The Art of Joan Breckwoldt

Red Ball notecards

2012-02-03T14:58:00.003-06:00

I enjoy making notecards out of my favorite paintings and this recent painting of a dog and red ball is my newest addition. I enjoy getting the image printed and picking up the stack of notecards all wrapped in shrink wrap from the printer and I enjoy picking out just the right ribbon to go with the image. I don't even mind packaging everything up and tying bows, though I usually do that in front of the tv. But the best part is when someone likes them enough to buy a package! Below is a clearer photo of the image on the notecards. The original painting is oil on canvas.

Jesus portrait

2012-01-12T16:03:00.010-06:00

click on image to enlarge

Happy New Year everyone! This is a painting I just finished for our church. It is 8"x10" oil on canvas. It'll go on the cover of the Lenten Devotional that the church is getting ready to print.

Our church has a weekly contemporary service, among many others, and the man who plays the drums looks a lot like I imagine Jesus looks. I asked him to come over to my house and sit for me. I painted a study of him in 3 hours and took some photographs. I have a climbing rose bush in the backyard so I employed some of the vines from that for the crown of thorns. It was a fun 3 hours of painting and talking, I always love having a model!

In the past few months my church has asked me to use three different images for various printed material. It finally dawned on me that this is a great way for me to serve so I volunteered to paint something for the next daily devotional. I feel blessed to be able to use my gift for the church.

p.s. Hey . . . . I just noticed someone unjoined my blog. I guess that's what happens when I don't post for a couple of months. And I was almost at 100 followers!

Texas haybales

2011-10-10T14:42:00.004-05:00

4"x8" oil on canvas

Hello everyone, it's been a while since I wrote a post. All is well, thank you dear friends for your e-mails and for missing me! I got out of the habit of posting on my blog and well, I guess my new habit became not posting on my blog. But I have been happily painting. Our daughter was home from college for the summer so it was fun to spend time with her. And of course, our son didn't have school so it was great to have him home too. I completed 18 portraits of parishioners at our church for my Body of Christ project. I had a book made out of the portraits and the books arrived last Friday. Very exciting.

Next weekend, Oct. 15th and 16th I'll participate in a group show at our church. I have about 10 little oil paintings for sale. I also have the Body of Christ books (I'll do a post on that soon), notecards and a small poster with all 18 portraits. It's always a fun event and I'm looking forward to it.

I've been focusing on landscapes the last couple of months and I do have a few to post. Besides the group show at our church next weekend I'll also have a solo show at our church starting November 1st. I am going to be very busy between now and then because there is still some wall space that needs to be covered with paintings!

American Impressionist Society

2011-07-22T18:20:00.004-05:00

I am thrilled that the painting shown above, "Little Cowboy" 14"x18" o/c, has been accepted into the American Impressionists Society's 12th Annual National Juried Exhibition! Scott Christensen, whose work I admire SO much, is the judge this year. The show will be October 21st through November 15th in Carmel-by-the-Sea, CA.

I don't think I'll go although I do have an American Airlines plane ticket. That's a long story. The rest of my family went to Bolivia on a mission trip with out church. I had a ticket and was all set to go but decided against it. I couldn't get a refund for my ticket but I can use it within one year of purchase to basically go almost anywhere. So I'll be taking a trip somewhere, hopefully a trip where painting is involved. We'll see.

I am so encouraged about getting into this show, it makes me want to go into my studio right this minute and pick up a brush!

Cat drawing

2011-07-20T16:33:00.003-05:00

With summer here and the kids home, my mind has been too going in too many directions to paint much. But, yesterday I was sitting on the sofa and our cat was sitting near me, as she always is, so I grabbed my sketch pad. This will be my next painting, which hopefully I'll start today even though the day is quickly disappearing.

Only a couple more days and I'll hear from the American Impressionist Society about the three paintings I entered in their national juried competition. Hopefully I won't be disappointed. I had better plan some kind of "distraction" just in case though.

American Impressionist Society competition

2011-07-02T12:47:00.003-05:00

Yesterday I entered three paintings in the American Impressionist Society 2011 National Juried Exhibition. I haven't done any painting in the last few days but after I completed my entry I felt a sense of accomplishment, feeling like I had done something art related at least. Though getting the image files prepared was so complicated, I had to put these black bands on the top and bottom or sides of each image so the finished image was square. I had never done that before and it took me a long time to figure out how to do it. I decided maybe my sense of accomplishment was more like a feeling of relief at having navigated all those instructions!

The first image is "Lady Longhorn" and is 6"x8". The ballerina is "Balance" and is 9"x12". The last one is "Little Cowboy" and is 14"x18". "Little Cowboy" has been rejected by one national juried competition but I'm not giving up yet on him. All paintings are oil on canvas. I'll report back when I hear if any of these paintings got into the competition.

Portrait No. 6

2011-05-23T16:14:00.002-05:00

This is the 6th portrait in my Body of Christ project. After getting a little off track and painting other things, I am back on this project full force! I want to paint 24 members of our church and exhibit them in the Fall so I had better get busy. This is an 8"x8" oil on canvas.

To read more about this project please visit my website.

Taking a risk

2011-05-05T09:21:00.005-05:00

"And the day came when the risk to remain tight in the bud was more painful than the risk it took to blossom." Anais Nin

I have been to the Houston Arboretum to paint many times. I usually paint the lily pond, or a stand of trees. I walked around with my sketchbook and made three little sketches, trying to decide what to paint. This fallen tree was the most difficult of the three scenes I was considering.

I honestly didn't think I was going to be able to paint this scene but I didn't want to paint that lily pond. Again. The alternative was to try something new and challenging and to learn. So I risked failing at this painting (in fact, was pretty sure I would fail) and in the end was reminded to take more chances with my art.

Sometimes I want to paint a "safe" painting. After a couple of failures or when my little art ego needs a boost, then I paint something I know I can paint successfully. I tell myself I am learning just by mixing and applying paint to the canvas, but to really learn I need to try new things by risking failure. Maybe that's a more complicated composition, or a larger canvas, it's a million things and they change daily! If we don't push ourselves as artists, and yes, risk failure, we'll never grow.

Summer Cottage

2011-04-27T15:17:00.001-05:00

Summer Cottage
6"x8" $150

This is a little painting I did for fun. It's oil on canvas. My daughter is about to end her study abroad program and she's going with some friends to England before she comes back home. I guess that's what got me thinking about little English cottages.

Lily pond

2011-04-25T15:35:00.001-05:00

A few days ago I went over to the Houston Arboretum to paint the lily pond. It was hot (mid 80's) but there was a nice breeze so it was pleasant after all. I feel very fortunate to have such a beautiful place to paint in "my own backyard" which means it's only 5 minutes from my house. This is a 9"x12" oil on masonite.

Happy Easter!

2011-04-24T17:12:00.001-05:00

"He is risen. He is risen indeed!"

Happy Easter to all my friends and readers! This was my Easter card from last year, I didn't paint one this year.

Great painting day!

2011-04-16T17:01:00.006-05:00

On our 4th day in Paris my daughter decided she wanted to go to the Louvre. I wasn't up for that, I have been there before and I really wanted to paint! So we went our separate ways for the morning. I walked from the Louvre to the Tulieres Gardens, thinking I would paint the gardens. But the Seine beckoned and I headed that direction. After studying a couple of the bridges I found a nice perch in the shade with a great view.

Most of the time I was sitting on that ledge with my pochade box in my lap. I was a little concerned about my pochade box falling in the river (ha, perhaps I should have been worried about me falling in the river!) so I tied my pochade onto my apron string. Then I worried about my backpack which had paper towels and more brushes so I tied that to another apron string. I never lost anything.

It was really a peice of Heaven to sit on that ledge and have the luxury to paint for a couple of hours. That is something I will never forget.

We had a nice lunch, walked around the city, had chocolate crepes (a daily occurrance) and eventually made it back to our hotel room. We looked up what time the sunset was: 8:15 p.m. I decided that if I wanted to paint again that evening, I needed to head out at 6:30 p.m. to find a spot, get set up, and finish by the time it was dark. So my daughter and I walked over to the Eiffel Tower, kept walking to the Seine, and I found another view of a bridge. My daughter sat on a bench and read her book patiently while I pianted. I barely finished. Then we walked back to our hotel room as the sun was setting, passing right under the Eiffel Tower.

What a great day!

Centre Pompidou Paris

2011-04-16T14:31:00.003-05:00

My daughter and I visited the Pompidou Museum, a GIANT modern art museum in the heart of Paris. I probably wouldn't have gone there but my daughter wanted to go so we went and I am so glad we did. It's an amazing place. It has five floors of art and we only went to the two that had more 2D art, though we saw enough 3D art and videos and all kinds of other things on those two floors. I was pretty excited to come across this Chuck Close painting. He paints from photographs and grids his canvas, meticulously filling in each grid with bright circles of paint. When you step back the painting comes to life. You can see some of the detail below:

Being a modern art museum, there was a lot of "interesting" art. One room was titled "Woman who cries" and it was a short film of British school children talking about a video they had been show of a woman crying. Why was she crying? The children had all kinds of ideas: she didn't get what she wanted for her birthday, or she was so happy she was crying. It was a strange concept. And then in another room, what you see below.

And then there was the giant mushroom.

And a . . . . oh wait, that really is a chair. :)

And the little video of a woman dancing in a flowing dress that made her look like she had butterfly wings.

And finally an entire room of . . . . . color. Actually this one was kinda cool because you could see where the colored panels overlapped you would get a different color.

It was quite an experience. There were also paintings by many of the modern masters: Bonnard, Picasso, I saw a Mark Rothko, a few Modiglianis, and many many others. Definitely worth the visit.

Day 3 - on to Paris

2011-04-14T16:04:00.010-05:00

On my third day visiting my daughter we took the train 3 hours from Geneva to Paris. Here is a photo just after we arrived in the Gare St. Lazare. We immediately took a taxi to our hotel. We had stayed in this quaint hotel before and asked for the same room. When we didn't get the same room, I went down to the desk and inquired. Turns out the room we had before had been remodeled but they said they would give us that room, an "upgrade", for no extra fee.

We got the key to that room and when we opened the door what a shock we got. The room had gone from a darling French room with red and yellow printed curtains and carpet to . . . . stark modern furnishings! No more carpet, only fake hardwood floor. No more comfy upholstered chair by the window to sit and watch the Parisians walk by on the sidewalk below, only a hardwood uncomfortable chair. C'est la vie. It was a bit of a bigger room so we went with it. An hour later we walked over to the Eiffel Tower and I painted the Eiffel Tower! So much fun!

Here I am painting. Notice the scarf! Haha, trying to fit into the French fashion scene. My daughter sketched a bit, sat on the grass and read her book, and generally just had a relaxing time. Chilling, as she would say.

The next day I decided I wanted to paint the Eiffel Tower again, but this time with more color. So I pushed the color a bit, using warmer colors like orange and yellow for where the sun was hitting the Eiffel Tower and trees and cooler colors for the shadows. I'm not sure which one I like best. What do you think?

Visiting my daughter in Switzerland

2011-04-13T16:21:00.006-05:00

I spent a day travelling to Geneva, Switzerland to visit my daughter who is studying abroad for a semester. I took a 3 hour flight from Houston, then a 7 hour flight to Geneva. It was beautiful as we approached Geneva, the sun was just coming up and I could see lakes with snow capped mountains in the background. I took a quick photo from the plane: My sweet daughter was waiting for me at the airport at 7:25 a.m.! I got 2-3 hours of sleep on the flight over so we decided to put my bag in a locker at the train station and do some sightseeing. We took the train that runs along Lake Geneva to Montreux, a town an hour away on the far end of the giant lake. We walked along the lake towards a Medieval castle. Spring had just arrived in Switzerland and tulips and all kinds of other flowers were blooming in the gardens along the walkway next to the lake. We sat down for an hour and I painted when we got a good view of the castle. (With nothing else to do) my daughter did a nice little pencil sketch of the castle and we had some hot tea. I brought along my little pochade box which holds a 6"x8" canvas. After deciding on what to paint and getting set up, I find I can paint this size in about an hour. Though an hour and a half is even better. After I finished the painting we walked another 15 minutes to the castle and then took a tour of the castle. The Castle of Chillon is a 13th Century castle and was built to protect the House of Savoy's military and commercial interests. It certainly sits in a beautiful location but made me happy to be living in the year 2011 and not in a cold and drafty castle in the 1200's!

