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!

New Poppy ACEOs

I just posted two new ACEOs with poppies to my Etsy store, DreamON. Have started to run out of them, so today was poppy day. These two have a teeny bit of collage with sheet music and bits of fibrous, old handmade paper that a fellow artist from Studio 1212 brought today. Had fun creating these! Things have been so busy lately, it was fun to actually sit down and paint with the group and not have to worry about all the things I had to do. Don't get me wrong, there's still a lot to get done, including lots of shopping, but I have gotten enuf done so that it's not making me CRAZY right now. So I had freedom to paint!

Made It To Front Page!

AuclairBlueSquare's Treasury made it to the Front Page of Etsy this morning, and right there in the middle is my little "Poppy Smile." I'm also happy to say that it sold while it was on the FP! It's exciting to have been on the FP. Thank you, Mary of AuclairBlueSquare for creating this wonderful treasury and for including my little Poppy! Also, a big thank you to Etsy for selecting this treasury for the FP!

Small Things - Just 5 x 5

New collages --- What great fun it is to make collages!

I posted on Facebook a little while ago about artists being great hoarders. Well, in order to make collages, we just have to be - a little bit, anyway. Otherwise, where would you ever come up with the "stuff" to make a collage?

So I have these big red sunflowers - silk flowers that I have had in a beautiful twisted glass vase with some smooth little pebbles. I decided that the stems were way too long, so my wonderful hubby set about finding some snips to cut through the heavy wire stems. He cut them off, and then asked the crucial question: "What do you want to do with these?" The "these" referred to the remaining stems. At first I said to throw them out, but I saw them just laying there on top of the trash, and I just had to rescue them.

I had just painted these little 5 x 5 canvases black, so I laid a few of the stems on top, and decided they looked pretty cool. So I asked him if he could go and cut me some 5 inch even cuts from the stems, and he's great and cut them for me.

I had rescued a bag of dessicant, you know a bag labeled, "Do Not Eat!" and determined the little stuff inside was clay balls. So I set about mixing up some thinned red acrylic in a small lid to see if I could get the balls to accept the color. After awhile I got some nice red ones, some pink ones and some that lost their shape and were melting.

I had some lovely gold paper that another artist (Thank you, Raquel) had given out to us that she said came from Brazil, and some other paper that I thought was rice paper that I bought in a bargain bag. First I glued on the "rice paper" and the glue showed through after it dried, so out came the gold acrylic to paint this which turned out great. I cut out a round shape from the gold paper and glued it onto the other canvas, then I proceeded to lay on the stems and the little colored balls and glued them down. Voila!

Finished, But Why?

Family mementos saved over a lifetime, among them paintings, books, letters, photographs, collections of various kinds, trinkets, souvenirs clippings, etc.: presumably they meant something to the person who saved them. Some of them are antiques, some collectible, but for unknown reasons they have become popular to keep. The question could be asked, why? Some people have no need to keep anything, and others can't throw out anything. Why?

A week or so ago I read an article in The Art Biz Blog (August 2, 2010) that presented the question: Why does an artist paint a painting? Sometimes, for me, there is a clear reason, but since I really enjoy the process, many times I am painting a subject simply because I like whatever it is I am painting. I don't go through a huge psychological self-examination to ask myself, why? Is that what most artists do, or do most of them have a story behind each painting? I have no idea, but it would be fun to find out, I think.

This particular painting comes from a photo that interested me. First, it was a really old photo, and I wanted to see if I could paint it to look that way. Second, the subject is a young woman wearing a coat with a fur collar who was standing in front of a school bus that has curtains in the window. (Hello. The school buses I rode on sure didn't have any curtains! Maybe this is because the distance I had to travel to school wasn't long enough for a nap, or could be that school bus riders a long time ago were more civilized than the ones I went to school with.) Last, from other photos I unearthed from a relative's lifetime collection, these fur-collared coats were apparently as much a fashion statement of that time for young women as today's fads are relevant today. Later, after I had painted the painting, I found out the girl turned out to be the "matchmaker" who introduced my mother-in-law to her husband.

And that is the story of why I painted the painting, or as Paul Harvey used to say, "That's the rest of the story." (Oh, I had to Google the saying, because I couldn't remember WHO said that.)

This is the finished painting from one I wrote about in an earlier post, and showed the painting unfinished. I have titled it The Matchmaker.

