My Three Entries for the Wallowa Valley Festival of Arts

Calabaza de Cuero

 It's nail biting time again. Funny, I always worry about being accepted, and haven't been turned away yet, so why the nail biting? I guess it's that old lack of self confidence creeping in. Keeps me humble right? Lol.

Sunset In Sonora

 This was an interesting challenge, but a lot of fun to do. I wanted to try and use my doilies in a tree painting, and it worked, although I had another style in mind prior. What's nice is I can still try my other idea. I've learned though that joint compound does not like cold basement floors. It was a bit hard to spread, and a lot more crazing happened than I like. The paint filled most of that in luckily, and the antiquing process brought out what was left, to my advantage.

The Red Hen

Pastels and chickens, who knew that would be my new fun challenge to try?! I have a couple of other challenges in that regard, and my temptation is to blow past the sketch step and get right to it, but I think I will try and sketch out my idea first to make sure I have my light and dark areas figured out. I can do that while Kent is doing his dulcimer practice so it works for both of us.
I'd better get to finishing getting ready for work. I am introducing Mary Cassatt to my students today. It will be interesting to see how they settle in after Spring Break.

My biggest sculpt yet...WIP

 It's time to finish my pieces for the Wallowa Valley Festival of Arts in Joseph, Oregon. Hubby says I should enter the chicken pastel I posted in my previous post so now I have two more to add. I am also adding one of my abstracts, but I'm going to do some touch up before I post that one, so now I'm working on a sculpt I've been wanting to do for a long time. I have a friend in Wallowa Valley that snagged some very cool and very large gourds, this one happens to be 26 inches tall. She offered to let me buy a couple as she has plans for the rest. I originally started on a Santa with this one, but I just couldn't bring myself to finish it, so here I am, working on an Indian mother and child. I peeled off the face of the santa, which will need a new and very large gourd. :-) I'm using more than one gourd in this sculpt, the arms will be made up of two gourds each.

Here are the forearms. Look Mom, no hands! Actually, I have to wait for the top of the arms to dry before I add the forearms and since I'm not completely sure of the way the hands will go I am waiting until I attach these gourds and let the clay dry before working out the hands. For now I will work on the head and the baby that will be cradled in the mother's arms. The most exciting part of this will be the design I'm planning for the mother's dress. I'm working up a stylized version of Nez Perce designs to finish the piece off with. I only have a couple of weeks left so I'd better get to it! I'm hoping to have more pieces before the show, which is in June because they've asked me to demonstrate my sculpting so I want to have a variety to share. Gourds are so much fun to work with, the possibilities are endless don't you think?

Friday's Fish Tale and Flowers WIP'S

 A fish story in the making is this future wall hanging. Last year at Wallowa Lake, Oregon a man from Pendleton caught a world record Kokanee Salmon weighing 9.67 lbs, at 27.75 inches long. Wallowa Lake Fishing One of the galleries in Joseph, which is about a mile north of the lake, asked if I could create a fish wall hanging that would be about the same length as this big monster fish, so I've tackled the challenge. Watch, someone will break the record again and I will have to make another one, oh darn? Lol. Actually, these are fun to do. Hopefully this fella will take off to the art show with me on Monday, and be beaded and wired and ready to show at the gallery next week.

 This is another one of my fun and funky abstracts in the works, again hopefully destined to go into another gallery in Joseph next week. I'm trying to decide whether I like it better the way you see it above, or below. I still have a few layers of color to add to it, but times getting short so I'd better get this finished today or tomorrow.

My stepson is coming from California today, we go to Kent's parents tomorrow after work, Saturday we celebrate Kent's birthday, and Sunday we are back here to speak in church. I can see me finishing these and one more piece Sunday night as we are going to be sooooo busy for the next few days. Ah well, so much for a relaxing weekend aye? The upside is that I'll be stopping at a friend's place on Monday to spend the night and help her with a blog set up. I'm excited about that as she creates some amazing vintage western art and wall hangings as well as jewelry, so she needs to be on the web! We also get to visit with a teacher we had at church when we were 14. Gee that was a loooong time ago.
Then I will stay with a friend at Wallowa Lake as we have a house sitter I don't want to uproot just for a few days. So I will get to fish with my friend, and we shall see whether we can catch a record trout from her dock. Probably not, but a girl can dream right?

