SAG hosts MB Chamber of Commerce 6'14

On Thursday, the Seacoast Artists Guild hosted  a reception for the Myrtle Beach Chamber of Commerce. Nearly 150 people came to the reception  which was in our gallery at The Market Common.

Bruce and I had a great time,  There was lots of good music   food ,and friends

and ,of  course,  lots of good artwork.

My wall  displayed some of t my "Buy local " series

CAG Wall update 1 '13

It's  been too cold for out of door activities , so I decided to  drive to refresh my wall  at the Charleston Artist Guild Gallery with some bird paintings before the Wildlife convention opens next month.  Just being in the gallery gives me a morale boost.  It is so nice to hang out with people who like art.

Busy busy busy - new paintings at SAG Gallery 9 '11

September through December is always a frantic time of year for the artworld.  It's been virtually non-stop for me.  It began with a refresh of my space at the Seacoat Artist gallery  with some small acrylics paintings  of sky-scapes and beaches.  I had started this series a year ago, but none  of them  had never been exhibited before in public. It will be interesting to see how they do.

Doing my homework

My recent pastel workshop reinforced the importance of knowing the value range ot the stick of pastel I am working with.  So I set myself the task of grouping my collection of pastels by colors, and temperature, then sorting them again by value.

A photo of some mid tone sienna color chips against the gray scale. 

It's easy to do with the dark and light ends of the spectrum, but mid values get a little trick.  I wound up making a color chip of each pastel stick, then visually ranking the color chips, then  photographing the chips against a set of known value gray scale sheets.

I used photoshop to remove the color saturation so I could view it in gray tones

 A week later I have a well sorted set of  700  pastel sticks arranged and labeled  by  brand, #, color, and value. And I have a set of color chips with the same information just in case I loose the label and need to figure out where a stick of color belongs.

This is only a portion of  my set.

Happy Valentine's Day, Everybody! '11

Bruce gave me this cute little stuffed teddy bear for V-Day a few years ago. This year, I decided to add an oil painting of him to my holiday series. " It's called "Take my Heart".

SAG Fundraiser Continues 11 '10

You may remember this painting from an October  post as one of the paintings I donated to the Sea Coast Artist Guild's Holiday Fundraiser.

I also donated this little 4"x6"  oil (above)

Below are some of the paintings donated by other members. 

Funds from the sale of these painting will be used to purchase art supplies for our local schools art classes.

Painting on my birthday 11/20/10

For my birthday, I treated myself to a mini-workshop (5 hours) sponsored by the Sea Coast Artist Guild on the Grisaille, or Old Master's technique of painting .

 Our instructor, Jolyn Kuhn provided us with several different still life set ups I chose the one below.

The idea was to first sketch out the still life  in burnt umber, then refine it further into a fully developed value study.

 

 The idea was to first sketch out the still life  in burnt umber, then refine it further into a fully developed value study.

 

By using  thin layers of oil paint (thinned with turpenoid not oil) one can achieve a very finely finished painting.

Over lunch we let the paintings dry, then sprayed them with Damar Retouch Varnish.

Once this dried we were ready to start applying thin layers of color over the value study. 

Unfortunately, for most of us, our value studies did not dry in time to do this step.  Never the less we did learn enough to use the technique at home.

Behind the scenes: Brushstrokes Exhibit at Prevost Gallery 9 '10

The Brushstrokes Water-media Exhibit at the Prevost Gallery was a huge success, but 'success', did not 'just happen'.  Both the museum gallery and the members of the Georgetown Water Color Society put a lot of work into this exhibition and it paid off.

First both  the Guild and the gallery sent out invitations to everyone we knew.   As a result, we had a huge turn-out and the gallery was packed. (Below)










Unlike a art competition where the shown work is an judged and prizes are awarded to the winning artists, this was an exhibition.Tickets for door prizes were handed out to the attending artists and guests. The Georgetown Water- media Society Janice Cowan drew the winning tickets for the door prizes of gift certificates for dinner for two at local restaurants (below). Needless to say one of our members had to solicit those door prizes.

