Mini Business Cards

I am a total nerd when it comes to my business cards. I love moo.com where you can have as many images as you want to upload. Okay, they might have a maximum, but there is something satisfying about seeing little snippets of paintings that I have made all in one place. The cards are perfect for trading, giving to clients, or just dropping off at my gallery. I uploaded 50 paintings to their website and just received them in the mail today. It is like opening a birthday gift to myself, which is tomorrow by the way.

Q Gallery Opening Reception

A fun evening was held at the Q Gallery, as the artists opened their holiday exhibit.
 

Gallery Opening

The Q Gallery Artist's Cooperative opened our holiday show. Tons of new work from our little band of artists. It was a fun night! Since we live in a small town, we pretty much know everyone who attends...our groupies you might say. 


It was a lovely event, and the gallery looks so festive. Lots of hours hammering, climbing ladders, arranging, more hammering, and more climbing. It is worth it when the result is so festive. This panoramic was made on an iPhone by one of our photographers, John Hartman. I like the ghost of the woman at the left moving through the gallery. 


If you are in Stevens Point,Wisconsin, stop in to 1108 Main Street to see for yourself. I know, a shameless advertisement, but hey...it is the holiday season.

Sunset Kayak

My friend Vivian bought this little painting. We have a group of women who like to kayak around our state in rivers and lakes. This inspiration came from a sunset paddle that we did one afternoon in late August. The water was so beautiful, and we all felt that this was a little jewel of an evening with Fall coming and then Winter. If you aren't familiar with Sigurd Olson,
he was was an American author and environmentalist who wrote many books to advocate for the protection of wilderness, including Reflections from the North Country, my favorite.

"Beauty never stands alone, is so fragile it can be destroyed by a sound or a foreign thought. It may be infinitesimally small or encompass the universe itself."

Sigurd Olson

Ice Age Summer

After a recent trip to the American Player's Theatre in Spring Green, Wisconsin, I painted this small section on the Ice Age Trail near Devil's Lake. It was a hot humid day, and the wild flowers were everywhere. We saw butterflies galore and hiked into the hot humid landscape.
What could be better following a play in a beautiful outdoor setting, than being in this beautiful place scoured out by the glaciers so many millions of years ago.

Tea for Four

I have not posted anything for a while. Here are four experimental pieces. A bit of a new way of working for me. I like the sketchy quality and unfinished look to these. Hopefully this will get me working again. It has been a while since I made a painting in or outside of my studio. Summer is usually the time to start some serious plein air, but it has been so hot and sticky here in Wisconsin. No excuses, but it is time to start working in earnest. I miss it!  I will be sailing up in Door County next week, so stay tuned for some new work.

Plein Air Exhibit

 

Wisconsin Plein Air Exhibition...Bergstrom~Mahler 

in Neenah Wisconsin. 

July 9-September 18. 

Opening reception is July 8 from 5-8pm.

Three Tomatoes

I recently painted some still lifes with fruits and vegetables. Two of them are part of a local show called Visions XIII. The opening was last night and several friends came to see the show. The problem was they all gave me such a hard time about my titles. Yes, I realize they are pretty lame. Is it certainly something I can work on to improve? Absolutely!  Instead of Three Tomatoes they suggested Pre-Salsa. I don't know what do you think?

This is the painting that goes with the following poem. It is part of the Verse and Vision project held recently at the Q Artist's Gallery in Stevens Point, Wisconsin. The poet, Jim Pollock is a talented poet who helped organize the event. Over 300 poems were submitted; 61 were accepted into the show.  Local artists read the poems and were inspired to make art. For me, I loved the image of a river, as it flows through all the seasons.

 If You Are a River

If you are a river,
you most likely spend your summers
meandering through quaint villages
and cuddling up to canyon walls.

Come winter,
you probably freeze your skin
and entertain dark and murky thoughts
beneath your cold exterior.

Until spring,
when you burst forth, invading fields,
tearing up those little villages,
carving up those canyon walls.

Unfortunately by fall,
you end up as
mere stain in the ocean’s current,
mere silt on the ocean’s floor.

At such time, river,
it is worthwhile to remember
that now you know what every river knows,
and you have gone where every river goes.

By Jim Pollock
copyrighted and printed with permission of the poet

If You Are A River

High Water

My friend Carol and I have been outside painting the last few days at a nearby county park. The water levels in and around here are so high, a bit scary really. The water is just rushing by, black and churning. None of the cool rocks that we had seen in the fall are even visible yet...all under water.  I set up on top of the dam for this view.  I liked the shadows on the building and the lovely grays in the trees. Soon buds will be popping out and it will be all green again. It has been a long winter in Wisconsin.

Artichoke

I have been working on some still life lately. I have noticed that I am getting a little tighter than usual. I don't know what that is about. I am struggling with backgrounds and shadows. I have also been experimenting with some transparent glazes. This will be good practice I think in the long run. This subject reminds me of Easter when we used to have these for lunch on Easter Sunday. I don't think I even ate one of these until I was an adult, but our family loved the process of eating one. They are pretty yummy.

Tea Time

I have never been a coffee drinker. My Mom drank tea everyday with milk, so I guess it reminds me of her. Most people love coffee. In fact, my daughter, is a coffee barista, who lives in Portland, where they take their coffee very seriously. These are three small paintings, 3"x6" on wood blocks. I tried to convey the sense of light and lightness of drinking tea first thing in the morning.

Waterfall

I just closed a small solo show of some of my drawings of a local county park called Jordan Park. The show included 12 pen and ink drawings and a few sketchbooks to show the process of making a painting. For me it starts with a sketch and often a value painting. This work called "Waterfall" is an oil painting that came out of that process. I am trying to be more painterly as an artist and try to give more of an impression of a place rather than a photographic representation of the scene.

Road to Tiger Pointe.

I painted this from a photo that I took toward the end of a my painting workshop with Anne Blair Brown on Amelia Island, Florida. And to show what a small world we live in...I met a couple who just moved to Stevens Point, my home town, and they have a condo on Amelia Island Plantation at the southern end of the island! 6 degrees of separation!! She offered to let me rent her place or maybe go there to paint in exchange for a painting. I'm in!!

Fernandina Beach, Florida

I painted this street scene in a lovely historic downtown area on Amelia Island in the town of Fernandina Beach. I tried to capture the light on the sunny day. The green house on the right was quite beautiful in the sunlight.

Pelican Roost

Painted this on the last day of my painting workshop on Amelia Island. There was an old fisherman with a long gray beard and white boots who came out everyday to feed the pelicans. These three are waiting for dinner.

Blogging

Not sure if this blogging thing is for me. But I will give it a try. I met some really great artists at a recent workshop with Anne Blair Brown in Florida. I always get such a charge from meeting fellow artists and talking to them about how they work. This group was an especially dedicated bunch. This was a painting that I did on the next to the last day of our workshop.