Before and After

It is no secret that artists have a tendency to be disorganized and a bit, shall we say, scattered. I went to the extreme in the last few months trying to meet deadlines. So, I am letting you into my studio at it's worst, something that makes me extremely uncomfortable. After all, I am creative, organized, meet all my deadlines, and never, ever forget to return a phone call, right? Yeah, right. Well, here is how my studio looked yesterday.

 The floor is littered dog toys (remember, we have a puppy). receipts, paint brushes, and oil rags. Disgraceful!

 My "office" is a walk in closet. My wonderful husband created shelves and a desktop for my books, reference photos, and art supplies. Handy in that I can shut the door and lose the look of all that clutter. Notice, that I also have to share my space with fur.

 The cabinet to the left of my easel was made by a dear friend, Daniel, and holds the thousands of pastels that I have. I have them separated by color in each drawer. If you are a pastelist and looking for the perfect way to keep  your pastels safe, contact me and I will pass on his number. To the right of the easel is a taboret my husband made to keep my paints and pastels on. Also notice the flat screen TV that was a gift from him with a new surround system. blue ray, and iPod docking station. I am sooooo spoiled.

 Voila! It took all day, and a lot of elbow grease, but the studio is now functional again. My reference is filed, my receipts are in their proper place, my brushes organized and put away, the palette clean and ready for the next painting, dog toys put away, floors swept and mopped, Borco installed on the easel, and the lights re-installed.

 All I can say is thank goodness for Crate and Barrel and Target for storage.

Zoe gives her approval.

You might notice that I have a number of pelts in my studio. Do not be put off by this, I have collected these over the years from estate sales, antique markets, Native American friends, and the skulls, bones and antlers are collected from my property or from friends. I use these for study and education to better understand the animals that I paint.  I do not support the fur market and will not buy furs or pelts that promote the killing of animals for their pelts.

The Dance

Another practice painting. Not one of my favorites, I think I "noodled" this one too much. It seems to be my friend's favorite, so maybe I am being too picky. 

I used an Ampersand gesso board for this one. I sketched out the initial drawing with a charcoal pencil and the rest with the oil paint itself.

"The Dance"  Oil 5x7

Curiosity might just kill the cat...

You all know me as a pretty detailed painter. I sharpen my pastels to a razor sharp edge and I use 000 brushes on some of my work. Well, I have just joined a challenge called the 60/60 Challenge with 27 other artists. The goal is to do 60 paintings in 60 days from life...not photos.EEEK! It runs from March 6th to May 6th and we will be posting online throughout the 2 months.

I decided to grab my big brushes and start warming up to do quick studies. I plan on doing pencil, pastel and oil pieces for the project. I also want to make them within an hour, two at the most. This will force me to loosen up and play with more color. Because I live in Minnesota and it is really cold out there, I will probably set up still lifes here in my studio and work from some sketches done from life at the barn.

This is my cat Burbank. While setting up a still life of marbles, he hopped on the table and started to play with them. This is the resulting painting. I did not do this from life, I grabbed my camera and took the picture. Remember it is just a warm up.

One thing I did for the first time was work on a black gessoed board made for me by Ray Beyl in Montana. His board are the best I have ever worked on. I will include more information on the boards in another post and give contact information so you can try them.

This is called "Curiosity" oil on board, 5x7

Today is my husband's birthday and this is my gift to him. I have always wanted a Bernese Mountain Dog and he and I got Bella for each other for Christmas. She is funny, and goofy, and she makes me laugh out loud every day. I decided to do a portrait of her for his gift. Oh yeah, and I am taking him to the electronic store for a surround sound system for his big screen TV too...I am the perfect wife. :)

Who Me? pastel, 5x7

Snow fun!

We have had record temperatures this year in Minnesota, on the warm side this time.Christmas was in the 50's. But today, it is typical temps in the 20s and snow coming down. I just love days like this. I fill up my birdfeeder and heated bird bath outside my studio window and paint. But today I took a break and played with my dogs in the backyard...

 Bella has a snow mustache.

 Working off some pent up energy

Snow dash!

Again, my cam is up pretty much all the time now, so see the post below to catch the link. With the snow and the cold, the squirrels are taking over my backyard!

I will post my new painting in a couple of days, see you then.