This blog ha! moved to a new hosting site!

I've moved the blog to a new hosting site. Please follow the link and bookmark the new page! I'm still working on the new blog. I'm traveling for a few day so it'll be Wednesday before it's all ready.

New work

I'm heading back to Seattle in a few days to meet up with my husband who I haven't seen for 2 months because he's been traveling for his job. We'll be traveling together for the next 7 weeks so we'll be hitting the airports to:

Seattle
Mexico (PV)
Back to Seattle
Michigan
Then back to Albuquerque in May.

Lots of traveling to do.

I have approximately 16 oil pieces that are dry now, that will be posted for sale with my online gallery and on my Etsy shop sometime around the first of March. After that, my art will be taking a different direction.

I'm shifting, branching out into more modern art pieces. I'm not happy with the place I am right now, my work is not fulfilling me in the way I want it to and I've been increasingly frustrated. Coupled with that, is the knowledge that a lot of people who like my work now will perhaps hate what I do from now on. I had someone tell me of an artist who's work is just "an embarrassment to her and she doesn't even know it". Which reeks. So, if my work will be an embarrassment to me, I welcome it and I welcome the change. So be it.

If you have liked any of my pieces in the past, please email me. At some point this spring, I believe that I will auction off several pieces with the price of each piece just being, what we can agree on. Don't be afraid to offer me any price, I'll consider it especially if you're willing to pay the shipping cost. If there's been something you loved, do let me know because I really hate it when I sell a piece and ten people say they're so upset that they didn't get it first.

"Jake" Completed

14x18" oil on canvas board Click for detail.

I'll be switching mediums next week, back to watercolors and graphite for a couple of months.

almost there

Still need to do the hair/shirt and add in the part of the left arm I painted out. Click for detail.

Face is completed

I still have some work to do on shadows for depth, specifically, around the eyed, but the face is completed for the most part. Click to embiggen for detail.

Now onto the hair, shirt and background. I'll post the completed portrait sometime tomorrow. Hope everyone is having a great day. It's sunny and lovely here in Albuquerque!

hiking along the Rio Grande

It's been awhile since I posted pictures. Here are a couple from a hike my daughter and I did along the Bosque at the Rio Grande on Saturday.


These are little offshoots of the Rio Grande (above).


The Rio Grande looking rather grande.

This is where I walk 8 miles every day-the roads out in the desert behind our house.

I need to get to work now. I need to finish that portrait completely, I'll post a picture when it's all done, which it should be in one or two days.

Taking a few days off

I'm working on something that calls for my complete attention at the moment and am finding it hard to continue giving proper time to these latest two pieces. I've just decided to call it a day, step back and return to them on Monday. Hope everyone has a great weekend and that it's sunny in your little corner of the world!

Back to work

Progress pic:
A work in progress...as always. Paint, wipe off, repeat till finish. Ugh. Going for a walk.

slow day

I've completed the sky on this piece, now 2/3 of the way to go. I didn't get much sleep at all last night so I'm operating on nothing today. Trying to get moving. Hopefully I'll get some on completed on "Jake" so I can at least show some updated progress before this day is over.

Michigan Corn Field and "Jake"

Yeah, not very impressive, huh? But...it's a starting point!

Progress pic:Clouds are just squiggles at this point. Going for a walk now.

"Jake", starting point:
Progress pic:

From the Cottage: Ghost Ranch

"From the Cottage: Ghost Ranch" 14x18" oil

A better photograph but I'll re-take it when the painting is dry. I can see there's still a wash of light across the piece that blanches out the color a bit. Click to embiggen.

Snow Day

It's snowing all across New Mexico today. Ignore the bendy phost in my back yard, it's courtesy of my iphone, which likes to torque things.

Today's starting point on this piece:I'm going to finish this puppy up today and then I swear I'll take a good picture of it when I'm done. I bought a pretty big piece of masonite board yesterday so I'm wanting to get to that ASAP. Now to determine what I'm going to paint on said board. Looks like it's going to be a nice quiet day in the house.

"CoCo" 8x10" oil on board

Completed:

Tuesday

Starting point for "CoCo" today. I'll put in another picture below when I've made some progress, and as usual, swap that one out as I work. I really like working on this one. She's such a cutie with her sleepy face. Click to enlarge.

* Face is done except for some fiddling. So, no more pictures. I'll post the completed portrait sometime tomorrow. Thanks for playing along :-)

Monday

Lot's to do this week. I'm starting out with "CoCo" this morning. Top pic is the beginning point, bottom pic I'll switch out as I progress. Click to enlarge for detail.

