What a Wonderful Surprise!

Today I opened the link to EmptyEasel.com,  This is an important site for all artists. Their tag line is "We are an online artist community sharing ways to create and sell art." If you haven't checked it out, you should.

 I clicked on the site and much to my surprise I found a wonderful review of my work. That was a happy surprise.

Silent, Beautiful Figure Paintings by Ezshwan Winding
By Dan in Featured Artists > Oil Paintings

 Ezshwan Winding is an incredibly talented artist  with over 60 years of painting experience (and over 9 years of teaching workshops).  Her extensive online portfolio showcases both her abstracts and figurative pieces, most often in oil or encaustic.

As beautiful as her abstracts are, however, today I’m going to focus solely on her figure paintings, and their amazing quality of silent communication.
A Moment in Time, above, is a perfect example of Ezshwan’s ability to somehow capture exactly what makes us human with just oil paint and brush. There’s no movement, no words, no music. . . and in fact, none of that is necessary.

I can still feel the moment, as if I was standing right there.
The model’s face is half-turned, one cheek resting on a languid hand as she slowly collapses into sleep. Her body is supported by the edge of a table, bunching her shirt at the shoulder while her arms and wrists sway in complete, silent, relaxation.

I feel my own shoulders relax, as I explore this painting. Maybe yours will too.

And Ezshwan’s other paintings are all just as full of quietly expressive moments just like that. . . Transformation #4 follows the dance of several green and gold butterflies, arranged just so around a woman’s face.

Clearly she is in motion as well. . . becoming something new; changing, transforming, her eye steadily regarding the future she desires.

Lastly, Transformed by Silence is possibly my favorite. The colors are especially vibrant; a wonderful contrast of orange and blue, warm and cool, with a patterned texture that blends the idea of abstraction with the truth of realism.

Just take a minute to relax, and breathe, and enjoy this painting. It’s worth it.

Then visit Ezshwan’s website to view more of her gorgeous work. http://www. ezshwan.com

Placing Art

viewing room

studio at sunset

viewing room and stack filled

Today I finally was able to place art in the living room. Now I have art in all the downstairs rooms and the viewing room upstairs.

Also, it was important to me to make a pleasant outdoor scene. The yard had been sorely neglected for 3 years and the area on the side of the house can be seen from all the windows, that are really all French doors.

A couple of trips to Home Depot for plastic grass and white marble rocks along with lots of plants quickly made this section of the yard more pleasant. It has been a lot of physical work, but there now is a special place in the living room to rest and enjoy the view.

Cynthia is painting her huge bedroom and arranging her studio upstairs.

hallway

high ceiling can take a lot of art

A cozy spot for an afternoon rest

2 paintings fo the "Messengers" series

back year where there will be a lot of real grass

Getting better

Moving Is Not Fun!

I am getting too old for this! It feels as if we have been moving for weeks; perhaps because it has been 2 weeks of packing hundreds of paintings, many car loads and trips to the new house with my paintings and 2 days of the moving trucks going back and forth between the houses with the household stuff and many plants. The new location here in San Miguel de Allende feels like a community with parks, tranquility and much closer to town than the last house in the campo. Garbage collection here is 3 times a week. That may not be special for you, but when we moved out of the last house, the garbage was pilled up in front for almost 4 weeks.

I had great help with the transport of the paintings and just today the stacks have been stabilized and the paintings are being moved off the floor.

The new studio is half the size of the last one, so creative placement is necessary. I don't need all the tables any more since I no longer have workshops with 5 or 6 people. I am concentrating on teaching advanced encaustic techniques to serious artists who want to do more than just watch the wax melt and marbleize. There is lots of light and ventilation in the studio.

We have been unpacking and trying to find things for 5 days. With wonderful helpers everything should be in place, more or less in another week. I have been moving things around to achieve the right energy flow.

So far, this is where we are.

view from the front door

There will be plenty of gardening ahead for me. This is a great place for art.

One side of the living room. I look forward to hanging art soon so it feels like home

The paintings that are going in the stacks in what will be the viewing room

Rediscoveries of Old Paintings

We still have a week before the moving day, but I have been going through things in the studio for 2 weeks. Yesterday my assistant and  I pulled every painting out of the stacks and I rediscovered paintings that I hadn't seen in years. One pile, I discarded. They had not stood the test of time, but others, I was happy to see again. Most of these were painted before I moved to Mexico 13 years ago and the encaustics were made the first years I lived here.

Nothing Stays The Same

As of last Wednesday, my daughter and I realized that we were not going to be able to get in the house we thought we had rented to take meaurements because the owner was on her "second honeymoon" with her ex husband and had the key with her and didn't want the agents to have it.

We persisted in asking for entrance to the house before we had the big moving sale.  We needed to know what to sell and what to keep. The house we are living in is much bigger than was the proposed new house. We were brushed off by the agents and told to relax and not to worry. We had paid the deposit and first months rent - I know, a big mistake, without signing the contract, because there were errors in dates and wording.

To skip all the unpleasantness and nasty texts accusing me of crazy things, we will still be moving June 1, but to another house; a much bigger house. Much of what we sold at the sale we could use.

I had a one day sale of paintings that proved to be successful, but I still have mountains of paintings to pack and move. I have been working in the studio for days and it will be several more days of packing to clear it enough to paint and clean the floor.

It will be worth all the work and stress once we are settled in our new, spacious, light-filled home.

Clearing the Studio

making piles in the living room.

How Did I Get So Much Stuff?

The sale is over. Much of the larger furniture has been sold; many books, linens, plants, many pounds of powdered paint pigments , 3 of the metal topped studio tables and several paintings, some of which I posted below.

As for the powdered pigments, I am beginning to believe that I will never be rid of the thalo blue and green. I was very careful when transferring the powders into smaller containers, they were all in 1 lb bags. I wore gloves and a mask and they still managed to get everywhere as well as under the mask. Everything I touch in the studio now turns my hands blue or green. I hurry to wash my hands, but the blue and green ghosts live on.

I am going through every drawer and shelf, tossing or giving away all unnecessary supplies. It is cleansing and messy!

Lightening The Load

The moving sale is Saturday, May 13th. My daughter and I will be moving to a smaller house in a neighborhood closer to town.

There is much to go through. It was too easy to accumulate a lot of stuff and stick it away when living in  big house,

I have slashed prices to less than half of retail on many older paintings that I would like to send off to new homes.