Trees

Sold

I just can't seem to stop painting birches lately. "Trees" is 24x48 and I think I like this fresh green as much as the blue in the previous one. Besides painting the birches I've been working on some new smalls for my Etsy shop. Stay tuned, I'll be posting new paintings there shortly.

A Beautiful Friday

Spring Birch Forest II

36x36

Today has been one of those days where everything that was frustrating me earlier in the week, comes together nicely. I started 5 different paintings on Monday as I like to work on a few at a time. Especially larger paintings. I've managed to completely finish 3 of them and only have to add some minor details to the other 2. The above painting is Spring Birch Forest II. I really enjoyed painting this piece as this shade of blue and green together just screams "spring" to me. I use a palette knife to paint the birches which I normally don't use in my landscapes. This shakes it up a bit and keeps things from getting boring as I work along, after all, I am trying to "step out of the box" as much as I can these days. Would you like one for your collection? I happily do commissions. Drop me an email. Prefer to deal with a gallery instead/ (and many people do) contact Art Interiors. I think they still have a painting or two in my birch series.

Supria and I got a very nice mention in "Staff Picks" in the spring issue of Agenda, VAO's magazine for it's members. It seems that we were picked as faves around the office for making fantastic use of our skills gained through their online marketing seminar. Our blogs and Etsy shops, Facebook, Twitter. Imagine me, the techno phobe! The Inner Works Collaborative also got a nice mention. Thanks Kim, Avril and everyone at Visual Arts Ontario.

Hope everyone has a great weekend.Cheers!

Untitled

Late Summer 24x30 SOLD

I have a gallery show coming up in June that I should be working towards. So why have I been doing everything but this?? I've organized my file folders. Straightened up my work desk. Gone through my selection of paints and have written down what colors I have to purchase tomorrow. I've even painted four new paintings, landscapes, that will not be in this show. Am I procrastinating for some reason? I enjoy working on mixed media paintings and those are what will be in the "Metamorphosis" show this summer. I think it has to do with focus. There are so many projects on my "to do" list at the moment that I'm finding it hard to focus. I've been jumping from one thing to the next. Supria's book, from our altered book round robin collaborative-Inner Works, has been sitting on my table waiting for me to work in it's pages. My galleries are waiting for fresh new work from me. Pressure, panic Time to stop, take a deep breath and prioritize. For now, it's time for me to finish writing this post, clean up the studio from todays work, write a few emails and get our dinner started. Ciao for now.

I've Been Tagged by That Girl!!

My online friend from That Girl Designs blog tagged me while I was away and as I have a bit of free time at the moment (waiting for gesso to dry) I'll play along. Thanks for including me Ann. (I have the theme from this show playing along in my head now!) Here goes

What are you wearing now? My favorite black t shirt.

How often do you blog About 4-5 times a week.

Who was the last person you hugged? My husband.

Which item from your closet are you wearing most lately? My favorite black t shirt.

What's for dinner? A big asian style salad with lots of bean sprouts and edimame, and some teriyaki steak on the side for the guys.

What's the last thing you bought Two little "initial" plates from Anthropologie.

What are you listening to right now? Coldplay

If you could have any super power what would it be? I'd like to fly.

What is your favorite weather and why? Sunny, dry, not too hot.

What time do you usually get up? About 7 am.

What is your most challenging goal right now? Keeping my art biz up and running.

Say something about the person who tagged you. We have many things in common and she's an inspiration to me.

If you could have a house-totally paid for, fully furnished-anywhere in the world, where would you want it to be? Since this question states that it's a house, definitly on the ocean. Now if the question said Condo it would be a penthouse in New York.

Favorite vacation spot? Beach.

Name the things you cannot live without. Clean water, good food, the occasional margarita!

What movies can you watch over and over again. Pretty Woman, You've Got Mail, Shall We Dance?, North By Northwest.

What is your favorite tea? Winter- Tazo chai with soya mik. Summer- homemade green tea, iced.

Who are you tagging? Gabriela Delworth, Melonhead Knitwear, Veronica Funk,

Back From Vacation

Sunrise over Daytona Beach


Our view of the space shuttle launch.

Love the sound of the waves and that "beach smell"!!!

Sunset at Bonita Springs.

No, I haven't fallen off the face of the earth. I haven't been here for the past 10 days but that's because we went off to Florida for my son's spring break. Three days driving down, four days in the sun and another three days to drive back to Toronto. It was a bit of a whirlwind, but fun for sure, and I got my "beach fix" for the season. I visited an art show while in Bonita Springs, was lucky enough to catch a glimpse of the space shuttle launch, and took tons of photos. Lots of inspiration for new paintings. I'm tired but wanted to check in and post a very small sampling of pics. I missed my "blogs" while away and I have so much reading to catch up with to see what you've all been up to. I'm also working my way through piles and piles of laundry. The cats missed us and we now have non stop meowing going on-for most of the night I'm sure. Now, where's that glass of wine?

