Who am I kidding?

The plan was to set up my own website and have my blog be a part of that so that I'm not having to go all over the web to get to the folks interested in my but I've been chewing my nails over having to do it. So I have a new plan to get some computer education under my belt. That's for after X-mas vacation.

Meanwhile this painting has been kicking my ass. Today I came into the studio and established who's boss. Me. I had tried an new trick on the previous paintings and it worked once but then never again. I used zinc white to get coverage in between the see through colors and the opacity of the other white, whatever it's called. Zinc dries too fast, I think so that I had difficulty wiping it off. I used my crutch color combo, blue and yellow, on this painting until I get my confidence back.

Hopefully, I haven't totally lost my audience. Happy Holidays, everyone.

I'm back!

It feels great to be back to work after a fun summer. I'm going to just make a quick post today but will have lots of interesting stuff to say in my following posts. I painted four paintings today with varying degrees of success.

What do you think about.

Someone asked me what I do I think about when I paint a painting. I said that I think about creating a world that I would like to inhabit. No, this is not a landscape of some frightening planet swirling with inimical life. I am interested in a world that appeals both to my senses and to my intellect. I enjoy the way people can reveal unconsciously in their actions, things that they would prefer to remain hidden from view. Simultaneously, you can never really know someone because we are all isolated in our heads.

I can remember years ago asking a male friend, 'what are you thinking about?' 'Nuthin' ' was the response. I felt frustrated but at the same time I had to acknowledge the silliness of the question. I mean, really, what did I expect him to say?

I have not been as present in the blog or studio as I might be, but hey, it's a beautiful summer. I spent last weekend in Victoria with my family. The whole world was there. I swear that I saw a minor tv star in the  crowds. We went to tea, had a ride on a double decker bus and went for a lovely bike ride. Hope your summer is a pleasant.

An Improvement, I hope.

This post has been doomed from the start. I wanted to show how the painting looks now after I adjusted it this morning but the light didn't cooperate. Now I've freaked out blogspot. Anyway, here it is. Now it looks like a ship at sea and no, that's not what I'm going to call it. I must stop futzing around and print up my labels. See you at Art Walk.

What's in a name?

It takes as long to name a painting, for me,  as it does to paint the thing and I don't have nearly as much fun doing it. What I want to express is pre-verbal. All my senses are involved in understanding the world around me and it's harder to put words to a gut level comprehension.

What if, as we move through spacetime, we cause ripples the way a heavy body bends spacetime. As I paint, I move around and time passes, and what I've done and thought before this moment affects this moment now. That's a lot of freight and maybe we can feel the displacement. Now, how do I get a title out of that muck?

I'm using a physics term in another discipline because time is thought of as universal and constant but when I'm painting my life experiences are part of the process creating a little wrap around my easel.

I'm not going to title this new painting right away, until I think of something pertinent. So for Art Walk this Friday I'll leave it untitled. Wouldn't it be neat if someone read this blog and came into the show to make some suggestions or start a discussion about these issues? Yes it would.

Another friday afternoon.

In process.

This isn't just another Friday afternoon. I work on my new website but naturally chickened out when it came to publishing it. I wish I could call a computer fairy to do it all for me. But I did get something done.

I also forged ahead and started a new board, two actually, which you can see here. When I was in Seattle, the artists in the  galleries produced the same painting over and over again with minor variations. Good or ill, it's the way the industry is these days. On the positive side, one could say that one idea represented in 20 canvases shows that it's a good one. On the negative side, I'd start banging my head on a wall if I had to do it. Maybe I can't, as I've tried to reproduce the master piece I completed just before I left for Colorado.

Fortunately, a friend is coming down to the studio and I'm going to have a little time to blow off some steam. Happy weekend everyone, I won't be in the gallery tomorrow as I have to pick my son up from camp.

Lost my ability to paint some where in Colorado.

Sensory Pillow, mixed media on board, 18"x24"

I have spent this week in the studio wrestling with two paintings and my new web site. I have two weeks before my old web site expires to make a new one. There's a blog on the web site so in two weeks look for a link to the fabulous new site where I'll continue to blog and let blogspot go.