Crowning Glory Girls - New Series at DreamON on Etsy

Lady of the Locks Original Watercolor Painting On Tissue Paper Collage


I am sharing the beginning of a new series tonight. I have called it the Crowning Glory Girls, because it is all about ladies with long, long, long hair, and that's what makes it so much fun. I was brainstorming all day and crunching on a name for the series. These are some of the ones I came up with on the way there:

The Crowning Glory Girls. Hair They Come. Ladies With Locks. From Tops To Bottoms. Tails of Hair and There. Heaps of Hair. Curlie Girlies. From Heads to Tails. Big On Hair. Heavenly Hair. World of Curls. Locks To Love. Looks and Locks. Curlilocks and the Bon Bons. Curly Ladies With Locks. Hair Hoopla. Cougar Curlers. We’re Out of Hair. Ladies of the Lock. Hair Watch. All About Hair. Out of Their Heads?

Well, you get the idea, I couldn’t decide what to call this bunch of ladies. They are loosely inspired by R.C. Gorman, Native American artist of the Southwest. What I do know is that these are (mostly) all watercolors, a layer of tissue paper, and then more watercolors with archival ink to finish. 8x8, 7 x 7 and 7 x 6 ¾ . Pastel colors in the background with stronger colors in the girl’s lovely outfits.

I say mostly watercolors, because I have almost finished one in black and white for the Studio 1212 Black and White show's 40 paintings for $40 wall in October.

The painting I have chosen to share here at "Dreams About Art" is called "Lady of the Locks," the dreamy girl with purple hair. She can be found in my Etsy shop, DreamON.

Black and White and Fun With Photochop

The Black & White Show in October, at Studio 1212 is going to be something special this year. It is the 40th anniversary of the group of artists who represent the longest lasting artist's cooperative in the Tampa Bay area. While there are none of us who have been there 40 years, it is an accomplishment for this type of endeavor to have that kind of longevity.

Among other things, we will have a wall of 40 works of art to be created on 12 x 12 inch canvases for $40 each. So I am starting to think of what to do this year for my two 12 x 12 paintings, as well as the regular size pieces for the show - all black and white.






My two kitties were last year's pieces I did for the show. I had to mail them back to the gallery, so they were on smaller 8 x 8 inch chunky canvases. I have just now put them on Etsy. Meet "Research," the white aloof kitty, and "Ambush" the dark, attack-planning cat.

I have listed them together, because they look cute that way, but also because the cost to ship them priority mail would be the same, whether they are together or separate. These canvases have wooden stretcher bars that are made of heavy wood.




After playing with Photoshop to come up with some way to show both paintings in one of my views on Etsy without having to photograph them again, I stumbled onto a couple of techniques that were new to me.


Now, I am completely self-taught in the art of Photoshop, and this may be kindergarten stuff to those who use Photoshop all the time, but I discovered this function of the paint bucket yesterday completely by accident by pressing the right mouse button when I was trying to do something else by pressing the left, and presto, my white cat turned pink. Thought it looked so cute, I used it in a poster.


Then I made another one that looks like the moths have eaten part of it away by finding out that Free Transform has some other interesting features associated with it.

Ah, if not to play and have silly fun with simple things, what would life be?

Wildflower Season

With the exception of two Springtimes spent in south Texas, I have never lived anywhere that has a real Spring. Certainly in Colorado where one day is 70 degrees and the next has two feet of snow, there is no Spring! Daffodils peak out forlornly when the snow melts.
This painting is titled "Give Me Lemonade."

Now, here on the west coast of Florida, there is a definite change, but other than fallen oak leaves everywhere and new green leaves replacing them and a few azaleas here and there, no true Spring. So our Spring Break to the Panhandle of Florida and Alabama was a treat for me, and I went crazy taking photos.
On the way home I fixed a water bottle in my map compartment and painted "little things" most of the way while hubby listened to ball games and sports things on the radio. Here are a few inspirational photos and some results so far.

"Daffodils Say Spring" below and "Renaissance Bouquet" at left are now in my Etsy shop. They are both 2.5 x 3.5 inches and are original watercolor paintings that are artist card size ACEOs.
"Daffodils Say Spring" [SOLD]


It was a fun way for me to pass the time, and when I am painting time really flies. I just loved the flowers everywhere. I took pictures and painted wild growing things with pretty blossoms that many would call weeds, I am sure, but they were lovely to me.


I had never seen Wisteria growing anywhere until a few years ago in Oregon, but that was planted and in someone's yard. In the panhandle region, it grows wild and is beautiful.

