Valentine Art

Valentine’s day is on its way, and again this year I’ve painted a whimsical heart-themed painting … or two. It is fun to add to my collection of images with hearts each year, eventually I will have enough for a nice collage.

I had the idea of using two peacock feathers to create the heart, but the first painting I did came out looking less like a heart and more like a whimsical owl!

So, I painted another one … adjusting the angle a little, and got more of a heart shape this time.

I have been working on several small peacock feather inspired abstracts, and as much as I am excited to share them with you, I think I am going to wait until I have a whole batch done before I reveal.

That way I can work on several paintings at one time, and come back later to tweak if necessary.

Also, I often photograph small work myself, outdoors, but it is tricky this time of year. Don’t ask.

So, I am going to concentrate on producing new art for the Spring market.

Application Season

And I am filling out applications … so far I can confirm that I will be back at Art in the Park Oakville at the beginning of August, and I will have 2 paintings in the next show at McMaster Innovation Park in Hamilton.

I was hoping to get through a handful of applications this week, but I’ll be lucky if I get through two.

I pretty much have two bodies of work right now … on one extreme I have realistic tropical florals, and on the other I have the peacock-feather inspired abstracts, but somewhere in the middle they overlap … the “sky-holes” became “dashes”.  The difficulty lies in finding ways to group them together, depending on the show I am applying to –  sometimes the available pieces blend well, and sometimes they don’t.

If it will only be a few pieces, I select within one theme. I find myself however re-writing my artist statement to suit. And of course I’ve had to update my biography, and my CV … all while keeping within certain parameters. Each application has a different set of rules; you write a 200 word Bio for one, and for the next you need to cut it down to 100 words, or one sentence (for the brochure).

Image resolution, and size can vary a lot too … another time suck. And all the images and accompanying paperwork have to fit into a 2 MB e-mail. No wait, this one wants it on a CD. That means it has to be done in time to stick it in the mail or else I’ll be driving up ten minutes before the midnight deadline, through a snow-storm, to drop in their mailbox … again.

The process has gotten easier over the years, with practice … though I still need to improve my “systems”.  Some artists just seem to whip these applications off. I probably take everything a little too seriously, trying to follow all the rules.

A juror once told me that an artist we knew had submitted a 20 page CV, but she still got in because they didn’t look at the CV’s anyway. Meanwhile, I always try to cut it down to 2 or 3 pages, which means finding new ways to summarize every year, hopefully replacing minor show listings with more impressive ones.

Ok, I apologize to those of you who may have clicked on this link to look at paintings about love, maybe read some mushy words about love. Somehow this post turned out to be nothing like that. That’s how I roll. I post a new painting, I start typing, and whatever is on my mind ends up on the screen. Sometimes I can keep writing until I make a full circle back to the painting, and connect a thread that runs through it all. This isn’t one of those times.

Time to take my son to gymnastics. Life of an artist/mom.