Greenhouse Gallery Salon opening

2011-04-03T16:53:00.016-05:00

On Friday I packed my bag and drove 200 miles to San Antonio to attend the Awards Dinner at the Greenhouse Gallery. I am thrilled to have one of my paintings, "The Offering" in the show. I had reservations at a lovely little Bed and Breakfast which I found with no problems. I got there in time to have a couple of hours to relax before the 6:00 p.m. dinner at the gallery.

I arrived at the gallery on time and didn't know a soul! The only thing to do was start introducing myself to people. I met a lot of other artists and had a chance to look at the 415 paintings in the show. I have met another Texas artist, Laurel Daniel, through blogging and we had arranged to meet at the dinner. At this point I was wishing I had taken a closer look at her photo on her blog! But we eventually found each other and it was great to meet her.

At 7:00 p.m. we sat down at tables that had been set up in the gallery, what a wonderful setting to be surrounded by so much beautiful art. I sat at a table with people from New York and other Texans. I sat next to Pam, who is an employee of the Greenhouse Gallery and really enjoyed visiting with her, she is lovely. That's also why I know little facts like there were 117 people at the dinner and 57 of them were artists with paintings in the show. And, the 1200 entries for the show came from 47 states and a number of foreign countries.

I made a point to meet the two owners of the gallery, Jim Janes and David Smith. Mr. Smith gave an amazing inspirational talk about art and artists during the dinner. Hearing that speech was worth the drive to San Antonio for me. Then the juror, Daniel Greene presented the awards. After that I minlged a bit more then headed back to my B&B. San Antonio streets are tricky, especially at night! But I found my "home" with minimal trouble.

The next morning, after a huge breakfast made by the B&B proprietors, I drove back to the gallery. I had signed up for a critique of my painting by Mr. Greene for a $35 fee. There were 19 of us that followed Mr. Greene around from one painting to another, listening to his critiques. That took an hour and a half and was educational, though he pretty much said the same 5 or 6 things over and over. His main points were:

1. hard edges come forward, soft edges recede

2. make sure you have defined where your light is coming from and be consistent throughtout your painting

3. form should have shadow, halftones, and light

4. perspective is important, this was especially apparent with buildings

5. he really was looking for lots of detail so sometimes he would like to see more work on a particular area of a painting

As artists, we've heard all these things before but it was good to get a reminder and see examples of what he was talking about on paintings.
By now it was lunch time so nine of us went to a nearby restaurant and had lunch together. That was a lot of fun! We talked about galleries, varnishing, paint outs, quick draws, frames, workshops and just about anything else you can think of that was art related. We all exchanged cards and I hope to run into some of these ladies again.

Then it was time for me to begin my journey home. It took me a little longer to get home because I made a couple of detours along country roads for photos of barns and cows, two things I can't resist. Here I snapped a quick shot as I was exiting I-10 for a stop at Buccees for a snack.

The opening for the show was Saturday night with a champagne reception. I had initially intended to stay for that too, but I'm leaving Monday to visit my daughter in Switzerland so I thought I should come home and give myself more than 12 hours to get ready for that trip. So I'm off again and I'll bring my paints and we'll see if I come back with anything I want to put on my blog.

Trailrider

2011-03-27T12:24:00.005-05:00

Every February and March hundreds of people come to Houston on horseback to see the Houston Rodeo. Trailriders come in groups from all over Texas, sometimes spending 2 weeks on horseback just to ride into Houston the day the rodeo opens.

This gentleman was driving a couple of horses and sitting atop his chuckwagon as he came into Houston. It's 9"x12" oil on canvas.

I'm working on a portrait commission so that's why you're not seeing much else these days!

Shipping a painting

2011-03-21T16:41:00.008-05:00

Well, I didn't paint today mainly because I was too preoccupied with making a box to ship my painting to the Greenhouse Gallery. I bought a giant box from a box store, but it was too big. So I cut it down and made a top and a bottom that fit into each other.

Lots of meauring and cutting and taping. You can see I had a helper. That's as far as I got last night.

This morning I decided I needed bubble wrap to pad the painting so back to the box store I went. I only bought the largest size bubble wrap they had, roughly the size of a Texas hay bale, cause it was discontinued and on sale. It'll last me years. But it was a really good deal. :)

We will have other uses for that bubble wrap, my son came home from school, saw that giant roll and asked if he could wrap his sister's car with it. Hmm. I told him to let me know how much it would take.

Finally, after all the taping and packing, I filled out the forms that went along with the painting, wrote a check for return shipping (in the sad event that it doesn't sell and has to come back to me) and the package is ready to go. As I type this I'm waiting for the carrier to come by and pick it up. I suppose the more I do this, the easier it'll get, but for my first time to make a box and pack it, it took a lot longer than I thought. But I'm not complaining, it was kinda fun, and I'm just so thrilled to have a painting in the Greenhouse Gallery that I don't care how much trouble it is.

Spring Break in New York City

2011-03-19T18:20:00.004-05:00

My husband and I went to NYC for Spring Break. The kids are off doing their own thing so it was just the two of us. We went to the Metropolitan Museum of Art, where really we needed about a week to see everything, but we did the best we could. They have recently refurbished and reopened part of the American Wing and the photos above are from the American Collection.

This is a painting painted in the round, yes, the painting goes 360 degrees around. (Though they had to make the room oval to accomodate doors on either end.) This panoramic view of Versailles was painted in 1820 by John Vanderlyn. In the early 1800's, not many people traveled so artists would travel to far away places, then recreate the place on canvas for people to view. People might pay 10 cents to come and see a painting like this and experience a little bit of the gardens at Versailles. We thought it was fascinating!

Seeing some of the gorgeous Rembrandts again has reminded me how beautifully Rembrandt painted. Usually I make a bee line for the Impressionists at a musuem, but this time I was stopped in my tracks by some of the Rembrandts. I took a lot of these close up photos.

Besides visiting the Met, we visted the Neue Galerie and saw Austrian and German art. They had an impressive collection of Gustav Klimts. So unique. I highly recommend that museum. We also visited the Frick, which is where a huge self portrait by Rembrandt overwhelmed the room/gallery and really made me take notice of Rembrandts this trip. Plus, the Frick museum, which used to be a residence right on Central Park, is wonderful to look at too.

We went to the "Top of the Rock", the 69th floor observation deck at Rockefeller Plaza, for a view of the city. We saw Tina Fey filming in the plaza afterwards. We walked. A lot. I wanted to spend some time in Central Park and we sure did that. More walking. We had a drink in a beautiful lounge on the 35 floor of a hotel one night, we sat right next to floor-to-ceiling windows and the view was spectactular. We also ate a lot of Italian food.

On our last day in NYC, the St. Patrick's Day Parade took place. We saw the parade last year so we knew what we were getting into. Last year the parade lasted 7 hours. This time we watched for an hour, then it was time to get lunch and head to the airport.

I've read that when the artist Wolf Kahn teaches a workshop, he has his students draw a parade using only colors to represent the people in the parade, not actual shapes. When I saw all these brightly clad people lined up watching the parade, I couldn't help but think of how I would represent them with color. To be precise, I believe Wolf Kahn tells his students to use color to represent the actual parade, not the people watching the parade.

Here is one shot from the parade. This is what you get for 6-7 hours if you stay for the whole thing.

New York City is a great place to visit, but I don't think Iccould ever live there. Too many people, too many horns, too much construction, just too much of everything! I'm so glad to be back in our quiet peaceful home.

Mighty is the King and a present from the cat

2011-03-12T18:29:00.007-06:00

Here is something a little different for me, a huge painting! It's 30"x40" oil on canvas. I've only painted that large a couple of times and I decided to push myself and paint this one. It just takes more time and paint to cover that much canvas.

I call it "Mighty is the King" because I was in church a couple of Sundays ago and those were some of the words to a song we were singing. The words made me think of how mighty the Lord is and it just fit with the big powerful sky in this painting.

Painting this sky was so much fun that I am planning a couple more large "sky" paintings. Below is a photo of the framed piece on our fireplace mantel, just so you can see how huge this painting is.

I've written about our sweet cat Jackie O that I found in a parking lot 8 months ago. Well, this afternoon my husband called me into the kitchen. Then I heard him say "Jackie, no!". I thought, uh oh, what has Jackie gotten into? I walked into the kitchen and saw what Jackie had brought into the house! Actually I think she must have chased it into the house, we left the kitchen door open. My husband quickly grabbed a broom and shooed it back outside. I grabbed my camera. In case it's hard to see, it's a baby possum.

Portrait No. 4

2011-03-10T12:15:00.002-06:00

This is the fourth portrait in my series, it's an 8"x8" oil on canvas portrait of a gentleman who does so much for our church. I've decided to try and make every background in the series a different color. The off white background, made from lots of white mixed with a little pink and green, is not the traditional choice for a background of someone with light hair. But I think it works beautifully, and I figured anyone who is comfortable wearing a pink tie wouldn't mind having an unconventional background.

I've only painted 4 portraits in this series and already I'm learning so much. And I'm enjoying the interaction with the people I'm painting, even though most are painted from photographs.

On another note, I've made my reservations for San Antonio the first weekend in April for the Greenhouse Gallery Salon Show. I mailed in my check for dinner at the Awards Dinner Friday night and booked a room at a B&B for two nights. The show opens on Saturday April 2nd and that night there is a "meet the artists" event. This will all be new to me and I'm staying the whole weekend so I can soak in all the art and meet lots of artists. I'll bring my camera!

Portrait No. 3

2011-03-01T14:55:00.000-06:00

Here is my third portrait for my Body of Christ project. I spent last week finishing a commission I've been working on for a while. It was nice to get back to an 8"x8" portrait this week after the HUGE 24"x20" commission. It wasn't really huge, just seemed like it.

This is a portrait of a wonderful woman I have known through my husband's family and through church for over 25 years. She is a big part of our church so I really wanted to have her painting included in the exhibit.

I've made one small change to the project. I've decided that any money I collect from the sale of the portraits will go to the church. Since this is a project to celebrate the body of Christ and to glorify Him, it seems the obvious thing to do is give the money from this project to the church. doh.

See my website for more about this project: http://www.joanbreckwoldt.com/

Summer Sky

2011-02-25T10:22:00.006-06:00

Summer Sky
12"x16" oil on canvas
$375

I have been busy painting even though I haven't posted much the last few days. This is a 12"x16" oil on canvas of a typical Texas sky. I loved painting those clouds so much that I've started a 30"x40" canvas of the same painting. At first that large canvas was a little intimidating but I'm dealing with it. I can see how I can actually get used to a canvas that large.

I have been busy working on a portrait commission the last couple of weeks so I haven't painted any of my "church people" for my project. But the commission is almost finished so I'll be able to get back to my 8"x8" portraits. The commission is of a beautiful woman on a 24"x20" canvas. That's not a HUGE canvas but it seems to take forever to paint just one arm. I'm used to painting figures on 11"x14"s and an arm just takes a few strokes. Painting on a 24"x20" feels like I'm painting the side of a building!

In order to paint and photograph people properly in my studio I decided I need to get rid of some of the sunlight. When we remodeled the studio we put in windows facing east and in the morning too much light comes in that window. I cut some foamcore to fit the windows and using a tall ladder I carefully stuck the foamcore in the windows. I think that's solved my problem.

While we're talking about lighting, I just noticed in this photograph you can see the two different curtains I have to control the light. I have the dark grey curtains that cover the full length of the window, I have four and I use those when I'm painting a model if I want deep shadows. They effectively block out the sunlight. The little half curtains are what I have in my windows on a daily basis, it gives me some privacy yet still lets in plenty of light for painting. Both kinds of curtains are on a tension rod and are so easy to move around.

