From us to you.

Have yourself a merry happy new year. Thank you for your love, support, kindness and generosity throughout the year{s}. I wouldn't be where I am, or who I am, without you and you all know who I'm talking about.

Blessings and light in 2012.

Islands Valleys Home

Thank you Joe Woodard! A lovely review of Islands Valleys Home still on view through the end of January with one more reception, First Thursday in the new year!



Happy merry holy days to you and yours.

Thank you Westmont Auction!

Recently the new Museum at the Westmont College campus held a great fundraising event called 5X5. It was a super idea which included over 400 artists producing images five by five inches. And let me say, five by five of superb, delicious, irresistible pieces. 

It was a chance to donate, participate, advocate, and celebrate a new building, a new art center AND best of all! take home a one of kind something from your choice of over 500 small images. A spectacular idea to auction off really wonderful works to support a new venue for celebrating art in our community.

Me? I took home four lovelies for my very own.

 Money by James Elston {Gouache, Acrylic & Colored Pencil}

 Untitled by Lloyd Dangle {Ink on Paper}

Behind the Shadow by Luigia Martelloni {Mixed Media}

Wonderland by Barb Parmet {Digital Print}

Show Update

It's hard to believe another month is almost gone and only one month left of 2011.

Islands Valleys Home has been on the walls at Sullivan Goss for 24 days, just a few short weeks. The opening was wonderfully packed, full of friends and family, clients and artists. I feel blessed by the turn out and ever grateful for all the support.

The show will be up through the holidays and on until the end of January. There is plenty of time to enjoy the island images, the local foothill grasses and the ever changing skyscapes.

Don't forget! this Thursday, December 1st is the second of three receptions for the exhibit. I will be there with my babies and a new piece that will hang with the 100 GRAND exhibit in the front room.

Here are a few shots from the gallery to entice you to come see the paintings in person.

 

Big grid of 12x12" gems of the coast

Hope to see you Thursday evening 5-8 pm

Sulllivan Goss

  11 East Anapamu Santa Barbara

Island Dreaming ...

Faraway Cove  14x30" ©2011

Tomorrow

is the day ... the show is hung and dressed. The gallery doors are open for those wanting to preview and the party is tomorrow night. Hope to see you there..... xo

Stormy Anacapa  12x12" oil on birch panel ©2011

Islands Valleys Home

 

showing at Sullivan Goss

Reception: 5-8 pm November 3rd

11 East Anapamu

Santa Barbara

805 730 1460

Island Encounters at the Wildling Museum

The show at the Wildling Museum in Los Olivos features a multitude of images of our local Channel Islands. Show runs through the end of the year.

The sun is shining...

despite the dense layer of fog. The paintings are finished, cataloged in the database, signed, dated, and checked over twice. There are yet more details to be fussed over but breathing is easier. I long to clean my studio once the piles of wood are moved to the gallery next week, dust off the printing press and maybe draw for a while.

Towards Willows  12x12" ©2011

The show will host 65 painting, 40 of the much coveted 12x12" size and 25 medium to large pieces. It will be hard to say goodbye to living in and amongst the islands day in and day out. But, I'm already dreaming of what might come next!

November is nearly here

Time is flying and the delivery date is but a mere 7 days away. Putting on the finishing touches to the last paintings. Looking forward to seeing them all in the pristine gallery space.

Preview days will be Tuesday and Wednesday, the first and second of November. Come by the gallery for the first look at the show. I guarantee there will be a lot to see.

Winter, Scorpion Landing  12x12" ©2011

Two weeks from today

Summer Cove  12x12 ©2011

Worktable Wednesday

Winter, Santa Cruz Island 10x 48" ©2011

Islands Valleys Home 

coming soon to a gallery near you, Santa Barbara

Classic Santa Barbara

Summer is finally here in October, 

sweet 80 degrees and not a breeze anywhere to be found.

At Press

New show card all images 12x12" ©2011

Show Prep

Slowly and surely working toward the delivery of my next show at the end of the month. All hallow's eve is the delivery deadline, just a mere 24 days away. There is finishing to be done on quite a few paintings plus all the publicity and marketing yet to be accomplished. Deep breath.

The show? you ask? 

Islands Valleys Home 

opening November 3rd, 2011 from 5-8pm 

during Santa Barbara's First Thursday event. 

Location: Sullivan Goss, 11 East Anapamu. 

