GCWS EVERGREEN FALL SHOW

The postcards were distributed last week during our regular meeting of the watercolor society.  My hydrangea painting, Center of Interest, is on the front, along with Jean Vance's painting (I don't know the title).

The show runs late September - late October, and is our regular fall show at the Evergreen Retirement Center.

Art Opening and Reception is Sunday, September 22 from noon - 4 pm
230 West Galbraith Road, Cincinnati OH

The show will continue through October 27 and you can view the work any day between noon - 4pm

VIEWPOINT 45 SHOW

If you cannot get to the Viewpoint show, it's online - you can sit back with a nice cuppa and enjoy!  They have all the winners listed, too.

GCWS PROGRAM WEDNESDAY

We had a very interesting and informative guest artist/speaker for our regular Greater Cincinnati Watercolor Society meeting on Wednesday morning.  Jenna Reynolds holds a Master's Degree in Family Therapy and is a board certified art therapist, marriage and family therapist working at her own business - My Little Red Haus - in Cincinnati.  She shared her experiences over the years about the children she works with, sharing some of the artwork the children had created as a way to demonstrate the symbols children often use to "speak" to a therapist.  

I am so glad there are strong women like Jenna who are helping these smallest of victims of abuse and neglect!

In her talk, Jenna gave us some history of art therapy, which began in the 1920's as a result of the very different artwork created by schizophrenic patients in hospitals.  She talked about her own working history, beginning with her education and then her first job working for the Cincinnati Children's Home in Madisonville.  She now has her own business and therapy site called My Little Red Haus.  

Jenna told us how symbolism plays a major role in children's artwork and there are two types of art therapy (both of which she uses in her therapy sessions):  
1) Art as Therapy and 
2) Art Psychotherapy.  

Art as Therapy is what most of us do:  We go to our art studios and get away from everything when we're in a creative mood; time evaporates and we feel calm and happy, especially when our artwork gets positive responses.  

Art Psychotherapy is driven by the therapist as far as materials used and what is created.  Materials for art psychotherapy range from the Fluid (like watercolor or finger paints) to the Resistant (like clay and other manipulative materials).  A therapist may choose a more fluid material for a client who is closed up and guarded as a way to open them up; the therapist may choose something more resistant for a client who needs more structure and tactile experience.

There are typical drawings a therapist asks a child to draw at an initial setting, including the House Tree Person drawings = 3 drawings of things that all represent the person.  The Bridge Drawing tells the therapist how the client feels and what their goals are - if they are moving forward or backward; if they can plan for their future.  

Jenna works with children of all ages and their families.  She does one-on-one personal counseling and art therapy, too.  She really opened my eyes about the role of an artist in a therapeutic setting.

BLUES AND VIOLETS

I did a bit more on this small painting (fourth sheet Arches 300# hot press paper) of a hydrangea petal.  I want the center to really pop out so it needs more work. Unfortunately, I haven't been in a painting mood.  Tired.  Either dealing with a migraine or the after effects of one :( I will keep waiting for fall when this nonsense ends (when the weather changes); and wondering why my summers are so ugly now - something I am allergic to that is causing this, but what?  I've been tested for everything in the past.

To celebrate Sweetie's birthday, the girls treated him (and me) to a day at the Taft Museum of Art to see the daguerrotypes on exhibit.  Very interesting - the images are small but so crisp!  Worth seeing.  Then we walked 6 blocks to the Rock Bottom Brewery and had a good lunch.  It was a beautiful day - sunny with a nice breeze, not too hot.  Then last evening we went to my Mom's for a birthday dinner for him (he likes to spread his birthday celebrations out throughout the whole month! ha ha) with cupcakes and cheesecake and yummy food (plus cucumbers and tomatoes from her garden).  My sister crocheted him an afghan!  It's sooo cool!

His actual birthday was August 2 but I think we'll have one more outing to celebrate :)

A GOOD SHOW AND A PAINTING SOLD

The opening reception for the Viewpoint45 show last night was great!  By 7 pm, the room was wall-to-wall people and Sweetie and I had walked around earlier to see the paintings and choose our top 5 :)  

The artwork was top notch, the food was very good (and beautiful) and there were plenty of people around to share in the night.  

