New art

I completed four watercolor batik sea creatures, matted and wrapped them, and took them to Studio 15 today. This is a good medium for me, because there is no way to make it perfect, and it always has elements of surprise.

Catching up

Gee. It is past time to catch up on art stuff!

It is way too hot to spend much time in Studio 15. No AC there! Whew...

And I really haven't created anything that is finished and beautiful lately. 

But I am involved in art every day. Being on the board of the art assoc means I have to do a lot of communicating, and I like that. I am glad to be a small part of keeping the "club" running and letting people have opportunities to do arty things.
I also have photos hanging in a welcome center here, and some will soon hang in a gallery in Whiteville. 

My friend Elena is a glass artist. She started with mosaics and now does all kinds of complicated glass art. Today she showed my how to cut glass. Then I spread some acrylic paint on two small square panels. Tomorrow I plan to lay some of the cut glass on them and pour resin over all. I saw this in Florida while I was there in May. After watching how to use it on YouTube, I ordered the special epoxy after I came home. I tried it - messy - and the end product was cool.
Maybe they will turn out blogworthy. 

Sumi-e

This old Japanese style of black ink painting was new for me today. It was all about how to load the brush and hold the brush to make the strokes you want. Much more challenging and interesting than I thought.

Palette knife work

These abstract works came from the need to use my art supplies before buying more, and it kind of freed me to do what I felt. This is what emerged on one, and I like it.
I had old, used canvases that I spread paint on. A therapeutic exercise. Then I would spread on another color that would not cover every thing in the previous coat. Then another, and some scraping to highlight and perhaps an additional color until I felt I was on to something. Layered abstracts are like people in that we have many layers. You may wonder what lies beneath.
Not everyone will like abstracts, but I think they are fun to paint. And people look at them as if they are thinking...what in the world is that!

From photos to paintings

Occasionally an ArtWorks neighbor will use a photograph that I took and paint a nice piece of art from it. Here are two photos you may recognize that Jo and Cathy used as reference for oil paintings.
That pleases me to no end!

Update

The batik painting in the previous post sold. Also the painting I posted called Sunny Day has sold. That makes me a happy girl.
I am back from a trip to Blue Mountain Beach, one of serval pretty places along road 30A in the panhandle part of the Gulf.
It is home to many artists and galleries, and I got to visit a few. As a result I came home inspired to create and paint more. I loved talking to the gallery owners, the reps, and looking at the very different styles of art done there. Good ideas are still rolling around in my head, and I can't wait to get started.

Under the Sea

It won't photograph quite right, but you get the idea.

An 8x10 watercolor batik.