Save the Date - Holiday Show - Dec 4, 2021

 

Cherry Creek Art Gallery Fall Invitational

 Hope y'all can come! 

Please join us for this Special One Night Art Show of Colorado 

representational and abstract artists at the B-Spot in RiNo Art District,

2750 Blake Street, Denver Colorado, 80205

Friday, October 8^th

5:00 – 9:00

PARKING

Free parking at the B-Spot and on the street.  

$5 parking lot available 1/2 block north of B-Spot on Blake.

MAKE A NIGHT OF IT!

Visit “Events” on our website to find 

a list of nearby restaurants:  www.cherrycreekartgallery.com /events

PLEASE RSVP  

http://evite.me/X6EvVdNYtE

or

art@cherrycreekartgallery.com

Basset in the Sun

 

The Basset in the Sun, 18x24, oil, available

 

The photo reference for this painting was taken a number of years ago. I loved the sienna tone to the whole image. As often happens with my reference photos, is I see something in them when I take them, but then once I get home, it just doesn't speak to me right away. Then when revisiting my photos at a later date, the reawakening of what drew me to take it in the first place comes back. This is an old rescued dame, who once her owner died, no one in the family wanted it. The cousin, who loves all animals, drove a few states away to go pick her up and give her a few good years with the rest of their menagerie. She seemed to have settled in just fine and found this perfect place to sit in the sun. Her name is Clio.

I enjoy doing pet portraits and though this is not a commissioned portrait, I felt compelled to honor this solid basset hound. She seems so regal in her bearing. I started with an old painting as I often do. My intent on this was to record the progress from start to finish and make it into a video. I did all the work to do this but the resulting video is not as good as I would have liked. The program seems to have made all the images darker than they were already. It hasn't been easy to photograph due to the fact I painted over a varnished painting. The glare from the varnish comes through, and painting on varnish also absorbs so much of the paint to make the new layer darker than what is applied. You would think I would learn and remove the varnish before starting a new painting, but I am lazy. So instead, I constantly fight this fact and then it is really hard to photograph on top of it. When will I ever learn??

For the longest time, I wanted to leave some of the sunflowers coming through the dog but ultimately I decided they were just a distraction.

Sunset over the Mesa

 

Sunset Over the Mesa, 18x24, oil available

 

On the last evening of my visit to Arizona in April, my friend Debbie and I took our gear to the high school parking lot in Cottonwood to paint the sunset. Instead of painting, as it took its own sweet time to show up, we sat and talked and watched the sky. Never did set up to paint. But the sunset did not disappoint once it came on. I was content with taking photos. If we had tried to get our paint mixed to be ready, I would not have come up with this color scheme based on what came before it. Nature works on its own time and in its own way. Stunning in its variety!

I took a road trip to Arizona staying mostly in Cottonwood. We did go out and paint most days, and it was good to get out in a totally new environment. I did do one painting of the red rocks that surround this area (just south of Sedona) as much as I didn't want to paint red rocks. It is the best of the paintings I did, in my opinion. Of course it fell face down as I was trying to balance everything not having a carrying case with me. None of the paintings are anything to write home about which is why I haven't posted them. Nevertheless, I enjoyed being outside painting, something I don't do enough of anymore.

Reflecting

 

Reflecting, 24x24, oil available

 

Here is another fresh off the easel. As often happens when I am working on so many simultaneously, a few come to completion about the same time. This one I relate to in that I can sit and watch water for ages, be it the gulf, a brook, a lake or the ocean. Yet it seems like a short time only has passed. Even though I am more likely to walk a beach, I am often pulled to just sit still in silence, watching and listening. I saw this man doing just that one evening and the skimmers flying by just added to the story.

Cherry Creek Art Gallery partners with Project Angel Heart for online show

 

In case you are not on my mailing or newsletter list, I wanted to post the information on our partnership with Project Angel Heart for the month of June Fresh Art for the Heart online show. We have been off to a good start with sales so I do hope you will check out the link to view the show. There are 12 artists participating and we will donate 20% of all sales to Project Angel Heart. 