I, of course, being the stay-at-home curmudgeon that I am, did not want to find something nice to wear that fits me or go out and mingle with lots of people.  But this was Sweetie's extra birthday present from me - that I would go to the opening!  So we went, we saw and...

Caw Girl sold!!!  

I am very pleased.  It means more to me to sell a painting than to win an award!  The woman who bought it said it was her favorite painting in the show :)  How cool is that?

Sweetie took some photos of these two considering the painting.  Don't you just wonder what they are saying?  Maybe she's saying, "I remember when I looked like that!"  ha ha  The painting got a lot more attention after the red dot went on it - two younger men came around the corner and said, "Well, she's Saucy!"  I didn't hear that, but Sweetie did.  Made me laugh.  It was one of only two nudes - one was Ken Landon Buck's swimmers.  There were plenty of traditional portraits, landscapes, some abstracts and a beautiful sumi ink painting by Setsuko LeCroix that got the People's Choice award.  It was one of my favorites, too.

Here are some shots of the walls and how the paintings were hung - all were lit well in the gallery space and even the smaller paintings had presence, due to being hung on a facing wall on it's own (like mine was).  And there were a lot of smaller paintings that were very beautiful.

The gallery is open Monday-Friday 9 am - 4 pm and Saturday 10 am - 3 pm through August 30th.  Get over to see it, if you can.  (The couple who purchased Caw Girl have agreed to let it hang for another week before taking it home.)

Cincinnati Art Galleries
225 East Sixth Street

Hope you are having a great weekend.  Raining here, but that won't dampen my spirits today!

VIEWPOINT45 INVITATION

Cincinnati Art Galleries, LLC

Come celebrate as Cincinnati Art Galleries hosts    The Cincinnati Art Club's VIEWPOINT 45      Opening Exhibition  Friday, August 2nd   5:00 - 8:00pm 225 East 6th Street, Cincinnati OH Exhibition continues through August 30th        Monica Anne Achberger   Room with a View  Oil    10 x 10 inches    $675   Martin Darr Mogadore Reservoir  Oil    17 x 23 inches    $1,200    Phillip Erbaugh  Rim Trail, Bryce  Oil    16 x 20 inches    $1,000    Steve Hart Rust Belt  Oil   24 x 36 inches    $2,500       David Hunt Vellum 2  Acrylic    14 x 20 inches    $600      Setsuko H. LeCroix Cherry Blossom Asian Sumi Ink    30 x 22 1/2 inches    $1,100         Monique Wolfe   Hog Heaven Watercolor    18 x 22 inches    $3,800 This year John A. Ruthven, internationally acknowledged master of wildlife artist, will serve as the honorary judge for the competition. About Us Cincinnati Art Galleries is downtown's dealer of 19th to 20thcentury original American and European oil paintings.  The gallery is well known for buying, selling and appraising single items or entire collections.  Cincinnati Art Gallerieshas over 30 years expertise and is member of the Fine Art Dealer's Association of America.    225 East 6th Street    Cincinnati, Ohio 45202

Is small the new large?  Seems like these paintings that made it onto the postcard are small paintings.  Mine didn't make it onto the postcard, but maybe because it was a nude.  But here it is, matted and framed to look important...

Maybe I'll see you there Friday evening.

A FEW MORE PEARS

I haven't had time to get back to the macro hydrangea but I did a little more on the rows of pears.  Sme of the pear bottoms got a bit wonky (I wasn't careful when putting down the masking fluid), but they can be fixed when I put in the shadow shapes.  I was more interested in the backgrounds, anyway.

 


I hope you get some time to paint today - or maybe this weekend.








