Change

Very soon, tomorrow I think, things will change at the Olde Towne Gallery in St. Marys.

I have been there 3 months, and they have been good. I have met new people, sold a few quilts, and learned a bit about showing in a gallery.

I'll be visiting the Tree City Quilters Guild in Gainesville, FL in the next couple of weeks. There, quilters will enjoy a 'Symphony of Quilts' played with an excerpt from Marjorie Keenan Rawlings "Cross Creek". We'll be talking about and enjoying my beautiful Florida, of course!

This means I'll be bringing everything I own that remotely resembles Florida nature and wildlife.

Which means my gallery display will have to change it's outfit for the occasion.

If you haven't been to the gallery (or if you have), you should take this opportunity to go. I will be showing a different side of me...one that I am a teensy bit apprehensive about. Some pieces you have seen and some you definitely have not. It was also very difficult to price pieces that I'm not even confidant about hanging in the first place. So, I pretended that I am some well-known, hoity-toity artist that everyone who's anyone knows, and put ridiculous prices on every piece. Okay, not every one, but most of them.

If you go, I would love the feedback, good, bad or ugly.

If you don't...well, guess you'll just not get to see that side of me.
And I'll be back to normal me after September.
he, he, he.

work

I have been painting...and quilting...

not blogging.

None of the paintings nor the quilts really seem worthy of posting here.

just plugging away anyhow.

If I keep painting and quilting, eventually something nice will come out.

I'll keep you posted.

Owl

This picture has no real reason to be in this post, other than it was in my photo file and I like it. So...it's my blog and I like it, so here it is. 

 

 

I was thinking of making an owl quilt, then one of my coworkers said, "I wish you would make an owl quilt."

He's a little funky, fun owl. Here he is trying on a pair of antique buttons from my grandmother's collection.

Then, with his keen eyesight, from across the room, he spotted these little iridescent beauties, also from Grandma's sewing box.

 

I have been wanting to try this for a while. It took more guts than I thought it would.

I stapled my quilt!

I had to take a deep breath and do it.

                           Funky little owl didn't mind, but I was having heart palpitations!

After the sacrificial stapling, it was easy to pop Little Mr. Funky into this awesome frame. I found these at a flea market, this nice gentlemen was selling them for an unbelievably low price. I bought several.

I think I might be doing some more little funky forest friends for Mr. Who. That was fun.

Thank you

I have had an awesome experience for the past 5 weeks, showing my art quilts in a gallery setting. This has been mostly due to the support from friends and family. My church family showed up in force the first week and I sold about 6 quilts right away. Then I had various friends come to the gallery over the next three weeks and I sold another 6 or so.
Thank you.

If you bought a quilt. I hope you will enjoy it and it brings you peace, joy, positive energy...happiness.


If you came to visit me while I was there. The best kind of support is to see a friend walk through the door with a smile and a hug.


If you visited the gallery and mentioned me or my work to the artist on duty. The other artists, I think,  were blown away by the number of people who came in to support me, see my work, and buy my work.

Any person can make art. Some people make good art and some people make not so good art. You helped validate me as a good artist. And I thank you.

One Crazy Week!

Last week we stayed at the lakehouse. I have we saw manatees in the canal for the first time ever! Six gentle giants came and ate grass at our bulkhead for almost an hour.

Then we came home.

 

What a crazy week!

First I had to make 3 art quilts. One as a commission and two to replace sold items at the gallery.

Yes, I am still making birds and leaves in bleach discharge, it's what people like, plus it's just fun.

 

 

Here I am a few months ago, in front of the Home Depot Mural.

I painted it, incorporating things like the company core values in the palm fronds, the customer service proctocol into the waves, etc. While I was 15 feet up in the air, a lady came by and said she would like a mural painted. I said ok.

 

This week, on top of every thing else, it was time to paint another mural.

Here it is.... the 3-D items were already there, the task was to incorporate the style of those pieces and continue the scene onto the wall. Bring them altogether with a background. The hardest part, other than climbing onto a ladder and wallowing around on the floor, was painting around and behind these pieces.

 

Oh, and go back to work and meet a couple of deadlines at Home Depot. And did I mention that my child came home from camp with a shoulder injury? Dr. visits, MRI, prescriptions, chicken soup,

No big deal.

I got this.

Selfie

Art! Quilt!

I am the guest artist for the month of June at the Olde Towne Gallery, in St. Marys, GA.

I can now check not one, but two accomplishments off my list!

