DJ Geribo

Last week I visited with my friend Shirley and she had a still life of vegetables set up. I used oils, something I want to use more often (I also use water-soluble oils but many people have suggested I use the regular oils because of their lush quality). Although she had an off-white table cloth with an off-white background, I made my foreground and background more colorful. And when I got home, I changed the color again. I love the old-world style of painting that David Leffel has in his works and I decided to go more for that. I did the foreground but decided that I'm also going to add a darker background. And since I'm still getting used to oils (I have been using acrylics more than any other medium recently) I'm making very slow progress on the vegetables. It also doesn't help that not only do I not have a photo of the still life we set up (I forgot my camera!) but I do not have the vegetables. So, I'm painting from memory. I think I'll have to take a trip to the supermarket!

I've been working on this Hibiscus painting and I'm feeling pretty good about it. I did something here that I haven't really done before - I dropped the photo. I think I have been holding on to my reference photos like a baby holds a security blanket - I wasn't confident enough to let go. But I suddenly felt restricted by the photo, like it was more of a chore to hold onto it and I got impatient with myself for trying to follow it so closely. I started playing with the leaves and adding colors I wanted to see there instead of colors that were there (like in photo-realisim paintings).

So, with a short break, I'm 'getting' newly inspired. I got together with a painting friend, Shirley, and after having a difficult time getting started I finally chose a subject and I was off. I had the usual anxious feelings as I progressed such as, oh, this is awful, it seems I haven't made any progress in my art, insecurities, as usual, rearing their ugly heads! Ha! And then suddenly, as I continued to paint, adding layers, focusing on just a couple of areas, I started to like what I was painting, what was happening on the canvas. Of course, I still have a long way to go but so far...pretty good!

My friend Kitty, who lives in Montana, is also an artist. We often discuss things that inspire us, where we are going with our art, and often what we are doing wrong with our art that is preventing us from getting more sales. So when she saw this free webinar from Northlight books she told me about it and today I watched it from my studio.

Rachel Rubin Wood, the editor of the Splash watercolor book series, explained the guidelines for getting accepted into the Splash books. Number 16 is currently open to submissions and one of the former participants and winner of a variety of awards over the years, Soon Young Warren, was a guest speaker as well. Rachel showed two paintings side-by-side, one that was not accepted into one of the Splash books and one that was accepted. She pointed out the reasons for their acceptance and then gave some tips about what she looks for when she selects a painting for each Splash book. She looks for the "WOW" in a painting, it should mean something to you and tell a story. Find a way to make your art jump off the canvas and have as much impact on those who are looking at it as it did for you when you decided to paint it.

Other suggestions are obvious - following the guidelines a publisher recommends to make their job as easy as possible to decide if your painting is the right choice. Rachel mentioned how some images, no matter how hard she tries, cannot be opened. This is a no-brainer. Make sure you can open the image before you send it off. It would be a shame to have a beautiful piece of artwork that is possibly worthy of a place in the Splash series, for example, rejected simply because the editor could not open the image.

I always have painting ideas in mind, actually, sometimes I get overwhelmed with how many projects I want to do and since I'm not sure where to start, I get a little paralyzed and don't start any of them. That is where I am right now. I am doing a lot more writing, I've really missed that side of me, and so my painting is a little, just a little, on the back burner. I visited with my sister, who is also an artist, and we painted a couple of times together in the last couple of weeks. We talk about as much as we paint but I always start feeling anxious and think, ok, I have to paint, I can't keep talking, I have to focus, and I'll draw us back to what we are both there together to do.

I have several large gallery-wrapped canvases that I got for a steal at a yard sale a few years back (the ones in the photo are 48"x48"). They need to be cleaned up and gessoed over, actually, they only have a light coat of paint on them so gessoing shouldn't be much of a chore. So, as you can imagine, the question I have is, what do I want to paint on them? I typically paint animals or landscapes but if I'm painting to my audience in New Hampshire, there isn't a lot of interest in animal paintings. Of course, with the internet, my audience is the world. But then you have to think about shipping, potential damage to the artwork, etc. And of course I can send the image to one of the many online galleries that feature artists around the world, like one of my favorites, Xanadu Gallery located in Arizona.

So, I have lots of things to think about as I pull the canvases out of storage and prepare for some large scale paintings that will most likely take me through the cold winter months.