As for me, I'm off to the house again today to do more sorting, packing, and throwing away things no one wants to keep.  My sister is going to spend time at the courthouse doing a title search.  We need to find out why they are telling us the title is not clear. (Something my aunt did while she lived there, but we don't know what, and we were sure she had paid off the small loan she took out years ago.)  Leaving my aunt the house as a life estate with the house going to others upon her death has made it more difficult than it should have been, legally, but it will get done.  It's just not going to be a cake walk (but if it was, I'd have plenty of pears to put into that cake!)

POEM WRITTEN IN RESPONSE TO A POST BY CAROL KING DEFINING THE COLOR VERMILION

Vermilion is organic, true and honest - 
perhaps more orange than red -
and yet as blazing as sunset burning   
an afterglow on the retinas.

Bright and exhausting in your mixes,
she often misbehaves -
for, of course, Vermilion is pure female -
and she always knows her own way.





I didn't have a One Word Wednesday photo ready today and have class to teach this morning.  I was reading a post by Carol King and she included a definition of Vermilion in her post.  I thought, as did she, that the definition was boring, uninspiring and needed more poetry - don't all the colors need to be defined with poetry? - so I wrote this before I got ready this morning for my student.  

Now you try it!!!  Pick a color and give it some poetic definition!  What words come to mind when you think of a color?  Have fun!!

VIOLETS AND BLUES IN A MACRO

I do love blues of all hues and violets and rose pinks and...well.  Can't help it, it's just what makes me happy.  So I started another macro hydrangea painting.  Wet-in-wet and juicy and now need to define some edges and dark places behind the main petals - and do that rounded center in some cerulean and...

I also like the granulating colors in my hydrangea paintings - which you can see better here in the close-up center...

The Art After Dark event went well Friday evening.  There must have been 200 people going through in the 2 hours it was going.  Plenty of music, wine, appetizers and sweets but I was too nervous for anything but a small cup of coffee and a bottle of water I nursed all night.  

Saturday, we found our way to the Cincinnati Galleries on Sixth Street and dropped off my painting for the Viewpoint Show.  The man taking the paintings was very efficient and quick!  No tables full of people all doing something - just one man, accepting the painting, checking the name, having me sign, and then off we went!  Saturday evening we had a group birthday gathering.  We provided the cake - ordered, not baked by me! ha ha  The grandgirls are getting old enough now that they want $ for their birthdays (one in July, one in August).  That makes it easy for us!  I included small presents so they'd have more than cards to open, though.  It's amazing to me that J is going to be 13 and A is now 11 - growing up so quickly...Our grandboy, D, is no longer a toddler, but a ball of 5 year-old ninja energy at any gathering.

ANOTHER ROW

Another row of pears - unfinished as yet - until I have something else to share.  Busy weekend, busy days, plus dealing with migraines again (3 last week!! eeek!).

ART AFTER DARK

Jerry's photographs and my paintings will be featured as 2 of 15 artists at Art After Dark at the Fort Thomas Branch of the Campbell County Library tonight.

Come by if you are in the area!

Other artists featured are:
Virginia Cox
Jo Baker Hogan
Barbara Kunz
Marlene Steele

The library provides appetizers, petite sweets, and wine.  Celtic and Appalachian music will be performed by Meadows & McGraw.

















Tomorrow, I deliver my painting to the Cincinnati Galleries for the 45th Viewpoint Show (which opens August 2).

ROWS OF PEARS

I'm having the students play with colors and backgrounds, varying color combinations, playing with complements, etc.  Using simple pears - anyone can draw a pear! - and then having a background around them.  Everyone did it their own way, either rows of pears, or just a trio of pears as a still life or a single pear on a sheet.

Here are a couple rows of my pears - unfinished because I began with the background colors in each one.  It will be fun to choose the colors I want each pear to be, based on the energy of the background.

Painting something simple, like a pear, makes it easier to play with color and texture and not think so hard about the object, keeping it fresh and clean.

A busy Friday, Saturday and Sunday coming up so will catch you again Monday, I hope.

ONE WORD WEDNESDAY

Southern

Photo by Jerry H. Carpenter

HAWAIIAN BREAKFAST FINISHED

Bon appetit!


