All Critters - Great and Small

My fellow artist and good friend Kathy Friedline and I are currently showing our artwork at the Episcopal Church of the Redeemer Artists' Place, located at the corner of Hitt and Cody Roads. We will show there for the month of October. The theme of our show is "All Critters - Great and Small". The opening reception was last Sunday afternoon, during which we enjoyed sharing our artwork with friends and family - thanks for all who were able to attend and help us celebrate our artwork with the "critter" theme. This morning there was a pleasant surprise - we had shared information about the show with the local arts editor and there was a very nice article on the front page of the arts section. Here is the link to the article.

http://blog.al.com/entertainment-press-register/2010/10/artists_express_their_affectio.html

Also, here are a couple of photos taken by Kathy at the reception, and some of the artwork from the show. (I may post some more photos of the reception once I am able to download them from my camera.)

A special thanks to the folks at the Redeemer for providing an opportunity for us to show our work as part of their art mission; and for putting together such a nice reception.

Me with my recently completed menagerie.

Gail Bramer, Kathy and me at the reception.

This is the wall plaque with a wonderful summary of the Church of the Redeemer's Art Mission Statement.

Postcard from the Gulf

Today I mailed in my Postcard from the Gulf to Val Webb. She is helping to coordinate a fund-raiser for the Alabama Coastal Foundation. Artists from around the U.S. and the world at large have been requested to submit a vintage postcard with artwork with a Gulf coast area theme added on the message side of the postcard. Val mails out the vintage postcards and the artist mails it back once it has been enhanced with their artistic statement. Here is my postcard. I was inspired by the alligator snapping turtle at the Mobile Exploreum Reptile exhibit - we met there for the Mobile Sketch Crawl event at the end of July. I had difficulty sketching him during the sketch crawl because he kept pacing back and forth to focus on the visitors on the other side of the aquarium. But I was able to get a couple of good photos, and caught him in the classic snapping turtle pose. You do not want to get "nipped" by one of these guys! They hang out in the rivers and swamps along the Gulf coast, as well as further inland. I could not resist also adding a little to the photo side of the card - it was a colorful bouquet of flowers, but leant itself with a few little fishes to resemble a colorful coral reef - just for fun. (watercolor and acrylic on vintage postcard).

They will auction these cards for $50 each at a fund-raiser reception in the next month or so. Stay tuned. Here is a link to the Postcards from the Gulf.

Plein Air at Abandoned Restaurant on Causeway

Last Thursday our Plein Air South group met at the Abandoned Restaurant on the Mobile Causeway to capture some Mobile Bay and Delta scenes. We had a good group, including Marie Nickerson, Jo Patton, Joan White-spunner Dixon, Satomi Kamei, Conroy Hudlow, and Jami Buck. I decided to try oils and paint as quickly and loosely as I could muster (and for me that is usually a challenge). Here is my result. I'm satisfied that I captured the colors of early fall. Also, here is photo of Satomi with her watercolor of basically the same scene. It it nice to see how we used our media differently to reflect the same view of the delta marsh and inlets. While there we saw a young gator, a little blue heron, night heron - and an osprey who landed on top of the tree in this painting. Later we saw the osprey diving and flying off with his catch. Some of the joys of outdoor painting!

A Touch of Fall in the Air

The last couple of nights have had a touch of Fall in the air - the front has moved in some drier air and it has gotten into the low 70s and upper 60s overnight and a semi-cool breeze during the day. There is also a touch of excitement as football season is starting and the cultural events are becoming mobilized. Tomorrow is Labor Day, and the September artwalk is this coming Friday; and then a whole slew of activities begin. This past week, our Cathedral Square Gallery artist hung samplings of our artwork at the University of South Alabama campus library. I hung my large charcoal drawing (Life Drawing Class), and an oil painting I completed a couple of years ago at a workshop with Bill Thompson. Bill encouraged us to paint "fast and loose", and we were challenged to complete an oil painting within 30 minutes. Here is one I did in the workshop, which I really did not at the time feel was "finished". However, I recently bought a frame for it and intended to touch it up before delivering it to the gallery - but somehow the frame seemed to set it off and I couldn't decide what I would add or change. So here is my "finished" painting! I call this "Koi Splash" (16 in. x 20 in., oil on canvas). I painted this from memory, but the inspiration is from my friend Connie's koi pond. This is currently at the USA Library until November 1st.

August - This and That

I can't say it's the summer doldrums, since there is still alot going on right now. So thought I'd catch up on some of the recent goings on. My artist friend Jami Buck has a solo show of her artwork at the Church of the Redeemer for the month of August. Her reception was Sunday a week ago. Alot of artist friends came out to enjoy her art and to give her moral support. You can see her artwork on her blog. I bought one of her paintings of a small boat in the marsh grass.

Also I finished my Painting in Veils class with Kimberly Krause. Our last painting was of the figure. I previously posted my underpainting, but when I started applying the glazes I realized I did not build up enough white pigment in the underpainting to capture the color glazing - I learned this was an important step. So I spent our last class session applying more flake white and tinted white underpainting. I will apply the glazes at home - I've put in my order for some glazing medium. I hope to try some more paintings at home once I've "mastered" the grisaille underpainting technique. Here is the updated underpainting. I applied white and toned white mixture to the entire figure and some of the background areas -notably the checkered floor pattern. Can't wait for the glazing compound to arrive in the mail!

Also, I've been starting a series of critter paintings for a show that I'm doing jointly with fellow artist and friend Kathy Friedline. I'm trying to finish at least six new small critter paintings for this exhibit, which will be at the Church of the Redeemer in October. Here are a couple of preview excerpts from the first two that are almost finished - four more to go . . .

Sketch Crawl at the Exploreum - Reptiles!

Yesterday morning was the latest Sketch Crawl sponsored by the Mobile Arts Council. We were hosted by the downtown Mobile Exploreum, and adult sketchers were granted free admission to the Reptiles exhibit. This was a wonderful exhibit with live specimens of turtles, snakes, lizards and gators/crocodiles, as well as some great interactive exhibits teaching little known facts about reptiles. My favorite "critters" were the Alligator Snapping Turtle and the Bearded Lizard. I tried to sketch the snapping turtle, but was not successful since he kept moving - he would get a bead on the spectators on the outside of his class case, and follow them back and forth. The Bearded Lizard and Saltwater Crocodile were much more cooperative subjects. Here are my sketches and a couple of photos of the snapping turtle. You might want to go down to the Exploreum and check out this exhibit. Also, check out all the wonderful sketches at the MAC sketch crawl website.

The Figure Underpainting

Last Tuesday we had a live model and created an underpainting from the figure. This time we were to chose a single color to create the underpainting - I selected my favorite Burnt Sienna, thinned with turpentine, and then hi-lighted with lead white again. I was able to create some interesting affects from the turp and paint, and also enjoyed putting in some of the background features and the tiled floor. This is a poor photo which makes the perspective look off due to the camera angle, but you can see the general effect of the underpainting/value study. This week we will apply glazes over the deer skull underpainting we created several weeks ago, while we let the figure underpainting continue to dry. Then next week (our last session) we will apply glazes over the figure underpainting.