Glass palette

2011-02-20T16:25:00.002-06:00

After years of painting on all kinds of palettes, I've decided to paint on a glass palette. When I started painting I used a wooden palette but I found if I didn't wipe off the paint immediately, it dried quickly and was difficult to scrape off. I did that for years though. After that I went to the super-easy paper palette. It doesn't get much more simple than that, just tear off and throw away the coated sheet after each painting session.

I have three different palettes and I took them all to the glass store and had 1/8" clear glass cut to fit each palette. I chose a neutral medium grey colored paper from the art supply store and cut a sheet of paper to fit in each palette. The glass was put over that and secured with a clear bead of silicone around the edges by the glass store. The color you paint on is an individual decision, I've taken a number of workshops from artists and naturally I look to what they paint on. Quang Ho paints on a glass palette with a white sheet of paper underneath. Dan Gerhartz paints on a glass palette with a medium/dark grey paper underneath. Others use wooden palettes. I haven't seen one use a paper palette.

What you see above is a "french mistress" and it measures 17 1/2" x 21" with those flaps closed. It weighs 10 pounds plus now I've added the extra weight of the glass. It'll never leave the studio if I can help it. It's sitting on a plain old wooden tray table. There is also a smaller version of this box called a "french companion". Since I got it for my studio, I went ahead and bought the bigger one. I'm excited to paint on a palette that BIG.

Below is my pochade box that I use when I paint plein air or when I travel to locations by car. It's a bit cumbersome to take on an airplane, especially since it has a tripod that goes with it. But I don't mind packing it in my car when I have a destination within driving distance. Mine is an Easy L pochade box and I love it! I have a lightweight Manfrotto tripod to go with it.

Last but not least is my "palette keeper" which is basically a tupperware like rectangular box that seals shut. It keeps oil paint wet for 2 or 3 days. It cost less than $20 and most art supply stores have them.

Having the glass cut and put into the palettes was a total of $23. The only thing I need now is a scraper to scrape the glass clean, most artists that use a glass palette use a scraper. They can be found at paint stores or hardware stores.

I hope you found this post helpful.

Portrait No. 2

2011-02-18T17:11:00.005-06:00

Here is my second portrait for my Body of Christ project. You can read more about the project on my website or scroll down and read my blog entry from when I started this project.

So far I am really enjoying taking photos of people and then painting them, though I had to paint this lovely woman twice to do her justice. Hopefully each one will get a little easier, though I know there will be ups and downs and some will emerge easier than others. My goal right now is to paint 24 portraits for the exhibit and I have about 24 weeks until the exhibit, subtracting a week here and there for travel and vacation. It will definitely be a challenge but that's one of the reasons I want to do this, to challenge myself.

Evening Farm

2011-02-12T16:04:00.006-06:00

Evening farm
12"x24" oil on canvas
$600

I love how this one turned out, that big weathered barn is so peaceful. I painted this from a photo I took when I was in Wisconsin for a workshop summer before last. After the workshop I had 45 minutes of driving to get back to my hotel and along the way I took lots of photos of the beautiful countryside. Luckily the workshop was in August so the weather was nice.

The sky on this day was actually blue, but I had a pink undertone and I decided to keep the pink sky. Somehow that lent itself to the overall calm feeling of the painting. I can ship this for $25.

Body of Christ project

2011-02-07T20:40:00.004-06:00

Kevin

I have started a project. I am having an exhibit at our church this fall and my vision is to have a wall full of portraits similar to the one I posted here. It's 8"x8" oil on canvas. The portraits will be of members of our church, and that wall of people will represent the body of Christ.

The term "body of Christ" is a common term but sometimes misunderstood, so here is a little background about the term: the "body" of Christ refers to the members of His church, not His human form on earth. The body of Christ is the Church, made up of all those who have accepted Jesus Christ as their Savior. Each Christian, then, is a part of the body of Christ.

Although all Christians are part of the body of Christ, I'm going to limit my wall of portraits to people that go to our church. It will be a representation of the body of Christ. My hope is that people will stand in front of the wall of people and by recognizing fellow church members, realize and rejoice that we are one body compromised of many parts.

1 Corinthians 12:12-14
"The body is a unit, though it is made up of many parts; and though all its parts are many they form one body. So it is with Christ. For we were all baptized by one Spirit into one body - whether Jews or Gentiles, slave or free - and we were all given the one Spirit to drink. Even so the body is not made up of one part but of many."

The painting today is of Kevin, he is the security guard on duty every Sunday during church services. He always has a smile and is ready to help. Seeing him is a part of going to church on Sundays for me.

Thanks for stopping by!

"The Offering" juried into Greenhouse Gallery!

2011-02-03T11:06:00.004-06:00

"The Offering" by Joan Breckwoldt

30"x24" oil on canvas

My painting "The Offering" has been accepted into the salon show at the Greenhouse Gallery in San Antonio, Texas. The juried exhibition is a project of the International Museum of Contemporary Masters. The judge this year is Daniel E. Greene and the show opens April 2nd. Yippee!!

Adventures in Switzerland

2011-01-30T11:56:00.005-06:00

As my readers know, our daughter is spending this semester studying abroad in Switzerland. She started a blog! I just wanted to share the link and invite you all to go over and visit her blog. http://www.megbreck.blogspot.com/. I've also put the link on my blogroll. Thanks!

Plein Air cove painting

2011-01-04T09:50:00.000-06:00

On our third day visiting my mother in law for the holidays I went back to the nearby cove to paint. It was an overcast day and in the low 50's that morning. Since it was overcast that meant I wouldn't have to race against changing sunlight and shadows so I chose a bigger canvas. But, since it was in the 50's, the low 50's, I didn't get too carried away. With all these factors taken into account, I reached into my bag and pulled out an 8"x10" canvas. Not too big and not too small.

This is my favorite from our 4 days in the hill country. I loved spending the morning in this quiet cove. My husband even brought me some hot tea at one point and I was concentrating so hard that he scared me half to death when he walked up behind me! At another point it started raining lightly but I didn't notice that either. This is one painting that I would like to paint again but larger.

The light rain eventually turned into dark clouds and rain for the rest of this day and the next day as we drove home. But I was so happy to be able to get out and paint FOUR times during our short stay. I'm trying to learn to paint small and fast and more often. I think that's the best way for me to improve right now, by just painting more. That sounds a lot like a New Year's goal doesn't it?

Blue House

2011-01-03T12:42:00.001-06:00

Since I had painted on the morning of our second day in the hill country, I wasn't that enthusiastic about painting a second painting that afternoon. But I persisted. I wanted to take advantage of being out of the big city of Houston so I set up facing the little blue weekend house next to my mother in law's house.

In my mind I kept thinking of the landscape painter Scott Christensen who once went to Ireland for 21 days to paint. He painted . . . . are you ready for this? . . . . 82 paintings in 21 days! I figured if he did that, I could at least paint TWO paintings in one day. I liked the corner of this blue house with the late afternoon sun, and the little bushes next to the corner. I chose a 5"x7" canvas because, like I said, I was not terribly enthusiastic about painting a second painting. What a baby I am. But at least I did it.

Below is a photo I took when I finished my painting. You can see the sun has just about set, hardly any light on that house by now. I had to paint fast, this painting was about 45 minutes from start to finish.

More holiday plein air painting

2011-01-02T14:36:00.001-06:00

The second day at my mother in law's I got up very early and walked to a nearby cove. It was just above freezing but I bundled up and even wore my gloves to paint. I bought new fingerless wool gloves just for painting, got 'em for $8 so I wouldn't care if I got paint on them, which I did.

Because it was cold I opted for a 6"x8" canvas, which was a smart decision because after 1 1/2 to 2 hours my fingers were pretty cold. I enjoyed the peaceful time I spent painting this quiet cove. $95 plus shipping for this oil on canvas.

Holiday Plein Air painting

2011-01-01T14:28:00.002-06:00

We've had an unusually warm winter here in Texas (so far) and when our family was up in the hill country of Texas for a few days I was able to get outdoors and paint four times.

We drove 4 hours to my mother in law's house and didn't get there til mid afternoon but I was determined to get outdoors and paint as often as I could. With an hour left before sunset I set up facing west and painted the trees on this peninsula sticking out into the lake. It's 8"x10", which was pretty ambitious for what I was trying to do. It's oil on canvas and $100 plus shipping.

Merry Christmas

2010-12-25T16:38:00.003-06:00

Wishing all my visitors a blessed Christmas Season!

This is an 8"x10" oil on canvas that I painted plein air a few days ago. It was fun to get lost in all those branches and the few leaves remaining on that single beautiful tree.

Autum Harvest

2010-12-20T20:41:00.005-06:00

This is a 20"x20" oil on canvas painting. A local gallery is having a show for 25 emerging artists in January and local artists could enter one painting each. This is the painting I entered, so I've got my fingers crossed that it'll be in the one day show.

My family drove 4 hours to the Texas hill country over the Thanksgiving holiday and we passed this pretty barn. It's one of my favorites so my husband pulled off the road and I got out of the car and took a bunch of photos. Normally I just shoot pictures as we're driving at 70 mph. It works a lot better when we actually stop the car! The fields of winter grass were a beautiful pale yellow and during the weekend I found a yellow field and spent 2 hours painting a study, that study came in handy when I was back in my studio painting this larger painting.

Apples or crabs?

2010-12-06T13:54:00.003-06:00

$95 plus $7 shipping

Crabapples! I had seen some pretty crabapples at the grocery store so a couple of days later when my son and husband went to the store I asked them to get me a few. My 15 year old son came home joking that they were apples, not crabs. He likes that play on words. That made me wonder; how did crabapples get their funny name?

There are a few thoughts about the origin of the name, but none related to an acual crab. Disappointing. The most convincing is the old Scottish name of scrab or scrabble which is what they called these apples, dating from the early 15th Century. End of lesson.

This painting is 5"x7" oil on canvas. $95 plus $7 shipping. E-mail me at abreck@swbell.net if you're interested. Thank you for looking!

Friday

2010-12-05T16:06:00.002-06:00

This is a model that I painted a while ago. On a Friday. I was experimenting with using more interpretive color. It's 20"x24" oil on canvas. $550 plus $20 shipping.

Eiffel Tower Commission

2010-12-01T12:38:00.004-06:00

A dear friend of mine commissioned me to paint a scene from Paris. Though the Eiffel Tower can be a bit cliche, I had a photo of it at night so we went with that. Me and my big mouth! I had never painted a night scene before but as soon as I got over my fear of painting a night scene, it was a lot of fun. Makes me want to go to Paris and paint! Wouldn't that be a dream painting trip?

Thanksgiving plein air

2010-11-28T21:47:00.003-06:00

Our family spent the Thanksgiving holiday up in the Texas Hill Country. It turned cold on Thursday but I was still able to get out on Friday and paint a small study outdoors. The colors in the Hill Country are beautiful this time of year, I especially love all the yellowish fields, and I was able to find one of these yellow fields not too far from my mother-in-law's home.

I set up my pochade box at the edge of this field, which usually has cattle in it. I've painted this field before, I think two summers ago, but that little painting sold. It was important to get out and paint a color study, I took lots of photos and this study should come in handy for painting in my studio this winter.

Tree line

2010-11-11T15:19:00.007-06:00

I painted this plein air the other day, it was a pretty sunny November day. I liked the contrast of the dark line of trees and the lighter field in front of the trees. It is 8"x10" oil on canvas. I don't usually post my paintings in frames but this frame looks so good on this painting.

The painting is $200 unframed or $260 framed plus shipping. $16 to ship this unframed and $30 to ship it framed, including insurance. Click on the image for a close-up. E-mail me if you're interested at abreck@swbell.net.

Yellow Kimono

2010-11-05T15:51:00.002-05:00

I did this from life a few days ago. The model is lit from behind so most of my view is in shadow, it was a great opportunity to paint some rich colors into the shadows. This is a 12" x 16" oil on canvas. It's $300 unframed. Click on the image for a close up.

Jack-o-lantern class

2010-10-29T15:32:00.005-05:00

On Wednesday afternoons I volunteer to teach art to a group of disabled adults. The last two weeks I made the lesson plan and this week we painted a jack-o-lantern for Halloween! I make four painted canvases for the class, each canvas showing progressively more of the painting. At the end of the 2 hour class everyone has a great looking painting.

