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| Zonolite Park - Atlanta |
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| Painting with the Virginia Highland Plein Air Painters |
I knew that March, April and May were going to be a whirlwind. Between plein air competitions and travel, these past three months have been one nonstop adventure. Honestly, I’m ready to turn down the volume and pace and have a quiet, studious summer. But I’m also very grateful for all that has happened. May was by far the best selling month I’ve had since I started selling my art. Thank you so much to everyone who purchased a painting. There are so many paintings you could buy, but you chose to buy one of mine. It’s humbling, inspiring and it motivates me to work even harder.
PLEIN AIR UPDATE
Painting en plein air has given me an opportunity to explore so much of the world around me … places I’ve walked past a million times but never really “saw” them with an art-focused eye and many places that I didn’t even knew existed in this city. For example, the photos above were taken at Zonolite Park, about 15 minutes from our house. The only thing I knew about Zonolite was that Floataway Cafe was nearby. I didn’t know about these beautiful creek beds, flowing water, gardens, and trails. Atlanta is a CRAZY town and embedded in the midst of all this crazy is this zen-like oasis of flowing water, shade and calm. Who knew?? It felt otherworldly and I could feel my blood pressure drop as I stood in that creek bed and painted, well, except for the signs posted to watch for indigenous snakes!
I also painted at my friend Monica’s home, Inman Park, Marietta Square and The Goodrum House.
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| Monica’s Home |
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| Bread & Butterfly in Inman Park |
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| Red Hare Brewing on Marietta Square |
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| Goodrum House Gardens |
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| Goodrum House |
I participated in my neighborhood’s annual garden stroll, which was a lot of fun. And next year I’ll have a booth, so that will give me an opportunity to paint and sell all kinds of paintings, framed, Unframed, representational and abstract. Already counting the days until next year!
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| Painting en plein air at the Midtown Garden Stroll |
And I participated in my 4th plein air competition, the Ellijay/Gilmer County “Paint the Mountains” event which was held May 20-22. Scott went with me for this one, and I’m really glad he did. These competitions are tough and completely draining. A typical day runs like this: get up at the crack of dawn, load up the gear, travel to the first location, paint for several hours. Volunteers delivered bagged lunches to us (a luxury … this never happens in other competitions), scarf down lunch, off to the next location to paint for a few more hours. All the while, it’s hot, muggy and buggy. I completely doused myself from head to toe in Australian Gold bug spray and I still had to reapply it several times, while picking bugs out of the corners of my eyes. Doesn’t that sound so glamorous??? Then it’s back to the cabin to retouch any areas that need to be fixed. I try to keep changes to a minimum. Next I photographed the finished pieces, uploaded the photos to the Gilmer Arts website, framed them and hit the shower. Got dressed, delivered paintings to the headquarters, went to dinner/receptions, then home to crash. Woke up the next morning and did it all over again.
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| Ellijay River House |
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| Cartecay Vineyards |
On Sunday we competed in the Quick Paint challenge and then we attended the auction where our art was auctioned off via live and silent auctions.
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| Quick Paint Competition in Ellijay |
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| My paintings are in the 3rd column (L to R) |
I’m happy to report that all 4 of my paintings SOLD! Yes, I was tired. My legs and back were aching, but selling those paintings made it all the more bearable. My quick paints are definitely improving but I still have a ways to go before I can win. I also learned that I need to practice painting water, so that’s one of the things I’ll focus on this summer. But all in all, it was an amazing experience, and I always meet the nicest people doing these competitions.
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| My man ❤️ |
With summer heat and humidity on the way, I won’t be spending as much time painting outside. And that’s OK. I need to work on some skill building this summer and I want to paint from the photos we took in Provence. I might also play around with abstracts.
EXHIBITIONS
I’m still participating in exhibitions at the Acworth Arts Alliance. I’ve had success there with quite a few sales. In fact, I delivered three pieces to them today.
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| The show “Local Inspirations” runs June 4 - July 30 |
I’ve taken a little time off from showing at the Atlanta Artists Center, but I plan to enter a few pieces in upcoming calls for art and see how things go. But the biggest news I have regarding showing my work is that I decided to leave the Roswell Square Gallery. It was not an easy decision to make but the sales just aren’t happening there. The gallery is actually a collective and relies on the group of artists to keep the doors open. You can’t sell art if the doors aren’t open and you don’t have regular business hours. I sell more art on my own - that’s the bottom line.
STUDIO WORK
Here are some of the pieces I worked on in my studio. I have a few more in the works that I haven’t photographed, but I’ll upload those in next month’s post.
PERSONAL
We spent Memorial Day Weekend packing up and moving my things out of the Roswell Square Gallery, then organizing all of that stuff at home. I think we now have 4 easels??? Yikes. We also rearranged some of our art and ordered a new sofa. Normally we’re out of town on Memorial Day weekend, but it was nice to be home and we even made it to a Braves game on Friday night. We lucked out with seats in the Delta Sky Club and the weather was spectacular.
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| Delta Sky Club makes a pretty good Old Fashioned! |
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| Braves win! |
READING
“Patient, sustained effort leads to success.”
“Do the things you’re supposed to do and the results are guaranteed.”
“You have to be a legend in your own mind before you can be a legend in your own time.”
“To achieve exceptional results you must believe in your own talent.”
“Sweat in practice so you don’t bleed in the game.”
“Develop a process so you can stop worrying about the outcome”
“Embrace the grind.”
“Put no limits on yourself and what you want to accomplish.”
“If no one thinks your goals are crazy, you’re not aiming high enough.”
I’m also reading
“First,” the story of Sandra Day O’Connor, but I got sidetracked with “How Champions Think.”
OTIS and JULIUS
These two little lumps of sugar are still the sweetest boys in town. They scrap and wrestle all the time, but they also love sleeping next to each other.
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| Otis |
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| JuJu and sheet changing day |
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| JuJu is always ready for a photo |
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| Otis keeping me company in my studio |
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| Squirrel Patrol |
JUNE
Honestly, I don’t have much planned for June. I’m going to work on painting water, paint from my Provence photos, maybe a little plein air on days when it’s not miserably hot/humid, maybe some drawing sessions at Atlanta Artists Center, play with gouache, practice dynamic symmetry, give a docent tour or two at the High Museum, work on skill building and process. I have some long term goals that I’ve set for myself, so I’ve broken those down into smaller goals and I’ll work on nailing them as the summer progresses.
Thanks for reading. I sincerely appreciate your support and encouragement. Have a great summer!
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