It’s a three-day weekend. You might think that this would be a perfect opportunity to write a great blog, full of insight and pictures.

Ha. I’ve mostly just sat around doing the things I want to do, occasionally getting something like grocery shopping or laundry accomplished.  But as this day (and weekend) heads to a close, I am realizing that some things do need to get done before I head back to real world.

Therefore, I will attempt to entertain you with the good things that have happened this week.

Canby Library Art Show

As I mentioned last week, I have a show up at the Canby Library. This is good enough news that I felt like I should mention it again, especially since feedback has been so positive.

Acceptance to WSO Spring Show

Thursday  morning, before I went to work, I checked my email and got an exciting email. My painting “Should the Turkey Cross the Road” was accepted into the Watercolor Society of Oregon Spring Exhibition in Florence. This makes my third acceptance into a WSO show and my first into the spring show.

Key – NW1

I reported a few weeks ago that Key aced his odor recognition trial. Since then, I have been entering him in nose work trials for the spring, but I have found out that many shows have a wait list and it’s harder than I thought to get in.

I was a little flustered by this information, so I entered him in a trial that I knew had a short wait list, but was very soon. I figured we wouldn’t get in. (Note: I’m not so sure my thought process had any thought at all.) Imagine when I got the email on Wednesday that the wait list had disappeared and we got in.

So Saturday morning I got up EARLY and headed up to Centralia, WA, to take Key to a NW1 trail. This is the most advanced kind of trial, because he has to be successful at four searches in a row to get a title. I decided to look at as a fun match; Key can still be a little wild in public.

Not only did Key NAIL the show, he got the prestigious Harry Award: “The Harry Award is given to the most outstanding rescue dog that demonstrates extraordinary ability and spirit in nose work.”

So now I have a NW1 dog.

Note: This may be as high as we ever get because at NW2 he has to ignore food. I can’t imagine such a thing. Sunday our odor work instructor put out a donut at a distractor item in a container search and it was all I could do to DRAG him away from it.

As an artist, an especially an artist who plays too much on Facebook, I am constantly barraged with lists of things I could or should do. Sometimes these lead to experiments, but more often these lists just fill me with a vague sort of guilt that I have not accomplished them.

A couple of years ago, I caved to “pressure” and set up a newsletter for myself. I am proud to say I have NOT abused the patience of anyone who signed up for it. Mostly, the newsletter sits empty, it’s little link a constant reminder of another thing I haven’t done.

About a year ago (Dec 2016) I sent out a newsletter hoping to inspire my little list into purchasing some paintings for the holidays. I don’t think I made any sales, but I did get a commission from my aunt to paint portraits of my cousins’ dogs: Cosmo and Zoe.

In my usual fashion, I jumped right on it, and at the end of May I had started on both projects.

As you can see, I didn’t initially paint the reference photo above for Zoe, because my aunt liked this one.

I valiantly struggled for another four months before giving up and restarting on the photo I liked in the first place.

I was supposed to turn in the finished paintings just before Christmas, but a combination of the flu (mine) and a broken leg (my aunt’s) prevented us connecting. So, I shipped the paintings off, after a cell phone approval exchange. A few days ago, my cousin emailed me and said she loved hers.

Therefore, I can finally reveal… Cosmo and Zoe.

This morning was my monthly critique group excursion. While I haven’t exactly been producing at a record speed (or even producing anything very good...) I have been working. I sorted through the piles and came to the realization that I needed some help more than I needed anyone to admire some of my latest successes, so I loaded up a couple of paintings that I am stuck on and drove on down.

Fish or fowl

I won’t show you the first painting, because that would be a blog all by itself. My second entry was this painting, which I have been working on since the Bev Jozwiak class.

English Royalty (30″ x 18″ on Yupo®)

Several members said, “I love this fish. It’s so abstract.” I feel like a toddler who proudly goes up and shows the parent his painting of a dog and they say, “What a nice house.” Frankly, I don’t see fish and can’t figure out what they are talking about. They could never explain it to me, either.

Oh well, it’s all about feedback, and I got plenty. The shape of neck needed defining; the green blobby background needed something…; the bright green of the back made the “fish” look hollow.  So, I came home and did this…

The basic problem I am struggling with is that this is on the Yupo® paper which I can’t figure out (YUPO is a 100% recyclable, waterproof, tree-free Synthetic Paper. In other words, it’s like painting on plastic.)

Frankly, right now, I’m considering the trash bin for the whole thing. I’m not sure it’s worth it.

In order to convince you all (and myself) that I actually do know about painting (STOP THAT LAUGHING!) I will show off some other endeavors, though none are the ones I am SUPPOSED to be working on.

Quick warm up on very small, bad paper

Yellow-headed blackbird on small watercolor panel

Gelli-plate prints using “the silver”

This is more of the silver dust that got away from me last week. I don’t think that stuff can actually be used.

But speaking of that…

Speaking of last week… does anyone remember that I ended up throwing some paint on a piece of paper so see if the silver would come out that way?

Don’t hold your breath, because the silver isn’t on this either. But when it dried, it looked like this:

Every time I have walked past it in the the week I have seen the same thing. So, last night I decided it was only paper and decided to follow my muse (albeit one with a somewhat warped sense of humor.)

If anyone calls this one a fish, I’ll just have him eat them.

wWahahaha

There is a meme of which I am particularly fond. I have it on a notebook as well as hung in my studio.