And thanks, Gary, for sharing this delicious papaya on your blog :)

HAWAIIAN BREAKFAST

Fellow artist, blogger and friend, Gary Everest, has been regaling us with his new life in Hawaii.  One day he showed a photo of his breakfast - yum!  But what struck me was the potential painting there.  So I started this.  When the dark purple-black seeds go in, it will set it off. 

Calling this
Hawaiian Breakfast

I hope you don't mind my using your photo, Gary! I won't put it in a show but am just using it to practice my wet-in-wet watercolor techniques.

I'm not sure I've ever eaten a papaya...I once had mango ice cream in the Cayman Islands.  

SUNFLOWER SHADOWS

A sunflower painted wet-in-wet.  Hard to keep the petals loose but I'm happy with the rest of it.

My intention was to make you feel the heat of the day and the strong sunlight creating shadows.

ONE WORD WEDNESDAY

Vibrations

Photo by me at the St. Augustine Alligator Farm

AWS TRAVELING SHOW - MIDDLETOWN ART CENTER

Sweetie played chauffeur to me and Linda yesterday and we went up to Middletown, OH to see the AWS Traveling Show.



This is the brochure, showing the Gold Medal of Honor winner, Frederick Wong.
This painting is not in the traveling show.



After Sweetie, Linda and I walked around twice and then stood in the middle of the room and looked all around, Linda asked me, "Which one is your favorite?"  This is it:

By Catherine Anderson, it won a High Winds Medal and $1,750.00 but darned if I could tell which ones were gold, silver or bronze because they weren't listed that way.  And the brochure (more about that later) didn't enlighten me about anything but the Gold Medal winner.




What can I say about the show?  A plethora of greys, darks, and city scapes were to be seen on every wall.

If you happen to revel in greys, darks, and cityscapes, this was the show for you.  

I saw a theme with the compositions of all the dark paintings - dark dark darks all around with a patch of light off center.  Most full sheet or squared at 35 x 35 inches.


Now, there were some colorful and watercolor-y paintings in the show, but they were few compared to the others.

This portrait, by Donna K. Read, was lovely to look at.  The flow of the watercolors and softness on the blouse were well done, as was the use of hard and soft edges - and color :)

This painting, by Elaine Bowers, made you feel like you were flying over the delta.  Fresh, lovely color.

And this one, by Cathy Hegman, caught my fancy because of the birds (not crows but blue birds on a string).  It made me want to find out the story behind this one.  








About the brochure.  Don't pay $20 for one unless you find out about it first.  It's got doubled pages, missing pages, and some of the paintings are not in there (because of the missing pages).  Not good.  A national American watercolor show and the brochure apparently didn't have anyone proof it before sending it to the printers - or else the printers were high on printing ink the day they ran it and just did whatever they felt like doing.  It did show many of the paintings that didn't get in the traveling show - many I would have loved to have seen. 


Note bene:  I sent an email to the AWS describing the problems with the brochure.  Very apologetic and concerned about that.  Apparently, they have used the same printer for a long time and this is the first time there have been bad batches (some in North Carolina and now some in Ohio).  They are going to send me a good copy of the brochure.  Now that's good business!  Everyone is allowed to make mistakes - but it's how you deal with those mistakes that gives your customers/clients a good feeling about the organization or not.  Well done, AWS!

AMERICAN WATERCOLOR SOCIETY SHOW



If you're in the Middletown, OH area, do make a trip to the Middletown Arts Center and see the 146th American Watercolor Society exhibit.  All those paintings you see in art magazines?  They will be there!  Nothing like standing in front of a watercolor painting and see how the artist did it.

They are not open on weekends but are open

Mondays 9 am - 4 pm

Tues - Thurs 9 am - 8 pm

Sweetie, Linda (one of my students), and I will visit the show this week.  I'll share more about that later.

FOR A GOOD CAUSE

Many of you who read my blog know my admiration (and sometimes envy) of the talented watercolor artist, Vandy Massey.  Well, she has just become one of my idols.