Saying it was not a judged show,  doesn't mean there were not any requirements to get ones work into the show:

• Each member was allowed to only one entry
• The quality had to be sufficent to gain approval of the Prevost gallery director.
• The work had to be less than 30" in any dimension including the frame ( There's not a lot of wall space in the gallery).
• The work had to have been painted in the last year.
• The work could not have been shown before within Georgetown County.
• The work had to be for sale, and
• The  price had to be commensurate with the quality of the piece.
• The work had to be watermedia....  (This was the hardest requirement  for me to as I am primarily a oil painter.)

Someone then had to sort , arrange the entries, and hang.  Others had to help with the food service at the reception.  In short it tokk an all hands on deck approach to make the event successful.  What better way for a new artist to learn about the behind the scene activities  necessary for selling art, than to get involved in one of these local art events.

Georgetown Rice Museum "Brushstrokes Exhibit 9 '10

The Rice Museum, known locally as The Town Clock, is located in the Old Market Building and is a prominent symbol of Georgetown County. Through dioramas, maps, artifacts and other exhibits, visitors to the Museum are enlightened to the history of a society dependent on the rice crop. In 1750, George Town became the center of rice production in the South Carolina colony. By 1840, the Georgetown District (later County) produced nearly one-half of the total rice crop of the United States. The 1850s proved to be the most profitable decade for the rice planters. The Rice Museum chronicles this most important American time line and its impact on not only South Carolina, but internationally as well.

The Prevost Museum Gallery is located next door to the Town Clock in the Kaminski Hardware Building. The upstairs museum contains maritime and colonial artifacts from the rice production era.  The downstairs gallery and  gift shop is filled with high end antiques and  locally made decorator items.  In addition the downstairs gallery walls regularly sponsor low-country art exhibits and judged art shows . It is a major center for art and culture in the community.

This month I entered an acrylic on watercolor paper scene of an egret into the Prevost Gallery's Brushstrokes Exhibit..  While it  and exhibit, not a judged show, there were some serious per-requisites for entry.   I was pleased  just to be accepted into the exhibit.

Many of our friends and neighbors showed up for the reception

( above: Jim Sullivan and Noreen Sneed. Below: Noreen Sneed and the Blades)

My artwork drew a lot of positive comments during the receptions and I felt honored to be in such good company.

Egret in the Morning 8 '10

 Egret in the Morning

Fall is a busy time of year for me. In addition to feeding the Island Gallery ten new paintings a  month,  have a lot of independent  art shows coming up in the next couple of months. I just took one large painting to the Prevost Gallery in Georgetown, and have two other shows to enter next month.  Most of  the local art organizations only allow one juried entry per show,  but one up-coming show allows three entries.  The thing is -- that show is being held in the center court of shopping mall.  I'm disappointed.  In the past the show has always been held in an art gallery.  The art organization that is sponsoring the exhibit decided that rent was less expensive and the works would get more visibility if the show was out in the open.  I am not so sure that was wise.  I suspect that most shoppers associate center court mall vendors with  low quality/cost items.  Not the best way to attract a well heeled buyer.  Plus the work is more at risk from inquisitive greasy fingered kiddies.  I'll have to think carefully about what to put in that show  (if I enter it at all).

New Paintings on CC's Website 8 '10

I finally got around to posting the past two months worth of new paintings on my website.   There are new oils paintings in the "Local Landmarks" series, and in the "State Parks" series.  And  you can check out some of the new work I have been doing with Golden's Open Acrylics in the "Nocturnes" and "This Side of Paradise" Series.  Enjoy.

WACG Beach Wash Workshop 8'10

The Waccamah Arts and Crafts Guild sponsored a workshop on learning to do beach washes as backgrounds for artwork.

 The workshop leader came prepared with all of the materials we would need to learn the skillset

We all chose a spot on Myrtle Beach to listen to her directions

Then she had an experienced member demonstrate how to get a nice sand wash  resist pattern on the water color paper using the smaller waves at the edge of the tide.

Back on the dry beach we practiced pouring diluted acrylics over the sand wash

Until we were surrounded by a rainbow of brilliantly colored beach washed paper

Georgetown Watermedia Society Meeting 11 '09

The Georgetown Water media Society met today for a presentation by two of our members on painting with Acrylic paints. Diann  Hammett led off  the presentation with a discussion of how she approaches  abstract and more traditional representational artwork  and the pros and cons of using acrylic paints in both.