This painting was a lesson in humility. I'm not sure why not but the materials weren't behaving as they should, I couldn't create any interesting shapes and I was feeling pretty frustrated. Of course, everything finally came together when I had the balls to eliminate the extraneous marks that weren't doing anyone any good. I swear, every time I used that chocolatey brown I could smell good Belgium chocolate. Man, I miss chocolate. It's probably a good thing that I can't eat any because I had no other avenue to deal with the feelings of failure but to keep at the painting until I could paint my way out of the corner I was hiding in.

Just a quick post.

I got back from Boulder, Colorado just last night. I couldn't wait to get back in the studio and to get back to making art. Once in the studio, however, boy did I fiddle around. It's like a pet that has to turn around a few times before they can lay down. I did this painting using water color sticks. They don't glide like the waxier crayons do but they are thicker and full of pigment.

I am doing horses because copying photos of people does not interest me but horses are enough removed from reality for me not to get stuck and worry about whether I'm getting it right or not. It's easier to de-personalize the shapes.

Vacation time.

I'm on vacation in Boulder, Colorado, where I was born and grew up. We drove out through Utah and some other states which I cannot remember. It was very hot. We did stay in Glenwood Springs and swam in the coolish pool. The Colorado River was eleven feet higher than normal. It took out parts of the bike path. It's taken me a few days to regain my feet but I did some art as you can see, hopefully on the left.

This is how green it is in Colorado. We moved to Bellingham, WA because I was tired of the drought here. The past couple of years it's been looking like the Colorado that I grew up in, instead of the desert it was a few years ago. Here, with the high altitude sunlight, you can see all the way to the horizon.

This painting sings to me.

It's funny how the one remove of a photo of my painting start allows me to evaluate it more objectively. I was so enamored of the marks and shapes that I was making that I was down in the painting, swimming around in it.

With the photo, I can see that the bottom right dark shape needs to go away. The composition is too round and dizzy making. I've finished the other painting but you'll just have to come see it at Art Walk. I won't be there, I'll be in Colorado but it'll be nice to see the paintings without the artist hovering anxiously over your shoulder.

Love this painting!

can't rotate it here, too late to do it on computer.

This is why I'm an artist, not a computer expert.  So it's a little disorienting to look at the photo sideways but the painting is not necessarily sideways.

Anyway, I love a painting at this stage. It's so exciting to put in any shapes I want knowing that I can paint 'em out later. I've entered my 50th decade, my son has completed his first year of high school. These advents have had me thinking of what I was like as a youth and what time has smoothed out and what it has distilled into an even more fantastic mix than ever. People and paintings have wonderful things in their personalities that have either been covered up or are still peeking out, beckoning the viewer to discover what mysteries are lying just beyond his reach.

When I was young, there was a lot I didn't understand and I wondered if I would be able to cope with whatever came my way. There is still a lot to be discovered but now I enjoy the thought of taking on something new and challenging.

As I Promised...

My Satisfaction, mixed media on board, 9"x12"

Today is Sunday, a day I give myself permission to spend relaxing. I spend other days relaxing but I have to spend brain power justifying it or feeling guilty about it. Not today.

I wrestled with this painting yesterday until I finally decided to paint out the troublesome shape entirely and immediately felt a sense of lightness and calm.

This morning, I was woken up early by a hysterical crow outside. Later my son told me he had to go out and yell at it to make it go away. I continued to sleep in. My son and I went to breakfast at Harris Avenue Cafe which was full to bursting with people. Instead we went to tea at Abby Tea. I love going to tea and love that my son is willing to go with me which is thanks to my husband's willingness to go. Manly men like tea, too. We had a chat about my side of the family. It wasn't very in depth because my mother died when I was young and I don't know many of her family.

We went to the book store where I bought more books when I haven't read the ones from the last trip.  I got yet another book on art books which I intend to do some day: "Masters Book Arts", "The Taliban Shuffle", by Kim Barker;  and the "Believing Brain", by Michael Shermer. I'm sure that I punctuated that last sentence all wrong. Sorry. My father, an anthropologist, said once that brains are hard wired to believe in religion. When I mentioned that some time later, he said, "I never said that." Someone's brain in this family isn't hardwired at all.

