Hospice Mural

  Using my design, about 40 women came on a very cold Saturday morning to the local Hospice Center to paint hot air balloons on a wall in the youth bereavement room.  Many of these women had not done anything like this before but took the plunge and put paint on the wall.  Some were more hesitant and started with cutting out the hospice bird which was to be pasted on the cabinet doors to hide their sterility. 

 Besides the balloons, I had envisioned a large tree in a corner by a book case so that the children could sit under the canopy of the tree and read.

We also had a 3 dimensional artist create 3 hot air balloons which would hang from the ceiling.  My idea was to integrate the 2 dimensional with the 3 dimensional concept.  Also we put several strings of leaves draping over hooks on the ceiling over our painted tree.

It was great for me to see my ideas come to fruition with this project.  It did look just like I had envisioned.  My images came from the idea of young people coping with the death of a loved one and thinking of their death as a lifting up from this earth to a more ethereal place.  This I hoped to accomplish with the balloons and the flying birds.  Then I looked upon the tree in the corner as a peaceful place to rest with words of comfort.

To date I have done many murals alone.  I have also done a number with volunteer help, mostly young people.  I must say that this one has been one of the most rewarding.  We have turned a very ordinary uninspiring room  into a colorful and lively space but also one that should be comforting to its inhabitants.

Another year’s almost over

Here we are in December already which means that 2009 is almost over.  The older you get, the faster the years go by.  I had a milestone birthday this year which, when I was young, meant you were old.  But now that I am there, it doesn’t seem so old.  As always, it depends upon which side of the fence you are standing.

At any rate, for some unknown reason, it seems that the older I get the more creative my brain becomes.  This could be because the older you get the more you forget.  Your brain has more room for all those creative juices to flow.  It could also be because you become more selective in what you to do.   You push aside all those little consequen-tial things that are apt to clog your mind.   So, here I am at 65,  full of all sorts of ideas of things that I want to create.  I still have a time problem because of working at the gallery.  However, this year,  business has been so slow that I have had plenty of time to paint.

Since August, I have been working with a committee to create the decor for a big fundraiser for our symphony.  I have helped  come up with some very interesting decorations to make the facility look like a 1930’s Miami supper club.  I have spent many hours all fall painting my life size figures, etc.  I will post pictures after our event on Feb. 6th.

One of the other things that I have been working on is a design for a mural on a wall in the youth bereavement room at our local hospice facility.  We are going to have  hot air balloons flying in the sky.  I thought that this was significant in that it conveys the idea of rising up and going away as do our departed ones but that it is also celebratory with all the primary colors.

We  also will have some three dimensional balloons hanging from the ceiling  as well as a balloon that was sturdy enough for the children to pick up and carry around the room.  They would be able to take some dollhouse size people to take in and out of the balloon also.  The coordinator of the project has gotten a local 3 dimensional artist to do this.

There will also be a tree in another corner which will have greenery hanging from the ceiling to make it seem like a canopy of foliage.  This will hang over a bookcase.  This project will be a joint effort by some of the auxiliary volunteers and will start in January.  I will also post pictures of this when it is completed.  I am very excited about this project.

We also got a new Epson 4800 printer a month or so ago which we have printed out only a few things but we are excited about this.  We can print from a roll that is 17″ wide  so that we can print larger prints of my paintings and my photos which I have altered in the computer.  This is really great.  We hope to be able to make this a profitable venture by printing for other artists as well.

For now, that is what I have been doing this fall.  I will work on getting photos of all the things that I have been talking about.  Christmas will soon be upon us.  I hope that everyone has a blessed Christmas and a happy new year filled with many blessings.

At long last

It has been ages since I last posted a blog.  We went to Hawaii and then we were catching up on things at the store.  Then I think that I got caught up in the summer doldrums.  I just haven’t been able to get myself back to blogging.

It has been a fairly good summer weather wise.  June was terribly hot for 2 weeks but then July was nice.  We went north to visit old friends at the end of July which gave us some cooler weather to enjoy.  But now August is hot and humid which, as we know,  is typical of Coastal Georgia.

I have been doing some painting over the summer.  I refurbished an old watercolor that for some reason I never finished.  I gave it alot more darks which always helps considerably.

I am finishing up a pen and ink drawing I did of Crane’s Cottage, one of the millionaires cottages on Jekyll Island.  This is for a young couple who is getting married in October and their reception will be at  this site.

I also did a couple more pen and inks for Chadwick’s Jewelers,  just up the street.  They wanted to put my ink drawings on display around their tree spirit pictures.  They have charms of the tree spirits and images of St. Simons Island.

I have also gotten into working on 2 committees for The Coastal Symphony fundraiser in Feb., one of which is the decorations committee.  We have a great project going with renditions of people which I am excited about.  I also just created a white paper palm tree which could be part of the centerpiece on the tables and I hope they work out because I think they would great with our 1930’s supper club theme.