I have enjoyed spending time with the students, they are all so patient and grateful to participate in the class. There is a lot of talent in the class, no two paintings are alike even though we're all painting the same thing. Teaching is rewarding, how many times have we heard that? I don't do it very often but I am reminded every time I do teach. Below are a couple of photos of the class and some of the other volunteers.

I hope everyone reading has a happy and safe Halloween!

Art Show report

2010-10-26T21:44:00.002-05:00

The art show at my church last weekend was a successful show and I think all the artists that participated sold at least 2 or 3 items. Since it's a small show attended mostly by our parishioners, it's a safe place for an artist to put there work "out there" for the first time. We had a couple of photographers who exhibited for the first time and they both sold some pieces. This was especially gratifying since I co-chaired the art show this year.

Above is a photograph of my display for the door paintings I did of the church and chapel door. I sold three of these little paintings for $150 each. I also sold 25 to 30 packages of my notecards at $12 each and, here is the best news, in addition to those three "door paintings", I sold 7 other paintings. Most of them were small, 6"x8", with the largest being 8"x10". But I am thrilled nonetheless. Plus, it's good to clear some of those paintings out of my art closet! And I'm happy that they each found a new home.

Many churches

2010-10-20T21:06:00.001-05:00

As promised here are my paintings of the church doors. Each one is 6"x6" oil on linen canvas mounted on foamcore. They are on my easel. I painted 3 chapel door paintings a couple of days ago so I got ambitious and painted 4 of the church doors. This little scene is a lot more complicated than the chapel doors, there are more bushes, more architecture, stained glass windows, and a detailed cross. What was I thinking! But I got them all done.

I took all 7 church and chapel door paintings to the framer today. They are all going to look great when they're framed and all together. They will be for sale at the art show at my church this weekend.

Many chapels

2010-10-19T13:21:00.004-05:00

This is what my easel looked like a couple of days ago. I've been painting the chapel doors at our church for an upcoming show. I have pretty little gold frames on order from the framer and as soon as the paintings are dry they'll be framed. I will sell them framed for $150 each at the art show at our church this weekend. I thought these paintings would make a wonderful wedding gift for anyone getting married in the chapel, or even a baptism gift for parents.

I am chairing the annual art show at our church this year so it's been busy lately. There is still a lot to do, not to mention all my notecards that need to be packaged up. And order forms to be printed for these chapel doors and church doors, which I'll have ready tomorrow.

If anyone is looking at my reference photos closely, the photo on the right is what the chapel looks like today. The one at the top was taken a few years ago for another painting before those trees had to be cut down.

Ballerina Waiting

2010-10-17T13:55:00.004-05:00

Sold!

I finally have something to post! I don't know where this month has gone. Actually I do know, I've been busy with various volunteer activities, so many in fact that I've had to sit down and figure out which ones I need to cut out for now. But the good news is that I finally got to paint.

This is 12"x14" oil on canvas. This young woman came over and modeled for me, in a ballet costume that I purchased. There is a lot that I love about painting ballerinas so there will probably be more to come. This painting is at the framer's getting a pretty light gold frame. It's at the framer's getting a custom frame because I cut this linen covered panel to an odd size - 12"x14" for some reason. It is $250 frame included or $200 unframed. Plus shipping.

Award Ceremony!

2010-09-29T21:53:00.006-05:00

A few weeks ago I entered five paintings in the National Society of Artists' 26th Annual National Juried show and three were accepted. I drove my three accepted paintings an hour to deliver them to the show in a town outside of Houston.

I knew from the prospectus when the judging for awards would take place and the prospectus said "winners would be notified 1 to 2 days after the judging". Judging was on a Monday, every time the phone rang on Tuesday I thought maybe it was NSA calling with good news. They never called. On Tuesday I got a call from NSA reminding me about the opening on Saturday night and saying they "sure hoped I would be there". Hmm, nothing about an award. Were they calling all the artists to invite them to the opening? I am very new at entering my paintings in competitions so I wasn't sure what that phone call meant. I called them back and asked. Did I win something? They said yes, but it's better to be surprised.

On Saturday evening my husband and I drove an hour to the opening. We actually missed the awards ceremony and arrived just as the last award was being handed out. But I found out immediately afterwards that I won third place! I got a giant white ribbon to put on my painting and a check for $100. It was a lovely evening, the organization that put on the competition did an excellent job. Then we drove an hour home. :)

giveaway icons

2010-09-29T20:54:00.002-05:00

These are just examples of some of the 'giveaway' icons I made. Just for fun.

Masking tape hands

2010-09-27T19:05:00.002-05:00

Isn't this cool? My 15 year old son made these two hands out of masking tape. He looked at his own hands as a model and then fashioned the 'joints' out of masking tape, then taped it all together to make the hands. The hands are hollow and gave me a start when I saw them on the kitchen counter last night. :)

1000 Notecards

2010-09-21T14:36:00.003-05:00

I love going to the printer to pick up an order, mainly because he shrink wraps everything. Somehow that makes what I've done and had printed so much better!

I ordered 200 notecards of 5 different designs, that's 1000 notecards! That was the easy part, now I need to package them all up with envelopes in sets of 8. I'll put them in clear plastic bags with a little tag and tie them with a pretty bow. The bookstore at my church sells them and I'll sell them at the group show at our church next month.

And there is our kitty. She goes where I go. She's 5 months old now and a little spoiled, at least that's what my husband says.

Pink Laces

2010-09-10T12:49:00.002-05:00

This is a painting of my favorite model. She came over one day and I painted a couple of quick studies of her wearing costumes. When it was time to go she put her own clothes back on and sat down on the studio floor to tie her shoes. I thought she looked so cute that I took some photos. Next time she came over I told her to wear the same thing and she posed for me. I had her sit up on a dresser though, so she would be at eye level as I painted her.

I like the way her green shirt works with the green background. That combination really shouldn't work, but maybe because they are two different shades of green, it magically works. And I love those black hi-tops with the pink laces! This was practice for me and I'll use it as a sample of my portraiture. It's 20"x24" oil on linen canvas.

I'm working on a portrait commission of a 3 year old boy right now. I had a wonderful day yesterday, I stayed home and painted all day long. I only left the house once to take a walk, and to take my son to school and pick him up, of course. No such luck today though, but hopefully this portrait will be done next week.

A painting with a happy ending

2010-09-07T11:07:00.003-05:00

I painted this on Galveston Island over the Memorial Day weekend and hung it in the show I'm having in downtown Houston at the Christ Church Cathedral Cloister Gallery. (That's a mouthful!) I've sold five paintings so far at this show and I'm thrilled!

The gallery surrounds a dining area where 400 people eat lunch daily. Last week a man walked into the dining area and as he was standing in line for his food, he noticed this painting hanging on the wall. He did a double take and realized the beach house in the middle of this painting belongs to his in-laws! The in-laws generously allow their children and their families use the beach house, he said this painting will make a wonderful gift for them. I told him it would make a nice Christmas present, if he could wait until then. He said he didn't think he could.

Out of the 5 million people that live in Houston, the right person for this painting walked into that dining hall and noticed that tiny little part of my painting and recognized it. This painting has found it's rightful home which makes painting even more meaningful to me.

Jackie O

2010-09-02T10:06:00.004-05:00

Here is our precious litte kitten, Jackie O. I wrote about her a few weeks ago after I found her in a parking lot. She likes her new home a lot better than that parking lot.

But we're the ones who have been blessed with this adorable and sweet kitty!

I named her Jackie O because it looks like she's wearing large dark sunglasses, just like all the photos I've ever seen of Jackie Kennedy Onassis.

September giveaway

2010-08-31T22:50:00.008-05:00

This is my first giveaway and I'm giving away a package of my notecards. Each package includes 6 blank notecards and 6 envelopes tied with a bow.

How to enter the giveaway?

1. Become a follower of my blog if you're not one already and

2. comment on this post.

At the end of the month I'll draw the winner out of a hat

and mail the winner a free gift. Just for finding my blog, thank you!

The winner chooses his or her favorite:

1. PEACE.

2. John 8:12 verse with a sunflower,

and for those of you thinking ahead I have

3. Santa with "ho ho ho" on the front of the card.

All notecards are blank on the inside. They're also for sale

on my website.

Art journals

2010-08-30T18:58:00.008-05:00

Recently I decided I wanted my art to expand beyond my canvases. As part of my studio make-over project I decided to make my art notebooks pretty. I've been writing in these sketch books for about 5 years now, they are really my art journals. They are full of ideas, successes and failures.

I bought some 12"x12" scrapbooking paper from the art supply store and cut it to fit the sketchbooks. I cut smaller pieces and then even smaller white strips where I could label the journals. I used Spray Mount adhesive to put it all together.

Sewing curtains today

2010-08-29T16:10:00.003-05:00

This is my beautiful 1954 Singer sewing machine. It belonged to my mom, she made lots of dresses for my sister and me on this machine when we were growing up. I have a newer sewing machine that does all kinds of fancy stitches but it's in a box in the attic, I like this one.

I started making curtains for the studio yesterday. I had grand plans of making them all in one day, but I'm still working on them today. Surely I'll get them finished today . . . as soon as I get off this computer and get to work!

New color!

2010-08-28T12:21:00.000-05:00

My studio will probably never look this good/neat again! The painter finished the studio, he did such a great job and he was SO fast. He started at 9:00 a.m. and was finished with two coats of paint by 3:30 p.m. Wow, I was impressed. I hardly ever work that hard.

Yesterday afternoon I drove over to Cost Plus World Market and bought a bunch of baskets to put on the shelving unit.

Tomorrow I sew curtains for those windows. When I mentioned a couple of days ago that I wanted my studio to be a place where I could paint, hammer nails and sew . . . . well, I had in mind something more creative than curtains. But it has to be done.

A studio make-over

2010-08-27T16:39:00.003-05:00

This is a photo of my studio with painting in progress. I am so excited to have all those dark walls covered up. I chose that color initially because it was supposed to be (!) the best color to paint models against. Who says what the best color is? I've decided on the best color for my studio, I'll show you that tomorrow.

Below is one more shot of the studio before the make-over. Those dark curtains that matched the wall so well will have to go to!

Thinking outside the box

2010-08-26T16:17:00.005-05:00

I feel like it's time for some changes, maybe because it's almost September and the kids just went back to school. The Fall is more of a time of fresh beginnings for me than Springtime ever was. Maybe it's all those years of starting back to school with new spiral notebooks and shiny shoes.

I feel like my artistic creativity is stuck inside a box and I really need to get out of this box. How did I get inside this box? I've thought about it and i think the box was built by teachers, parents, expectations, and of course, by me. Art teachers in elementary school told us to make trees green, the sky blue. Safety patrols told us not to take shortcuts in the school hallways, but to follow the crowd. Gosh, I was a bus patrol! I wore a bright orange sash and patrolled the school bus on the ride home. I was a Brownie and a Girl Scout. I was a good Rule Follower. Don't get me wrong, society needs rules to function, but sometimes art is better without too many rules.

Here I am in my Brownie uniform and it looks like I have cape-envy.

Later when I started college I entrolled in the University of Texas' art program. I lasted one semester. The decided lack of guidance in the art classes bothered me. I needed steps, answers, rules and formulas. My professors offered none of these. It's no wonder I felt unsettled since I grew up with lots of structure, at school and especially at home. It finally makes sense to me. One semester of doing projects and having the professors grade them seemingly with no clear basis was enough for me. A project that took me hours would garner a C whereas a drawing I did out in the hall just before class got me an A+ and an invitation to talk about the meaning of my drawing. After one semester of that nonsensical instruction I transferred to the engineering school. There I felt more at home with the rules, structure, and formulas. Naturally.

During that one semester as an art major I did not realize that a path in art will never be defined. My engineering path was so much easier, I got my degree and interviewed with companies related to my field and then got a full time job. Art is much harder.

