Since my paints were out anyway, and I was required to make something for a little gift exchange with all the other students in Senior Seminar, I decided to make everyone a little painting. I love working with the pre-stretched one inch thick canvases. For this series of thank you gifts I bought the 5″ x 5″ size. It will be interesting to see what each person thinks of their painting I made specifically for them. Each painting is of something having to do with that person’s artwork they made for their senior thesis show, except Janelle’s. She said she likes birds, so I painted her a bird instead of a wax-dipped-tea-stained pouch.

I’m wearing the Nagaland Head Hunters’ necklace to the dinner tonight at Heather’s house. It is in the thank you painting I’m giving Heather. She and her husband Brian went to Nagaland last year. A few months later the film students from Nagaland came to Nazareth College and presented their works. They were the nicest people! Once I saw it I had to buy this necklace I found researching Nagaland art. Luckily headhunting isn’t a practice any longer in Nagaland.

These are the little paintings.

The opening of my solo exhibit “misremembrance” in the Gallery at the Art & Music Library on Saturday was great fun! It was certainly worth all the work that went into it. The photos below show the gallery ready for the opening.

The brown paint was the perfect background for the series of paintings based on my Mom’s reference photos of my sister and me as small children. The white wall worked for the triptych of “Paige Loved to Dance”.

Edmund and I set up the yummy vegetarian and meat lover’s Open Face sandwich trays, little bottles of water and the wine. The CDs of 1950’s Greatest Hits were playing as we sat and waited for the first arrivals. I didn’t immediately recognize the first woman who walked in, because I wasn’t expecting my sister Betsy to fly in from Virginia to surprise me. And she was wearing the red cowboy boots she bought for the occasion!

The tripytch painting, “Betsy Had Red Cowboy Boots” was the image I used on my exhibit postcard. I had sent it to her when she told me she wouldn’t be able to make the opening. What fun to have the subject of most of the paintings actually there and wearing red cowboy boots bought to match her painting for the opening.

It was also fun to have our granddaughter Paige, the model for “Paige Loved to Dance” come with her Mom, Dad, sister and brother to see the paintings of herself.

My cousins came from Rochester and Syracuse. Cousin Jean brought her son, my cousin Brandon, as a surprise guest. He is the Wine Maker at Red Newt Winery and always lots of fun. A long time friend David came from Detroit as well as other Rochester friends, Gwenn and Terry, Ann and Will, Axel and Diane. And what a delight to see Nicki my EMT/painting friend again. My painting teacher Heather Layton and professors Grace Seiberling and Allen Topolski stopped by.

This photo of cousin Nancy from Syracuse sums up how everyone seemed to feel, especially me.

With wonderful memories I’m off to finish a couple of thank you paintings for my painting mentor Heather and department chairman Allen. Without all I learned from them and years of asking me to push my work beyond what it was, this exhibit wouldn’t have happened. Many, many thanks to them.

it was a whirlwind of a week last week. The paintings had to be finished, the hanging order needed to be decided, the vinyl lettering ordered for the gallery window, the gallery walls painted, the food ordered from Open Face and everything installed.

Since my new studio is about the same size as the gallery I was able to arrange my paintings along the wall in different orders and photograph them. This helped me decide the best color balance between paintings.

The photo above is the order selected for the left wall as you walk in the gallery.

After studying this photo above I decided to switch this order shown of the “Betsy’s Sundress” painting and the “We Always Wore Proper White Gloves on Easter” painting. These would hang on the end wall you would see straight ahead as you walked into the gallery.

Finally, after repeated study of the stack of paint chips I had collected, I decided on a soft suede-brown to paint the walls behind the paintings with the light backgrounds. It was from the color swatch with the two lighter browns I had used in the “Paige Loved to Dance” triptych. I decided to keep those three paintings on a single white wall. The Behr latex paint I used actually mixes nicely with the Golden, and Windsor & Newton acrylic paints I paint with. Some of the colors I can buy in small tester jars to create a certain mood I couldn’t mix if I spent hours trying.

I checked my list as I gathered my hanging tools, paintings. labels and artist statement. With 2 days of vacation from my real job at the University and the tremendous help carrying and painting from my husband Edmund my first solo exhibit started to finally happen.

On Thursday we picked up the vinyl lettering from Dave at EGI Vinyl, painted the walls and applied the vinyl to the window.  A number of staff who walked though as I was hanging commented on how they liked the warm, inviting wall color we were painting, On Friday we brought all of the paintings to the space. Staff and students who walked through as I was hanging them said they liked the paintings. One student asked if I had postcards of the paintings for sale. I had to tell her no, but thanked her for the great idea. I’ll have to offer them for sale on my website. I spent a long time studying the paintings leaning against the gallery wall that day and adjusting the amount of equal space between them until I was satisfied they balanced with the wall space.

Finally they were hung and I felt very satisfied to see months of long hours and hard work come together for this solo show. Exhausted but satisfied I had done all I could I left for home, to return the next morning to set-up for the opening . . .

This week I have been lucky to have a sun-filled weekend to finish the paintings for the exhibit. I’ve worked on adding details to the series of paintings of Paige and the Sphere. They will all work nicely against the tan wall color I’m painting the gallery. I’ll add photos to my next post. Off to finish painting.

