my very first solo show!

Two weeks ago I set up my first solo show in the McLanahan Gallery at Penn State Altoona in Altoona, PA.  It's a part of the Ivyside Juried Art Exhibitions.  It runs from January 10 - March 3, 2013. I made a few new 2D pieces for the show recently.  Here are some not-the-best photos I took.  I'll take better ones when I go back to the gallery, probably a couple more times.

Here's a link about the show: http://www.altoona.psu.edu/now/news.php?value=4005

baby b jumps over pie/fourth of july

Baby B Jumps over Pie/Fourth of July, 19" x 14", watercolor and ink, 2012.

Finished this a few months ago and never posted it.  I had to wait to do the table cloth until I could buy an appropriate piece of fabric for it.  I have a nice oval frame for this one, but unfortunately the glass broke so I'll to keep looking for another.

Philadelphia Mural Arts training program: done

Last week I had my last Muralist Training class with Dave McShane.  We had to pick an actual wall in Philadelphia and design a theoretical mural for it.  Typical themes for community murals are:  social problems (anti-drug, anti-domestic violence),  history, portraits of role models, education, health, religion, and sports.  I was personally intrigued by how many horse and carriage pairs there are.  I especially liked how in lots in the heart of the city there are horse stables.  It just surprised me.  There happen to be a stable near my boyfriend's work, so I chose an empty wall near there.  I wanted it to seem like the horses were pulling the wall/building.

 

Mural drawing, 10" x 13", pencil on bristol paper, 2012.

The next step was to make a 5 ft x 5ft painting of a blown-up section of the drawing.  I had this pretty much done in one week.  I think I do want to work on it a little more.  I definitely need to take new photos since the direct sunlight hitting the dark parts of the painting in this photo make it look sort of dull.   I'm going to mount this on plywood and frame it before the class' show in June.

Pull, 60" x 60", acrylic on this weird fabric used for murals that feels like dryer sheets, 2012.

PAINting

 Versus, 17" x 18", watercolor, 2012.

I'm so glad that this painting is finally off of my desk!  Deleting the 27 reference photos for this piece off my desktop just felt amaaazing.  Almost every aspect of this was a struggle for me.  The funny thing is, I've learned to do the section of a painting that I'm looking forward to the least (99% of the time it's the background) first.  In this case it was the metal of the model t, which was actually the only part of the painting that was easy for me.  Oh, the irony.

This was my first time using friskit/masking fluid.  I had never used it before on a real painting.  I did buy some one time. Then I waited approximately five years and tried to use it.  I was EXTREMELY disappointed and didn't try it again until now, after buying a new bottle.  Turns out the stuff works great.

 Dark blue would've been nice.

 Red would've been a little nicer.

 I was rooting for the yellow.

But alas, none of those colors looked right and my wiener of a boyfriend kept trying to convince me to make it grey blue the whole time, so finally I tested it out.  Of course it looked the best.

 

I've learned from experience that taping wax paper over every part of my painting except for the part I'm working on is a good idea.  I drag my hand all over the paper and usually end up doing something bad. Also, doing a test painting of a part that I know is going to be extremely difficult always pays off.

I tried to log my hours spent on this piece.  I've tried to do this before, but never successfully.  The "never successfully" has been maintained for this one, although I can tell you it took more than 36 hours.  Much more than 36 hours actually, but how much more I do not know.  I stopped keeping track before I even started the glass and sky.