November Has Been a Good Month

 6 paintings and a print were sold in November.  I am completely recovered from the E-coli infection and parasites in the blood. I had been feeling listless, exhausted, with a daily headache and a queasy stomach. I didn't have the energy to create or plan future workshops. I felt as if some old person had taken over my body. I didn't know why until the lab tests.

Well, I am back, excited to make new paintings and to welcome students to my classes in encaustic; both beginning and advanced and oil and cold wax. I am even considering offering portrait painting in encasutic.

Tomorrow, I am off to Veracruz for 9 days. Life is good.

Encaustic Diptych

Oil and Encaustic on panel

Encaustic diptych

oil and encaustic on panel

6 paintings and a print were sold in November.  I am completely recovered from the E-coli infection and parasites in the blood. I had been feeling listless, exhausted, with a daily headache and a queasy stomach. I didn't know why until the lab tests.

A print of this painting was sold by Saatchi gallery

Process of a New Painting

Do you remember the painting that I destroyed? I scraped off as much encaustic as possible and covered it as well as I could with milk paint, and started a new one.

Here is the process of the last several days:

You can see the ghost of the other painting

ink wash on milk paint

Iwill make some corrections on the drawing and I can start putting on the layers of encaustic

Grandma's Photo in the Attic

When I was a child, there was a large photo of my Mother's mother on the wall in the attic. My grandmother died before I was born, but I visited that image often and hoped she could hear my conversation and connect with me.

This painting is the second in my Remembrances series. The photo of Grandma is long gone, but this has been inspired by those memories of our time spent together.

It is 60 x 80 cms. ink, encaustic, charcoal and oil paint on cradled board. @Artfinder.

What to do with a bad painting?

 GET RID OF IT!

It is depressing to realize that after several days of work, the painting is not good and not fixable. I spent most of the morning scraping the surface, then put it outside in the sun to melt all the layers of encaustic and finally put a couple of layers of milk paint over what was left.

ink drawing on milk paint

3 layers of clear encaustic

melting

just the ghost left.

It Just Wan't Right!

The re-worked painting that I shared in the last post sat on the floor in my studio for a few days and every time I walked by, it was almost like a blow to my solar plexus. It was too busy; the face was too small; and the red was too bright, so yesterday I scraped most of the surface off and I will start over.

I want to loosen up more. I see fabulous, young artists working figuratively that are working almost magically loose and the results are incredible. First of all, I am thrilled that figurative art is once again in the forefront of the art scene, and that many young artists have the ability to draw. Drawing had been considered almost a crime several years ago. God Forbid that you had meaning and story to your work. I was told by a gallery director that if I wanted to be noticed in Mexico I had to make ANGRY art. That I wouldn't do.

Here I am at this advanced age being inspired by the brilliance of much younger artists. I am passionate about improving my painting in my last years.

after the first scraping...

 

 

Hard work and a talented eye

I have been working with a man for 10 weeks. He had other teachers and could handle acrylic paint well, while creating geometric abstracts, but he wanted to learn how to draw and draw portraits in particular.

Luis is married with a wife and 2 daughters and he works most days of the week. Still he make time to draw at home after our weekly one hour lessons. I am so proud of him. Look at what he has accomplished in a short, but concentrated time.

this is where Luis started

keep scrolling down...

notice the improvement; keep scrolling down...

Luis is really starting to see...

from this to....

WOW

I am really impressed with the progess

impressive, isn't it?

The Party is Over

We had help from 3 friends yesterday to clear out the gallery, move all the paintings and encaustic equiptment out of the gallery, patch the nail holes and paint.

Although I think I am getting too old to be working this much everyday, it certainly was a good experience; being back in the gallery business. I owned 2 galleries in the States, Cynthia has been an art dealer for 18 years and we worked well together. Many people dicovered the encaustic process, learned the history of encasutic, got to touch the glass-like surfaces of Cynthia's paintings, sign up for workshops, and buy paintings.

I don't have photos of Cynthia's sold paintings, but here are some of my sold ones.

Clean that palette!

This is where I started yesterday

I got back into the studio yesterday and decided to paint over the last painting I had been working on for days. It was getting too cute and I couldn't stand it.

I started painting without covering the under painting and soon realized that I couldn't clearly see the paint I was mixing on such a paint encrusted palette. It took me so long to scrape the dried paint off the glass palette, that I stopped early on in the painting. I'll get back to it this afternoon.

no clear area to mix fresh colors.

Progress of a painting

http://vimeo.com/95666186

Here is a short video of the progress of an oil painting.