When my sister Betsy and I were small we always dressed up for church, especially on Easter Sunday. I found some delightful photos of the two of us Easter Sunday, 1959. We had little straw sailor hats, proper purses, white socks, and the required little white gloves. We often wore special corsages on Easter. In this reference photo I wear a yellow rose. As we grew older my Uncle Carl provided orchids he raised in his greenhouse.

I’ve kept Betsy’s coat navy blue as I started filling in my pencil sketch on this next painting for my first solo exhibit.

I’m wearing a drab grey coat in the original photo and decided to paint it instead in the pale green blue I used for the ’56 Chevy. The coordinated colors contribute to the overall look I’m trying to achieve with all of the paintings in this series. This photo shows the painting surrounded by all the others I’m working on for the show. Looking back at my previous blog posts you can see this color scheme develop.

The little white gloves were almost always too long in the fingers. Wearing them did make us feel so proper on Easter Sundays.

Now I’ll continue to paint and draw more detail . . . and then go back and lightly dry-brush the background paint over the figure of me. I’m also going to add the front of the ’56 Chevy from another reference photo. It has a really fun hood ornament!

This seems to be the favorite painting so far of everyone who has seen this series I’m working on. After my Father left us, my Mother returned to work and saved until she could buy her first car. It is the 1956 Chevy with the signature rounded tail fins in the photo I found with my sister Betsy and me standing in front of it.

Based on the photo, I started this painting with the painted background, in the same partly-painted technique I’ve been using in this series. I’ve always liked starting with a mid-tone for the background and then adding my light highlights and dark shadows. Then came the pencil sketch of the figures and car.

I started filling in the color in the figures.

The area of focus on this painting will probably be Betsy’s green snowsuit. Remember those one piece snowsuits we climbed into as kids? Next, I added color to the car. Luckily, I already had a little tester jar of Benjamin Moore paint named Tranquility that almost exactly matched the light blue green of the car.

I continued to add detail to the painting. I’m not happy with the faces yet and will work on those some more this week.

This series is all about memories of childhood, mostly mine, remembering some details and forgetting others. I don’t remember the plaid coat . . . but do remember the white fuzzy Angora hat!

Over the next two weeks I’ll post photos of the additional progress on the paintings in this series as I finish them for my solo show opening May 12th. The pressure is on now!

When Betsy and I were young kids we loved dressing up for Halloween. The big challenge each year was always what will I dress up as! what will I be! I found some delightful photos of Betsy dressed as the Easter Bunny for Halloween. There are two photos and she appears younger in one than in the other. But that bunny ear hat sure looks the same. I decided to combine them in my next painting. And there were those red boots again I’m thinking of focusing on in this painting too.

The wonderful old TV screams 1950s. I think it is an early Felix the Cat character on her goodie bag. I still have those Tupperware bowls her candy is in.

These are the beginning pencil sketches placing both Betsys on the background space.

The next addition to the painting places the younger Betsy with her Tupperware bowl of candy and those bunny ears.

As I’ve developed painting concepts for my upcoming solo exhibit, I’ve been focusing on painting the details of family photos. These close-ups show details I’ve added to the Ballerina and Snakes.

I’ve also painted part of myself out as the ballerina since I really don’t remember that recital. Just the dress.

I also started the focus painting that will greet each visitor to the gallery when thy enter the exhibit. It is Betsy again in this adorable sundress. She is just so cute in this photo as she runs toward you.

I begin with the painted mid-tone background and add a pencil sketch.

. . . and I then build on the painting, putting emphasis on the details of the sundress and the pearlescent beads on her socks.

I still have to work on her face and the parts of her that get painted away as some memory has faded.

My next painting is from a photo of Betsy with her Tupperware Easter Basket and bunny ears. How timely, since tomorrow is actually Easter. For inspiration, I guess I’ll go eat some of the chocolate Betsy just sent me. How appropriate since she is holding a piece of her Easter candy in the photo as if to offer it to me. I’ll be posting updates on this painting soon.

I continued to work on the tryptych of Betsy and my cousins. In a critique I was asked how I would feel painting over part of the paintings to suggest the faded parts of my memory of them. I took the paintings back to my studio. I sat and looked at them for a long time, then took a deep breath and painted over parts of the cousins. As suggested I kept things like the trycycle in sharper detail, since, like the red boots, I did remember some details from back then,

My friend Tracey stopped by to see the studio and really liked my ghosting back of the details. It did suggest those forgotten bits of memory of those days in the 1950s she thought. Below you can see how areas still show remembered details and parts fade away.

When my fellow artist friend Kitty was visiting yesterday we discussed painting while I began work on another painting of mine. Technique is something we each continuously develop as we work. We remembered always being told to loosen up in our work those years ago when we were both at RIT. I try to remember that as I work on this painting.

I paint a mid tone for the background, sketch in the figures, and then build up the painting as I add highlights and shadows. I’ve decided to make the figure of my sister Betsy on the left the focal point. By keeping the other two cousins incomplete and with less detail I comment on the loss of memory of these days of my childhood.

I’ve chosen her red cowboy boots as the main focal point.

Trying to add interest to the painting, a triptych really, I focus on shape and shadow. My painting mentor Heather always stresses looking st shape and shadow as I build my paintings. The images below show some of the detail I’m adding as I study the shapes and shadows in the reference photo.

and those red boots . . .

The sun is out so I’m going back into the studio to work on this painting. I’ll show the close-to-final-painting in my next post.