More information to come! Back to the easel and breathing.

Ridge Patterns 20x30" © 2011

Thank you Sundance

New to the website:

New Year Sky 01 18x40" ©2011

Recently placed

 

Refuge 01 24x16"

Sunday Distraction

From Indian Summer to Fall in 24 hours

Just 7 weeks left to work on paintings for my November show in Santa Barbara. Mark your calendars, show opens Thursday, November 3rd. Reception will be from 5-8pm at Sullivan Goss downtown Santa Barbara.

Mountain Dreaming

Sketches started while visiting in the pines....

Summer Island Getaway

Chris Winfield and Fresno Art Museum

A new show is opening at the Fresno Art Museum
curated by Chris Winfield and Linda Cano. The show
titled California: Landscape of Dreams runs from
August 19th 2011 through January 6 2012.

Gaviota Pier 24x48" Oil on cradled birch panel

Two works of mine from the Winfield Gallery in Carmel will be included. At present I don't know how many artists or works will be included in this show. I'm looking forward to seeing it and finding out. Winfield Gallery has many fabulous landscape painters like David Ligare and Frank Galuszka. I'm honored to be hanging in their company. Thank you Chris.

Morning Estuary 48x24" Oil on cradled birch panel

Eyes and Ears

Books I have currently read, am reading and will read. I seem to be on a binge of reading books about making paintings. Even the crime novel has a painter depicted. Hmmmm.

I would recommend all these books. I particularly loved The Forgery of Venus for the twists and also the description of painting during the time of Velasquez and Rembrandt in the 1600s.

If you want something wonderfully fantastical but steeped in the english language and all about literature I would direct you to the Thursday Next novels by Jasper Fforde, starting with the Eyre Affaire. I won't say more than they are delightful, creative and great reads {the audio, if you're game, is even better I think!}.

Madame Bovary was interesting to read again after many many years. I'm always happy to have been born in this century after reading an historical depiction of a long ago era where women were suppressed. Even reading something of this nature would have been scandalous in the 1800s.

The Forgery of Venus by Michael Gruber

Girl with a Pearl Earring by Tracy Chevalier

The Swan Thieves by Elizabeth Kostova

In the studio I'm listening to audio books... I'm so addicted.

Madame Bovary by Gustave Flaubert

One of our Thursdays is Missing by Jasper Fforde

Interview with a Vampire by Anne Rice

What's on your summer reading list?

Worktable Wednesday

Today will be the first day back at the easel. It's been a full summer so far. Stamp commissions, big auction painting and party, summer cold, time in the mountains and clocking many hours at the easel. The show in November will be here in a heart beat, I can feel it already. Now, with most of my obligations behind me, I can focus solely on the show at Sullivan Goss.

There are no pictures from my worktable today... I will be starting on a blank panel to warm up the muscles. But here are some images from the Lotusland Gala last weekend.

The finished painting, Spring Morning in the Japanese Garden, Lotusland 24x48"

Yours truly with the finished, framed painting as you enter the gala.

The painting framed by the fabulous Chris Kirkegaard of Carleton Kirkegaard {a better picture of the frame to follow}. The lovely and talented Susan Bush, on the left, of Sullivan Goss.

Amazing floating bouquets of mums in the aloe garden.

Out to the lawn where 500 guests gathered and mingled. It was a wonderful and beautiful evening in the garden.

Gaviota Peak, Looking South

From start to install "Gaviota Peak, Looking South". This painting was a commission through the County Arts Commission for the new Emergency Operations Center for the County of Santa Barbara. It is part of the "Percent for Art Program" through the county, a program that insures that any new structures have a budget to be used for public art.

The gals at the county office, Ms. Rita Ferri, Ms. Ginny Brush and Ms. Linda Gardy, make sure that this happens for the artists in our town but also insure that the County of Santa Barbara preserves it's visual heritage within it's own collection. Amazing. I love these women. They work with a board of equally fantastic artists, art teachers, administrators, city and county employees.

Today we got to install this painting into it's new home, with a few others, which will be semi-permanent in the new building. Semi... because it will remain in the collection of the county to be used in other shows if there is a call for it. I'm honored and thrilled to be part of history and art history of this community.

concept/design

second coat of paint

light wash over entire painting

building in the shapes

final glaze of golden yellow

bring it back to contrast and finish

installation day