Merry Christmas and Happy New Year to all! Hope that your holidays are filled with friends family and joy!

Finally!!

Well, this particular project has been one of the more challenging ones. Maybe this is why I have avoided paintings that need to look like something, or in this case someone.

I little bit of background. For the last 7 years our bike shop has sponsored the Gorilla Century, a recreational bicycle ride that roams around Cherokee and Crawford Counties. There are three loops, a 32, 60, and 100 miler. The first ride in year 2003 celebrated 100 years of Pittsburg State University. Purely a coincidence that year was also the 100th anniversary of the Tour de France.

Each year, Roger and I collaborate on a t-shirt design. In the past the designs have been pen and ink, no color. This year we decided on color and of a cyclist. A photo of our friend Todd taken by his wife Deborah epitomizes cycling just as Todd and Deb do in every way. Warmth, openness, welcome and loads of enthusiasm for the sport of cycling are a part of their very fiber.

As an artist, after a number of years of not copying from other pictures, I found this very difficult. The urge to use a photo-editing program was almost too strong to deny. It would have been so much easier, however I believe it would have lacked the personal touch that only a hand can give. Digging deep and painting through the issues of "does it have to look exactly like the photo" and forcing myself to leave out numerous details has given me a little growth and more work to accomplish on my artistic self. It is important to me to be well-rounded as an artist and not be pegged into a particular style.

This painting is work from Saturday, Sunday, Tuesday, and Wednesday. Finally, so happy it is done.

Heavy Heart

As much as I have not been blogging, I have been doing some paintings and a day of numerous quick sketches. I did miss last Thursday and today with my artistic pursuits, but not through laziness. School is upon me and I am going to have to let my ambition of a painting a day go to three a week. This weekend you should see the scans of the work completed and not scanned since Friday the 20th. Next to schoolwork there are two major projects for the bikeshop that are due around the first of September. One of these projects is the Gorilla Century bike ride which is a mere week from this weekend. Whew, definitely not enough hours in the day.

Time For A Little Informality

Between the hectic week that has caught up with me and the fact that it is and has been way past my bedtime, a little change in pace was called for. This piece is similar to a rather large set I did when my work with the Venn Series was busiest. They were an offshoot of the circles. Since time is short enjoy the pic and I would love to explain in a day or two.

The Pink That Was Not White

Today my goal was to paint a group of circles using only tints of color that were closer to white than the tint. Still having issues with the paint mixing so the colors were darker tints than I wanted. So I just went with the colors that happened. By the way, this is a three color painting, so I could paint 23 more permutations of this circle arrangement. It seems like a lot of work, but I wonder what they would look like. Which would be my favorite? Might have to revisit this one.

A Dab of Math continued

Yesterday was all about arrangement #1 of 2, today is all about arrangement #2 of 2 possible variations. In math we use permutations and combinations to talk about the way we group items. When the order does not matter we talk about combinations. In the case of these two paintings order does matter. We call this a permutation. More specifically the permutation of the paintings has no repetition.

I have always found these two words confusing. When I lock my bike up I use a combination lock. This is actually a permutation of numbers. The order I place the numbers into the combination matters. For example: 1234 is different from 2341. Another type of permutation does have repetition. Would not work for these two pics.

Whenever I use permutations of color to paint the same sketch I feel like I am cheating. If I use 4 colors to paint, I could actually create 24 different paintings of the same content. It seems a little boring, but I find the process fascinating because of the differences in color when I mix by hand. Today's painting is a perfect example. I mixed the paint fresh, trying to match the colors from yesterday. Of course they did not match and I failed to mix enough paint to complete the picture, so had to mix more. Of course these did not match. This is why we purchase or mix more paint than we think we need. The painting is more interesting because of these slight variations in color. This reminded me of how wonderful it is to paint my circles. I can enjoy the process without worrying about the outcome.

A Dab of Math

So I like the circle thing, it can complicated (even when it looks simple) and it can be simple. Really simple. Say I have two colors, lavender and a dark blue with a touch of dark and a paper of circles that do not intersect each other. There are exactly enough spaces that I can use these two colors and a white outline to seperate them to paint the circles and their background.