Today was all about the frustration, errors, and experimentation.

Mistake #1

I am on day three of a 4-day-weekend, and today my goal was to paint. But, well, I was a little grumpy, which is not my most creative mood. So, I decided that rather than actually painting, I would experiment.

Mistake #2

There is an image that I grabbed from my Facebook feed the other day without the least intention of painting. I just liked the placement of the horse’s legs, tail, and head. They screamed “attitude.”

I think this is a horse currently in training in the Sound Equine Options barn.

I thought one day I might collage the painting.

Mistake #3

So, today seemed like a good day.

I found a background that appealed to me (a failed ice painting from about four years ago).

I got out some marble tissue paper from Liz Walker‘s marbling class (2 year ago?) (P.S. Liz… I partially blame you.)

Mistake #4

And I started collaging the shape of the horse. Gosh, I wish I had taken some pictures.

Mistake #5

I got that done and it was okay. But it needed some ump. So, I decided to apply some gesso (Margaret Godfrey, I blame you for this part.)

Again, no pictures. I REALLY wish I had taken some.

Upon evaluation, it was okay, but it was sort of outline-y so I decided to get out my Gelli-plate (Ruth Armitage, I blame you now…)

What I ended up with, I liked. Maybe a little overworked, but if I had just stopped here, I feel like we could have moved on.

Mistake #6

But, I got a bright idea.

I decided to try to give the background a little oomph and mixed some darks.

Mistake #7… 8… 9…

That wasn’t quite right, so I decided to find my “unusual materials” box and try some metallic powder.

I couldn’t just stop while I was ahead, could I?

Mistake #10

With all my materials contaminated with silver…. stuff… I decided to see if I could actually figure out how this stuff is supposed to work. It’s really rather beguiling the way it twirls in water.

So, I got out a clean sheet of paper, grabbed the palette that needed cleaning now, and tried to apply some silver and color.

While some color might have stayed, if there is any metallic silver on here, I’ll eat my hat.  How does this stuff work?

It’s a mystery that’s going to have to be solved another day because frankly, I’m out.

As an artist, sometimes you do a painting and you know it’s not perfect, but you like it.

This painting of Taylor Said and Winning Machine in the 2012 Longacres Mile is a painting that I have liked for a long time, but I’ve also had some concerns about.

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In fact, it’s gone through a couple of revisions. As you can see here, I toned back Mt. Rainier.

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Then I added marbling, which I felt added the perfect touch.

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Still, this painting has been sitting around, framed and matted for about two years now. It get admiring glances, but no one has been serious about it.

Then, the other day, I checked my spam folder (why is there spam?). In with the spam was an inquiry about this painting. The collector wanted to know if it was still available because her daughter was now the proud owner of Winning Machine (the horse on the right) as a retired racehorse.

“Mac” and his rider (face blurred).

Don’t they look great?

I’m so happy this painting is going to its perfect home!

Today was the second day of the Bev Jozwiak workshop. As promised, we started with a step-by-step exercise using Chumlee.

My version of Chumlee

For comparision, here is Bev’s version of the same reference photo.

And here’s a photo of the whole class with their versions.

Between working on Chumlee, I attempted to work on two pieces I had brought on Yupo™. I have done one previous painting with this slick surface, but I didn’t fall in love. I’ve seen a couple of videos since then, and as Bev sometimes uses the this, I thought I would give it a try. You saw my attempts at the peacock yesterday.

And I brought a roller today to use to start a yellow-headed blackbird.

I really think I might hate Yupo™.

Moving onto other topics, I brought some paintings that I thought I could work on between steps.

I worked on them a little, but the thing I REALLY wanted to get out of the workshop was and understand of how Bev gets her amazing darks. So I quickly drew out some flowers and went to work, trying to set them up to use her “thirds” idea: the top really dark, the center in middle values, and the bottom very light and loose.

Obviously, thees are unfinished. And they have potential. But I did not nail it. I asked Bev for some help and we agreed it was probably something best learned by “hours on the brush.”

No magic pill, huh?

Bev’s demo, started Saturday, finished today

Which brings me to my reminder in all this. Workshops are about trying something new, not creating masterpieces. Paintings done in  a workshop shouldn’t be entered in shows, though I think there is a little flexibility in this (Chumlee – NO!; yesterday’s horse – Maybe.)

Taken from the standpoint of trying something new…. I nailed it!

Today I traveled up to Portland to take a two-day workshop from Bev Jozwiak (pronounced Jaws-wick) at the Oregon Society of Artists. I got into this workshop due to a last-minute cancellation and it worked beautifully into my schedule. I have wanted to take a class from her for quite a while. She paints relatable subjects in a loose, “juicy” style that I really enjoy.

Second of two demos by Bev from today’s class.

She started out with a pretty simple demo of a red-winged blackbird (sorry, no photo, maybe tomorrow…) where she talked a little about color theory and a lot about working dark to light, loosing edges, and color application.

Unlike other classes I have taken, the directions for this class suggested coming with 4-6 paintings prepped for paint. The reason for this is after the demonstration, Bev had just work on our own projects while she walked around the room, proving help as requested.

After lunch, Bev did a second demo (show above) on the figure, as she is primarily known as a figure painter, then we went back to work again.

As I have been reminding myself all day… this is a workshop. The idea is to try new things, not turn out masterpieces.

Not masterpieces. Right.