April 2025
Only four months have passed in 2025? Really? It seems like four years have passed. I’m so tired and I still have to get through May. Ooooof.
The upside is that lots of great things are happening, so I’m not complaining. I’m going to cover April chronologically:
Week one: Piedmont Park Paint Out. I used this time to put some of the things I learned from Larry Moore into practice. I took acrylics, painted small and just had fun painting by shapes. Loved almost everything I painted that week. I also had the opportunity to teach a flower painting workshop at the park, which was a big success. It’s always exhilarating to see people who’ve never painted before complete a painting they’re happy with.
Next, it was off to Meriwether County, which I think is one of the most beautiful counties in Georgia. Rolling hills, magnificent trees, cows, goats, ponds, lakes, foggy mornings, and glowing pink sunsets.This was a continuation of my experiments in small formats, just playing with exciting color combinations and shapes. I got a TON of reference material and loved most of what I painted.
Week 3 took me to Savannah and Darien to meet up with Michelle and paint before Olmsted. SO much fun. One of my favorite memories was having 2 Wet Willie’s daiquiris then painting the gold dome of City Hall. Isn’t it so cool to see how differently we approach paintings and our artistic choices?
Finally, it was back to Atlanta for a full week at Olmsted. Michelle stayed with us, of course, and when I didn’t have obligations, we painted together. She submitted her City Hall dome for the competition portion of the event, and while it didn’t win a judge’s award, it was so good we had to add it to our collection. I thought it was easily the best painting in the room and I’m not saying that because she’s my friend.
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| La Regina in action |
One of the things I noticed is that quite a few artists in this year’s event ripped off other artists’ styles and looks. There were several paintings that were crazy close to copies. I spend an enormous amount of time looking at art and I know a rip off of one of my favorites when I see it. Maybe they think they can get away with it because the artists are not as well known, but I can spot it a mile away. Disappointing.
We had two docent trainings this month that could not have been timed better for my personal art explorations and experiments. The first is an exhibition by a Korean artist named Kim Chong Hak, which features massive abstract landscapes & florals as well as several really exciting self portraits. Delicious. And then we had a guest speaker, William Downs, who gave an artist talk and drawing demo. I had tears in my eyes. I knew that being a docent would give me access to insider information, but never in a million years did I dream that all of this would fall in my lap one day. I got to talk to him - he’s from Greenville, SC (yet another connection) but also lived in NO (still another connection). He loves automatic drawing, drawing with his non dominant hand, drawing with both hands and painting/drawing with sticks! I’m a huge fan and I feel incredibly fortunate to have met him, heard him and seen him in action.
PAINTINGS
I’m really excited about where things are going with my paintings. It brings back memories of late 2019 and early 2020 when I was studying with George. At that time I was very frustrated with my paintings because my drawings were not good. George helped me fix that. I sorta took one step back in order to take one giant step forward. Not that different than what’s happening now. My guess is I’ll need about six months to a year to get things fully locked and loaded. There will be missteps along the way, and that’s part of this process. As one of my old instructors used to say, “Beth, sometimes you gotta break some eggs.”
Sales are slow right now. Reeeeaaallly slow (except for the bookstore!) and I can’t help but think that’s due to the economic uncertainty. It’s not just me, either.
TEACHING
It’s still smooth sailing for Drawing Fundamentals in Acworth. Grateful for that. My friend Barbara and I are co-teaching plein air workshops this coming Saturday in Eatonton. Afterwards, we will judge the Quick Paint competition. Should be lots of fun.
UPCOMING
We are going out to dinner tomorrow night to celebrate Scott’s birthday. I’m going to be in a group show in Dunwoody next month and then it’s off to PACE in Lake Tahoe. I’m also working on two commissions.
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| Louis |
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| Winston |
Total assimilation? Not quite, but so much closer than we were a month ago.
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