How Beautiful

There is something about beach glass that I find just captivating. Simply beautiful. When my son was a toddler, we lived very close to the lake and we'd go together for daily walks, barefoot at the waters edge, picking up these tiny treasures. Since then I've made some art pieces with the glass. A funky mosaic table top, and a frame for a mirror. I also made myself a bracelet but after a while, I took it apart and put the pieces of beach glass back with the others in this mason jar. I recently came across this shop on Etsy. LucyJewel Seaglass makes beautiful necklaces and earrings from beach glass. What I like most about their jewelry is that they keep the beach glass in it's found state. They don't drill or tumble. I especially love this necklace. It's true, the blue ones are few and far between, very hard to find. This beautiful aqua glass is combined with the copper chain, lovely!! Check out LucyJewel Seaglass for some wonderful finds. You can also see their blog here.

Spring Fever and I Won a Giveaway!!

Magnolia Buds

Acrylic on Canvas 12x24

sold

I've had a bad case of spring fever lately. All I can think about is warmer temperatures and flowers and trees blossoming. Hurry up spring!!

Last week I entered this giveaway on decor8. I don't usually enter things like this because the number of people that enter are so high and I always think "what are my chances?" But as this giveaway was on Holly's blog and I had a chance to win fabulous art and textiles by Rebecca Peragine at print*pattern*paper I just had to enter. Imagine my surprise when I checked back to decor8 last night and found out that I had won. Happy Happy!! I've been searching and trying to decide what I will purchase. There's some fabulous artwork and the cutest tote bags, I just can't decide.

Road Series

Road Series #2
Acrylic on Canvas 6x6
$150

Road Series #6
Acrylic on Canvas 6x6
$150

Road Series #5
Acrylic on Canvas 6x6
$150

I'm in the mood for a road trip. I've spent days and days in the studio preparing for upcoming gallery shows, painting up a storm. Painting small studies and larger paintings, working on our altered book collaboration, writing an artist statement for the show with Leonardo Gallery, delivering new work, painting new work for my Etsy shop, and everything else I need to do to keep this little art biz up and running. I'm really in the need of a little time off, to kick back and be inspired by whatever comes my way. As a child our family would make the yearly "spring break" trip to Florida. Sometimes I or my sister got to bring a friend along. It was always a whirlwind trip. Three days to get there, a week in the sun and then three days back. I never minded being cooped up in the back seat for so long. I would stare out the window and watch the scenery go by. I loved the billboards and all the different attractions, restaurants and diners that we passed. I still have my collection of hotel/motel soaps, matchbooks, and assorted ephemera that I collected on these trips. In fact, I should probably dig them out of the basement and photograph them. Our trips were in the late 60's and early 70's so these items are quite retro. These trips fueled my love for the open road and to this day I still love road trips. Lots of inspiration and lots of photos taken along the way, inspired my Road Series. Small 6x6 acrylics on stretched canvas. If you're interested in purchasing any of my art please feel free to drop me an email. One of these days a really long road trip is in order-maybe Route 66 to Vegas. Now that would be fun!

Mixed Media Pages

I've really enjoyed working in Roxanne's book "Earth Tones", just one of the books in our Inner Works altered book collaboration. I interpreted this theme as the four elements. Earth, air, fire and water, and have given you just a sneak peak of the finished pages of earth and air here. You can see my fire and water pages over at our group blog. Have a look. This theme was very special to me and I really enjoyed working in a multitude of mixed media. There's just something very satisfying in being up to my elbows in paper, paint, gel medium and other assorted goodness.

Lunch with Gabriela Delworth

Early Morning Mist 36x48

available at Canvas Gallery

Today was a day out of the studio. A networking day. I met my friend Gabriela for a quick lunch and a brainstorming session. She is blogger/craft instructor extraordinaire. See her blog here. I recently saw her on an episode of HGTV's The Decorating Adventures of Ambrose Price. She was showing her fine art of gift wrapping and I was truely impressed. Like Ambrose, I didn't know you could wrap a round box and make it look as wonderful as Gabriela did. I must admit when it comes to gift wrapping I prefer gift bags and some tissue. Easy peasy! Today we talked about many things. The state of the economy, how the media is affecting and has been affected by this recession. Some of our favorite magazines have stopped publishing. How some are changing and adapting to stay afloat, while others are seizing the opportunity to start a new business endevour or expanding on what they have already. We both agree that it's important to shop indie and support your local artists and craftspeople. Buy handmade!! Thanks for a nice lunch Gabriela, I always get a big burst of inspiration after one of our meetings.

Now it's back to work for the rest of the afternoon. I've been working on some paintings that I'll be submitting to my publisher. I'll post more about that soon. Tomorrow I'll be checking out The Artist Project Toronto as artist friend Lynn Kelly is exhibiting.

Smalls at Art Interiors, I'm on Twitter

Part of my weekend was spent working on getting the hang of Twitter, and on-line networking in general. Those of you that follow this blog know that I can be a bit of a techno phobe at times, so I was really quite thrilled when I realized that it's not as hard as I thought at first. I'm really not "that old" but I must admit for the most part, I'd rather be coming up with new paintings and mixed media work as opposed to spending my time at the computer. But that's just me.

I was at Art Interiors last week to drop off new smalls. My favorite "mini birches". They're just so "spring-y" I love them. And a few in my "Birds on Wires" series. I believe they will be available on Art Interiors online store as well as in the gallery. Check them out-they're so affordable.