CCAG did a similar partnership for our Small Gems show back in December. Metrocaring was grateful for the $5500 we donated from our sales. I was blessed to make a sale from the day the "Fresh Art for the Heart" show opened on June 1. The happy owner sent me a photo today of where they have hung it. She said not only does it change the feel of the room for the better but the room feels lighter and brighter too! What a gracious thing to say to an artist!

Here it is: 

For those of you who would like to see a short video promoting the show:

Where I want to be right now

 

Sunset Over the Gulf, oil, 18x36 available

Jimminy Cricket! I thought I had posted this painting 2 months ago. Who'd have thought I would be this far behind...there really are no excuses except to say I have had a pinched nerve in my neck that makes my whole arm tingle and feel asleep ever since the 24" snow dump the end of March. That repetitive motion of a snow shovel is what did me in. It is better, but it is now settled into my fingers and thumb on my dominant hand. Gardening is not helping this situation. Nor is being at my easel or computer. 

Back to the place I would like to be right now. It is hot and dry once again in Denver after a most plentiful moisture filled Spring. For which I am very grateful. Still, I would much rather be on a beach with a gentle wind in my hair as where I was on the Gulf of Florida a number of years ago. I can almost get myself there by looking at this painting. There is something so magical about sunrises and sunsets. No two are alike and they are just so fleeting. A transient light show. I love them! And why I like them over the ocean or a body of water is that they are just out there with nothing to impede them. Full of Glory.

It took me a year to finish, which is not that unusual. I get excited by the initial block in and then I freeze up. I must wait patiently until my heart moves me back to the place I need to be to finish it up. Which is again, why I have so many paintings going at once. 

This is only one of many sunsets or sunrises I have been motivated to paint lately. I posted this sunrise in March and I sat down today to write two posts on recently completed sunsets discovering I have been negligent in getting this one posted. I have one more of the Gulf, totally different from this one and another from my trip to AZ this past Spring. 

Stay tuned! I will be doing my best to stay on schedule of posting every week.

Day Lilies in the Garden

 

Day Lilies in the Garden, 12x9, oil, Available

 

 

I started this smaller work as a way to paint with my friend who comes over once a month for us to catch up and paint together for the day. It seemed one I could do while talking without too much investment in the outcome. I am pleased with the outcome which is a bonus. I finished it up on my own but it was mostly done in this friendly and congenial atmosphere. 

To start work in garden in early spring after all the snow we have had and waiting for the so soil to not be so saturated, I began to dig up those plants that are taking over my main flower bed in the backyard. The tubers of day lilies and the bulbs of grape hyacinths both tend to be in clumps with not as much dirt around them once they get thick from lack of thinning. I have not thinned the thicket of where these particular day lily plants are, but I did ravish the other side of the butterfly bush - the purple flowers and the green tube shaped remnants of the flowers which divide the bed, east vs west. Most of the foliage in this painting is from the other plant that has taken over, spearmint. A veritable thicket. I purposely let it get out hand the past several years because it is the last flowering plant in the fall for the bees. A neighbor has a bee hive in my back yard and I want to do my best by them. However, I got after the mint as well. I have no doubt it will be back, but it gets to start all over now. I threw in some Zinnia seeds last year that I really enjoyed so I want more room for those this year. 

I have left this painting in my dining room for now, so that every time I walk by it brings joy to my heart. I am posting it on this Easter 2021 as a sign of hope for things to come. May the blessings of this day be with you now and always.

Seat in the Sun

 

Start of a New Year - A Seat in the Sun

I forgot to post this on New Year's Day...oops!

A Seat in the Sun, 9x12, oil

To start this new year it seems a good time to post this painting. To remind me that the sun is still shining!

A couple of my painting buddies were over before Thanksgiving to paint together. As it was a beautiful Colorado day we set up outside my back door. It was very interesting as we all painted "the same thing" yet they could not have been more different in approach. I pulled out an old plein air painting that was not worthy of the title "painting" to begin afresh. I do enjoy the challenge of that and I am always surprised by how it turns out if allow myself to not cover every inch of the preexisting image underneath. I believe this one to be fairly successful in that regard, especially in the interesting colors and shapes coming out of the darkness of the interior of my garage. Keeps the imagination wondering what is in there? I did not plan it this way, but the color of the chair is also coming through on the wall behind it, which originally was a brick wall with white trim.