One: I've always wanted to hang my quilts in an art gallery.

and

Two: I wanted to get up the nerve to display some paintings as well as quilts.

 

These pictures are a little weird, something happened in the translation, but here they are!

The Olde Towne Gallery is on Osborne Street in downtown St. Marys, in the same building as the Cedar Cafe. If you were to go there sometime in June, you would take exit 3 (highway 40) in Georgia, then go east as far as you can go (about 10 miles). When you got to the quaint little downtown area, you would look for the gallery on the left after the school.

Don't forget to go all the way down to the waterfront to the lovely park, and Langs Seafood just beside the park. The Cottage shop is also a favorite poking around place,

http://www.stmaryswelcome.com/cottageshop.html

  and there are a couple of used/old book shops.

If you wanted to spend the entire day, you could book a trip on the ferry to explore (on foot) Cumberland Island National Seashore.

http://www.nps.gov/cuis/index.htm

 

If you are looking for a quiet weekend getaway, you could add the Spencer House (or several others) Bed and Breakfast to your booking.

http://spencerhouseinn.com/

I stayed here with Gerald and the kids once a long time ago, and spent the day hiking Cumberland. Still have fond memories of that little trip!

 

Anyway, I hope you can come visit. I'll be there at the gallery June 8th, all day.

It is open 7 days a week, from 9am to 3pm.

 

 

My Love

You would think that if I love this man so much, I should be able to paint him in my sleep, being an artist of moderate skill.

Here is a nice piture. He is smiling, not a big "Howdy!" smile, but more like, "I'm happy in this moment" kinda smile.

So...I begin with a sketch....that looks like T.D. Jakes! I should have known right then, this would not go well.

So, instead of correcting the sketch, I forge ahead. I remember thinking something like, "I like those paintings that use broad strokes and are a little wonky, but still capture a feeling. I'll just do that!"

 But I can't do that. If I could I would have stopped right here.

But his eyes are HUGE. and crooked.

still crooked.

Here I stopped for longer than a week. It sat in a chair in the breakfast nook, creepily staring everyone down that dared to eat a granola bar without permission.

Gerald was creeped out the most and kept turning himself around in the chair, like a TimeOut for bad paintings.

Well, it's already terrible, so let me swish colors onto it. Green, blue, red,orange and a little dab o' yellow.

He looks like he suffers from Bells Palsey now, but colorfully so.....

Let's fix that. He is black, so lets just even his face out with a little black. (also that might cover some of those crazy colors)

........hmm

 

Oh Jeez. I am just done. It kinda looks like him, doesn't look like an ax murderer, and doesn't look like he had a stroke. Yep, done.

ps. I don't mind sharing that not every painting is a masterpiece.

sat·is·fac·tion

sat·is·fac·tion

/ˌsætɪsˈfækʃən/ Show Spelled [sat-is-fak-shuhn]    

noun

1. an act of satisfying; fulfillment; gratification.

2. the state of being satisfied; contentment.

3. the cause or means of being satisfied.

4. confident acceptance of something as satisfactory, dependable, true, etc.

5. reparation or compensation, as for a wrong or injury.

6. the opportunity to redress or right a wrong, as by a duel.

7. payment or discharge, as of a debt or obligation.

8. Ecclesiastical .

a. an act of doing penance or making reparation for venial sin.

b. the penance or reparation made.

I'll take Number 2, please.

For right now...don't know how long it will last...

But when you have a state of contentment, it's not really important to ponder how long it might last. What is important is to enjoy it as much as possible, treasure it, harvest every last kernel of it.

Here is what I did today:

Old sheet music from Mom's stuff, I chose "Wind Beneath My Wings". I don't remember her ever playing that, but it seemed the appropriate choice for this piece. I sketched her out with a #2 pencil, then did some outlining with a very fine tip marker. Jessie's prettiest features are her eyes and her lips. The lips are the tiniest bit wrong, but you wouldn't know that unless I told you.

I am fairly new to watercolors, I have only dabbled. But I have studied and questioned what I like so much about the medium. My friend, TL, had to point out to me that the watercolors I like most were layered. Many layers of colors add the depth that I like.

Layers, however, take patience. You have to wait for some layers to dry before adding others on top. Also, this is not watercolor paper, it's very old, yellowed sheet music. I had a couple of spots that the paint reacted to the paper differently than everywhere else. I thought I was finished here, but look at the base of Jessie's neck....looks like a fingerprint.  

Okay, for fear of really screwing this up, it is finished. I 'fixed' the neck, I think it looks better.

Jessie and I both like it. Do you?