Fast forward many years and I've turned back to art for the creative aspects. Because I have to create. I've taken various classes from a handful of teachers, attended a few workshops, and read lots and lots of books. I was looking for more rules. But now, I've discovered that all these rules are confining me. That's where the box comes in. Too many boundaries, too many rules to follow. It's time to do something different. Finally.

I decided the first thing I want to do is make my work area more inviting, more fun and more creative. So today was the beginningn of a studio make-over. I'm blessed that I have a wonderful studio in our home. It's not big but it's a room all to myself with a tall cathedral ceiling. I sit here now and listen to the thunder rolling in and the rain falling on the tin roof over the north facing dormer and there is noplace I would rather be.

Today I went to the paint store and bought some paint, I put a little on the wall. A beginning. I need lighter walls, the walls are a dark grey right now. I want to make my studio a pretty and comfortable place to spend time. I have a corkboard to hang on the wall where I can pin ideas and inspiration. I need a place where I can paint but where I can also make things, where I can sew fabric or hammer nails, without anyone wondering what crazy thing I'm up to now. I think being an artist needs to extend beyond the boundaries of my canvas, how could it not? The artist in me needs to overflow beyond the canvas into the rest of the room. Even into the rest of the house. For goodness sakes!

So, dear reader, I hope you'll stay tuned to watch my studio make-over. And after that I will continue to pray that God shows me how and where my talents can best be used for His puposes.

Hanging my show

2010-08-25T16:52:00.008-05:00

Yay, all my work is hanging at the Cloister Gallery in the Christ Church Cathedral here in Houston. I loaded up all 26 paintings in my car yesterday and drove them downtown to the gallery. The church hired a professional to hang my work which made it soooo easy on me. And after being a little nervous about the whole thing, it was fun after all. Now I just have to wait for the phone to ring, people have to contact me directly if they want to purchase a painting.

This morning I took our precious kitty to get spayed. The man behind the front desk was nice enough to write ASAP in red ink on Jackie O's paperwork so they got to her early. I wanted to show them how much I appreciated that so I made a quick trip into the grocery store for some roses and put this together for them. Jackie O isn't happy, but she's home.

Walk in Love

2010-08-23T18:00:00.000-05:00

Our daughter went back to college a couple of days ago. Before she left she was inspired to paint something for her apartment. I had all the supplies she needed, including a 20"x24" canvas. She painted the canvas and then added the flowers, collage style. It was so much fun to see this project bloom (haha!), to watch someone else's creative process unfold, especially when that someone else was my daughter. I think it turned out beautifully.

Country road

2010-08-23T08:10:00.004-05:00

I've been organizing a group art show for our church and yesterday afternoon I got a call from a friend's mother who said her husband wanted to be in the show. Could I come over and take a look? So I went over and looked at his beautiful enamal work. Wow, I thought, this would be great to have in the show. I explained that you have to be there during the show, he replied "I don't want to be there!". Well, then I said you'll need someone else there to answer questions about the work and take a check if something sells. "I don't want to sell my work!" came the answer. Big sigh. Turns out he doesn't want to be in the art show after all.

Next I went down to the church where I'll hang my work on Tuesday. I wanted to figure out where to park to unload my paintings and just get a general feel for the layout. That taken care of, I went to the Texas Junk Shop, a great place which really is full of all kinds of junk, you never know what you'll find. But it's closed until September 17th. So I went to the art store for an hour and then home. I guess I felt like I got a couple of things accomplished Sunday afternoon.

My little preview before my upcoming show turned out to be a great success. The best part was getting to spend time with my friend and getting to know her a little better. And she bought three paintings which was really really nice. Then the next day she e-mailed and said there was a painting she kept thinking about so she wanted to buy that one too! I don't think anyone has ever bought four of my paintings at the same time so I am very flattered.

The painting I posted today is from some photos I took with my daughter last time we were up in the Texas hill country. She and I went out scouting places for me to paint plein air and I painted this from one of the photos I took. I was on that road again the next day with my painting supplies (in the heat!). This is oil on canvas and it's 8"x10".

98 and no enemies

2010-08-20T11:02:00.005-05:00

This is a little story for Denise, whose son left for college today. I hope it makes her strong and makes her smile. A story about a 98 year old woman.

98 and no enemies. A human interest story.

Toward the end of Sunday service, the minister asked, "How many of you have forgiven your enemies?"
80% held up their hands.
The minister then repeated his question. All responded this time, except one small elderly lady.
"Mrs. Neely? Are you not willing to forgive your enemies?"
"I don't have any" she replied, smiling sweetly.
"Mrs. Neely, that is very unusual. How old are you?"
"Ninety-eight" she replied. The congregation stood up and clapped their hands.
"Oh, Mrs. Neely, would you please come down in front and tell us all how a person can live 98 years and not have an enemy in the world?"
The little sweetheart of a lady tottered down the aisle, faced the congration, and said, "I outlived the bitches".

Preview sale

2010-08-19T10:29:00.010-05:00

I have all my paintings out of storage in preparation for the show I'm having next week at Christ Church Cathedral Cloisters Gallery next week and this is what my living room looks like. It looks like this about 3 times a year, before each show.

A friend of mine mentioned to me that she was interested in possibly buying one of my paintings and we talked about going over to my storage unit to take a look. But now that I have everything at my house, I called her and invited her to come and preview the paintings before I hang them next week. Now I kinda wish I had mentioned having a "preview sale" to a few more people, but there is alwalys next time. Actually there isn't a next time right now, I don't have any shows planned. Darn, I wish I had thought of this "preview sale" earlier.

I was, as usual, worried about how to price my paintings. Many are priced because they were in a show just a few months ago. My friend Diane Hoeptner had a brilliant suggestion, she suggested I just price them by size. I think many artists do this and it sure seems like a good way to make things easier. So that's what I did. I have my price list ready, the last thing I want to do is make up prices on the spot, that's not good business practice.

Okay, she'll be here in 15 minutes, I'll let you know how it goes . . .

Another Planet

2010-08-17T13:03:00.002-05:00

A very bright planet. Where the grass is yellow. But they have trees there.

Well, I was experimenting with color and this is what I got. I had it sitting on my mantle, where all my paintings sit for a while after I finish them before they are deemed "finished", anyway, I looked at it and thought, that looks like another planet! Those were not my exact words but close enough. I was trying to get the sense of sunlight, which I got, but . . . I need to try and paint a bright sunny day on earth.

Moving on. Next week I am having a show at a large church in downtown Houston. So that means the schlepping of paintings begins today. I just got back from my storage unit where I made three trips with the big cart to my car with paintings, and now they're unloaded and in my living room.

I pretty much got every single painting I have. I'll need to decide which 25 will go in the show and then next Tuesday I go and hang the work. Wonder if anybody will be interested in a painting of trees on another planet?

A Holy Place to be

2010-08-14T10:49:00.000-05:00

I am soooo happy to have this painting done! It is a painting of our church, St. John the Divine Epsicopal Church, in Houston, Texas, which I'll donate to the church's Silent Auction next month. I've had this painting in my head for months and I finally got around to painting it. I'll also make some notecards of this image, I'll donate some packages of notecards for the auction and they'll also be for sale in the church bookstore, after the auction.

The church faces North. Problem. I took so many photos of the church, hoping to get a little sunlight on the face of it. It turns out during the longest days of summer, there is sun on the face of the church early in the morning and at sunset. I took the sunset photos and my sweet husband went over one day before work and took some photos just after the sun came up. Those were the best. The silent auction is September 12, I hope this painting gets a good response.

Nat'l Juried Show: Acceptances and Rejections

2010-08-12T09:48:00.001-05:00

I got good news in the mail yesterday, my SASE came back from the National Society of Artists' 26th Annual National Juried show with notification that three of my paintings were accepted into the show. I have just started entering shows recently and getting that envelope in the mail was exciting.

I entered five paintings, one of the reasons being that the show will be held within driving distance so I knew I would be able to hand deliver any of my paintings that got into the show. Shipping costs can add up. I once entered a painting in a show in New York City (honestly just so I could say I have shown my work in NYC) and it cost me $35 for a sturdy shipping box and another $25 to ship the painting. When they called and said my painting didn't sell, I told them to keep it for their next show! The money would go to a charitable cause, plus I didn't want to deal with or pay another $25 to ship back the painting.

The first three paintings I've posted are the three that were accepted.

The two paintings below are the two that were rejected. I'm still learning the ropes, but I don't think you can ever know ahead of time what will be accepted or rejected. I waited a long time before I started entering competitions, I waited until I felt pretty confident about my entries. Rejections are not fun. I like the painting of the woman below with the red shawl but . . . . now that I think of it . . . . this is the second time this painting has been rejected from a Nat'l Juried Show. I'll look for one more show to enter it into, hoping there is something to the saying "third time's a charm".

The landscape below was also rejected. I painted this plein air in Galveston over Memorial Day weekend. I was pretty happy with myself for being able to sit on the beach and paint this fairly simple painting among all the confusion of the holiday crowds, the buildings and just all the stuff in the landscape. Part of painting a landscape is learning what not to include in the painting.

The show starts with the Awards and Gala reception on September 25th and ends late October at The Center for the Arts and Sciences in Clute, Texas. It's nice when the paintings hang for a month, more chance for sales.

Farm Road

2010-08-10T16:24:00.000-05:00

I just love painting buildings. Structures of any kind. I wonder if it's because a building built by man leaves some kind of imprint on the landscape? To me the story of the human presence must be more interesting than the beauty of a natural setting. I wouldn't have guessed that, but why else can't I resist painting buildings? Hmph.

This painting is oil on canvas and is 12"x12". I am having a show at the Cloister Gallery at Christ Church Cathedral Episcopal Church in September so I'm trying to paint some painting for that show. A couple of months ago I got carried away about bought four 12"x12" frames from the frame guy that comes through town and now I'm trying to fill them up!

Two Barns

2010-08-09T11:30:00.003-05:00

I am back to painting barns after a nice vacation to Maine. Ready to get back to some familiar territory, painting things I'm not used to painting should probably be as easy as painting familiar things, after all, we just "paint what we see", right? But it wasn't easy at all to paint unfamiliar things like rocks and boats and water (!). So I'm ready to dive back into painting things on land. ("Dive" back into painting things on land? I need to learn to speak English, that's probably mixing metaphors or something . . . . )

This is 12"x12" oil on canvas. It's from a photo I took last summer. I can never have enough photos of barns and I found myself going through my photo files and the design elements of this photo jumped out at me. I think that barn in the foreground has some personality.

I entered 5 paintings in the National Society of Artists 26th National Juried Show and I'm waiting to hear if any of them got into the show. I went ahead and entered five, partly because the show is being held less than an hour from my home and I can drive my paintings to the show instead of shipping them. So, I've got my fingers crossed, hoping for my SASE envelope to come back in the mail with an acceptance enclosed. The letters were mailed out Saturday.

Wet Panel Carrier and a surprise

2010-08-06T15:04:00.003-05:00

My wet panel carrier arrived from Maine. I ordered the thing especially for the trip. It works perfectly and is beautiful, more discussion and photos below.

When I opened up the wet panel carrier and took out my paintings, most of them were just as I had remembered. Studies that had some good things about each one and some things that need to be improved upon. But I was pleasantly surprised to pull out this little 6"x8" of the rocks on the beach.

I painted this the second time I went to the beach called Wonderland on Mount Desert Island. This time my family left me there while they went back to the Jordan Pond House for more popovers. Ha, popovers are the last thing I need! And anyway, I would rather paint than eat popovers. Below is a photo I took of my set up, I sat on those rocks for a couple of hours while I painted.

Below is my wet panel carrier. I ordered it from Artwork Essentials and it was $69 plus $16 shipping. It is 10"x12", the paintings you see in the carrier are 8"x10" paintings. I also put in a bunch of 6"x8" panels. The remaining area I used for shipping paint. You could take out the divider and store 9"x12" panels, or any other panels that are 12" wide. Two panels fit back to back in each groove, so the wet sides of the panels face outwards.

Not all wet panel carriers are made with grooves big enough for Gatorfoam, but these grooves are wide enough. This carrier holds 10 panels. If you're going to buy a wet panel carrier, make sure to check if it'll carry your particular painting surface: birch panels, stretched canvas, or Gatorfoam panels.

