Portrait Sitting 3

After sitting #3 today while the kids were making jewelry and baby napping. The picture turned out a little darker than it really is. It's coming along. Naomi's critique today: "Sorry if this hurts your feelings, but the things around our heads don't look like angel thingies, they look like pans floating. Sorry, but that is what I think." The weird thing is, I think she is right in that they were a little distracting, so I took the halos down a notch and will bring them up a little more later. Countdown: Only 2 more days until school starts and painting begins! Sad and glad.

Mexico Art

I found this little gem of art on our trip to Mexico last month. I had no cash (on purpose so I wouldn't spend any) so thanks to my sister-in-laws and mom who pooled our pesos to help me buy this hand painted shadow box with Frida and creepy folky skeleton inside. It was a bit of a splurge, and I love it so much. I always try to find some kind of local art when I vacation, and this is one of my favorite I have ever found. My good husband rolled his eyes and pretended to agree to it's "coolness". Good response Jason. My obsession of Frida Kahlo continues.

Black Thumb

I spend 1/2 of my life creating things: babies, paintings, projects, foods,  etc. Why in the world can I not keep any plant alive inside or out? I have come up with a theory. I think my blood is too acidic. I may be a bit influenced by 'Breaking Dawn' in that theory, but it makes sense. I have come to realize that plants around here are now and forever "disposable". I always thought I would be a good gardener. I also read the other day of a study that showed plants that were talked to daily did better, and more interestingly, plants that were told "I love you" did best.....I don't think I'm ready for that, but be forewarned. I literally have killed almost 20 plants this year including 2 birthday presents (sorry mom). I have lost my confidence and the plants can smell low self-esteem. Maybe I am becoming paranoid....no. Stay tuned, I just bought a beautiful mum to replace this sad guy.

Little Girls Portrait

After 2 painting sessions I am feeling pretty good about this painting. I feel about 1/2 done.  The top painting is the first sitting, and the bottom the 2nd sitting. They are both essentially value studies, but I think I like it without much color for now. I am not sure if I will add any more color, or keep it very monotone. They are starting to look like themselves as well. I have to let it cure a little before I can work on it again. I find myself more drawn to work on Naomi's little face than the others. (she is the far right). Maybe because she is looking at the viewer. I force myself to keep the other two up to the same level of finish. There is quite a bit of editing that happens in the process.

Naomi said "If mommy can't sell this painting of me than we get to keep it!!"........sad, and not exactly true.

Looking at it on this screen I can already see a few things I need to change....

Accidental Photo

I found this photo on my camera and I can't figure out where it is or who took it, but I love the composition. It must be from our camping trip to Bear Lake a few weeks ago. Naomi, 6 and Ty, 13.

Painting Wall

This is where I hang my beloved painting collection. Most of them are from my painting friends in Iowa--trades. And some are mine and others are actually purchased. I love, love, love my paintings. I stand at my stairwell daily and just stare at them. My new weight-loss plan (to lose that baby weight) is to reward myself with a new painting every 10 pounds lost....Is that too personal? It's a better motivator than the former reward of cheese fries every 10 pounds, I think they call that self-sabatoge. Expect to see a few new paintings very soon.

Decor Bug

The decorating bug I got this week was to redo my front entry. I did have one large painting there by my friend Chris Vance, but wanted to put it on my 'painting wall' and do the entry with my myriad of photographs and prints. It beats them all sitting in a box in my bedroom for 2 years...now I need to buy a nightstand I guess.

Our Craft

I know, nothing too special, but if you saw our process, you would know why we feel so proud about a finished product. The "cement" stones which I am pretty sure is your run-of-the-mill plaster, did not hold up to the dog stepping on it.  Which led to a very sad little girl. In my quest to find precious jewels for our garden stones I found those pretty green, totally natural colored little pebbles. They look like rocks from a fish tank you say? No comment.

