Mountain & Vine Artisan Show

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I mentioned in my last post that I would be doing a show at Mountain & Vine, a local winery, on Saturday February 3rd from noon to 5. That’s tomorrow! In addition to the pieces I’ve shown in the past I will be showing some new paintings that I also shared in that last post, including this one.

I am also trying something new. I have a lot of nice artwork that I’ve never framed. Much of that is because I don’t have frames to fit. I have observed in past shows that people sometimes like to buy unframed art because it’s a little cheaper and they can use a frame they already have, or chose one to their liking. I also painted a few new pieces for this show that I chose not to frame. These will all be on display in a bin on my table in my booth. I am curious to see how people react to that. Here are a few photos. These were harder to photograph because they are in plastic and there is a glare if I light them directly.

These first two are things that I painted for this show and matted but did not frame.

These two were in a sketchbook but I like them. They are very tiny, but I removed them from their sketchbook and matted them and I think they are cute and would go well in a small space.

Finally, the opening of the second show in The Trillium Gallery went great! We got some fabulous artwork from our local art community. We had a wonderful turnout and sold four paintings! There is still a lot of good work up so hopefully sales will continue. This show will be up until late April or early May.

Gallery, Show, and Christmas Cards

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Sorry it’s been a while, but I have been busy! Happy New Year to all.

First, the Trillium Gallery has been doing well. It’s had good traffic and we sold four paintings, which I think is not bad for a first show. We plan to rotate the work on display quarterly and that time is nearly upon us. We have grown our mailing list considerably by including a signup sheet in the gallery. We are taking submissions till tomorrow, and we already have 44 artworks to select from. We have refined our selection process and I’m really looking forward to presenting another strong body of work. The new show will open on January 27th. We have also worked on our branding and I created a logo, which is not my forte, but it came out okay.

I am doing a show the first week in February at the Mountain & Vine winery. This show is only open to Nelson County artists. I don’t know if I will sell anything but I’m proud to support the winery and other local artists. I’m doing something new for this one. I’m going to try including a bin of unframed original works that will be less expensive than my framed pieces. We will see how that goes. I have painted a few new pieces for this show, and for the next gallery show. Here are a few that I’ve recently completed.

Finally, every few years I get ambitious and decide I’m going to hand paint Christmas cards. Usually somewhere in the process I kick myself, but in the end, I look at it as a labor of love. I did 21 in total this year and it was really good for me to focus on painting that much. I got to experiment a bit with some new techniques. And the recipients were all very appreciative. Several have told me they plan to frame them. They are all included in the gallery below, which I learned does not appear in the email version. Hopefully people will click through.

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Trillium Gallery Grand Opening

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First a little background about Wintergreen. There is an independent organization here called The Nature Foundation at Wintergreen (TNF). They are a naturalist organization that performs several important environmental functions, maintains our hiking trails, tracks wildlife sightings, etc. Inside TNF there is a meeting room maintained by the Wintergreen Property Owners Association (WPOA) for use by residents.

When this room was opened last year, the WPOA noted that it needed art. I suggested that it be a gallery where local artists could show and sell their art, to which WPOA said they didn’t want to be in the business of selling art. Understandable.

TNF has a gift shop that does some retail sales, so I suggested that they could do the sales and take a commission. I thought it was a win-win. People resist change, so I was not able to get any interest from TNF, until I learned that a friend and fellow artist, Carolyn Velletri had the same idea. Carolyn and her husband do a lot of volunteer work for TNF so she had the attention of the right people and we managed to get them to commit to a trial.

Carolyn and I wanted this to be a class act! We wanted a professional gallery where local artists could submit art work. Carolyn, myself, and a representative from TNF would curate the work submitted and select art for display. Art would have to meet the mission of TNF which is “to foster an understanding and appreciation of the natural and cultural heritage of the Central Blue Ridge Mountains of Virginia and our community through conservation, research and education.”

We wanted to hang the first show well before the holidays in hopes of getting gift sales. The art will be rotated quarterly. We worked hard to create a submission form and disseminate it to local artists. We got some great submissions and held our grand opening on October 28th. It was well attended and we received numerous compliments. Most importantly, we sold three paintings!

I am excited about this new venture. It will give me more credibility as an artist and it will help me grow and foster our local art community which is very important to me. Here are pictures of the art shown.

Here is a photo of me and Carolyn.

Here is a photo of several people viewing the art. We were having too much fun to remember to take pictures so we didn’t get photos of the crowd at its height.

Now we need to keep the buzz going.

Fall Foliage Art Show October 14th and 15th

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I hope for those who are in Central Virginia that you can stop by the Fall Foliage Art Show presented by the Shenandoah Valley Art Center. This is an excellent juried art show and sale that fills the downtown streets of Waynesboro Virginia. The show runs from 10am to 5pm on Saturday October 14th and then from noon to 5pm on Sunday October 15th.

I am very pleased to have been accepted as one of the Emerge participants for emerging and local art. This part of the show will be inside the new main SVAC gallery at 416 W. Main street. I will be showing some of the things that I showed in the Woodstock show, but will also include some of other pieces that have not been shown before. Here are a few.

