End of July Check-in
Hello everyone! I hope everyone is enjoying their summer so far. Things have been busy, so I’m just going to get right into the update.
What I’m working on:
I’m almost done with the fifth seashell painting in the ‘Ocean Arrangements’ series, but I had to put it aside this week to prioritize a couple of other things. I’m doing a live painting demonstration at the Filoli Art Walk on Saturday this weekend. I thought it would be best to work on a new painting, so I’m starting a sixth seashell painting. I have a couple of compositions picked out when I was first planning the series, so I sketch one of them out on canvas. I thought it’d be more interesting to see the beginning steps of the painting process during the live demo so the audience can see more of a change in the three hours that I have for the demonstration.
I completed three 16”x20” abstract watercolor paintings and started working on another version of these paintings on a larger panel. It’s still been quite hot in California, so I’ve been spending my mornings in the studio and then my afternoons at home. At home, I’m continuing to work on these watercolor paintings.
I’m part of a project called the “99 Bottles” which is a community art project organized by LocalColor, a San Jose based arts non-profit. I’m painting a bottle that will be featured in LocalColor’s new gallery space. I’ve only just found a bottle to paint on and have been brainstorming ideas. I’ll have to get working on it though, because it’s due at the end of the month.
I’m also working on the Swarthmore Calendar Commissioned painting. This is what I’ve been spending most of my studio time working on to make sure I hit the draft and final deadlines of the project.
Outings:
I just got back from a 5 day trip in Seattle last Thursday. In Seattle, I visited the aquarium, Seattle Art Museum, Chihuly Garden and Glass museum, Bellevue Botanical Gardens, and the Belluvue Art Museum. I spent a lot of time looking at artwork and sketching outdoors and had a great time!
The opening reception for genARTS’s 4th annual Experimental Exhbition: Boundaries at NUMU. It was a very well attended reception and I had a great time talking to all the exhibiting artists that were able to come. It was really fun seeing people come to the exhibition that I co-curated and hearing what people thought of the collection of works as well as the layout. I’ll be giving a couple of tours for the exhbiiton in the coming months, so the work isn’t completely over, but it has been a really rewarding experience so far.
I think that’s all for now. I feel like I have a lot to do before the end of the month with the art demonstration and draft of my commission due. I’m hoping that August will be a little less busy and I’ll be able to spend more time in the studio just painting. Thanks for following along, and I hope all of your summers are going well!