I hope that everyone is having a great Sunday as well.

I am not the building's information booth.

The art I've been doing lately in one pic.

I did not think that I'd get much art done today as I have been feeling very 'ify' lately...if I can continue to produce interesting art, if I'm happy to be here, if I exist... But look what I did! Last week, I painted cheesy horse paintings like a 12 year old while I was at home just fiddling around. I was heartened to see that I was able to handle the paint and the values such that I produced a modeled figure, though.

The last two days, came into the studio/gallery and tried to paint a large painting of a horse and got so bogged down in proportions that I grew frustrated again. Today, I turned that icky painting around and found an icky drawing. I was just in the mood to fool around with that and so produced the thing you see on the easel. I'm not thrilled with it but don't hate it either. Its just another step down the path shrouded in mystery toward the goal that's obscured by mysterious shrouds.

FINALLY I took the cradled boards that I got from Dakota Art and immediately felt intimidated by their more serious nature than the paper that I have been working on recently. I have no problem pushing flimsy paper around. What the hell, I put some marks on the boards and found that they weren't at all slick as I had thought they'd be. I feel like the more solid feel of the boards encouraged my confident handling of the shapes. I will put a photo of one of them up in my next blog. I want their insouciance all to myself for a while.

I stopped into Allied Arts of Whatcom County to check out their 2001 Juried Artist Series and saw Yvette Neumann's ( www.particularsstudio.com ) and Enid Wilson's ( www.enidwilsonstudio.com ) paintings. I was very inspired by their beautiful treatment of shapes and colors. It's very exciting to have such artist's of high caliber living and working in this area.

What to do with the blahs?

Endeavor, mixed media on paper
10"x7",$100

Last night was art walk and I sold another small painting. Four months of running this gallery and I've sold three small paintings. It's better than nothing but really need to start working on getting the world out. I seem to be completely immobilized by fear. I tried to start a figure painting but quit to fiddle with my blog. I'm going to have to fake myself out by doing some practice drawings while I'm watching a trashy rom/com. If my brain is busy being sated with goo, it can't nag me about what I'm not accomplishing.

For a while, I was drawing everyday in my little notebook that I take with me everywhere. I need to get back to that. I have another trick to get over my nerves about leaving the crutch of reality and trusting in my fecund imagination, well, my mildly active imagination. I have been doing one glance sketches. I take one glance at someone and then do the drawing without looking (too long) again. Surely with all this model groups attendance, I'm starting to get a reservoir of knowledge to draw from. Maybe such a practice will more thoroughly fix what I'm learning in their.

I finished a three or four small paintings this week. This one is the giant egg I loaded onto my page in Facebook, repainted. These paintings looked like objects in space so I thought I'd name them after the space shuttles that are being retired now.

Endeavor

Endeavor, mixed media, 10"x7", $100

The space shuttle is being retired this month. I created a series of little paintings on paper. They looked spacy to me so I thought I'd commemorate the event by with these paintings. I named this one for the shuttle Endeavor partially because I endeavored mightily to make it more interesting that it was the first try. I posted the first one on my Facebook page and it looked like a giant floating egg.

I'm going to be late to take my son to his music lesson so I have no more to write.

Whoops.

There was a parade downtown today. I thought I was going to be on top of things for once. I looked up the parade route but didn't really take the time to fully absorb the route. So I drove right into it on my way to open the gallery. I had to abandon the car and walk down. Fortunately, I was wearing walking shoes. Once I got to the studio, however, I put everything down and went to see the parade.

I have not produced anything today but I did do some business brainstorming and came up with a couple of ideas to get the word out about Kat Schneider Studio/Gallery. I'm showing you a figure painting I did last week. I took a drawing that I didn't like so much so that if I muffed it, I wouldn't feel so bad. The more I look at the resulting painting, the better I like it. My ultimate goal is not to do life-like portraits, but I'm not sure where I'm going. I am driven to draw the human form. Why? To what purpose? Maybe it's to figure out who I am and what my place is in the scheme of things.

Nebulae.