So much to work on in this portrait. I don't even bother to call attention to messed up things anymore. I just plunge back in and fix them as I see fit.

I still need to finish the foreground in the desert hills I'm working on and I'm going to start another piece that will be quite different for me, more of a color block/simplistic/abstract art. I'd like to move in that direction, maybe. It's what I love, but I've never just dived in. So, we'll see. I have no idea what I'm going to do yet. Well, I have some idea. Little. Small. Tiny.

*I've done all I can on Coco today. I need to let it sit until tomorrow. I'm going back to this for the rest of today:

iphone picture progress:

Trees and shrubs to go. I'll wrap this one up tomorrow. I want to start something new.

"CoCo"

Starting the foreground. This photo sucks and shows almost no detail because of the wash of light splashing across the canvas but I'm to involved (lazy) to get up and shut the blinds, so it'll have to do as a progress picture.

I'm also going to start on a small portrait of a little girl today, just do the raw umber underpainting so it'll be dry by Monday morning when I want to get started on it.

The girl's name is "Coco", cute, no? It's her nickname, I think it suits her. This is going to be a small 8x10" oil. I chose to do a really close up, tight shot that's a little funky because her parents are pretty funky, so I wanted it to reflect their family a little better than a typical head shot would. I've been looking forward to working on this one for quite some time. I've had it sketched out for weeks now.



Also, I'm fully aware I still haven't touched "Jake" and "Roxanne" but there's a method to my madness. I have a line-up of work and am progressing along that path. I figure I'll complete the two portraits that are sketched out below in the month of February. Then I have one I'm doing for my sister-in-law whom I love, but that one is really special and I want to get this line of work cleared out before I start on it. It's a duel portrait so it'll be a time-consuming and I want it to be the best it can be, and so...I do have a plan, my plans make sense to no one but me.

I'm having a hard time getting started today. I had to make out a long, convoluted order for Dick Blick's for art supplies: tons of water soluble pencils and graphite pencils coming my way.

This is my starting point on this piece today, which is, by the way, a view of the hills from Tumbleweed Cottage on Ghost Ranch in Abiquiu, NM.
The hills are done at last. I scraped off the sky because it was just too cartoony vivid. I like this better but it still needs something. Hopefully I'll get this piece completed tomorrow.

The wind is just howling outside, when it does this, I always think of Laura Ingles in "The Long Winter". I feel a little guilty for being inside a snuggly, warm house, but I'll take it.

Landscape

After a nice long weekend and lots of fun in Santa Fe, I'm back to work. I have 3 portraits to do yet, but I need to get in some landscapes too so back to the canvas.

Here's the starting point for this one:


Progress pic that I'll swap out from time to time. Click to enlarge.


This morning's sunrise. So lovely!

UNM all day long

What a day. What a long, long, frustrating day. Getting my youngest into UNM is an exercise in frustration and every other icky thing I can think of. Oh, this was a hard day. But, he's done, he's in, has 3 classes, some of the only ones left, and only about 6 zillion unanswered questions, each one crucial. I'm glad I only have 2 kids. Of course both of them are in UNM. Ugh.

Anyway, I didn't have any time to do painting today, only red tape at the college, but I came home to the news that I'd sold a small watercolor through my Etsy shop which is just lovely. It's one of my favorites, so it's hard to let it go, but what a nice thing to have it go to someone who wants to have it around. Makes me happy.

What's with the pictures? I know, odd. I thought I'd throw some pictures up of the open space I walk in every day right by our neighborhood on the West Side, mostly because I couldn't spare much time to get outside today and I miss it.

We're so lucky to live 1 block from the desert and I'm a sucker for dirt roads. I'm quite sure that people get sick of me posting what seems like the same pictures of NM over and over again. They aren't, but yes, the landscape is similar in that it goes on for miles and miles in all directions with little variation in the topagraphy. Which is true, but that's one of the reason why I love it so much. I like the simplicity.

"Charlie" completed

Charlie 14x16" oil on canvas board. Click for detailed shot. I'm having a hard time photographing this. First, I just don't have the time right now, second, the light is playing havic with the piece. I need to retake this pic when it's completely dry in a few weeks. In reality the sweater is a dark green, for example. I sometimes hate the light and what it does.

You can actually see the face in better detail in the shot 2 pics below.