This is What you Missed at Quads tonight.

Quads Night in LaGrange

Cars as Art

Sandra Graves, fellow artist at Gallery 104.

We're not related, but isn't she just cute.

She is a super artist who does it all.

Oil, silk screening, watercolor.

She was the artist of the month in July.

This is MonaLisa.  

Yep that's her real name.

She does some fabulous pottery.

Check her out at Gallery 104.

Quads is a car club in Oldham County started by four guys, so I'm told.

They have a car show on the court house square in LaGrange on the Fourth Saturday of the month.

These are some of the cars there tonight.

They are art.

Enjoy!

Don't you love this insignia on this corvette.

You're gonna see a lot of Mustangs here.

I love em and can't help taking all these photos of them.

This green one is gorgeous!

It's not a purple people eater, or maybe it is,

but it is a purple VW bug.

Kinda looks like an eggplant.

This trucks not finished but isn't it a beauty.

I may have to put this truck in one of my paintings.

Love it.

This Mustang is gorgeous.

It has some super floor mats with the Mustang logo.

Always love the reflections in the wheels.

Next month put it on your calendar.

Fourth Friday in August.  

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Rocks on the brain

I love to paint rocks.

I've had trouble with them lately so today I was looking for inspiration on youtube

and found a short video by Jerry Yarnell to watch

and then I did this study.

I have the light coming in different directions.

Hence the arrows.

I added the grass just to give them a more finished look.

Then I went on Wet Canvas for a photo of something with some rocks in it.

I found a photo reference I really liked with mist, trees, a creek and of course

Rocks.

Morning Mist 

has just about everything I love.

Trees, water, rocks and other interesting stuff.

This was a lot of fun to paint.

Not sure if it's done, but I think it might be.

What do you think?

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Alex and her Cupcake

Alex and Her Cupcake

Today Alex worked on a painting of a cupcake.

I did this same painting when I took a class fro Dreama Tolle Perry in Carmel, IN

this past February.

I thought Alex might enjoy painting this.

She did.

This is her finished product.

Didn't she do a great job?

Leave a comment and I'll show her next week during her lesson.

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Some Days are Just More Productive Than Others

Some days you can just get more work done than others.

Ever notice that.

I've been trying to make better use of my time

so yesterday I decided I would practice on painting flowers.

As a certified florist, I love flowers,

and you may know I struggle painting them.

I had several "in my mind's eye" moments lately

when I could see in my head how to do something I've been trying to do.

I spent the morning working on the flowers

and the afternoon on something I'm more comfortable with.

Namely the landscape.

Here is my body of work for yesterday visiting my orchard.

So why are they out in the orchard.

Well,

because it's under 75 degrees right now

so I can go outside.

Here's the landscape.

Still needs some tweaking,

but I love the mountains in the distance.

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How Good do You See Color

I seldom post links to other blogs, cause I want you all to myself, but this is pretty interesting.  I subscribe to Fine Art Views and today I got a blogpost about seeing color accuity.  I don't have any great theories on seeing  color or how the eye really works, but there are some pretty interesting thoughts here.

The first link will be to the blog itself and the second link will be to the color accuity test.  It took me about 10 minutes to do it and I was sort of shocked at the results.  I think mine were pretty good, but I must admit, my eyes were kind of squirrely by the time I was finished.  It was interesting though.

click here to get the blogpost about the test and how the eye works  https://mail.google.com/mail/?tab=wm#inbox/1386c84cac74bf04


click here to take the test http://www.xrite.com/custom_page.aspx?pageid=77&lang=en

Hope you give it a try.

O.K.  I'll add a pretty picture so you're not shocked without one.  hehe

$50 with free, yep FREE Shipping until, well let's say until it sells.

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Note Cards for Janice

Whenever my mom went to an art fair or a boutique shop 

she always bought note cards.

I doubt she ever thought about spending money on a print

or an original work of art, but she loved the artwork

so, she bought note cards.

In honor of my mom 

I had these note cards made of three of my original paintings.

Happy Day

Stilts

and

Still Workng

can now be purchased as note cards for $3.50 ea. or 3/$10.

Thanks Mom.

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Rock Studies

From the very beginning of my art journey I have been fascinated with painting rocks.  I've seen some incredible paintings of rock stacking and individual boulders where you seemed to see all the little dimples in a smooth rock.

What I love about it is seeing the rocks appear with just a very few brush strokes.  I start out by basically slopping some paint on where I want rocks and then, once it's dry,  adding the highlights where I think the rocks are.

I decided today I would do rock studies, but when I got started on this 8 x 10 I couldn't just do the rocks for some reason, so this quick little painting showed up.

Then I decided to take a scrap piece of mat board and divide it into fourths, and paint rocks on each section.

This is the first pass through blobbing on the dark color first.

I don't mix the colors I'm using very well and I don't really do any shaping other than get the top outline on and then paint a form that I'm happy with.  

I didn't realize while I was painting that the big rocks are all on the left, guess cause I'm left handed.

In this pass through, I just added lighter shades of the basic rock paint by adding white and some orange or yellow.  The shapes of the rocks just come out when you dry brush the lighter color on.

I think it is the most amazing thing.

I tried to have the sun coming in from different angles, hence the arrows reminding me of the direction.

I highlighted the highlights again, with an even lighter touch.

On this final pass I added some shading to make some rocks stand out from others more.

I put a number 1-4 in each box.  

Please leave me a comment and let me know which of the four you like the best.

Another rock and water painting.  

This one is 18" x 24" and is waiting to be framed.

The clouds are sort of cut off in this photo, but I love them.

This place is just in my head, but it has sort of a tropical feel to it.

It's hard to see here, but the rocks have flowers blooming on them.

OK at this point, I guess you can say I'm a doing rock and water series.

Not sure why this subject intrigues me right now, since I'm no where near either,

but I love painting rocks and water.

Don't forget to leave me a comment about which rock section you like the best.

Thanks for stopping by and have a great Fourth of July.

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Alex in the Clouds

Alex in the Clouds

My art student, Alex, worked on painting clouds this week.

We painted very full clouds and wispy clouds both over water.

Then we painted more full clouds over water with rocks in the foreground.

We're going to work on rocks more in the future.

She is such a talented little girl.

Alex working on her first study of the day painting big full clouds.

This is her complete first study.

We put the clouds over the water so we could learn a little bit about painting water.

Here's her second study of soft wispy clouds.

Finally we did another cloud study to see if she could remember how to do it.

She remembered most of the steps.

We added the rocks in front since we'll be working on rocks next.  

Pretty good looking stuff don't you think?

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