I actually painted this painting some time ago from a photo that an online friend of mine took in Finland. Painting all of those tree details was very relaxing.

This is a scene I’ve painted a few times before. One of those was the first to sell at the Woodstock show, so I decided I needed to replace it for this show.

This is a tiny painting I did this past winter of the Raven’s Roost overlook. It’s kind of light and airy but I like the feel of it and thought it might appeal to others.

I painted this from a reference photo taken at a nearby vineyard. It was taken in the spring but with autumn in the air I decided to make it a wine harvest picture instead.

I’m hoping to do one or two more this week. I have one nearly finished and have a scene in mind for another.

I hope to see some familiar faces at the show!

Completed Commission and other News

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It’s been a while since my last post. I have been busy with art and other life activities. I will try to catch up a bit.

First, I completed my commission of Brian’s view in Afton. This one was quite different because the medium was fluid acrylic. I ended up doing a composite from many reference photos. As with all of my commissions I worked with Brian, doing several prototypes, to understand what resonated with him. Then I went to work on the final painting. It is 22×18 and is on hot press watercolor paper. This is smoother than cold press, which is what I use for my watercolors. We experimented with many seasons before we settled on summer. Brian really liked the flowering trees in the spring scenes, so I made them crape myrtles to keep true with the season. I worked hard to make sure Humpback Rocks was clear, because that was important to Brian. Here is the final result. Brian was happy. I’m waiting for him to share a photo of the painting framed and hung in his house.

I have been accepted into the Waynesboro Fall Foliage show that will be held to be held October 14th and 15th. I will be in the emerging artist section which will be inside the gallery on Main Street. I will post more about this when it gets closer. It would be great to see some friends there.

Finally, I just returned from a wonderful cruise traveling from Amsterdam to Bordeaux. It was wonderful to walk in the footsteps of some of the great impressionists. While in Amsterdam we visited the Van Gogh gallery which was excellent. I highly recommend it if you are ever there. Here are a few photos I took of some of his magnificent works.

This one of a church is quite famous.

I really loved this landscape of thunderclouds over fields.

I found it quite moving and emotional to be in the presence of the palette he left behind when he died.

I always plan to paint when traveling and I take supplies and a sketchbook with me. I find that I have limited time, but I did manage to do a few sketches.

I have a few more exciting things that I’m working on to share and I will be doing that in subsequent posts soon.

Shenandoah Valley Artfest 2023 – Preparations

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Tomorrow is the big day! I will be participating in the Shenandoah Valley Artfest 2023 in Woodstock Virginia! The weather this week has been terrible, and for a while it looked like the festival would be a wash out. Things are looking a little better, so fingers crossed.

I assembled all of my racks, which was a bear, and staged my setup in my garage. I think this will look fine.

I will be showing about 20 pieces. There are a few that I don’t have good photos of, but here is a gallery of most of what I will be showing.

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I hope to see some familiar faces. This is my first show, but hopefully it will encourage me to do more!

Completed Natural Bridge Commission

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Since I shared my small studies I have been working on my Natural Bridge commission. Today I took it to the client to discuss any final changes and they only had one small thing they wanted me to change. They were very happy with the result and had many nice things to say.

Commissions are difficult and stressful. When you paint for yourself, no one has to like it but you. If you’re lucky enough to have someone else who likes it enough to buy it, that’s great. With a commission, someone agrees to pay you money for something before it’s created, and they have some expectations for what they want. As an artist, you need to figure out how to meet those expectations.

Fortunately, applying my design thinking background seems to help. Using DT methods with the studies I did allowed me to better understand their expectations. One of the things they said when the saw the almost finished painting today was that I had incorporated all of the things that they liked. Needless to say I’m pleased.

This is the fully complete painting. It is 18×24, the largest watercolor I’ve ever done. Painting that large was quite different but I made it work. I will deliver it soon and hopefully they will allow me to come over and photograph it once it is framed and hanging in the place they have chosen for it.

Shenandoah Valley Artfest

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I just got confirmation that I was accepted in the Shenandoah Valley Artfest to be held on 24 June 2023 in the town of Woodstock VA. I am so proud as participants were selected by a jury and I submitted my application as a complete unknown. I have a busy month ahead of me to get ready! Stay tuned and I will share more info when we get closer.

Natural Bridge Studies

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I mentioned in my last post that I am doing a commission for my friend Jo Ann, who lives here in the neighborhood. She wants 24×18 watercolor of Natural Bridge, Virginia in the springtime. I went and took pictures a few weeks back. Jo Ann and her husband Morgan chose this picture as the reference photo for their painting.

As promised, I have done three small studies in the same aspect ratio as their painting. I do this to get client feedback. I took them and showed them to Jo Ann and Morgan today, and the good news is that they liked them all. They gave me some ideas of what they liked and didn’t like. While there is no way I can get exactly the same result this still gives me good guidance as I proceed with their real painting.

Here are the three studies (click on image to see larger version):

Study 1
Study 2
Study 3

While the clients’ opinion is the most important, I like feedback from multiple perspectives. Please share what you like and don’t like about each painting.

I’m getting ready to start on the final painting. This will be the largest watercolor I’ve ever done, so that’s making me a little nervous. I will share the result, hopefully in a few weeks.