Acrylic Abstract

"Glacial Terrain"
24" x 24" Acrylic on Canvas, 1 3/8" depth gallery wrap, black edges

This is the third of four abstract paintings I've completed for the Upstairs Gallery Show and delivered them Wednesday. You are invited to their annual show and sale of art by the students of The Upstairs Gallery, and the show will be up until May 27, 2008. Several friends mentioned the look of ice and translucency the painting had so that is how the title derived. One comment at the opening reception when viewing one of the abstracts, "Oh, you've changed your style?"....Nope just added another as I'm still wanting to try a lot of painting styles I find. Another said "Whatever your style, I can pick your paintings out" and I don't see how yet but I found the statement interesting.
Other abstracts can be found on my web site which is always under construction.
Listening to conversations (think cell phone in the grocery store), lyrics and friends' suggestions all can contribute to your arsenal of song titles. I jotted one down last week from the grocery store when I heard a woman telling a man, "I'm not paying $5.00 for something like that." I wanted to turn around and see what she thought was overpriced but instead just took out my journal and pen and make a quick note. Since I'm now a GPS owner, I'm waiting for my painting titled "Recalculating". There will be one.
Happy Mother's Day to all and enjoy this special time set aside to honor mothers, living and dead. It's a time to acknowledge your mothers contribution in your life and I suggested to my children, they spend the day with their spouses, girl friends, boy friends or significant other and not be put on a guilt trip to visit, but maybe just call - certainly not going out to eat as the National Restaurant Association says this is the most popular day of the year to eat out. That means to me - stay home. Don't come over today but call me as we have several family graduation events for the last of May when we can enjoy each other's company. I know you love me. It's o.k. We'll celebrate then. Google the history of Mother's Day and it's an eye opener. It began as "Mothering Sunday", then a Mother's Day for Peace and now it's a highly commercialized holiday with flowers, cards and gifts. Maybe by next year I can have my kitchen back in the cooking mode and I can invite my children to dinner.
At present, I have numerous (think maybe hundreds) of watercolor paint tubes out on the table preparing my palette for the Myrna Wacknov workshop tomorrow at the Visual Expressions Gallery and School. Myrna has addressed the problem of too many palettes with this post and it's for me:
"I have too many palettes and most of them have been loaded with paint! In an effort to use up some of the paint and not be wasteful, I started painting sheets of watercolor with random wet into wet washes. I would take these watercolor starts to model sessions and then I would draw the model on the paper with a Japanese brush pen that takes ink cartridges and finish the painting with pastels. It was amazing how these random colors worked so well every time! I love the look of the watercolor peeking through the pastel and part of the ink drawing showing here and there. It's a fun process. Give it a try."
As I am thinking watercolor after making the abstract jump, I've discovered a wonderful watercolor video of about 15 minutes from Jim Chapman that you can watch. If you'd like to paint along go find your watercolor paints in colors: cadmium yellow, raw sienna, raw umber, burnt umber, cadmium red light, red-purple, purple, ultramarine blue, cerulean blue, cobalt blue, peacock blue, viridian, yellow, black, and your Aquabee sketch pad and brush (now your kitchen table is looking like mine). He sounds Texan but he's a Georgia boy (and he can paint and talk at the same time) and he has a fresh, loose sketch approach to a still life set up of a cowboy hat, bottles and a quilt. He leaves specks of white which I like and some art instructors say nay, nay and you do it your way. Also read his art columns about taking workshops and how to expose yourself to better media coverage.
The email from last evening brought excellent information and a lot of it about online marketing can be found in the recent post from the Art Group DFW blog. The ArtGroupsDFW News Blog is devoted to news of art events in the North Texas Area and is updated frequently and you can subscribe.
Enjoy your day and thanks to all the Mom's who have directed our paths.