So you have TWO more days to submit your artwork to Art4Shelter! I have an envelope I'll be mailing on Friday so if you want me to include your painting in my envelope, please get them to my house!
And if you aren't going to submit work, then please go to the Art4Shelter page on May 12th and BUY! There will be incredible work on there, framable 5x7s and 8x10s, all original and some by big name actual artists!
Another one from the north shore!
I've been wanting to paint this one for a while! Duane took this at the Minnesota Zoo a year or two ago, and he's so much better than me at taking photos. The light and colors of this one were so great to attempt to replicate~
I am so excited to be heading up to the Art Colony next week for an Art As Journey Workshop with a pack of other (socially distanced and masked) fellow artists, and I am sure I'll be painting more otters and a LOT more of that Great Lake!
I really love Minnesota springs, where you get the sunshine and the sunburn and the heat one day, and then the next you have snow and rain and clouds. Some part of me loves the hunkering down part of winter. I like to read. I like to reflect, sometimes, and sunny nice days don't lead to a lot of reflection. But of course when it IS nice you are pretty much required to be outside for the duration. Which is why it is also nice to like to take walks in rain and snow. When you have the option and no one expects you to be outside, it is nice to have a choice~ plus our gas fireplace is just the best thing ever~
Anyway, this is a painting I did yesterday from photos taken in March in Grand Marais. I am so interested in that color of water. I think I'll be painting some water from the Cannon River last Sunday too-
SO much to do, so much to do!
Somehow I got a bit busy yesterday, and somewhat embroiled in an existential angst that required a long walk and a talk with my understanding husband and also the application of a bottle of red French wine...
So I missed posting for Earth Day. Which is a very important day to me. And to all of us! I still have this belief that if we all plant more trees, it will help a lot. I'm planning on offering to buy and plant trees for neighbors on our block who don't have any trees in their front yards at all. It just seems like a good idea.
These are the trees at Lake Hiawatha, from last spring, when everything was turning upside down and dire. It's funny, because I now have my first cold sore of a very, very long time. When I was in college, I'd always get one over the breaks and vacations, and I think it was because that was when I was finally able to relax, it was when my stress was able to be put on a shelf, and so my body went "Whew!" and that little cold sore virus said "Yeah! NOW!" and jumps in.
Ah, life!
This is from a photo of one of the wolves at the Mn Zoo that I've painted before, and that I love to paint!
The negative space is especially satisfying to me.
Available at Art4Shelter, May 12th!
Here's another 5x7 for Art4Shelter! If you want to create some artwork yourself to donate, the submission guidelines are on this page, and artwork needs to be mailed in by April 30th!
I love how the water changes color so quickly, depending on the light, and where you are standing, and so many other variables...
And I love that island there too...
I just love so much!
Well, actually, this is just ONE painting for Art4Shelter today- I thought I should save some of them for later because I might not have another painting to post! I had a Painting Party on Friday for people to join and paint 5x7s or 8x10s for Art4Shelter with me, and I got five paintings mostly done.
This is of course from Grand Marais, a photo Liz Lethert took~ that yellow sunset is amazing if you ever get the chance to see one!
Part of what I love about painting water and lakes and waves and these northern shores is that chance to look so closely at how water is color.
What color is water? It is just so wonderfully elusive...
I do love to paint black dogs. A lot of the time they seem to paint themselves. And I'm a little busy painting turtles with 3rd and 4th graders this evening, so I'm posting a commission again.
This is another lovely dog, an older one, if I remember correctly, that I am just finishing up.
I have to say again, how fortunate I am in my life, and how finding myself alive in the year 2021, in Minneapolis, MN, married and with a pre-teenager and three dogs and a cat and a tortoise in my house, continues to surprise and delight me. And all of these things came through the fact that I was born white, in a middle-working-class home, in a smallish town that my Irish ancestors had come and lived in. I didn't know any black people growing up. Why? Because they didn't live in my town. Why? Probably because they weren't allowed to.
