We have had such difficulty with our little "farm" on our deck this season, because of what I think is mealy bugs. First they attacked a nice red hibiscus we had to throw out. Next we threw out a tomato plant, followed by a basil plant. Now the little nasties have attacked my prize yellow hibiscus plant. A couple of weeks ago I started hand to hand combat with them by treating it leaf by leaf with an alchohol rub of each leaf and sticking a swabbed q-tip into the new growth areas. I took a risk, not knowing if I would be killing it, but by the next day I could see it had recovered a bit. Each time I would see the white cottony crud, I would hit it with more alcohol, until finally we got this whole blossom. Up until now, they had a portion of the bloom which had been stunted. But, alas, I see more yuk I will have to go and attack. If anyone has a suggestion how to eliminate these little critters I would love to hear about it.

I spent the morning sitting in the gallery in Anna Maria Island this morning. It was very quiet there. When it was time to leave, it was about to storm outside. We decided to find a place to wait it out before coming back across the Sunshine Skyway Bridge. It rained a boat-load while we were having our lunch.

Thought I would show you what has happened to this painting since I took it down off my Etsy site. I first described the technique I used to create my painting surface here on the blog on March 27th, in an article named "Fun With String and Glue." However, I never liked the painting, and I eventually painted over it. I am putting it aside so I can look at it for awhile and decide how I can finish it. Which do you like better, before or after the start-over?

Oh Hey, there's some toes!

Fashion Divas Series

At the end of the year, my new inspiration for a series has been the Fashion Diva collection. It started with making cards, and rapidly spread into paintings. There are now three. Claudette had taken up residence on my blog for a week or so, but yesterday I received word that she had been sold at the Artists' Guild Gallery on Anna Maria Island, on Florida's West Coast, so I will have to replace her with Babette or Marcee. In the meantime I AM dancing the happy dance.

November 11, 2007

Friday night, we went on an art walk on Anna Maria Island, Florida. As usual, the consensus was that there are a lot of talented people in this world. Judy Strom is the featured artist at the Artists Guild Gallery in Holmes Beach. Her artwork in the front window is stunning. If you have a chance check it out. Also, Sue Johnson, a potter there has a nice body of work in this shop including her beautiful teapot.

This morning I got up thinking, I've got to paint. It's about time I made some nice art, but all I made was a great cup of coffee.