We had a fantastic time at the CPSA 15 th Annual show, hosted at the Mansion at Strathmore in Bethesda, MD. Kiersten and I arrived on Friday night at the Hyatt Regency just in time for the social hour before the awards banquet. My piece, Bend, received the Phoenix, AZ, District Chapter 212 Award for Excellence. You can view the other award winners at the CPSA website. The next day we had some free time, so we took the metro to D.C. to do a little site seeing. I really enjoyed the Air and Space Museum - all of the full scale rockets, lunar landers, and airplanes to walk around, and the Einstein Planetarium. Afterwards we ventured outside into the 100 degree heat to check out the capitol and the Washington Monument.

  

After meeting up with my good friend Craig, who drove in for the show, we caught a taxi and went to the show. The mansion is beautiful, with rolling gardens and endless rooms. The artwork had been hung throughout the mansion, grouped by subject. I found Bend on the second floor with many of the other portraits, hung on its own panel. There was a great turnout, and it was really exciting getting a chance to meet so many other artists whose artwork I've admired and followed.

About 3 months into our pottery lessons, we picked up our latest stash of fired, glazed pieces. What a difference compared to the first few weeks! We've got cups with handles, pots with separate lids, and bowls big enough to eat out of - plus some really cool multi-hued glaze effects. The house is beginning to overflow with little bowls and cups. Looking forward to see what our next stash will look like.

On Thursday me and Kiersten ventured to the Wilkes-Barre Fine Arts Fiesta for the awards presentation. Bend won 1st Place in Graphics, and Best of Show. It was great to see many of the other members of DC115 won awards as well. We returned Saturday morning to see the rest of the show, and get a few snapshots while it was sunny.

Bend was accepted into the CPSA 15th Annual International Exhibition. Show dates are July 14 - August 25th, at the Mansion at Strathmore Gallery, Bethesda, MD. I'm very excited to have my first piece accepted into the CPSA International show!

Bend and Lull were accepted into the Adult Juried Show of the 2007 Fine Arts Fiesta, running May 17th - May 20th. Bend won 1st place in Graphics, and Best of Show! There will be an awards reception on Thursday, May 17th at 6:30 pm (at the Fiesta), and a Fiesta "Meet the Artists" event on Friday, May 18th, 5:00 pm - 7:00 pm.

Just returned from vacation with Kiersten at Sandals in the Bahamas. It turned out to be a great week to go, because while we were lounging in 80 degree weather, 10 inches of snow got dumped on our house back home - and completely melted by the time we returned. Sandals was a lot of fun - aside from the 2 big pools at the resort, there were some great beachs both at the resort and on their nearby private island. From the pier you could see the hotel Atlantis in the distance, and the steady arrival and departure of cruise ships. The resort's evening entertainment was a little lacking, but we enjoyed shooting some games of pool at the piano bar, or just a nice walk outside along the pier. Both of us got a little fried our first day, but overall we did pretty well from a sunburn standpoint, and I ended up with a nice tan to gloat about when I go back to work on Monday. We've been joking that we really got spoiled by the all-inclusive aspect of the resort - just walk into a restaurant, eat, and leave without a bill - and now that we're home we'll have to be careful not to bolt before the check comes

Prismacolor and Lyra colored pencil on Terra Cotta Colorfix paper, 9" W x 12" H. Completed 2007.

I really enjoyed working on this piece. In many places, I left the red of the Colourfix paper show through - such as in the hair - so you see bare paper. The tension in the hair and the folds of the fabric are my favorite parts. There's a line of detail in the shirt which is hard to see in the pic, but quite intricate - all of the embroidery and stitching on the front. Normally my picture titles are one word, so this is unusual with three. The red room is actually my den, which is a terra cotta color, and has a stained glass red lamp. For a while I've been saying "I'd like to do a picture in the red room". When this was done, "In the Red Room" seemed appropriate.

After 4 weeks of pottery lessons, we picked up our first stash of completed, fired pieces after last week's glazing session. It's amazing how different pieces look after you glaze them - they look like real pottery now! Most of the cups and bowls we made were a little small to be functional mugs and dishware, but they did look great when arranged on a display shelf in the dining room.

A few were just the right size and made it into the cupboard.

We're going to continue with another month's lessons, and hopefully learn how to make some handles for our mugs, as well as some larger forms. I'm really enjoying the hands on, 3-d aspect of throwing, and I love that you end up with dozens of little pieces to use or display around the house.

Prismacolor and Lyra colored pencil on green Pastelbord, 5"W x 7"H. Completed 2007.

This self portrait is for a DC115 project. The specifications of 5" x 7" were set as part of the project, but we were free to use any techniques for the piece. Usually I don't like self portraits, but all of the muted blues in this one give it a quiet sense which feels like "me".

Blue Nude was accepted in the CPSA Expore This! 4 show. The show runs March 24th - May 4th a the City of Brea Gallery, Brea, California. I'm very excited to get a piece juried into this show - Explore This! is one of the two big colored pencil shows held each year (the other is the CPSA Annual Exhibition - which I'll be submitting slides for in March. Visit the Polls page to help me choose which pieces I submit). To see how Blue Nude was created, visit the Behind the Scenes category. Blue Nude was also the first picture I had giclee prints made, so check out the Prints page if you're interested.