This was followed by another member who  showed us how she uses acrylic paintings in  traditional subjects like this study of her son sitting on the beach

She then explained that as a buzy mother of several children she cannot spend as much time as she would like in the studio.  She maximizes her time, by painting on round table-tops that can be fitted onto the steering wheel of her car while she is waiting for her children to finish their  little league practice etc.  Needless to say the fast drying quality of acrylics is a real boon  under such circumstances.

Above:Initial pidgeon desgin on tabletop with small travel acrylic set shown in plastic bag on table. 

Below: Completed painting of pidgeon.

How clever!

Art, art, ‘n’ more art! 10 '08

Bruce recently acquired four small theme paintings from Southeastern artist, Grant Nelson.   He hung them on either side of the window in the music room.   Bruce liked their effect so much, that he started pestering me to create some larger scale graphic design paintings with a music theme for the other walls in the room. 

Grant Nelson paintings

I have no training in graphic design, nor any desire to paint in that style, but Bruce can be VERY persuasive when he gets his heart set on something.  So when South Carolina’s hurricane season limited me to indoor activities, I decided it would be a good time to see what I could produce to make Bruce happy.  I soon learned that creating good graphic art is harder than it looks.  After several failed attempts at coming up with a decent design, I fell back on the time honored tradition that most art schools use to teach a new skill…. Copy someone else’s work.    

My first attempt was to paint an enlarged (three foot by three foot) version of a four inch by four inch electric light switch-plate cover with a Kaminski like design on it.   It was hung above the piano adding a playful note to the room.

Encouraged, Bruce started bugging me to paint something even larger to hang over the sofa.   This time I attempted a triad.  The project was very educational.  I learned that it is very important to pay close attention to exactly what paint color one is mixing if you are working on a multi canvas set, and I also learned a lot about balancing colors, and tones across the canvas. .Each painting was painted separately then, after all three were completed, I went back to add detail and adjust color notes so that the paintings would view well as a set.  In addition,  I learned that it is very important to pay close attention to balance  color hues and color values  across the set of canvases   I  also learned I don’t want to be a graphic artist, and I how to have a happy husband.

Hawaii: Trip overview 3 '08

The  Kailua - Kona Coast is our favorite place to vacation in Hawaii.  We always pack a lot of activities into these trips, so I thought I would give you the highlights in this post and let you read the specifics in some of the other more details posts which will follow.

The sunny Kona District stretches for about 60 miles from Kona International Airport to beyond Kealakekua Bay on Hawaii Island’s lava-lined western coast. Along this expansive area, you’ll find everything from coffee farms to historic Hawaiian landmarks.

The sleepy little village of Kona is always quiet and laid back.

But that doesn't mean there isn't  a lot to see and do here.  In fact you can visit the royal Hawaiian Hulihee Palace ( the last residence of King Kamehameha I), the  Mokuaikaua Church, and the the Ahuena Heiau., all within a few short blocks of one another

Of course the Island offers other  more modern attactions

The Keauhou farmers market is two blocks from our condo

Like a  the Kona and Keauhou Farmers Markets  which are two of  the best on the island.

We always make a visit to the farmers market one of our first stops after signing into the condo.

Nothing tastes as sweet as just picked fresh Hawaiian papaya or pineapple

and the fresh  caught fish and baked goods are outstanding.

CC at The Keauhou Hotel

And of course dining is always a pleasure on the Big Island

CCs favorite is The Keauhou Hotel  which has a great little indoor out door restaurant perched over a lagoon where you can watch the reef fish swim below you.

Bruce prefers  dining at the small local eateries, especially there is  a  Hula dancer performance

One of our favorite things to do together is visit the Volcano National Park

Kilauea  Volcano in the distance

We always do a lot of hiking. Mt. Kilauea is one of the world’s most active volcanoes and is constantly changing the landscape so there is always something new  to see.

CC with an active caldera crater in the background

This trip we concentrated most our our hiking to trails in the rain forest near the Volcano House where we were able to see a lot of native Hawaiian birds. 

( There will be more on our bird sightings in a later post)

We spent an afternoon visiting our wedding garden by the sea where we were renewed our vows .

(More in a later Post)

Bruce took a couple of scuba dives (more in another post)

and golfed (more in another post)

CC's acrylic still life of a Pineapple ( before we ate it)

 While CC painted  ( more to follow)

BJ with artist M Fieldson

 and we both did a lot of  Art Gallery Hopping ( see follow-on posts)