Horse and Santa WIP's

I found a great use for a Pampered Chef bowl. It works great to hold my gourd sculpts when I'm working on the top details. I will add the base later, but for now, hurray for Pampered Chef!
 This horse head will end up with a bronzed look with vintage sterling silver design work on the base.

This Santa is two feet tall so he will be an eye catcher when he's finished. He will be embellished with vintage look "ornaments" before I'm done. I sure have fun with gourd sculpting. Uh oh, the wild Wesley is awake and ready for lunch so I'm off to have some fun with the twins. Have a great day!

Utah State Fair Here I Come!!

My hubby and I were just talking about this September's schedule. Yes I know, we are way ahead of the game, but my hubby likes to plan ahead. He asked me about Peach Days in Brigham city, which I had said would be fun to go to. I love peaches don't you?? Well, wouldn't you know it, Cathy from the Utah State Fair called me to confirm my being a working artist in the Creative Arts building the first Saturday of the Fair, September 11th. I will be there from 2-8 pm sculpting on gourds, with several to share hopefully. I'm so excited! What great exposure for me, and a good opportunity to show others what can be done with gourds. I've been told by gallery owners to not share how I do what I do, but hey, someone will come along and see my creations and try to copy them anyway. This happens a lot in Utah, but their style will be different and I have the advantage of more experience. I hope what I do will inspire someone to try something new. Sooooo, unless we get up really early to run to Brigham City, we will have to pass on Peach Days this year. Perhaps next year. Utah has so many fun things to do, such as the Greek Festival, which will be the same weekend we will be at the fair. The food is to die for, and the dancers are fabulous. So Utah State Fair, here I come! I hope to see some of you there!

I have a secret.....

Today we helped hang and place the art for the show this weekend. I have a little secret that can't be revealed until tomorrow night, but it's good news for sure. I had a lot of great comments on this piece although it was mentioned that perhaps next time I let some of the natural gourd show through so I will have to ponder that for the next go round.
I worked with two great people in placing and hanging art. The fella who worked with Michelle and I commented at the end of the day on how refreshing it was to work with folks that didn't have an agenda, over blown egos, or anything like that...lol. It was very satisfying to help place pieces where they would look the best. I look forward to doing this again next year.

Ready for the art show?

Here are my entries for the art show this week.
You can't really see the paint shading very well and I do need to seal this tonight, but This Indian head is on a bottle gourd with a pine needle base attached with brass star brads. I tried to keep it simple so this is the way it will be.

So here we are and hopefully all done. Now, to choose something for the silent auction. Have a great night!

WIP's

I just got done mowing the lawn and couldn't resist taking a picture of the mountains this evening. I can smell the Ponderosa pines and fresh cut grass..ahhhhh......The work in progress is my house and the yard. We need to put one more coat of paint on the house and trim, and then put a deck around the front and side of the porch,(wish I would have thought of that last year) and get the rest of the landscaping done for this year. Next year we start on the inside. But I will post before and after photos of the outside of the house as it will amaze you!
Not sure if I bit off more than I could chew here, but my paintings always look iffy half way through. Can you guess what is standing in front of the barn on the hill?

A Mother's Love - Stepping Outside my comfort zone

I've had the photograph this was done from for a long time. I'm trying to step outside of what I normally do and use different brush strokes and so on and this is what the end result was. I plan on doing at least one painting a week until the art show, and then will make a decision on which pieces will be submitted. This is an acrylic on a 9 x 12 inch gallery wrap canvas. The painting does wrap around the sides. Let me know what you think!