Published!

So, there was this crazy week at the beginning of September where I had about seven art deadlines I decided I would attempt within a week. After it was over and I caught up on sleep, I wondered what the point was, and if it was worth it to enter juried shows and write proposals for shows and try to get grants. I'm still not sure, but I'm happy to say that my efforts thus far have been rewarded. My prints made it into the shows and I sold a couple of them, as well as the pastel on the left, whose framing in an early 19th century mirror and the weekend I spent doing it is worthy of its own post.

The big news, though, is that this pastel won an award in this year's Pastel 100 and will be in the March/April issue of the Pastel Journal. Exciting stuff, although I can't help wish that it was still mine.

Juried Show Number Two

So, I just received notification that this 8" x 10" soft pastel on panel was selected for "The View 2009 - A Juried Landscape Competition" which is open to all Ohio artists. 271 pieces submitted, 58 selected.

This thing has been everywhere in my house over the past couple of years. It's been stacked in a pile of pastels on the top shelf of the closet in my laundry room, leaned up against the wall behind a dresser, placed on several different bookcases, and right now it is on my kitchen window sill. I'm not all that sure that I even like to look at it anymore. And now I have to look at it a lot and figure out just what kind of frame it should go in.

I was a little surprised that of the three I submitted, this was selected, because I thought it was the weakest. Guess that shows what I know! Now I am two for two with the juried art shows, though, and I like that.

Hostas

So, I just came across this pastel I did last summer. I think this is the light I meant to try for in that lame reduction print a couple of posts prior to this one. Wow, did I miss.

Blogged with the Flock Browser

Photographing Pastel Paintings

I am getting a little frustrated trying to find the time to get some of the pastels I've been doing over the past few months photographed. Equally frustrating is trying to find the time to find the tripod I haven't seen in a year. I was on a roll with these for a while, before getting bogged down by work and distracted by experimenting with block printing, sometime the subject of its own post. I cranked out about 7 or 8 along the same lines as those I've pictured above.

Fortunately, or not, I've kind of lost interest in painting landscapes lately and have become turned on by just color and texture. Somehow, though, they kind of end up looking like something that resembles part of a site plan. I haven't decided if that's a good or bad thing yet, but if I want to get them onto my much neglected and disorganized Flickr account, I must like them. I guess since I took the time to hang them on a wall instead of stacking them with the ever growing piles of ideas and unfinished paintings that ended up forgotten, I like them a lot.