I worked on a figure drawing to begin with today because I'm afraid of feeling incompetent and the only way to get over that is to power through the feeling and practice so that I get better.

After that, I gave myself permission (isn't all this angst fascinating?) to play with some more small paintings. They are works of art in their own right but because they are smaller, I'm am not so intimidated. I can have fun while I work out ideas and see what works. I'm now ping ponging, yes that's the technical term, from big works to small ones and back again.

Nebulae are star forming areas in space where gas, dust and other material bunch up, attract more material as they gain mass. They are incipient stars. My paintings are in the process becoming something more, as are my capabilities as an artist and well rounded human being.

Kathleen Faulkner, who I've been following at kathleenfaulkner.blogspot.com stopped by my studio/gallery, and we spoke for a bit. Her blogs are picturesque and poetic as is her work. It was fun to see a real person.

Kristen Gilje stopped by as well. She may be showing at my gallery this fall. In the meantime, check out her blog kristen-gilje.blogspot.com.

Keepin' on, keepin' on.

This painting is the red-headed stepchild. No matter what I do, I cannot make it behave.

In an earlier entry, I thought people might enjoy guessing what it was about. I had thought the central object resembled a wing and wanted to call it "Flight" which I may still do, because it reminded me of the flight of Iccarus (I can't remember if an 's' gets an apostrophe and another 's' or what). Unfortunately, I'm beginning to feel that this painting isn't even getting off the ground. The photo looks better than real life because all my struggles to make something of it are blurred.

I'm feeling more confident in what I'm doing, not in response to any sales, but if I'm going to put my work in front of the viewing public, I may as well do it right.

An appropriate painting.

Work in progress.

My paintings seem to be getting a little surreal. No one, nary a sole, came into the gallery today. I figured out how much this little venture will cost me, if I'm lucky. I've decided to sign a month to month lease so we'll see just how unreal my life is going to get.

As for the subject of this painting, I seem to have harkened back to my high school days, when I was interested in Greek mythology. Any guesses as to what the subject of this painting will be?

Abstract Expressionism is about the painter expressing her subconsciousness. However, I've never felt that I stand in front of my easel and emoting all over the canvas. When painting, I'm thinking of technical things, for instance, composition or what colors will complement each other. When I begin a painting, I am not thinking, today I am frustrated with the postman so I will paint angrily.

 I realized halfway through the painting what it reminded me of, and since writing this blog and talking about my new enterprise, I have realized just how appropriate this painting is. Every painter seems to have some brilliant rationalization for their practice while I have been channelling my inner Jackson Pollock (de Kooning was better about talking about art than was manly Pollock). Today, in this blog, I have been finally able to articulate my practice. This is quite the break through blog entry.

Underworld Deities.

Madea's Choice, mixed media on paper, 40"x25"

Madea helped Jason on his quest to get the Golden Fleece. One legend says that she killed her brother, cut up his body and threw it on the islands as the Argo passed knowing that her father would stop to pick up the pieces allowing Jason to escape. Another legend says that her brother was killed when pursuing Jason. Jason later left her for a younger richer woman and Euripedes writes that she murdered her children in revenge when earlier legends say that other people did it.

Male writers through the ages have been sympathetic to Jason's plight and painted Madea as a criminal. Naturally, I feel sympathy for her. She couldn't get her own boat to sail off and have adventures. She was dependent on someone to help her. She relied on Jason for survival and he let her down, perhaps for his own survival.

This painting is about her choice to leave home and go adventuring, before she had to pay the price for her unfeminine desires. I imagine the open sea before her, the wind in her hair and the prospect of freedom.

So, What Do You Think?

Faithful Sirius

Enchantress

Don't ask what's up with the distribution of the photos. Let's just pass lightly on...

So, these are the uncooperative paintings from yesterday. What do we think, circular file or should I reserve them for the future when I'm more detached from them? Immediately after I've painted something I have strong feelings about it because what I was feeling when I painted them is present. I need to see them in different lights (studio versus house), through someone else's eyes, or after time has past and I'm a different person before I can see them for what they are and not what I wanted them to be.

I have been reading Lee Krasner's biography. I wonder if she'll start to creep into what I do with a paintbrush.

A Lesson Learned.