This last ACEO original watercolor painting is titled "Flowerlets Gone Wild." [SOLD]


Ahhhh, Spring!

Old Photos, New Fun

A few months ago, we took a trip out west to meet with my husband's family members to go through and clean out the contents of a relative's apartment when she was no longer able to maintain her independent living status. A few layers of dust and dirt gave way to uncovering a lifetime of memories. Among her things were photos of young girls on the threshold of womanhood, being silly and laughing about the things young women do together. A couple of them revealed that fur collars were quite the "in" trend of this day.

One photo in particular was a picture of a shy, young girl standing beside a school bus, smartly attired in the fad of the day.

This photo interested me, and I have chosen to paint her in the sepia tones of the photo. This project is a work in progress, and shown as it is today in my watercolor version.

I am fading out the background to give the affect of time in a misty, vague sort of way. Here the painting is shown after the first session working on the it.

Here Comes Mischief in Cat Form!

Misty Gray Cat is a painting about a kitty that we used to have. A soft, pretty gray-colored shelter kitten we got when my son could hold her upside down in one hand, she grew into a beautiful, although squirrely, cat who could be gentle and loving or as fierce as a tasmanian devil when she visited the veterinarian (which thankfully she rarely needed).

Misty, the painting, is done in pure watercolor on Arches 140 lb. Cold Press Watercolor paper with mostly Winsor-Newton paints. (I have a few other brands, all professional quality, and intermingle them on my palette.) It definitely reflects the personality of this loving tasmanian, split-personality, kooky kitty. Cool colors dominate the composition.

Misty Gray Cat can be found at DreamON by clicking here. Enjoy!

Beautiful Fall Day

Just thought I'd share a few memories from a beautiful fall day somewhere in Colorado between Steamboat Springs and Wolcott.
The beautiful gold colors usually peak the third week in September, but these photos were taken this week, and as you can tell there are still a lot of green trees.




Enjoy!


These next ones give you a feeling of flying, and the one on the right below feels like vertigo; it's hard to figure out where the horizon is.











The last one is one of my favorites. It makes you wonder where the road goes. It provides inspiration for a painting, I think.

The Birthday Unicorn

Just recently I undertook a project which put me totally out of my element. My granddaughter asked me to paint a unicorn for her birthday. Explicit instructions included size (big) and color (pink with green eyes and pink and blue hair). Now I might add that my granddaughter is an extraordinarily talented young artist herself, and her grandma is very proud of her. (Not that her grandma would exaggerate, but she spends her spare time creating art a large percentage of the time!) She would much rather paint or draw with markers than fill in coloring pages, and she really is pretty good for being just six years old.


The unicorn was not a subject I have ever tried before. I know a lot of girls draw horses when they are young, but not me. The number of horses I have tried to draw or paint, ever, could probably be counted on my fingers. However, this was a labor of love, and I grew to love it and hope she will as well.

The original acrylic painting is 16 x 20 inches. I may do prints, and if I do I would put them into my shop, DreamON, sometime in the future.

So here is the unicorn, and I hope you enjoy it. Copyright 2009 by Mary M. Hamilton.

Glenwood Springs Fall Art Festival

This is the best art show! The Glenwood Springs Art Guild has been putting on this indoor open entry show for 47 years now, and boy, do they do it right! The show is held in the lower level of the Ramada Inn in Glenwood Springs, Colorado. It is one of the best opportunities both for buyers and artists around. The art is always good. In addition there are demonstrations by the three judges and sometimes an additional artist also. This year's judges are Tanis Bula, Charles Hardy and Tim Wedel, and Cindy Brabec-King, an outstanding watercolorist, will give an additional demo. Judging is done Wednesday, and the show opened when judging was completed.

My entries this Fall are "Bliss" and "Tina's Dance."

The entrants are broken down into Professional, Advanced and Amateur classes. Media accepted includes hand-thrown and hand-built pottery, sculpture, oil/acrylics, watermedia, mixed media, graphics and pastels. There are landscapes, still life, portrait-figure, animal, sculpture and pottery categories for which ribbons are awarded. Cash awards are reserved for Grand Champion and Reserve Grand Champion in each classification of entrants.

Another real plus for artists are the artists' Friday night dinner and Saturday night's banquet and "artists' bash." The most appreciated feature of this show would be the patrons who support this event every year, but a close runner-up would be the hours and hours of work put in by the Glenwood Springs Art Guild. These are the folks who have made this event possible for the 47 years it has been occurring. Thank you to both!