Vandy has created a new blog with all the other online stuff that goes with it (like Facebook, etc.) to share her new project called Running with Brushes.  All proceeds from sales of the artwork goes to a group dear to her heart called Care for Casualties.

She is painting 1000 postcard-sized paintings to sell for the group and you can get in on the fun and good karma!  Just visit her blog, Running with Brushes, and read about it, learn about it, and then get involved.  What a great thing for artists to do :)  I'm putting the blog on my sidebar right now so I can keep up with her postings about her progress.  I hope you will add it, too.

GCWS PROGRAM ARTIST FOR JULY - BETH GOLDSTEIN

At our Wednesday Greater Cincinnati Watercolor Society meeting, we were inspired by the wonderful program given by a local Cincinnati artist, Beth Goldstein.  Beth shared her journey as an artist, from her days as a student at the Cincinnati Art Academy, to the time she picked up watercolors and tried to learn all about them on her own.  As she said, it took a while to learn the beauty of watercolor and how to use it to get that beauty to show.  And then she took off.  

What was most inspiring and delightful for me to hear was how a 4-day trip to Santa Fe created such a drive in her that she came home and painted a series of 75 watercolors from her impressions and thoughts and memories of that trip!!! WOW!  And she shared many of those paintings with us.  Some began in a fairly realistic and traditional watercolor style, which she said didn't really express what she felt when she was there.  Then she moved to brighter colors and shapes, leaving the pure lines showing amidst the landscapes without filling in colors, using a lot of white space and moving to more abstracted shapes that still read as landscapes - but could be turned upside down and read just as well (the sign of a good abstract).  

The members were very interested to hear about her journey and where it has taken her. And that she rarely draws before painting, allowing the brush to do the drawing for her and even when she does a few lines, she doesn't allow those lines to capture her and take away the fluidity of the watercolors.

From traditional drawing and painting to loose and abstract watercolors and on to creating tiles for homes and businesses (shown in the bottom photo), Beth continues to grow as an artist and has a wonderful portfolio of work to show for the years spent learning and exploring her chosen mediums.



For those in the Cincinnati area, Beth works out of a studio at the Essex and she has a website, if you want to visit and see more of her work and learn more about her artistic endeavors.

Thanks, Beth, for the great program!  
We'll keep in touch :)

THANK YOU, GOOGLE CHROME!

Well, I was working on a post about the GCWS and the guest artist/speaker who gave the program Wednesday, with photos and my usual talk about it - and Google Chrome shut down my computer, telling me it was out of memory or some such nonsense!  Lost everything!!!!

Thank you, Google Chrome!

I have never had this happen with Internet Explorer.  Time to return to it?

Grrrr.........

Here's hoping you are having a gremlin-free day, if you are on the computer.  I'll work on that post later and get it up (barring other Google Chrome problems).

Note Bene:  I didn't lose everything, thank Google! ha ha  It was still there when my computer started up again and I got back into Blogger (saved as a draft).  Whew!!

NOT QUITE ONE WORD WEDNESDAY

Impressive

Photo by me, taken at Spring Grove Cemetery

Some people want the last resting place for their body to be elaborate and impressive. I guess, maybe they lived an elaborate and impressive life.  This mausoleum is unfinished and falling down but it has an elevator from the bottom to the top floors (unusable now but it was built there for two brothers (hence the double stairway?) who wanted people to know how wealthy and important they were in life - and in death.)  It is pretty interesting - fashioned after Notre Dame and it's buttrusses and arches.  I would like to sneak inside but it's all locked up and it might be dangerous - not because of vampires or zombies, but because of structural damage.  Spring Grove Cemetery contains many impressive structures like this in a park-like setting - well worth a trip to walk the paths and see the ponds with trees and flowers in bloom.

My aunt's funeral was Monday and her body is now at Forest Lawn Cemetery - not a fancy mausoleum in site, just headstones set in the ground.  Now is the time for going through the house and sorting, giving away, throwing out and cleaning.  I guess it will be done, one day at a time.  I want to thank everyone who offered condolences and words of support.