And that really, really sucks.
And I want to do something to fix it. But I don't know what.
So I'm writing it in here, so you can read it and maybe it will make you wonder and think too...
Anyway, I love to paint. And I am so lucky that I get to. Thank you for making that possible for me~
I painted this one on a Burnt Sienna ground, which I like more than I'd expected, for the warmth it gives the underlying grays on my little pug butt... and there's a lot I like about it as it is. Kinda stuck for the moment and not sure what all I want to do on it yet, but I need to look at it for a bit so I can figure that out. So I thought I'd post it~
And it also helps to see a cute pug butt for me right now. Call it animal therapy.
My heart and prayers are with Duante Wright's family and friends, especially his mom.
I've been enjoying the cooler, cloudy, rainy weather lately. I like it when spring leads into summer slowly, and the buds come out on the trees and there's bits and pieces of buds lying around on the ground, and the birds are singing in the morning, and we've left the windows open a little bit for fresh air, and you can snuggle up under the blankets to a warm body for a few more minutes because its the weekend...
Ah!
And this is another painting of Artists' Point from March, a little smaller- I'm enjoying playing with the variety of colors I see in the sunrise photos- I do see a lot of color where other people might not- maybe its my imagination, or my training, but there's color everywhere!
This one is still being worked on a bit, but I thought I'd share it anyway! I do love painting pets- it's funny, because there was a time back when I was in my 20s living in Uptown, Minneapolis, that I really tried hard to advertise my desire to be a pet portrait artist. I made fliers and went to Kinko's and made copies and brought them around to veterinarians and pets stores to hang up. It took a lot of legwork, and actual cut and paste with scissors and glue, and talking face to face to people to ask them for a spot to hang my little posters, and I really didn't get much business from it all. I think if there had been the internet and the availability of marketing that we have today, I may not have become a teacher at all... hmmmm...
Thoughts from a Friday afternoon~
Another sunrise painting from Grand Marais...
Steady yourselves, because there are still more coming! And I'm also working on some smaller 5x7s for Art4SHelter, and YOU should paint or draw or pastel some too! Here's more info about Art4Shelter- they'd like all the work in by April 30th~
This one is also a little bit abstract, and a bit fun with the crazy colors! I especially like the pinks down on the bottom left, under the island...
SO I have a fun little story that got lost in all the fun and excitement of last week, and I thought I'd share it here with you! I have a painting that was accepted into the Rum River Art Center's Show (it is pictured below in the Gallery Show Opening at the bottom!) (okay, I actually had both paintings accepted, and they are both at the bottom) (oh and I made mom and Duane enter the show too, so THEY both have work in it as well!) and I needed to find a frame for it, and I figured I'd have one lying around somewhere because I assumed it was a standard size.
Is 14x18 a standard size?
Hmmm. Not so much.
I called around (it was Tuesday and the painting needed to be delivered Wednesday morning...) and couldn't find one, thought the Blick in Roseville said they had the sectional bits to put together to equal a 14x18, so I drove out there. But the sectionals were metal and the opening wouldn't work for my canvas, so I spent $100 anyway (on necessary things! I know what you're thinking!) and then went next door to Turnstyle, which is a commission-based second-hand store that has home items too, thinking maybe I could find a frame, and sure enough! There was this great crazy wood frame with an inside bit to hold the glass and print of Caribou (mislabeled "Moose Print") and I measured with the 8x10s I happened to have just bought (told you they were necessary things) and the inside opening was exactly 14x18! Or at least I made sure when I got it up to the counter and borrowed a ruler before I bought it-
And I got it home and Duane and I took the inner bit out and it fits my painting PERFECTLY.
Here it is, "Light Breaks Through" 14x18 acrylic on canvas, and it IS available, but I may have to charge more because of the frame! Hee!
And come see the show if you can! Open til May 7th, hours listed below!
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