Sold another Beautiful Nude and They may be Warming up...

I am so pleased to sell another framed print of Drapery Pull to a great patron in New York.  I am very proud of my gallery entitled Beautiful Nudes.  I think both the black and white nudes and color nudes are truly beautiful as art and I am glad they are appreciated!  Drapery Pull has a lot of visual drama with the strong light effect and the crowded space.  The girl seems to be pulled in by the setting.  I haven't sold any of the ones in color yet  but I think Repose is one of the best pastels, if not  the best pastel I have ever done.  I am very proud  of my American Artist award from highly acclaimed  pastelist Daniel Greene.  As I have said before, I  live to paint but pastel paintings are great, too.

The other day the gang of mini doberman pinchers next door were starting to bark so loud that it was sounding like a shrill squeal and I let out a moan.  It was in the evening so my  husband said why are you upset, they may not be doing that when we are trying to sleep.  I said how do you know they aren't just warming up like an orchestra?  We don't have air conditioning so this little group of barking tyrants is the bane of my existence right now and I hear one of them is pregnant.  Yikes!

Visions of Students Jumping Up and Down and Does anything get that Dog Down?

I hardly ever miss class. Spring Semester I didn't miss one. Students are expected to turn in an 18"x24" assignment every week. It is my opinion that when Professors are easy on students they are not doing them any favors. College is the last step before the real world and the real world is not made up of loving parents and kind High School teachers. Saturday I picked up a nasty bug complete with congestion and fever. I only cancel class when I can not be there. This bug has been so bad that both classes this week were cancelled. As soon as I hit the send button on the email I imagined students jumping up and down with joy that the mean ol' teacher cancelled class and they had two more class days to finish the assignment. I told them the assignments had better be good...

Sixteen years ago we went to the shelter and got a very friendly, sweet, mixed labrador mutt. She was medium-sized and we didn't know if she was a puppy or full grown. She didn't get bigger. She still acts like a puppy in her old age. She jumps all over us, pulls on the lease, and wants to be with us all the time. Obedience School was a complete disaster. Yesterday she was practically lame. She was holding one paw up as she walked and it was swollen. She tested positive for Lyme disease and I immediately thought she would probably die. The neighbor's dog died of Lyme disease. After one dose of medicine she took last night she is jumping around on all fours and the swelling is completely gone. She is even going over to the fence where the neighbor's shrimpy dogs bark like at mad at her while she just stares at them. What an amazing old dog! We are all glad she is still around.

Arm Wrestling and Head Stuck in the Fence

Years ago when I was struggling with a painting that was not turning out the way I wanted it to a teacher made the remark that painting was like arm wrestling. You get it in the direction you want it to go and then it messes up and then you get the effect you want again and so on. It is always fun in the beginning and then it becomes more and more difficult and then you just want to get it done. If an artist works hard she or he can get close but never exactly what is desired. It is such a great experience when one is arm wrestled down and you feel like you won. I think my current painting that was started over a number of times is about to cry uncle! It never stood a chance against such a stubborn artist. Defeat is not in my vocabulary.

The tiny, noisy dog next door was squealing the other day. I am so used to hearing it bark like mad at my poor old dog that I didn't pay any attention at first. After a while I realized it was making some sort of distress cry and found it with it's head stuck through one opening in the chain link fence. It was jumping and spinning around in a circle trying to free itself. It looked a little guilty when I went over to help it. Usually it barks and bears its teeth at me but not this time. The owners were not at home so I called animal control. I could not get it loose but I stayed with it and tried to calm it down until help arrived. The animal control officer was able to free it and I think the dog and I are friends now- at least for a while. It still barks like mad at my dog.

Thankfully Back in the Studio and We Know we are Home when we hear that Sound

I love to visit my family but I am always uneasy when I am away from my studio. I get quite nervous and distracted. Painting keeps me together so I never stop unless I have to. My mother celebrated her 89 birthday and I saw my siblings, and some nieces, nephews, and other in-laws. I am thankful that I don't call them out-laws. We all get along pretty well but I was so glad to see the Radford sign yesterday. I am working in graphite for the first time since the 80's. It is true that artists do go back to old works and modify them. The trick is not to destroy the work in the process. I have gotten good at that over the years.