So I have been very busy this summer, I just haven’t gotten into the mood to write.  People talk about artist’s block when they go to paint but I have run into this with this blog.  I just couldn’t get down to do it.  I guess it is because we have had so many projects at home to work on that my mind has been more on that.  Focus is what makes things happen whether it is work or  play.

April

Here we are into May already. It has been a busy month. I have done several new paintings but I will wait until we get back from our vacation to upload them.

We have still been slow with the picture framing so I have had more time to paint this month. I worked on several framing projects that I was very happy with and did some repair work and cleaning of canvases which came out well.  I have been trying to work on more figures in my paintings.  I spent many years doing life drawing so I should utilize that more.

I also spent time with my children and their children which was fun. I had a number of days with my granddaughter Brenna who lives in NH and I don’t get to see too often. That was a treat. I also saw my grandsons play baseball which was fun.

I wrote one art review about the Glynn Art Coastal National but it didn’t get into the paper due to lack of room.  I will keep trying and hopefully soon I can get them on the internet. I think that it would be helpful to some people if they get the view of an artist on the work that is being shown.  Sometimes that helps them see things in a painting that they might not notice otherwise.

I have several ideas for new paintings which I hope to start when I get back but I may be so full of the beauty of Hawaii that I will go off on a whole different tack, who knows.

March Update

Here we are already to the end of March. This month has flown by. We have been fairly busy in the store. We have done some interesting things in framing.

I have painted a new oil. It is called “The Blue Gate” and it is from a photo that I took in downtown Chicago several years ago when they had a competition in their gardens along Michigan Avenue. It was so interesting to see. I would love to bring this concept to The Golden Isles someday. It would be fun to come up with a motif for artists to decorate and then landscape people to build gardens around the motif.

The other news in my life this month was winning the LGA club championship at our golf club. I have come close several times before but this time I was able to hang in and win. It was very exciting for me.

I am about to start a wall mural in my grandsons bedroom. He has a jungle theme and I will paint a tree like I did for him before in their other house. I also plan on painting the closet door like an entrance to a stick hut with an animal’s head sticking out of a window. He just needs to decide what bird or animal he wants.

So with March closing down for 2009 and April knocking at the door I look forward to writing articles of Art Reviews of exhibits in the area soon. I think that it will entice people to go to the exhibits and also look at the artwork in a new and different way than they might have otherwise. I hope that I can get this going.

News from February

Sand Dune Safari

I have been doing some new things this month. I have a new piece that will go on the cover of The High Tides Guide for the next quarter. It is a piece that I did from a photo of my grandsons walking on the dunes at the beach on St. Simons Island. It is an oil painting.

I have photo that I entered into the local garden club garden show which will be shown at the Left Bank Gallery in April and then will be shown at the Garden Club Tour in May.

Lily Pads

I am also working on a small commissioned piece that will be put up in the local library as gift to a retiring employee.

So I have gotten some good things that are associated with my artwork to come my way recently. They seem to come in bunches and then be elusive for periods of time.

Japanese Fan

We had a fairly busy month in Februrary working on 48 pieces for a resort who needed some pictures in their units. That was nice to get. Framing orders are really slow coming in. Although yesterday we put together a 31 x 78 inch mirror which to say the least is BIG.

Another piece that I have revived lately which I like is my watercolor of a Japanese fan that my husband brought back from his trip to Japan. I brightened it up and I love it now. Plus I framed it with a navy blue silk mat put a fillet in and put it in a beautiful Larson Juhl Gold frame. It is great to look at now.

New Murals

I have just finished two new murals at the Ole Time Country Buffet & Barbeque in Brunswick, GA. It was a fun experience as I really enjoy doing large murals. These were 4′ high by 12′ long. One in the entry way was a composite of local scenes which are very familiar to visitors and locals alike. One was in the function room which was large and needed an impressive scene to fill the wall.

It was not too hard to come up with subject matter for these murals because I had painted all the scenes, at least in the entry way many times over the years. Somehow the whole idea came togther quickly and I didn’t have to struggle with what to do. I also knew that they were on a short time frame. I met with them one day and brought a sketch of my ideas back the next day.

Not only did I do the murals but we also acquired old photos of the area to put on the walls through out the restaurant. That was also an interesting experience. I wanted the framing job besides the murals so I offered to find the old photos of the area. That took some digging but I found someone who had grown up in the area and had alot of old photos. I also found a number of photos at the Library. I found out alot of great information about the history of the Brunswick area in my search.

So from my first meeting with the client until I delivered the framed pictures today, this whole project took two weeks. That means that we accomplished alot in that time frame. It was a fun experience and it was nice to get out of the shop for awhile.

The picture on the left shows The old Glynn County Courthouse, The St. Simons Lighthouse, Christ Church, and Shrimp Boats.
The picture on the right is The Sydney Lanier Bridge, Mary Ross Park and the Jekyll Island Hotel.

Larson Juhl Framing Seminar

We attended a framing seminar yesterday sponsored by Larson Juhl.  This seminar was prompted by the sluggish business that everyone is experiencing.  The topic was Trends and Solutions and Guidelines for Great Frame Designs.  It was lead by Greg Perkins a well known personality in the framing business.