And that's our precious kitty whom I rescued a month ago. She is a wonderful kitten and has been a great addition to our household.

Swan's Island house

2010-08-03T11:42:00.002-05:00

This is a house on Swan's Island, one of the islands near Mount Desert Island. We stayed with a dear friend on MDI and he has a motorboat. We loaded up 4 bicyles, his dog, and 6 of us on the motorboat and rode about an hour over to Swan's Island. It was a fun boat ride, so much fun to ride around and see all the other islands, sailboats, and lobsterboats.

After having a picnic lunch, we walked around a bit and I found this beautiful house perched up on a hill overlooking a harbor on the island. I set up to paint, everyone else rode bikes or hiked around. It was an overcast day and usually when the sun isn't out I don't paint. I just decide I'll wait until a sunny day so I have the strong shadow and light contrast. But this time I decided to paint anyway, even without the shadows and light. I like the way it turned out. I think this painting is more about the design and the color. I love the color of that grass and I felt a little brave putting down that color.

Below is the dock in front of our friend's house. We're getting ready to take one of those little dingy's out to the motorboat, then bring the motorboat to the dock and load up everything. There I am on the dock taking photos . . . . not much help with getting things ready. But I did make lunches. :)

Maine shoreline study

2010-08-01T12:28:00.005-05:00

There is a beach area on Mount Desert Island called Wonderland. You access this rocky beach by hiking along a path through the woods for about 20 minutes. One day my family and I packed a picnic lunch and headed over there. Of course I brought my painting supplies.

Hmph, this painting looks better when you squint. I sometimes tell myself I would like to make paintings that no one knows what they are until you read the title, then you say aha, now I see it. I think this qualifies as one of those paintings and now I'm not sure that's such a big goal of mine anymore.

That one rock in shadow in the middle of the painting is too dark, or either some of the others are too light. But I decided to leave it the way it is since this is only a study and if I ever get back to painting rocks from my photographs, I will want to see all the impressions I had on that day.

I remember I was so absorbed in my painting that I was surprised to hear someone walk up behind me. (Other) tourists taking a look at what I was doing. I was in my own world for a while and it was wonderful.

Jordan Pond House view

2010-07-29T19:48:00.005-05:00

One day when we were in Maine we went to the Jordan Pond House for popovers. We had been hearing about the fresh baked warm popovers for quite some time, so we had to go try them. They were delicious, though because they weren't part of my favorite food group: chocolate, they don't get the highest marks. After popovers my family left me to paint and they went to the top of Cadillac Mountain.

I set up with my back to the House, which is really a restaurant, and faced Jordan Pond. The restaurant is very large and can probably seat 300 people, so there were lots of people milling about. There is a trail that goes down to Jordan Pond and you can even hike all the way around the pond. I would call it a lake. Anyway, since I was right next to the path, I had a lot of people stop to see what I was doing and talk to me. I can see how it would be distracting, but on this day it was lots of fun to talk to people. I even had someone interested in another painting I had done and had with me, but the price was too high for them. Too bad, it would have been fun to make a sale. I even had a number of people ask me if they could take my picture. :)

I'm not crazy about this painting. But it's all good practice. Painting plein air isn't easy and not everything I paint works out. I painted 10 paintings during our Maine vacation and I'll probably only post 4 or 5 of them. I only brought back a couple, the rest I put in my brand new wet panel carrier and shipped back, they should arrive next week.

Oh, I almost forgot. Towards the end of this painting the fog rolled in, as evidenced in the top photo. So that's my excuse (in my mind) for not painting something I loved here. I had better get to work on my excuses for all those other paintings I did in Maine that didn't work out . . .

Yellow House on Little Cranberry Island

2010-07-26T17:11:00.009-05:00

We are back from a wonderful two weeks in Maine. We stayed with friends on Mount Desert Island and had such a nice time. One day five of us took the motorboat over to Little Cranberry Island, one of the many small islands near MDI. My daughter and I stayed on the island while the rest of our crew went off in the boat to explore other places.

I found this pretty yellow house a short walk from the dock and set up to paint. What fun I had! My daughter stayed with me to keep me company, she did a little exploring too. Just up the road is a church and a little grocery store so she went for refreshments.

I used my new pochade box for the first time on this trip and it worked out perfectly. And that hat I'm wearing . . . . I don't have an umbrella so this is the next best thing. I can actually fold it up and stuff it in my bag, there is a kind of wire along the brim of the hat so I can shape it however I want to when I put it on. That hat provides a good amount of shade but I wish it were even bigger.

This little island had a restaurant on the dock which we ate at on our first evening on MDI. We sat outside and had some kind of seafood platter with all kinds of boiled creatures on it! I like some seafood but I'm not that adventurous.

Spending the afternoon painting on this island with my daughter was one of my favorite days from our trip.

On another note: Followers! I didn't know I had ANY and I was doing some editing on my blog and came across a list of 41 followers! FORTY ONE! How cool is that! Thanks everybody for following my blog!!!

Revelation

2010-07-12T20:21:00.001-05:00

On the Fourth of July I headed back down to the little dock on the Llano River and set up facing across the river at dusk. I waited, hoping for a pretty sunset and I got one! The sky was soooo beautiful, all those peaches and purples! This time I painted a little larger, this painting is 8"x10" oil on canvas.

As soon as the sun went down we shot lots of fireworks off this dock. Then at 9:45 p.m. the town of Kingsland puts on an impressive fireworks show over the water. My husband, son and I watched it from a boat in the water. The fireworks were beautiful but I couldn't take my eyes off the inky black water. Then after the BIG fireworks were over we sat out on the dock for another 45 minutes and watched as people around the lake shot off more fireworks. As beautiful as the fireworks were, they couldn't come close to God's evening sky a few hours beforehand.

My husband took another photo of me as I was painting this evening.

Texas Hill Country plein air

2010-07-10T20:14:00.003-05:00

For the Fourth of July my family and I went up to the Texas hill country. I had been looking forward to getting out in the hill country and painting for a couple of weeks, it hasn't been as easy to find scenes to paint here in the big city of Houston. Because of Hurricane Alex we had rain for a week and when we got up to the hill country, it was still raining! But, after a couple of days it slowed to a drizzle and then stopped.

I set up my new pochade box (!) out on the dock in front of my mother-in-law's house and painted the scene above. The river takes a turn around the bend and it was beautiful at dusk.

Finished with that, I turned to talk to my brother-in-law and as I was putting away my paints I noticed a gorgeous peachy sky. So I unpacked what I had packed and did a small 5"x7" of the sunset. This one is looking directly across the river:

My husband took this photo of me painting the first painting. I loved being out there painting, it was so peaceful and there were no distractions.

Advice on Building a Pochade Box

2010-07-06T19:10:00.020-05:00

My advice on building your own pochade box is simple: don't do it! In hindsight it would have been better for me to just buy one. Building it wasn't complicated and my only real complaint is that it was way TOO time consuming. But if you like spending your time in hardware stores, and driving around town from one hardware store to the next looking for just the right little peice of hardware, then read on. Above is a photo of the finished pochade box, which works beautifully.

Below is a box I started with. I went to a large liquor store here in Houston that also sells cigars. I was looking for a cigar box, not liquor. :) They only had cardboard cigar boxes but I found this wonderfully sized box that originally held a bottle of tequila. Once emptied, the liquor store sells these boxes for $5. I got a special deal of $3 because I gave the 4 little shot glasses in the box to the cashier after she admired them.

I thought the box was too long so I drew a line with a pencil and cut off about 3 inches. I just used a small hand saw for this.

I cut new sides out of those scraps and glued and nailed them on to get a better sized box.

Below is what our kitchen table looked like while I was working on this box! I used a nice 8"x10" canvas mounted on birch for my palette. I bought little 1/4"x1/2" strips of wood at the art store and cut those to make a little wall around the palette. I glued two 1/2"x1/2" strips of wood in the bottom of the box, about 3/4" down from the top of the box, for the palette to rest on.

All the cutting, glueing and nailing was done. I was still in the "honeymoon phase" of making my pochade box. Look how pretty it looks! (below)

But that's when the trouble started. I eventually, and I do mean eventually, found the right sized hinges and front clasp (at Home Depot), I bought some little lengths of chain and screwed them in to hold the top from flopping all the way back (those came from a local hardware store), I bought just the right sized screws so they wouldn't go through the wood. But then some of them did go through the wood so I had to go back to the hardware store for a file to file down the tips of the screws that went through the wood. Oh, needed special wood glue. Tiny nails. Tiny but longer. Not that long. Went to a specialty hardware store looking for clasps and bought one which I didn't end up using. Considered going back to the liquor store . . . . just kidding.

By the end of it I counted ELEVEN trips to FOUR different hardware stores plus the art store for the lightweight strips of wood. Oh, the problem still remained of how to attach the canvas to the inside of the top of the pochade box. I used two hooks made from S-hooks and tied a piece of elastic to each one. I had to use plyers to open up the S-hooks a bit so they would hook around my canvas panels. Then I drilled a hole through the middle vertical bar and put the elastic through that hole. Now each hook attaches to a side of the canvas and the elastic keeps it in place. I even tied on an additional hook a little farther out on the elastic for bigger canvas.

The last thing I did was attach my quick release tripod mount to the bottom of the pochade box. And then of course I found I needed taller legs so I could put this on a table top if I wanted. I cut two strips of wood and glued and nailed each one on the side.

Below is another photo of the finished product. You can see the hooks holding the canvas in place. That's a 5"x7" canvas. You can even see a little of the elastic to the right of the canvas with another hook, that's for an 8"x10" canvas.

I guess the advantage of building this myself, besides saving a couple hundred dollars, was that now I can use this one for a while and decide what I like about it and what I don't before I order a ready made one. So, if you decide to build one, it takes lots of thought but it's nice to have exactly what I want. And it's great to be out of the dark ages of using my old french easel, this new one with the wonderful lightweight Manfrotto tripod I got works beautifully. Good luck!

Bass Harbor Lighthouse, Maine

2010-06-23T10:05:00.007-05:00

This is a painting of the Bass Harbor Lighthouse on Mount Desert Island, Maine. I thought I should do some practicing of Maine landscapes since we'll be there later this summer and I plan to paint up there. We were there a few years ago so I dug out some of my old photographs. Sorry to go on and on about this trip but I'm SO excited to go to Maine and get out of the heat and paint outdoors.

I had never painted rocks before. I think the important thing is to keep the shadow and the light side of the rocks separate. Then after that it's just a matter of how much detail went in. I tried to put just enough to show they were rocks. And the lighthouse was just pure fun. I remember visiting this lighthouse, it's the only lighthouse on Mount Desert Island and there is a path down to the rocks.

I found a quote in my little book "Hawthorne on Painting" that speaks to light and shadows. The book is a collection of critiques he made on students' paintings, here is he speaking to a student who painted a white house with willow trees: "I want you to see things from the realization that your drawing does not need to be a house. The view that you must take is that this is a piece of God's outdoors, that this is shadow and this is light. You ought to tremble before it, and not sit down like a magician and try to make windows." Very powerful words!

This is 8"x10" oil on canvas.

Haybales along Hwy 288

2010-06-21T21:34:00.003-05:00

This afternoon I drove to the place I had planned to paint the other day, when I brought home the kitty instead. I drove 37 miles and set up next to a big field with haybales. I painted haybales last week from an old photograph and I really needed to get out there and paint from life.

It was 100 degrees here, but I set out anyway. I'm always a little nervous about painting plein air on my own, especially when I'm outside the crowded city limits of Houston. I left a note for my husband so in case I didn't return, the police would have something to go on. Go ahead and laugh . . . a car pulled up next to me and a man got out and walked over to me. Okay, his wife was in the car and I could have taken him anyway, he was not a large man, but it made me a little nervous when the car stopped. All this is to say you can't be too careful.

I spent an hour painting the field, haybales and distant trees. I remembered there being shade at this particular place, but I got that wrong. No shade. I put on my big straw hat, turned my easel so at least the canvas wasn't in the sun and got busy. It's a quick study, I was just focusing on trying to get the colors down. I had so much fun though, painting outdoors really is addicting.