There are exactly two ways I could paint the circles and their background. One way is shown above the sketch. At any rate, this reflects the way you can arrange two items. Two ways. Tomorrows painting will be arrangement number two!

08/14/2010 Back to Venn

Would like to talk quite a bit more about the ongoing Venn Series. It is time to rest after a long, long day. Worked at the shop getting things ready for the start of school, which translates to not enough time to do everything that should have been done two days ago. Such is life.

A Work in Progress

Todd is coming along. Still working on the colors. Having some trouble visualizing the outcome. One of the Gorilla Century sponsor logos will go on the front. I would like to use the logo colors to unify to whole pic. A work in progress.

08/14/2010 Part One of Two

A pre-emptive painting a day. This one is for a shop project and pretty much has to be done this weekend so I can get it to Todd (who by the way is the subject of this drawing from a picture his wife Deborah sent me) off to First Edition to be placed on t-shirts for the Gorilla Century ride we sponsor. My hope is to figure out the colors and paint tomorrow. Might take a few try's. Might even turn into three parts. Much thanks to Todd and Deb for all of their time they volunteer for Tailwind Cyclist's!!

08/13/2010

Day Three is a blast from the past. In the early 90's, about the time Roger and I met and married, my artwork developed into this kinda wild expressionistic style that was quite enjoyable to paint. A side affect of falling in love, getting married and moving out on my own. Lots of new experiences without the immediate sheltering of mom and dad.

Painting like this is nice because it is relaxed and I can literally go with the flow. It does not have the same feel it once had, actually it feels forced. Maybe the same way you can never go back to a particular moment in time other than memories.

08/12/2010

So many thoughts are with me on this sketch. My grandmother's lamp. As a child this was the lamp I would sit under to read my current favorite book. Books like The Black Stallion or Smoky the Cow Horse. Crazy for horses from a young age, they are a subject I come back to over and over again.

Grandma's horse lamp is now on my artdesk, forever a reminder of my grandmother and all the things a grandmother does and should do for her grandchildren. My life has been blest with strong, wonderful women who took care of me and still take care of me. I would love to go back and listen to my grandparent's voices as they told me about their lives, growing up and when their children were young or just saying my name.

8/11/2010

This would be day one of the painting a day series. What will the series be about? Who knows. Anything to get paint, pencil, pen and ink, etc. on paper. Will I be happy with the images? Some days yes, some days no. Will the sketches be meaningful? Yes. In each I hope to wonder and wander a bit in my thoughts.

Today's was inspired by a couple of people and a couple of places. Dawn Chandler of Taos Dawn gave a presentation at Philmont Scout Ranch on her artwork. Her journey through art is as inspiring as her person. Dawn spoke of creating a painting a day to keep her working and thinking about her art. My sister has challenged me to a painting a day, as I have challenged her. Together I hope that we can brighten our artistic selves that have been shelved due to changes in our lives that occur with marriage, children and jobs. Maybe we can bring a bit of that with us to the table.

The actual trip to Philmont was inspiring. It has been many years since my last visit. Some things have changed, but one thing is the same. The peace of mind that both the setting and the people at Philmont bring to me is as present now as it was 20 years ago.

This first painting is one that has been on my mind for awhile now. It is a sketch and I hope to come back to it more completely. Every summer my father-in-law travels to Slovenia to spend the summer. My husbands family immigrated to the states from Slovenia in the early 1900's. At any rate, PaPa Steve returns from his trip with wonderful stories of his adventures in the mountains. Triglav, the highest mountain in Slovenia is in several of his wonderings while abroad. This sketch is from a photo of Triglav.

01/09/10

First drawing in quite some time. This is a sketch that I will be experimenting with some guoache. I have about 5 pics of friends and family ready to be put on paper. Doing a series of cycling drawings has been on my to do list forever. Goal one, do 'em and get them marked off. OK, along with all the other stuff I get to do on a daily basis.