Kiersten and I began our pottery lessons at Green Dog Pottery. After driving by the little shop with the iconic deranged green dog icon, I bought Kiersten some lessons for her birthday last year. Our first lesson involved getting our feet wet with a small, pinch form cup, before diving right into throwing on the wheel. Unlike the movie Ghost (which was my only reference up to this point), throwing was much harder than it looked. In particular, centering the clay on the wheel initially was remarkably hard - somehow my efforts just unbalanced it all the more. With a little coaxing from the instructor, though, I was able to make a somewhat cylindrical cup, which will dry this week. It actually was remarkably fun to mold the clay with my hands - a very different artistic experience than the usual 2D work I'm used to. Next Saturday is our second lesson - more to come.

Bend will appear at the MacDonald Art Gallery at College Misericordia as part of the Wyoming Valley Art League's "Spring Preview" show.  Opening reception is Saturday, February 3, 2 pm - 5 pm.  The show runs until February 24.

Recently I've been reading Art & Fear, Observations On the Perils (and Rewards) of ArtMaking (Bayles & Orland, The Image Continuum Press, 1993). I think this should be required reading for the artist, whether you're a doodler or been doing it for years. I recall my first group exhibit a few years ago when I joined the local CPSA chapter; as I peered around the dropoff location at the MacDonald Gallery, I questioned whether my work was good enough to exhibit. The picture in hand was Pensive. I'm glad I decided to drop it off - the artist's reception - my first - was fun, sipping wine while munching on snacks, having people ask about the woman in the picture, the colors, the idea for the pose. Pensive showed up again in the fall show, and, feeling somewhat a slacker for not having anything new, it egged me on to do Tangerine Dreams. This past year has been very productive for me, with 12 works completed. Blue Nude, my first Colorfix work, and one of my favorites, was nearly abandoned halfway through creation. The Colorfix paper was completely different than the Stonehenge paper I'd been working with, and the colors were interacting in ways I wasn't expecting. It just wasn't turning out like the picture in my head. But it was a small (9 x 12) picture, and even if it turned to mush, I thought I'd learn something along the way, so I pressed on. More importantly, it was out of my comfort zone - I'd been doing warm, high contrast, heavily burnished pictures, and Blue Nude was soft, cool, moody, and textured. Trying something new was good enough reason to push on. In the end it did gel. Funny how the one I almost tossed became one of my favorites. Later in the year it was juried into the 2006 Fine Arts Fiesta, a show which I'd submitted to twice before and had not succeeded in getting into.

So, I like Art & Fear. The message of drawing what you care about we've heard before, but it's a good one. I think it's important to keep stretching, and be a little fearless. One of the themes of Art & Fear is that an artist's work is a journey, and each new work opens up paths and ideas to the next. Even if the work doesn't quite turn out as planned, the dozen ideas you get from the process were worth the investment; and, sometimes, not working out as planned isn't a bad thing at all.

Kiersten and I did our 3rd and 4th tapings for WVIA Ballroom Dancing. We even got an interview in the "Hello Dancers" spot (nothing too exciting - just our names and where we were from). The episodes should air in about 2 months. Here's a snapshot of us all dressed up for our afternoon of dancing at the WVIA studio:

Haven and Interlude will be on display at the Berwick Hospital Center from 10/28 to 12/1. The show is hanging just to left opposite the cafeteria when you enter. A few pics from when I stopped by:

Prismacolor colored pencil on green Pastelbord, 7" x 5". Completed 2006.

Haven was done on violet blue Colorfix paper. I envisioned the skin tones being filled with blue, and the woman's face being nearly silhouetted against the light of the window. I wasn't quite sure how to handle such a dark blue picture, but I thought I'd figure it out as I went along. I've put together a progression of the drawing from start to finish so you can see how I tackled it:

The skin tones start with a base of Clay Rose, and then get multiple overlays of blues, purples, and a touch of dark brown. The highlights are Powder Blue. The warm light which catches the tendrils of her hair is Ginger Root, and overall her hair is a mix of blue and purple for the darks, pink for the midtones, and Ginger Root for the lights.

Prismacolor and Lyra color pencil on violet blue Colorfix paper, 12" x 9". Completed 2006.

The weather held out, and the sun even snuck out on Friday evening for the 2006 Fine Arts Fiesta held in Public Square, Wilkes-Barre. Blue Nude was accepted into the Adult Juried Show, and I found it displayed with a few other colored pencil pictures, some from group members for CPSA115. My most beautious model, Kiersten, recreated the pose:

Prismacolor colored pencil on brown Colorfix paper, 12" x 9". Completed 2006.

Interlude is the only picture in the Blue Series that wasn't done on blue paper - it was done on brown Colourfix. I drew this when Kiersten and I were still living in different cities, and could only see each other on the weekends. Interlude refers to that time between being together, when your thoughts are wandering to the other person, and the days left until you reunite.