Jackie O

2010-06-20T16:05:00.005-05:00

Dear Alexandria, Celeste, Linda, Janelle, Marian, Sheila and David,
Thank you all for your kind and supportive words about my getting this new little kitty. I just put her picture up cause I thought she was so cute and never expected such support! David, I especially appreciate your kind words. Thank you all.

The little kitty still hides most of the day, but she does venture out and even was sitting on the sofa yeterday. We've decided to call her Jackie O, the markings on her face look like big dark sunglasses and though she's tiny, she's (so far) reserved and I'm hoping well mannered.

Yesterday morning I bought some frames from the "frame guy" who comes to Houston about four times a year. He travels around Texas and surrounding states pulling a trailer full of nice quality ready-made frames at good prices. I bought seven. Of course this sounds like a good idea, but I don't always correctly predict which sizes I'll need which explains the small stockpile of frames in the attic.

A new kitten instead of plein air painting

2010-06-18T23:19:00.008-05:00

Yesterday was my mother's 87th birthday so I drove 45 minnutes to go out to lunch with her and my sister. Then we celebrated with a birthday cake at her Assited Living Home. I had my car all packed for plein air painting, I planned to stop on the way home and paint. I scouted out places on the drive there, I spotted a nice shady spot with a view of hay bales in a field, and I spotted some nice barns. But . . . all those plans went out the window when I decided to bring home this sweet little kitten. It was living outside the Assisted Living Home, someone had dropped it off and some of the residents were feeding it on the sly. It really needed a home before the owners of the home discovered it and called the pound. I decided I was the person to give it a home. So we found a box, cut some air holes in it, put the kitty in the box (not as easy as that sounds) and I brought it home.

Traumatic day for the kitty, but that was nothing compared to the visit to the vet this morning.

So, hopefully I'll get out there and paint soon. I read someone's blog who paints 3"x4" paintings plein air. That's smaller than I've ever painted but something to think about. Though now I really want to paint this little kitty!

Getting ready for plein air painting

2010-06-16T19:42:00.004-05:00

Yay! The booklet about plein air painting on Mount Desert Island, Maine arrived today! Who know? I found a SIXTY page booklet on the best places to paint plein air on MDI. This booklet tells you where to go, where the best and nearest parking is, and where the nearest restrooms are, or in some cases that there are no restrooms nearby. The complete title is "Acadia National Park and Mount Desert Island Plein Air Artist Guide" and it is written by Gail Ribas. I had a lovely half hour reading through this book and dreaming of all the places I'll paint when we go to MDI later this summer.

So, for this trip I'll need a better set-up than my Julian french easel. I am not dragging that on the airplane, though I did take it to Wisconsin last year for a workshop. What was I thinking. After a ridiculous amount of time trying to figure out which pochade box I would most like to have, I've decided on the Bitterroot by Alla Prima Pochade. But I won't take that to Maine for two reasons. First, it takes 5-6 weeks to make one so I won't have it in time. Second, though this is a moot point since I won't have the box anyway: I also think it'll be too heavy of a set up once I add a tripod to take on this particular trip. So that will be my pochade box for painting here in the Houston area and when I drive nearby places like Galveston Island and the Hill Country.

For the trip to Maine I've decided to try and put together my own makeshift pochade box. Today I went to a large liquor store here in Houston that also sells cigars, I went looking for empty cigar boxes. They only had a few cardboard cigar boxes but they had a beautiful wooden box that had at one time had a bottle of tequila inside of it. For $5 I decided this might work. There were also 4 shot glasses in the box. When the cashier commented on how pretty they were I told her she could have them. She then charged me $3 instead of $5 for the box. I explained what I wanted with the box and she became enthusiastic about the project. She said to come back tomorrow when the woman in charge of the cigars was there and maybe we could empty a cigar box that would fit my needs. Now it's a group project! So I'll go back tomorrow and see about that, otherwise I'll need to make some modifications to my $3 box pictured below:

Black, brown, brown

2010-06-09T13:54:00.002-05:00

Three cows in the middle of the road in the Texas Hill Country. This is 9"x12" oil on linen canvas. Cows are fun to paint, I wish I had more pictures. They are not a very cooperative subject!

Last day on Galveston Island

2010-06-04T10:08:00.003-05:00

Actually I painted this on the second to last day, I didn't paint on the last day of our vacation. On this morning I set up facing the pretty row of beach houses again. Getting a little braver, I painted on the only 8"x10" canvas that I brought along. I added the Texas flag, there was actually an OU (University of Oklahoma) flag there which gave me the idea of a flag, but I just couldn't paint an OU flag since I went to UT (The University of Texas). :) Anyway, the Texas flag has a broader appeal since I painted this one with a future show in mind.

Below is the reason I need to order a wet panel carrier pronto! When it came time to pack, I had to figure out how to get my wet paintings safely into our packed car. The night before we went out to dinner and I asked for an empty to-go container, the waiter looked at me strangely since there was no food left on my plate to put in the container, but it came in handy for a wet 6"x8" panel and I wish I had asked for another one. In the end, all my paintings made it home safely, it would just be less stress to have a nice wet panel carrier to slide my paintings into!

Galveston beach sunset

2010-06-03T14:55:00.008-05:00

Okay, this painting is probably a little crazy, and certainly not your typical "sunset" painting, it's the view looking towards the sunset from the back of the beach house we rented on Galveston Island. I wanted to challenge myself with a different lighting situation so I rearranged the patio furniture so I had a table to paint on and a chair to sit in with this view towards the west. This was fun to do, though difficult; the sun was going down fast and those shadows kept changing and it was getting dark. But I think this is one of my favorites from our little trip.

After I finished a painting I put each one on the fireplace mantle in the beach house to dry. It was fun to have this little collection of paintings which I added to daily. Who knew plein air painting could be so much fun? Not me, but now I know.

Memorial Day Weekend

2010-06-01T16:06:00.009-05:00

My family went down to Galveston Island for a few days. The weather was perfect, sunny skies, moderate temperatures which means 80's for Texas, and a nice breeze almost all the time. The water was even relatively clear and the beaches were clean. It was a wonderful vacation. I brought along my paints and canvas and painted every day.

The painting above was done one morning. I sat on the beach facing east and painted a row of beach houses illuminated by the morning sun. I sat on the beach under my mid sized umbrella and it was heaven to paint uninteruppted!

Another day I sat on the beach and faced away from the water and painted the dunes and some of the beach houses behind the dunes. This one was done one afternoon. It was such good practice to get outside and paint at different times of the day. Good practice to notice how warm the afternoon light is and how relatively cool the morning sun is. I learned a lot from my few days of painting, more tomorrow . . . .

Thank you to everyone who took the time to recommend an outdoor easel, I really appreciate it. After the last few days of painting and schlepping my art supplies around, I can really see how I need to get a more streamlined system.

Cattle crossing and easel recommendation?

2010-05-26T12:31:00.005-05:00

I haven't posted in a while, my daughter is home from college, my son is in finals, I have commissions going, we had a racoon family living in our chimeny, blah blah blah, lots of things were keeping me from painting. But I couldn't take it anymore (!) so I found the time to paint this little painting.

My mother-in-law lives in the Texas Hill Country, not far from her house is a long Ranch Road that my husband I usually walk daily when our family visits. Last time we were up there taking our walk, this little herd of cattle was right in the middle of the road. Usually when I try to take photos of cows they are in a field and we are zooming by in the car at 70 mph. I take pictures anyway. The cows are usually facing the wrong way (away from me), or they are too far away, or something. Good cow pictures are hard to come by. So what a gift it was to see these cows right there in front of me! I used my husband's cell phone to call our daughter and asked her to quickly grab my camera and hop in the car and drive it to me! She did and I took some great photos of these cows.

This painting is 9"x12" oil on canvas. This will be my new size canvas for a while, I ordered a bunch of panels from New Traditions Art Panels recently and I feel like I need to use them up.

I'm thinking about getting a new easel for outdoors. I have a wooden Julian easel that is just too heavy to drag around when I paint outdoors. Does anyone have a plein air easel recommendation? I would love to hear about plein air easels, thank you!

Pastel trees

2010-05-17T18:06:00.002-05:00

Finally I have something to post! May has been a busy month, my daughter is home from college, our 9th grader has a busy schedule since there are only a few more days of school left, and I have 3 commissions I'm trying to get done in between everything else.

But, I did find some time to make a few pastel sketches. I bought three nice sets of pastels ten years ago when I studied with an artist who did pastel portraits. We lived in Holland at the time and I have wonderful memories of drawing a model in her studio in The Hague. Instead of painting small thumbnails with oil paint, I decided to dig out those old pastels. How easy it is to make a quick pastel sketch! And, no clean up. The only disadvantage is the bottom of my feet getting covered with a thin coat of pastel dust when I walk into my studio.

Early self portrait

2010-04-23T17:50:00.003-05:00

Since I've had more than the usual amount of portrait commissions lately, and I wrote about portrait commissions yesterday, it seemed a good time to post this early self portrait.

I did this when I was 17. Not sure what kind of style you would call that, I didn't have much in the way of artistic influence when I was 17. Anyway, I was more interested in boys and talking my parents into letting me go to the next rock concert. Or how I could get to the concert after they said no. So I was pretty busy.

I hadn't seen this little work of art in a couple of decades, I recently found it in a box of artwork I did when I was a kid. I am sure glad my mother saved that box.

A day in the life of a portrait artist

2010-04-22T19:18:00.002-05:00

Well, today I feel like a portrait artist. I started the day off with a photo shoot of a darling 3 year old boy. The grandmother is my client and friend and this is the third portrait I've done for her. The grandmother and her husband came over with the little boy, his mom, and 6 month old baby sister. (And future subject!) We had a blast, the little boy played with one of my son's toy cars, ate an apple, and generally had a good time and I got some great photos. I'll contact the client in a week or so and we'll take a look at the best photos. After that I can start painting the portrait.

This afternoon I had meeting No. 2. I took photos 3 weeks ago of a woman whose husband wants to have her portrait painted. Initially he wanted a head and shoulders so I took photos with that in mind. I have a gorgeous full length gown and during the photo shoot we thought it would be fun to take some photos of the lady in the gown. It's a vintage Valentino gown that I bought when I volunteered at our church thrift store. I'm not sure why I bought it, I've never worn it. Anyway, I printed out some of the shots of her in the gown and they loved them. The head and shoulders portrait has now turned into a full length portrait. She's an elegant woman and the gown seems to just fit her, so it'll be a lovely portrait.

Last Saturday I took photos of a client's two dogs. Next step is to meet with him and his wife and decide on the photos they like and then I'll paint the dogs. That will probably happen this weekend.

Right now most of my business is coming from portrait commissions. I have a show at a local church this month but when I was over there last weekend, only one painting had sold. That was disappointing, but my commissions are keeping me busy.

Leopard dress with less blue

2010-04-17T10:17:00.003-05:00

I decided there was too much blue in the skin on this painting so I toned down the blue. I still see the cool blues in her skin but now I think the skin looks more natural.

Leopard dress

2010-04-16T17:52:00.005-05:00

Whew, this little painting took longer and was harder than I thought it would be. Good thing it's only 9"x12". I am still working small while I try to figure out . . . well I'm not sure what I'm trying to figure out. I have a plan in my mind of some figuratives so I guses I'm just working towards that vision.

I plan to paint this same painting larger. I'm glad I didn't jump into the larger painting without doing this smaller one first, it's like a study and I think that's a good idea for me right now. I don't know how many times I've painted a large painting and decided I didn't like the background color, it's easier to make those kinds of corrections on smaller canvases. I'm usually not patient enough to do that though.

My husband and son are away on a Boy Scout camp out this weekend so I have the whole weekend to do nothing but paint! Yay! Oh, maybe I shouldn't have said that, now I'm committed to post at least one new thing during the weekend.

