Geisha is finished

I have put the finishing touches on the Geisha statue. I hope my client likes her. I will be calling today to see if I can drop her off. She is pastel on grey Hannemuhle velour paper. The size is about 11x14. I must say I did enjoy working in the garden. There were enough positive comments about having an artist in the garden that the Garden Club wants to do it again for the next tour. They do this program every other year. A lot of people took my business cards and perhaps there will be some additional work as a result. These kinds of activities are what I call "planting seeds". You don't know the results until sometimes months later when you see what "grows".

Work in Progress

Here is the second pastel painting I worked on in the garden. This statue is part of the gardenscape. She is far from finished, but as soon as she is done, she is sold. This one is pastel on grey Hannemuhle velour paper. This is a surface that I like more and more as I use it for different projects. It does take a little getting used to, but it really is a nice surface to work with.

Painting sold

I participated in the Franklin Garden Club's House and Garden tour today. I sat in one of the gardens and painted. Earlier in the week I visited the garden to take pictures so that I could be painting something OF the garden and not just an unrelated subject. One of the features of this garden was a goldfish pond. I was able to get a nice few pictures of the pond and that is the subject I chose to paint. This piece is pastel on black velour paper. When it was finished, the homeowner bought it. I was very pleased.

Busy Christmas Season

I have been very busy since Thanksgiving with orders for pet portraits. They are completed now and I will be delivering the last of them soon. Most of them were done in colored pencil, however, this one is in pastel. This little guy was sitting in front of a fan and it is his "Mom's" favorite photo.

Pet Portrait

I am doing a lot of pet portraits in colored pencil these days. I work from photos and create a line drawing by scanning the photo and sizing it to the size I want my finished piece to be and then tracing the essential elements of the portrait. Of course, the skill is in translating the color, markings, and expression of the animal into a well-painted portrait. If you are interested in having a colored pencil portrati painted of your precious pet, go to my website and you will find ordering information.

This little portrait is taken from a photo of my friend's cat, Ziggy. It is approximately 3x3 and is painted on brown card stock. The portrait is on top and the reference photo is at the bottom of the page.

My New Website

No pictures today, but I am very excited. I have just finished setting up my new website. There you can purchase my pattern packets and original paintings, find information about my travel teaching, and other bits. The website is still under construction and new pages are being added, so it is not totally complete, yet.

I hope that you will take a minute to visit my website and look around.

www.jalstudios.moonfruit.com

My blog will continue to be active. This is a place for sharing information and new projects, so I hope that you will continue to visit here often.

Completed Dachshund

This morning I completed the oil overlays on the Dachshund. I think he turned out pretty well. Are you interested in a 5x7 portrait of your pet? I will soon have a purchase option here on my blog. If you want it sooner, contact me at terrierpainter@yahoo.com and I will give you the information.

Artist of the Month

I am honored to have been selected to be the Artist of the Month for the month of October by the Transit Fine Art Gallery in Oil City, PA. This gallery offers work by local artists. Each month they present a major exhibit for one artist. One wall of the gallery is given over to displaying the selected artist's work. My exhibit opened today and will run through the end of the month.

Another Painting Sold

I got the best news today. One of the paintings that I entered in the 16th Annual Seaside Miniature Art Show in Nags Head was sold. I am so very pleased. This piece is painted in Genesis Heat-Set Oils on a 4x4 piece of gesso board.

A Trio of Pears
SOLD

Oh, Joyous Happy Day!

This has been a wonderful day. The weather has definitely turned warm enough to call it spring and we have sandal temperatures.

Today I took some paintings to one of my galleries. I like to periodically change out paintings that have been on display for a while for new ones. While I was there, someone came into the gallery and bought one of my paintings right off the desk--it never even made it to the wall! It is always nice to sell a piece, but it is especially nice to sell a piece that quickly and to meet and talk with the person who bought it.

Montreal Hotel

Watercolor, 4"x4"
SOLD

Seaside Minaiture Art Show

I finally got my submissions mailed off to the Seaside Miniature Art Show in Nag Head, NC, today. I have been trying to decide what to submit. I finally came down to measuring the pieces that were possibilities and discovering that only two of them fit the size requirement. I had a couple of pieces I thought were 6x6 including the frame and they turned out to be 6.75x6.75 to the outside edge of the frame. That made them larger than 40 square inches and therefore they did not qualify. The lesson learned here is that I need to work smaller than the maximum allowed painting size in order to insure that the outside dimensions will fit within the requirement--especially in my watercolors.

Anyway, the two pieces that are now on their way to North Carolina are both painting of pears. The first is called A Pair of Pears and the second is called A Trio of Pears. Both titles are sort of plays on words. These paintings are both done in Genesis Heat-Set oils. The size of the screen images is approximately life-size. Assuming that these pieces are not eliminated for some reason, they will be on sale through the Seaside Art Gallery for $65.00 each. You can see the website for the gallery and the show at www.seasideart.com

Do I sell my work?

A couple of days ago, someone asked if I sell my work or take orders for custom work. The answer is yess to both questions. I have my work on exhibit in a couple of local galleries and during Christmas I had some ornaments in a gift shop in Washington state. I particularly like doing custom projects. I have an etsy shop that needs to be updated before I publish the address again and soon I will add a folder to my picturetrail site for items that are for sale. In the meantime, here are a couple of custom projects that I did for Christmas 2006. The first photo is a silver spoon painted with an Orca. This was requested by a gift shop customer. The second 2 projects are painted on wooden picture frames. I thought the first one was a bit dark and I wasn't sure my customer would like it, so I did it again. He was so happy, he bought them both. His wife was thrilled when she received them for Christmas.