A Painting a Day!

After being on Wetcanvas and other artist's websites, looking for inspiration, I dropped in on Karen Margulis' blog. She's been creating a painting a day for four years now and her work is amazing! I seem to be at a standstill with my artwork and haven't really painted anything since last year, with pastels anyway. So....I've decided to make a commitment to myself (and now to everyone that visits here...) to take this challenge myself. I'm going to shoot for 100 days and post my daily paintings here....wish me luck!!

Great time in Elmira!

We had a wonderful time this weekend in Elmira despite the rain on Saturday. We arrived at the Newtown Battlefield State Park Friday evening and stayed in one of the little cabins...which was very cute. The festival started the next morning at 10am and we got started painting the background colors with tempera paint. The tempera, which is water based, makes a nice even background for the soft pastel layer. As we were finishing up the last of the background, a volunteer stopped by to let us know that a storm was rolling in and we should get it covered up. We had to let the paint dry a little bit first and then we laid two layers of plastic over the painted background. It made no sense to start gridding anything out because chances were that some

water would find it's way under the plastic, no matter how well it's taped...and it would all just be lost. So, we decided to wait until the next day to get started with the grid, sketching and soft pastels. The thunderstorm came that afternoon and pretty much wiped out any chance of going back and getting started with the soft pastels. George and I went down to the painting the next morning around 5:30am to remove the plastic to give the paint a chance to dry out before we came back at 8am. George, my mom and myself started snapping the chalk lines for the grid and I got started sketching out the painting. By 11:30am I was finshed sketching and we got started laying in the soft pastel. The judging was at 2pm and the festival ended at 4pm, so I knew I was up against the clock....not a very good way to paint. I concentrated mostly on the face while my mom worked on the fruit and the upper corners and my husband cleaned up the borders. We managed to get some of it finished, but sadly, more of it went unfinished...which was kind of a bummer. I decided that I wanted to at least outline some of the areas, so onlookers would be able to get an idea of what the image was intended to be.

Even though we lost a day and I didn't get to finish my painting, it's really to be expected when painting on the street....nothing endures....

This is the finished painting, well...not "finished"...but where we decided to stop....

We all had a fantastic time and my mother and husband were of great help, I wouldn't want to go without them! We had the chance while we were taking breaks to look at the other artists work, which was just fantastic! I'll upload a seperate slide show of the other artwork so everyone can enjoy it.

Many thanks to the wonderful people that work for the Elmira Downtown Development, they always do such a wonderful job putting on this event, it will be something we attend for many years to come. The best part of the festival would have to be the kind people that we met, from the onlookers walking by, to the business owners and of course the other artists....!! Hope to see all of you there next year!

(This is the postcard they sent out this year...with my street painting from last year...very cool!)

2nd Annual Elmira Street Painting Festival

We're headed to Elmira today to participate in this years 2nd annual Street Painting Festival in Elmira, NY. It's a wonderful event, with tons of people, fantastic artists and a super group of people that put the whole thing together. My mom and I will be painting Alfonse Mucha's illustration "The Fruit"...my mom thinks its a little too ambitious, but it never hurts to try...if the rain holds off we'll be fine. I'll post more when we get back!!

Yipes!! Where did the time go???

I can't believe it's already the 4th of July!! Things have been going well and have been really busy around here. I'm trying to keep up with the graphic design projects I have on Ft. Drum while entering shows and trying new things.

The reception at the National Northeast Pastel Exhibition in Old Forge, NY was a great time and I got to meet some wonderful people that are on the artist community Wetcanvas. Paula Ford, Lynn Vokatis, Adriana Meiss, and Don Ketchek. We all ate dinner together after the reception and talked "shop"...it was so nice to be surrounded by kindred spirits! To top it off, I just found out yesterday that my painting "Adirondack Stream" sold! How exciting! The next show is ...

The "Along the River's Edge Show & Sale" at the Handweaving Museum & Arts Center in Clayton, NY is opening on the 9th of July, my charcoal drawing "Asian Still Life" will be on exhibit there until the show closes August 28th.

The 2nd Annual Street Painting Festival in Elmira is fast approaching...this coming Friday we'll drive down and stay until Sunday. I've chosen to do a reproduction of a Mucha's painting "Fruit" in an 8 x 10' space. I'll be sure to bring the camera and take plenty of photos of all the work there.

After the street painting festival I have a few more things lined up...I'll be teaching a Pastel workshop for children at the YMCA, attending the Croghan Free Library at the end of this month to speak to children about creativity and art and participating in the street painting demo at the Summer Festival at Thompson Park in Watertown, NY, August 15th. This event is hosted by the North Country Arts Council and they are still looking for artist's to sell their work, so if you're interested please visit there website and sign up! A 10 x 10' space is pretty inexpensive and it's going to be a great time!

Somewhere in between everything that's going on, I need to carve out some time to actually create! I have a wonderful new french easel and I'm eager to get outside to do some plein air painting this summer. Wish me luck!!