Red Ribbon

2010-04-12T18:19:00.003-05:00

I am still focusing on stopping earlier rather than later with my paintings. I am enjoying leaving more of the brushstrokes visible. The Abstract Expressionists appreciated paint for paint's sake and not just for what was represented with the paint. I'm a long long way from abstract expressionism here but when I make a beautiful thick mark with my loaded brush, I am trying to leave that stroke just because it's a beautiful expression. Sometimes, though, I do have to lose those nice strokes because they're either a.) in the wrong place or b.) the wrong value or color, but the more I paint the more I'll make those marks "correctly" the first time. At least that's the plan.

This painting is 10"x10" oil on canvas. Just a little larger than my last one which was 8"x8". I'm still a little scared of the larger canvases with this new batch of figures. Right now I just want to practice painting faces and not have to put a lot of time into entire compositions.

Don't think, just paint

2010-04-09T16:33:00.005-05:00

This morning I painted this young woman. It was a beautiful day and I went out in the backyard to see if there was a place where I could paint her outdoors, but in the end I decided painting her in my studio was best. We spent a delightful three hours together.

This painting is fairly small, 8"x8" oil on canvas. I like this size because I was able to complete the painting in one day. I'm enjoying painting a little faster, in my mind that is part of this "intuitive" painting that I'm working towards. On this painting I got to a certain point and I was trying to figure out how to mix the next color and instead of taking my time and thinking it through, I consciously forced myself just to grab color off my palette. I don't even remember what exactly I was painting at the time, and who knows, I may have had to paint over what I did, but I like that I didn't over evaluate a particular color I needed. Maybe that's what intuitive painting is. Anyway, I feel like just that one little move, that little voice in my head that said "don't think, just paint", that was a big step for me.

Sideways

2010-04-08T17:00:00.001-05:00

This is 16"x16" oil on canvas, I finished it yesterday in between all the other stuff I had going on. This young woman turned out a little quirky with some attitude, I'm not sure how that happened but I like it. I was thinking I wanted to paint a figure who exuded confidence. I'm also trying to focus on painting figures with energy just below a calm surface.

Below is a close up of her face. The trick here was knowing when to stop, or rather just STOPPING. I could continue to play with the paint for hours, once the painting gets to this point it's just pure fun. It's the earlier stages that can be nerve wracking.

An update on that animal in our attic: it turns out the exterminator only catches rodents, and I think we have a squirrel or possum up there. I talked to a critter control company and they want hundreds of dollars to come catch whatever it is, then find how it got in and seal that up. I read on the internet where squirrels don't like the smell of moth balls so I bought some of those. I think we'll be able to get it to leave. The guy at the critter control company said we're at the very end of the season for squirrels to be in houses and attics (didn't know there was a season for that) and in about two weeks it'll probably leave on it's own. Then we'll have screens put over the louvers in the attic, I think that's how it got in. So, plan B: moth balls.

What do I do all day?

2010-04-07T12:08:00.006-05:00

Really, what do I do all day? I don't know where my day goes. I suppose I know where most of it goes but I won't bore you with all the errands that I do each day in my job as a mother, wife, homemaker and volunteer. Oh, not to mention we have some kind of animal in our attic that sounds like it's rearranging furniture up there at 3:00 a.m., so I'm waiting for the exterminator to show up (to catch it and release it in the nearby park, not kill it). And, we're redoing our backyard patio because the bricks have gotten so uneven they are hazardous, so I'm waiting for a brick guy to show up too. I wouldn't have it any other way, but some days it's frustrating when I just can't get into the studio. My conclusion is that I am not very good at time management. That must be it.

As an artist, I paint. I haven't spent much time on the accompanying activities that I as an art business should be doing. For example, marketing, entering competitions, finding places to display my work, and the biggie, trying to get into a gallery. I always feel like I'll do those things when I get ten paintings, ten great paintings, together. So I have my little pile of paintings that I think might be good enough to show a gallery, or enter into a contest. But, that pile never gets very high because as I paint new things, paintings from the bottom of the pile get bumped. My pile is now at an all time high, five paintings! ("Pile" may not be the right word.) So I figured it's time to get them out of my house and into the world. Well, that takes time too! And more than I thought, darn it.

After the past week of trying to negotiate competitions to enter, and local galleries to approach, I have a new found respect for artists. It's not easy. Yesterday I was talking to a local artist who is in "several" galleries but in the past year she's lost two of those galleries because they closed. And she hasn't replaced them. Hmm, that was discouraging since I would love to be in a gallery, but no matter what I'll keep painting.

Today I posted a painting that is in progress. I had initially planned to make the background dark, but I like it light so I think I will leave it light. I'll post the finished piece soon. It's 16"x16" oil on canvas.

The Dancer

2010-03-30T19:20:00.014-05:00

This is a 9"x12" oil on canvas. I dug out some old photos I took of a ballerina that modeled for me a while back, she has since moved away unfortunately. But I'm glad I still have the photos I took of her.

I am trying to break away from the way I normally paint and paint more intuitively. I'm not sure exactly how to explain what I'm doing (most likely because I don't know exactly what I'm doing), but anyway, I'm trying to paint my response to the subject and not just what I see. One of the ways, and I'm sure there are many, to translate how I respond to a subject is with color. So that's where I am now, trying to use color to express how a subject feels to me. As I get more proficient with color expression I'll move onto the next form of expression on a canvas and I'm not even sure what that is right now.

I just realized that the name I chose for this painting is pretty basic, maybe even boring. If I'm going to get outside my comfort zone and paint more intuitively, I'll need to come up with some more creative names for my paintings. Reminds me of the time I painted three chicken paintings and called them "Chicken No. 1", "Chicken No. 2" and yup, "Chicken No. 3".

On another note today I hung my paintings at St. Lukes United Methodist Church. All 30 of them and it took 1 1/2 hours. Thankfully the woman in charge of the art shows at the church was there to help me the whole time. It was a lot more work than I thought, which is usually the case.

On the drive over to the church I started questioning whether doing these local shows is the best way to sell my work. It sure takes a lot of time and effort to get everything framed and then store the framed pieces in between shows. Naturally I think being in a gallery would be the best way to sell my paintings but 1.) I know that's not the perfect answer and 2.) until I have enough consistent work to approach a gallery, I need another plan. So I thought about trying to sell some work on the internet, it might be worth a try. Most of the local shows take 25 or 30% of the selling price of the piece, and by the time I take out what I paid for frames, there isn't much left. I might be able to sell my work on the internet and save myself a lot of running around to boot. I'll give it some more thought.

After spending all morning and into the afternoon preparing for the show and hanging it, I went to the printer and picked up my Easter cards. Seeing that shrink wrapped package of all those freshly printed cards made me so happy!

Easter card and upcoming show

2010-03-28T15:04:00.008-05:00

SOLD

I am working on two art related activities right now. The first is an Easter card that I'm making to send out to friends and family. I bought some lilies and set them up in my studio and spent a wonderful afternoon painting them. It was more fun than I thought it would be, the good thing about painting a still life is that I can take a break whenever I want to and I don't have to entertain (or feed) a model. Though I love painting models too, that just takes a little more energy. So, about the best way I can imagine to spend a weekday afternoon is to spend it painting in my studio . . . . painting anything.

I e-mailed a jpeg of the Easter lilies image to the printer on Thursday, he'll have a proof for me to look at on Monday. Hopefully I'll get the cards on Tuesday and then I can send them out. The inside of the card will say:

Christ is risen.
The Lord has risen indeed.
Alleluia.

The printer shrink wraps my orders and I just love picking up a nice neat shrink wrapped order of brand new notecards. I don't make any money on the notecards that I sell, but I'll probably continue making and selling notecards just because I love the feel of the paper and having notecards that I can use, sell and give away. And I think there is a marketing benefit of having 100's of my notecards "out there".

The other art related activity around here is getting ready for an up coming show. I will hang my work at St. Lukes United Methodist Church here in Houston on Tuesday morning. So, this meant another trip to the storage unit where I picked up all my paintings and brought them home or to the framer.

This is what our living room looks like now! Thankfully I have an understanding family, we'll have to practically step over these paintings until Tuesday. I do have to spread them out so I can decide what goes in the show and what doesn't, and to price them all. This show will hang for a month. I am marking my work fairly low because frankly, I am tired of all the schlepping associated with having so many paintings. I managed to come up with 30 paintings for this show so I expect some to sell, which will be good. I have too many paintings in me and I need to spend my time painting those instead of dragging these around town.

Diane Hoeptner

2010-03-25T19:03:00.004-05:00

When I got home from my trip to NYC there was a package waiting for me among my pile of bills. It's always so much fun to get a package! I had no idea what it was, I wasn't expecting anything. I opened it up and inside was this beautiful painting from my dear friend Diane Hoeptner, she sent it from Ohio!!! Check out her website, she is a very talented painter. What a wonderful birthday present!

Giving a gift that you take the time to make yourself is so special. I remember when I was a kid my father always wanted me to make him something for his birthday or Christmas, he felt like those were the most precious gifts. I painted little watercolors for my parents, one Christmas I made a chess set by getting the guys at the hardware store to cut up decorative banisters into little short peices and then painted them as kings and queens and pawns. I also made rugs for the floorboard of my dad's car, they were "hooked"rugs, and while I was in that phase I made him a pillow for his office with the Shell emblem on it since he worked for Shell. I went through a macrame phase too (it was the 70's, that's my excuse) and I made my parents all kinds of hanging things out of jute. Anyway, those are only the gifts that come to mind right now, there were surely many more "handcrafted" gifts, and I'm sure my parents loved them all. Long live the fine art of making stuff!

Last Day in NYC

2010-03-23T08:37:00.007-05:00

On our last full day in NYC this was the scene outside the Met. This was a trip to NYC to see art and I loved the time we spent in the Met on Tuesday so much that I decided I wanted to go back for another day at the Met. I know there are a lot of other museums in NYC but we'll just have to catch some of them on our next visit.

Below are three paintings that really caught my attention that day:

This is a close-up of a Peter Paul Rubens (Flemish, 1577-1640). I am most attracted to the paintings of figures I see in museums and I just thought this one was lovely. I enjoy studying the flesh tones and brush strokes.

This is a close up of a painting by Jean Baptiste Greuze (French, 1725-1805). This painting was a study to explore different expressions he might need in larger compositions. Quite a "study"!

This delightful painting is titled Apples by Paul Cezanne (French 1839-1906). The composition is two separate studies that are unrelated to any of his known paintings. I guess he painted two groups of apples and just happened to paint them on the same canvas. Amazing. Hmm, maybe there is something to learn here, (well, there is a lot to be learned here) but I'm thinking specifically of the fact that this is a study and it's so wonderful. Paint more studies! They allow me to play with composition and not worry about a "finished" painting.

We also so a special exhibit of Bronzino drawings and took another hour long tour, this one called the "Cradle of Civilization", it was about the history of the Middle East. And we had lunch again in the cafe overlooking the sculpture garden.

Then is was time to head back to our hotel and put our feet up for an hour. On the way back to the hotel we walked past a gallery that advertised "Contemporary Masters" in their window. I wanted to go in, I consider artists like Quang Ho and Dan Gerhartz contemporary masters. Apparently this gallery has other ideas; the art was very contemporary. And bad. We walked in and the young woman at the desk covered with papers near the entrance didn't even look up. A man in the next room at his computer finally grunted something, but never asked us what we were looking for or said another word to us. Maybe that's the norm for NYC galleries, but if I were a gallery owner and a live human with a wallet walked into my gallery, I would at least put a little effort into selling them a painting. Or maybe I just don't give them enough credit and they could tell we weren't interested in the art hanging on the walls. I can describe what I remember as paintings of round heads resembling smiley faces but more reds and blues with sticks for bodies. Anyway, we left fairly quickly. Too bad, we just picked the wrong gallery to pop into.

Back at the hotel, here I am in my favorite chair in our room. I had a good book to read and I enjoyed curling up in that chair every afternoon for a little break. We had a partial view of Central Park so there was always something to see.

That night we went out to dinner to celebrate my birthday, though truly I felt like the entire week was a birthday celebration. Thank you to everyone who wished me a Happy Birthday! After dinner we walked over to Times Square and just soaked in the atmosphere, all the bright lights and people, it was a lot of fun. And I bought a mug that says "I heart NYC" on it for a souvinier.