Getting Ready for Art Show

These paintings will be in ArmadilloCon 34, July 27--29 at the Renaissance Hotel, 9721 Arboretum Blvd, Austin TX 78759. Admission to the art show is FREE. (The rest of the con has an admission charge).  Art show hours: Friday Noon--6pm, Saturday 10am--6pm, Sunday 10am--noon. It has an art auction on Saturday evening around 7. This will be updated as I get more info.

Preview the show on my Daily Paintworks Gallery. Check out the top two rows of paintings.

I'll also be posting one painting at a time on my Facebook Page.

I've got three 4x4 foot panels in the show, and a total of 15 paintings to hang, hopefully can complete a couple more smaller paintings between now and the show.

Treasure Map value study, imagination, and Kafka

"Treasure Map" value study, 8x10 acrylics on canvas. Value study for Daily Paintworks values challenge. I started this in alizarin crimson, but found it too intense, then switched to violet oxide, which I've used before in underpaintings. There are still traces of aliziran on face and hands.

This composition will be developed with more detail, then used as an underpainting and I'll glaze over it in acrylics.

Many times when I do such paintings, people ask me where I get my ideas. I did a post last year on this blog about stretching your imagination. I believe that imagination is a skill, and just like other aspects of art, it can be cultivated and developed.

That, and I'll leave you with a quote from Franz Kafka: "You do not need to leave your room. Remain sitting at your table and listen. Do not even listen, simply wait, be quiet still and solitary. The world will freely offer itself to you to be unmasked, it has no choice, it will roll in ecstasy at your feet."

Persephone's Rose (oil painting version)

"Persephone's Rose" 5x7

I decided to try this one in oil, using the grisaille with glazes. Again, I got a little too alla prima with it, but I'm getting better at glazing every time I do it. Click to see the acrylic version, which I no longer have, being as how I entered it in the 5x7 show at ArtHouse.

The other one had a more generic looking flower and this time I wanted a specific kind of blossom, so I chose a rose. Her expression looks a lot more intense in this one, too.

As to re-doing one's own ideas, as long as it stays fresh, sure, why not? I'm having fun with this bird lady theme.

The myth of Persephone is that Hades, king of the underworld, wanted a wife, and so he put a flower in a meadow that Persephone frequented. When she went to pick the flower he kidnapped her and took her to the underworld, where she became his Queen after eating a pomegranate. If she hadn't eaten the fruit she would have been able to go home, but then we wouldn't have winter (so if global warming is any indication, we will have to ask Queen P to kindly return to the Hades to cool things off).