It's still busy around here, and we've got the October 9th Corrigan Eclectic Art Market coming up! It's 11 to 4 on Saturday the 9th, and we've been planning this one and there are many fantastic and unusual artists coming~
And TOMORROW is OCTOBER!!!!
Holy fall whizzing by!
I do have more paintings to post- it's just finding the time to post them! Crazy ain't it!
I had my lovely Paint Love class at my studio on Saturday, and I wanted to bring something fun to paint so I stopped at the Farmer's Market on my way and picked up some sweet baby pumpkins and peppers~ that was seriously fun! Explaining to the vendors that I am an artist and looking for subject material made a difference- it was fun to hold a pepper and inspect it for beautiful angles...
So this is my pepper~
We had a great and full weekend, and today was a very busy day at school, and now I'm getting ready to go to bed and I finished up a couple paintings. This is one I started yesterday at Anita's house, sitting in our green tent's shade, chatting with the many sweet neighbors who came by. It was just so uplifting, actually. Duane sold a bunch of his birds and his last wooden fish, and Max even sold some of his Hydro-Dipped paintings!
So this is the front of the deer I posted last~ I'm loving these photos! And I was having a hard time thinking of a title, until I just thought of being in the woods... and "Sometimes You Meet Someone..."
When Gina shared this photo with me, I couldn't wait to try to paint it- and thankfully, she took several versions that I also can't wait to paint! The elegance of this profile and that curve of the nose/muzzle... and somehow the intelligent look in the eye just say so much about what I think this being's personality must be!
I am so fortunate to be able to find these incredibly inspiring images. And to have Gina be so generous and share them with me. As an artist, I know sometimes people feel stuck because they don't know what to paint, but dang! There are so many incredible things out there! Go look! See what sparks life for you!
This is one I painted a bit ago, but I'm having fun looking back through my deer paintings. A lot of them haven't really been shown because of COVID and show cancellations~
I still like this one!
Gina takes amazing photos of the critters that visit her yard in Oregon, and I've been painting her deer photos for a couple years, since before COVID, and we've talked about having a show together so we are finally doing it, and we're going to do a show at Corrigan Eclectic for our November 6th Art Market of selected paintings of mine based on photos of hers!
I'm so glad we're finally doing this! Her instagram is https://www.instagram.com/ginaeasleyphoto/ so check her out!
This is mama, one of the more persistent/consistent visitors to her yard~
Okay, I thought I was done, but I'm not liking the way the foreground horse's ears interfere with the middle horse and I have to do something about that...
Hope you had a good weekend! I'm loving the weather lately here- cool, not smokey...
You may realize any now, if you read this blog, that I love Grand Marais and would love to live up there someday. I do have friends up there, and one of them is Kristofer Bowman who owns Upstate Mn, the most original little store I have ever experienced. When you are up there, you have to stop in and say hi and then Kristofer will be YOUR friend too!
We've bought so many awesome things there- tiny wooden bowls, a massive pair of sharp handmade shears that Duane uses all the time, and some of my favorite jewelry. I just bought a new necklace from him, made by Lakestone, I think, using actual Lake Superior stones and I love it~I'll show you sometime!
Anyway, Kristofer lives out in the wilderness a bit, and has this friend who comes by often, and he posts photos of his friend on Instagram, and I've asked permission to paint this friend and Kristofer said yes, so this is Timothy Shortbread!
It's the way the light slid between them, across the field and the dust, and the angles of their bodies. That's what I love. That's what draws me to paint these guys... or girls... I'm not actually sure.
But I do know that I love them!
Unfortunately this isn't the best photo of this painting, and now it's hanging at Lanesboro Arts and I can't retake the photo from here!
I just loved being able to visit these horses every morning. When I was in high school, my older brother worked part time at the Diamond T Ranch in Eagan, where we could trail ride on the horses. We loved doing that, despite being fairly shy kids. And it was so worth it. I felt like another being when we'd clomp along the trails through the woods, in a line behind the guide, nothing really exciting except the fact that we were RIDING on HORSES. That was plenty of excitement for us!
When we were up at Camp Mishawaka I was thrilled to realize there would be horses! And they were our very close neighbors, so that Bunny and I could walk over to see them every morning. I took photos of them and this is one of the paintings that resulted. It is hanging in Lanesboro Arts at the moment, so you can go take a look at it there!
I loved the direct gaze of the central horse, and the leaning away of the body of the other. And all that morning light and haze...
I really love this one!