 

I don't consider myself a plein air painter, but I always enjoy being outside painting. If I keep it simple, as I did in this piece, the exercise is more successful. As I mentioned above, there were three of us painting together. I was the most zoomed in on the subject. Jeannie added the whole garage, and Marianne had the whole garage plus sky and trees and behind the garage, on a much smaller sized canvas, I might add. How she manages to do that is a mystery to me. That is what makes the world go round! That we are all unique individuals. Thank God for that~

 

 

Cathedral Rising

 

Cathedral Rising, 18x36, oil Available-contact me

This one has been a long time in the making. It is hard for me to fathom that I have been working on this painting for 2 years!! I just could not make it work for me despite many friends and family telling me it was fine. One would not think such a 'simple' scene would be so hard for me to get right. It is because it is so straight forward that I felt it had to be a certain way. Can't tell you how I studied snow, and the light on the snow at a certain time of day. No two days are the same conditions but to get a feel for it. I still did not delineate details, going for an overall sense of a bright, yet crisp winter morning.

I clearly remember this morning. My walking buddy and I were at Washington Park in Denver bright and early. It was one of those crisp but beautiful blue sky winter day. As the sun was rising. Hardly any one else at the park. It was magical. We walk the park every day, most always in the early morning. I know this park so well, yet some days it takes your breath away. 

Morning Glory - EAST

 

Morning Glory-East, 24"x24" oil - available - please contact me

 

Here is another one I started over a year ago. I think I have determined I really don't like this canvas, that I once thought I did. I have a hard time taking good photos of any paintings I do using this substrate. That alone is not the problem, as it just reveals things to me I don't want to see, which is a good thing overall. I just don't like how the paint works on this slick linen. I am currently working over an old painting on cotton and on a board substrate and those paintings are coming along swimmingly. 

As I was raising the blinds in my bedroom one November morning this scene was a beautiful reminder of how unique each sun rise is. I ran to get my phone and then ran out to the back deck, and thankfully, the sky was still spectacular. This is looking East on Iowa Street towards Downing St. That is my garage in the lower right hand corner. When I was working and had a dog that needed to be walked prior to going to work at 7 a.m. I saw the sunrise way more than I do today as a retired and a dog-less individual. So I am far more moved by them now that I see them less often, and I have always been in awe of the beauty of nature.

I painted the whole street scene trying to keep it within a certain value group; enough variety to know what it is and differentiate between the houses, but still reading overall as a whole. The lighter values help you move within this larger dark shape. but not enough to take away from the sunrise. Hopefully, they compliment each other.

Lone Tree

 

Lone Tree, 14x11, oil

I needed something fun and simple to work on and so I went browsing through my phone to see if I could find anything on it that fit the bill. I came across this lone bare tree taken in the Fall of 2016 in Sedalia Colorado. It was exactly what I needed. I picked up a plein air painting I had done in the fall of the Boat House at Washington Park which was no great shakes, turned it on its side, and went to work. I let some of the color come through from the boat house painting which can be very difficult for me to do. There was more I wanted to do in this painting initially, but this is one time I actually stopped myself before going any further to leave more of the under painting elements come through and add to the interest.

The story behind the tree. I was in Sedalia for a 2 day silent retreat. My first time doing a silent retreat. I knew no one else there and we were not to talk to anyone outside of our group meet ups a couple of times per day. I went wandering around the vast property there as I meditated. I was going through divorce and I think this tree captured how I felt. Alone, bare, stripped down to the bare skeleton. A time for reflection and rebirth. Solid, buffeted by the winds, yet still standing.  Maybe this is why I was able to stop before I normally would. To remind myself that I am still a work in progress - that some of the old is still showing through but that is what brought me to where I am today.

