Song OF Gladness

At Bell choir practice we began a new song Called " Song Of Gladness". It seemed aptly names as melody and tempo indeed conveyed a sense of joy.
In this I thought I'd share my joy.
This is yet another pastel. My daughter gave me an orange gerber daisy. Two of my favs!!! I love the color orange, I may have mentioned that, and I totally heart daisies!!!!
I wanted to paint it but the simplicity of the daisy made it seem trite. This view of the budding daisy with the open flower in the background seemed a less usual view.

Sheer Force of Will

So I've come to the page with nothing new to say. Starting this blog started a commitment, right? Life is all about honoring commitments in the long run, isn't it?
So, one could argue, is this whole pursuit of art thing. You show up. You make your mark even when you feel you have nothing to say. And especially when you are sure what you have to say is insignificant. You make you offering to the ART GODS and maybe in the offering an image will come. You wet the brush sometimes through sheer force of will.
This painting, titled "Sheer Force OF Will", is a layered acrylic abstract. You've seen a few of things thatI have done and now think you know what I do, right. I do a lot of different things in different media that pull from different subject matter. I really like the abstracts, however, because I feel they are closer to who I am. They show the dichotomy between opposing conflicting elements through the juxtposion between organic and geometric shapes. These works struggle to hold diametric components in one piece of art at a time...like the balancing act of life.

The Full Monty

While this isn't a good photo of the orange modified triptych, you can get the gist of it.

For the Love of Orange...

I was going to do a "themed" exhibition a bit ago that consisted of fruits sitting on glasses. "Why?" you ask? "Indeed", I answer.
I did the first one absolutely LOVING life!!!! Just me, the pastels and plenty of excuses to use orange! Ahh.. hard to ask for more than this out of life.
This is an 18" x 24" panel of a 3 part grouping of oranges in glasses. It juxtaposed the cool background and the coolness of the glass with the extremely warm orange! The spherical quality of the orange itself stands as direct contrast to the very even background.
After this triptych, and a few other fruit on glasses, I was back to abstracts and seascapes and skyscapes and all the other images that clutter my mind.
I had an exhibition of varied works instead as I am going to do this May 2010 at Art Exposure in Hampstead, NC. You should come out to see what comes out of this cluttered mind! lol!

...on new loves.

I taught high school art for years. Every semester, with a brand new group of would be artists, I'd do a demo of a portrait in pastels. For years. Then one fated day, a student who was frustrated with her progress requested additional insights. While using the pastels at her table I made suggestions while working on the extra paper that I kept available for these moments.
I had the pastel in hand saying things like, "...consider holding the pastel like this..." while working at her desk. And then it happened. Cupid, who was apparently hiding among the pastels, fashioned an arrow from an orange (it HAD to be!) pastel and aimed it at my heart!!! I was instantly smittened with pastels!!!! I said to the student, "Man! Don't you LOVE how these feel?!" Her response was, "You are just a bit strange, Mrs. Reed" . I said, "Yes, yes! We've known that but what about these pastels?"
She was not that impressed but I instantly purchased some professional grade pastels and have been in love ever since.
Which!!!! Leads me to the new love!!!!
I was talking to Betsy, an artist friend of mine, who told me she was giving up pastels to work exclusively in watercolor and wanted to give me all of her pastels. She asked if I had ever worked with Unisom pastels. I told her that I had not and she said I would really like feel of them and she was going to give me hers. I told her that I used Sennelier (which are like the CADILLAC of pastels) and just she just shrugged repeating that I would like the feel. Well, another one of our friends ended up with Betsy's Unisom's but I was intrigued....So I bought a box and it came with a sample of a NEW PASTEL SURFACE!!!!
OMG!!! I was in love all over a again!!!!
The plant that is included here is the what I did to try out the new surface and cupid was zinging around with hearts and orange arrows again! Ahh...new love! Nothing like it!

They say I must....

They say that in this day all those who consider themselves "serious" artist MUST have blogs...
Just the statement is ripe for ALL kinds of discussions. I will resist that...for now.

The debate that is currently raging in my head is, "What color are violets?" Sure, Sure. I've heard the poem, "Roses are red, and Violets are blue...." blah blah. But am I tied to that? Just because it is in a poem? I am going with, er.. no. I think my violets will be ORANGE because in OZ, violets are orange.

AND this, boys and girls is EXACTLY why I didn't think a blog was a good idea for me because odd thoughts circle in here...probably better kept to myself ....but they say I must.

These are sketches for a watercolor painting that I am working on. I am seriously trying to decide what color to make the flowers. The redder one has more visual punch but since the background is already green, I fear an unintentional Christmas tie it. The purple works but seems too...usual. I like the orange. You will learn that I ALWAYS like the orange. :)