Previous to going, I wondered how much there was to hear after 25 years in the business but I knew that there could be new twists that I hadn’t thought of before.  That was definitely the case.  Greg suggested ways to look at our customers and find out what kinds of designs would work for them.  There are alot of differences in the needs of seniors, baby boomers, x & y generations and of course the difference in preferences by men and women.  There are always new ways to see things.

For now I will keep this brief.  I just read  through a twitter connection that sometimes readers get glassy eyed if there is too much info at one time so I’ll continue this later.

Fabric Collages

Here are some new pieces that I have recently created.

I have enjoyed playing with different fabrics to create images of scenery here in the low country.  I have sewn for years so I have accumulated alot of different kinds of fabrics.  I have also bought some new pieces of fabric thinking that I might quilt them but with so little extra time, I decided that I would “paint with fabric” instead of sew it. 

This year I made a large wall hanging with fabric which I did do some sewing on for a client.  This gave me the idea to use the fabrics that I have to make a collage on stretched canvas.   Since working on designs is what intriques me,  putting different combinations of mediums together is challenging.  These pieces are mounted with wallpaper paste on stretched canvas. The wallpaper paste is inert and non yellowing which I thought would be safe for the fabrics in the long term.   On “The Turtle Crossing”  piece I used a lacey material for the sky and let the underpainting on the canvas show through.  That made an interesting affect.

There are always new and different ways to explore creating art pieces!!!

From Radio to Twitter

I feel like I have taken a  flight to circle the world during the past few weeks.  I have become aware of the social media networking happening on the web.  Up until now the web was a great research site for purchasing things or planning trips.  It has been a way to communicate with family and friends via emails.  But that world was very small and I am embarking on a journey through the looking glass.

When I was very small,  radio was the only broadcastor.  We used to listen to the radio to get the news or in print there was newspapers and magazines told you what was happening in the world.  We listened to The Lone Range or The Shadow,  voices with unseen faces. I  also remember viewing world news in the  movie theater on the big screen because that was the only way you could see it in realty.    Think about how old that news was!   It came just before the cartoons!

Then Television came along.  We probably had one of the first ones in our neighborhood.  The screen was probably 8 – 10″ wide and the furniture piece that encased it was a huge box probably 26″ wide and 3 and a half feet tall.  There was hardly anything to watch on it and it was all hazy and not too clear.  If I remember correctly, the sound was a bit tinny and a bit garbled.   But TV improved and there was more to watch than just wrestling when the news wasn’t on. 

I remember when I was in high school and we went to UNH with my math class to see some new technology – a computer.  This computer took up the whole room.  The room was probably 20 foot square at least.  It spewed out cards with punch holes in it.   Twenty years later we got a small computer for our home with the name of PC Junior.  It was when they were being phased out because of lack of memory capacity.  But it was fun for us and it also showed us in simplified form how the programs were made.

It didn’t take long for us to realize why they were phased out and we had to upgrade our computer.  Now we try to keep up with the upgrades to the programs we use.  There are so many programs that we use today between the POS program at the store, the 2 CAD programs that I have learned and the extensive facets to the Photoshope program.  No wonder my mind just shuts down every once in awhile!  Alot of our friends call this a senior moment but I think it is just overload.  My brain is being challenged with so much new information that  it’s probably running out of chambers to store all this knowledge.  Then what??

Getting back to my original point.  Now I am trying to  learn about ways to communicate with people who I don’t know and who are , sort of,  on a different plane than I am.  They text message with ease, which I haven’t tried yet.  They use language which I am trying to learn.  They take for granted ways of communicating and sharing information that I had never dreamt of before.  But I am finding this whole new world exciting and I want to be a part of it.

People I know, know how to use e-mail and maybe buy and sell on ebay and make their travel plans on the internet.  They are mostly all retired so that trying to develop a customer base or expanding their personal contacts via the internet is not a priority with them.  However, I am trying to reach a broader base for my artwork and to draw more people to our picture framing business.  So therefore I need to keep up with the most productive way to attract customers.  Old traditional ways of advertising are falling short today.

I also know, as an artist, how isolated creative people can be.  Visual artists and writers, have to spend alot of time alone to create.  With all that solitary time, some contact with the world is needed in order to continue to be stimulated to create.  Actually, because of our store and our framing business, the contact with the public has made my artwork richer because of the exposure to things that I might not have seen otherwise.  It broadens my experience which in turn gives me more resources to draw from when I do paint.

I have had a website for a long time but gained no social interaction from it except sales people wanting to sell my work for me.  I am hoping  this blog will stimulate responses as well as interest in  my art.  Plus I love to write and I think with all the knowledge I have in art and in picture framing that I have some information to share.

Anyway, now having joined twitter and getting all sorts of up to date news information, access to websites I never would have found and leads to interesting  peoples’  blogs.   I believe that there is a whole new world buzzing through space that I was totaly unaware of.  Going from radio to twitter is like a ride on the tail of a comet!