Summer Daze and Studio Makeover

this table surface is way more beautiful than anything I can paint!
I am SO sorry my kind readers. It has been some time. I'm still chugging along- haven't put down the brush. For some reason I temporarily obsessed on 'doing up' my studio after the opening at Castle in the Air. My friend Chris Knerr, cement mason and graphic artist extraordinaire, helped me transform my scary chewed up particle board work table into a lovely cement surface. And I used up a lot of reallly old paint to break up the old band-aid colored walls. One of those- "why the heck didn't I do this ten years ago" projects.
Meanwhile I am working on a commission- a trade for a computer-yay. And while that challenging partnership resolves itself I am working on a more epic animeople painting of foot soldiers marching throughout time. And after that? sigh...I have to decide where my focus will be for the next year, for the show at RiskPress Gallery. More animeoples? hanging Box Art? more trees with a touch of the whimsical or sureal?

Chris teaching me how to make the cement table. I turned all the cement in a rusty wheel barrow with a shovel. it was pretty muscle intensive. then we added this adobe red.

hee hee power tools. hee hee

Not sure why the blue paint looks yellow here, but the finished table is almost too nice to work on!
more studio corners:

Journey to the Southlands and a Zillion Projects

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Hello my hopeful readers. We are all so hopeful these days. Hoping to stay afloat on the receding financial waters of our economy, hoping to suddenly be discovered, hoping all the good things last, hoping Sharon will actual write another blog entry someday...
Well here it is! That's one thing checked off your crowded list.
I went away. To LA. That's Los Angeles. For the holiday. The OTHER holiday. not Christmas. Its like the Other white meat- only we don't eat pork. yup.
Almost all the galleries I'd earmarked for checking out while down south were gone, vacated, kaput. Obviously next time I better check how long they'd been around and call them to make sure they were still hanging in there (pun intended). I did get over to The Glass Garage, where I someday hope to show my work. Its fabulous, but out of my league. That is the league of artists who no one has heard of. But they show great surreal/magical realism styles paintings. They show the work of Margo Selski, who I want to emulate. I really hope she is older than I am because one might get to feeling bad about what one has or hasn't accomplished in comparison. Three young daughters and a professor of art and her awesome narrative paintings are selling for upwards of 16K. That seems like a good reality...if busy. Do you know her? Because I'd really love to get her on the phone and ask how the HECK she does it. And she manages to keep her backgrounds almost abstract, drawing ones eye to certain areas (instead of allll areas which I can't seem to get away from). But I was thrilled to visit the Glass Garage which its very kind currator on a rainy day. And I did find one other gallery down in Venice Beach that might be interested, maybe, in a year, maybe. I really need to talk to an artist that knows LA, to give me the shake down.
meanwhile, back at studio central I have three unfinished paintings, some in the throws of some really hard to look at underpainting tones, one painting drawn and waiting that needs to be finished by early January for a local competition, and I just got a bread and butter job painting personalized holiday ornaments. It'll buy the butter but not the bread. AND I have a cold.
But life is good and instead of working I got in the hot tub with the boys and plan to walk and look at all the lovely holiday lights this evening with good friends.
I hope you are well!

Studio Contour, Sharing a Studio With Children

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Someone recently asked me, incredulously, how I can share my studio with my kids. Okay, okay, so its not really ideal. Generally either I'm helping them with a project or listening to their sleeping sighs through a monitor, or berating them for trying to sneak into the Mommy area once again. And the shared floor space is always a mess of small toys missing small parts, strings, a few washers strung with wires and bungee cords into what Ben has deemed his latest teleportation device, picture books, screw drivers and half dismantled electronics, as well as glasses of murkey paint water, and lately a scary tin can half filled with desicated black olives.

As you may guess, gentle reader, this is not an easy enviornment to paint in, and Im certain passers by get to hear through the thin metal barrier of the garage door the earful I lay on the boys for their mess. Or perhaps they overhear my sad attempts at bribery- a fruit leather treat in exchange for cleanliness.

On the other hand how wonderful it is to flee to this space at nap time or in the evening and know I can rejoin the family as needed without driving across town. And how wonderful to see their creations emerge and line up for display as mine do. And if a small boy, sleepy, comes and finds me still painting, time can be bought to finish using up my mixed color while said child creates another deluge of mess on the other side of my dog gate barrier.

I tried to capture the chaos with my camera but the photo was just that- chaos, and imposible to read. So I tried a contour drawing instead. A single line threaded around haphazardly seemed more sucessful. Thanks to my friend who suggested contour, I shall try to draw other artists studios this way when I interview them. You can make out their table and supplies, my dog gate covered half down with a a tarp and my easles and sewing/small painting desk, as well as the edge of my round table that sits closer to the garage door. I edited out the clutter.

I'm frustrated not to be painting much this week but Im fighting some fatigue causing chronic malaise and must also do other things like shower invites for a deserving friend and wretched laundry. I can't wait to show you my Quail General or the large piece on the easle, which is trying my patience.