" A Family Portrait: the Broadbent's"

This is my latest commission and a new idea. I painted it for my beloved sister and her family (4 daughters and husband, JR). A family portrait of sorts. It was such a pleasure to paint this and one of the interesting byproducts was thinking about her and her kids for about 50+ hours of painting. She picked out 4 dresses to represent her kids that were sentimental for different reasons. It was a stretch to paint anything masculine (the 3 ties), but I managed fine and tried to get that over with so I could get back to pearls and toile. It was really large for me at 30 x 60". A good exercise to force myself to go big, but quickly painted 3 small paintings afterward....big takes more brain energy. Thanks Alisa for a real art experience. I love when a painting feels like you have moved up to another plane (small as it may be). I hope to do some more of these.

My Studio

My inspiration/painting- mind- block wall to help me in those bad moments. I just cleaned my studio so it's in pretty good shape, hence the statues in a nice little row. My studio is really small, but I have a few ideas to remedy that, i.e. new attic room above the garage....can you even do that?

Grandma (elderly muse)

Grandma Roselle is the family muse. The first painting was a sitting my sister (also a painter) and I set up 2 summers ago thinking it might be our last to capture our 95 year old grandma. She is still going strong as you can see by her pushing my husband around in her wheelchair last week on Catalina island. She was complaining that she has been pushed around too much on this latest vacation and she needs exercise. Jason quickly and generously offered to sit down so she could push him. We stopped her after 30 minutes, she wanted to keep going. The other portrait was done a few months ago, again with my sister. Grandma is the best model, she needs no breaks, tells us funny stories about her wedding night and will sit all day. We just had to "coke" her up every hour so she wouldn't fall asleep. I really like this small portrait of her, I think it really captures her look. She always has this wonderfully thoughtful, sort of sad look when we paint her.

PS....She hates that we paint her without her wig. Is it creepy to have half a dozen paintings in my house of Grandma?

My Muses 1, 2, 3

My Muses 1, 2, 3 . Okay sometimes they are the anti-muses, but most of the time my "material" comes from the challenges and rewards of taking care of these beauties. My newest idea is working up a "portrait" of my girls for a show I would like to enter in October. I have never done a portrait of them (ok, other than drawing them during church services if bored) and am a little apprehensive but excited.

So I dressed them up in costume. They liked it just a little. And took a zillion photographs to work from.The drawing is not quite right, but I am only about 2 hours into it and need to fix faces. It is close. This is a preliminary drawing but I can visualize what I want it to be painted like. Sort of timeless and muted. Maybe I will just force myself into a very limited pallette, like 3 colors. These are some of the photographs I am working from and then I will use their live little bodies when I need them. Naomi (muse #2) was totally in her element because I instructed no smiling and strange poses please. There are some great photos on the roll. After I was done, they wanted to do their own poses for a photo shoot. Bentley's (muse #1) were sweet little blown kisses and Naomi's were crazy, quirky troll poses. I was laughing a lot. 

Self Portrait

My latest self portrait. It was shown in the Springville Salon 2008, Utah. A lot of my paintings are a process of expressing my frustrations. This one, in particular I almost titled "Inspiration", but settled on "Through the Lens: a self portrait". I remember thinking about how many expectations I feel are on me as a mother, wife, daughter, sister, friend. Possibly self-imposed. But a hard juggling act anyway. A newspaper article about a Frida Kahlo show that came through Utah is partially in the background and a postcard of one of my favorite artists I found when I was living in Iowa, MK Misol- a painting of a spanish dancer. A homage to women that have inspired me creatively. I love how personal and raw Kahlo's paintings are. And Misol's paintings seem so immediate and spontaneous. This painting is large for me at 24 x 36" and was a nice one to live with for a while. I think I won't sell this one just yet, after the show I will bring it home and hang it in a dark hallway....? I think it looks like me, hard to tell.

First Blog Ever

I decided to start a forum for displaying my art and my projects. I have to swallow a little pride because I have been the anti-blogger in a sea of serious hackers and bloggers...you know who you are. I am hoping that by putting my ideas from brain to "paper" I can refine my more abstract concepts into actual usable ideas for paintings. I also would love your feedback, you can hit me hard, I like a good critique (which means a bad critique). Here we go!