Marketing for Artists

There is a new class starting in March 2021 at the Art Students League of Denver (ASLD). I was offered the opportunity to take it along with the other artists in the Cherry Creek Art Gallery. We all signed up! It is called Practical Marketing for Artists. It is not yet listed on ASLD website (as of 2-15-21) but Rose Frederick says it will start March 3, 6-8 pm. We took it via Zoom so I imagine that is how it will be presented again. Here is the phone number to call ASLD for information: 303-778-6990.

The course we took was loosely based on her e-book which is available on her website for download when you subscribe to her newsletter. Our class ran 1.5 hrs over 6 weeks. Through our feedback she has extended the time per class as well as the length of the class. We had homework every week and some of that homework required way more time and energy than we had expected. That being said, it was well worth it for those of us who really did want to make the most of her expertise. Our websites were looked at and critiqued by another student in the class, and then talked about in front of the class. This was hard on some, but it was a valuable look at what worked and why, and what doesn't. Some of us thought her suggestions not apropos for artists, but others ran with her suggestions. As with any class, take what works for you and don't worry if you don't feel her suggestions fit your personal style.

I am not sure how this next class is laid out, but I do hope the class that stumped most of us and made us work! will be a bigger part of the new format. It was to examine our values: who we are, why we do what we do, what is important to us, not just as artists but as individuals. This lays the foundation from which we then base not only our website (mission statement, about page, artist statement), but also our social media (SM) ’campaign.’ I am not sure ‘campaign’ is the correct word, as we are all left to do what we want with the information provided. But this initial hard work gives direction to all we put out there. We all do SM to different levels.

The majority of us had a very generic artist statement. By that I mean it could be anyone’s. It really didn’t say much about who we are except in a very general way. Made to focus on our values, the new, improved statements actually differentiated us in very distinct ways.

I did not save my original artist’s statement to be able to show you the difference. Lack of foresight in writing this article or embarrassment, who is to know? Suffice it to say, I can’t give you the ‘before and after’ as I so like to do with my paintings. I do highly recommend the class if you are interested in taking your promo pieces and marketing to a new level.

Commission Completed

Hunt and Peck, 24x24, oil on linen

I finished up this commissioned painting this week. It is a larger version of a painting I did a few years ago after a trip to the Gulf Coast of Florida. That painting can be seen here and is still available. (a side note: pulling in the link it was posted almost exactly 2 years ago to the date!)  The client had seen the original painting posted on The Cherry Creek Art Gallery website and loved everything about it but its size. She really wanted a bigger painting for the space she had in mind. It has been fun to enlarge and revise it. This is the first time I have ever done a larger version of a studio painting by request. Much easier on me than a commission when you are doing a specific request for a client.

For a commissioned work I ask half the fee up front and then the rest upon completion. This client has approved the painting so it is now awaiting varnish. White paint can take a few weeks to dry even in the dry winter conditions we are having.  

You can't really see it in this image but I did lots of layering of color in the water that should add depth and interest once it is varnished.

The wee Western Grebe

 

Western Grebe, 12x16, oil

This juvenile Western Grebe was seen in Washington Park here in Denver where we often see birds stopping by on their migratory journey. It is rare to see a grebe, though, so it was a day to note. I took a number of photos before this was immediately 'the one' to render in paint. The patterns in the reflection reminded me of  a tapestry or damask fabric. Verifying that it was a Western grebe took me some time before I stumbled on a photo of a juvenile. Then it was Bingo! I knew the beak was right, not that I am a birder.

 

I started off painting over an ugly snow scene I had done a few years back from my office window on Lowry. Not a beautiful view, but it was 'my' view. I started out figuring out where I wanted the bird, and since I wanted the bird to stand out I flipped the painting upside down so I could keep my eye on it while developing the water around it. . Then started to indicate the movement. This next image was taken under lights in the evening hence the different lighting, but I am using it to show how I started to build up the water thinking in shapes and leaving negative space. It might have been easier to paint the water a solid color and then add the reflection but this is how I see: very abstractly with shapes and negative space.

I was thinking of a title using a tapestry term as the water does have a somewhat damask feel to it. Yet nothing is sounding good to me. If you have any ideas for a title besides my uninspiring Western Grebe, I would love to hear it! Many thanks.