As soon as we got in the door, the little dogs next door started yapping away. They still bark like mad and bare their teeth at our dog as she just looks at them by the fence. She isn't going to stop patrolling the back yard but she also doesn't bother with barking back. These dogs are as small as Chihuahuas but they don't look at all like them. They are very unattractive to me- sorry dog lovers. My husband just calls them Chiuglies.

The Final Brush Marks and Frances is just Too Nice

It is always so hard to know when to quit on a painting. I have learned over the years to let them alone for a while before deciding if they are really done but it is so difficult to stop. Often times I feel like I should push one a little more before I quit but that usually just creates more problems to solve and perfection is always out of reach. Since my work is representational people that don't understand abstract art are always trying to get me to explain it to them. I tell them that I can't explain what all artists do. I believe the only way people that only understand art as a picture of something can understand how all art is abstract is for them to take it up themselves. Whether the artwork has specific shapes from nature or not there are a multitude of decisions to be made based on how it looks as a work of art created by one personality.

Just put the last marks on one I am pleased with. It's not exactly what I want but it is close.

Our dog Frances is just too nice. The other day we saw her about two feet from her dish. She was calmly watching a cat eat her dog food. She didn't bark or go after the stray cat. I guess the natural animosity between dogs and cats is not always true. She is still periodically staring at the neighbor's dogs as they bard like mad at her. She never barks back or bares her teeth at them. Sweet old dog.

It is Paint and Can We be Friends?

When I was young I didn't understand the phrase artistic license. I thought that it was an excuse for the inability to reasonably reproduce things. Like many young artists I was working on my drawing and painting skills and had no idea what artists that understood the phrase meant by it. When a teacher would try to explain to me that all art is an abstraction from life I would smile politely and think the teacher was either nuts or making up some nonsense.

Now I talk exactly the same way to students and I don't think I have flipped. When critics of Manet's portrait of Emile Zola said the pants didn't look like pants he said in so many words they are not pants. It's paint! Regardless of whether the painting looks like something or not it is an arrangement by the artist that is in some way an abstraction from life. My work is a visual arrangement of my feelings for the natural world and I am thrilled when people understand the "license" in my paintings.

My old dog was running back and forth at our fence while the very small dogs next door chased back and forth barking like mad. Now our dog, Frances, likes to just go to the fence and walk around a little. The dogs still bark like mad and bare their teeth. Frances just looks at them and never barks. If she could talk I'll bet she would say, "Can't we just be friends?"

Almost to the Finish Line and So What if they are Little Shrimps?

I am almost to the end of a grueling painting. It is nice to achieve close to what I want which is all anyone can ever do. Painting is a never ending learning process and the next one will be perfect. Painters have to learn to live with all most and wait. They look much better later. Time to get back to work on one I was not at all happy with. I'm sure I know what to do now. Hope springs eternal.

Our neighbor has acquired a number of very small dogs. I'm not sure what breed they are but they sure can bark. We have an old medium sized labrador mutt and she seems to be getting into checking out the dogs at the fence. We have a shed that blocks off part of the fence. She goes to one part of the fence and they bark like mad. Then she runs to the other side and they bark like mad. My husband said she probably likes the company. So what if they are little shrimps? They are her own kind and she sure looks happy running back and forth.

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Coming Along and Breathing for Dummies

My current painting is intimidating to say the least. It will be the featured painting for my next show in November. I live to paint but sometimes it is an agonizing process. It is so easy to be too controlling and then the painting can't talk back. I have to let the magic happen so the result is something that can't be reproduced. My paintings have become so visually complex that I can't stand to see them when I'm not working on them. There better not be any barking dogs today.

My writer husband and I were talking about all the self-help books that you see everywhere now. He decided he is going to write "Breathing for Dummies". I think that would catch on like wildfire. LOL

My promotion on "Marsh View on Pawleys Island" is still on. Be sure to check it out in the Limited Time Only section on Fineartamerica.com