Kat Schneider Studio/Gallery

I thought I'd show you where I work. I love seeing photos of other people's work space. This space is large and airy. It would be perfect if there were windows on both sides of the room but at least the woman who rented it before me, Sharon Kingston, had the sense to put in some more windows. I see people from time to time but for the most part I have solitude in which to work.

I worked all day, well four hours anyway, on the three small paintings on the table. They would not behave at all but we finally agreed to compromise. They resolved into something that I didn't actively despise, and I promised not to set them on fire.

My mind needs to switch gears into something completely different or it simply shuts down. Next week, I'm going to take good paper to the model groups I attend so that I can have figure paintings to work on. Must stop whining and start painting figures.

The Process of Long Term Thinking.

Last Friday's art walk in downtown Bellingham, WA was well attended. I was pleased with the look of my paintings on the wall and even felt relaxed enough for this time to giggle a little as I scooted around at 9pm in my wheelie chair because I was so tired. I felt like Igor.

Sharon Kingston persuaded me to try the power of positive thinking that I WOULD sell a painting that night. I'll try somethings at least once so I was convinced that my small paintings were so fabulous and fabulously priced that they'd fly off the wall. I was even concerned that I'd run out of the things.

Apart from a pre-sale, nothing flew anywhere and by the end of the evening I was feeling pretty let down. So I'm returning to my preferred m.o. of cautious, long term optimism. Eventually people will come to know and appreciate my art, even as I continue to refine and improve my capabilities as an artist so as to make it something people would love to spend their days with. Cheers.

May 6th Bellingham, WA Art Walk.

I'm beginning to get in the swing of running a gallery. Yesterday was Art Walk. Lots of people came out despite the rain. It was children's Art Walk as well and it was fun to see some of the little tykes.

By the time the walk starts, I'm usually pretty fatigued and my brain shuts down anyway when there's a lot of people in the room. I got to talk about how I do my paintings- I enjoy mixing water soluble crayons and acrylic to get a lot of different effects. I have been trying to resolve what inspires me in a way that makes it understandable for others. Sometimes I start out with a general idea and other times the paintings them selves give me the idea. I'm trying to express ideas in a non-verble way so I have to detach my consciousness from my actions in some way and one way to to react to the materials. I'm also interested in what my paintings say to my audience so I always appreciate someone's willingness to share.

Little artifacts.

Midnight at Playground
10"x7"
multimedia on paper
$100

It almost takes me longer to name these blasted paintings than to paint them. I made seven of these 10"x7" paintings over the weekend. I wanted to have some more accessible art works available. I think working in all different sizes is good discipline. When I only did big paintings, I felt constrained by a lack of space when I contemplated smaller things. Without so much space to cover, I can work out ideas faster and they actually flow faster, too.

I took some time to read Sharon Kingston's and Nancy Haygeman's blogs. They both take more time to write about what they are doing and thinking in their lives that relates to art than I do. I was wondering why I feel so inert when showing my paintings both on this blog and in real life. I've come to the conclusion that I haven't related my art to bigger things because I am not thinking of these things when I'm composing but assume that my interests have influenced my art. I would rather let the viewer have the space to commune with the painting in their first approach because that's how I like to approach art, literature and music. I certainly don't think that there is only one way to approach showing one's art and I appreciate my fellow artist's enthusiasm and knowledge and wonder if I should modify the way I present my art.

I've exhausted my little self with all this thoughtfulness so perhaps tomorrow I can explore my current interests.

Teaser

Beau Reve (Beautiful Dream)
Acrylic on Paper
22"x30"
$350

Fast post- May 6th this and nine other new paintings will be revealed at the Bellingham Art Walk in the Kat Schneider Studio/Gallery, 6-9pm.

These paintings are acrylic on paper. Painting on paper is immediate and non-intimidating. I can be spontaneous and try ideas I might be reluctant to waste a canvas on.

Someday I will translate these paintings to huge canvases.

new works for a new month

I have an exiting new series that I am calling Artifacts. An artifact is an object made by humans that have cultural significance. A secondary meaning is something that occurs unintentionally either in science, medicine or mechanical reproduction. It also shows my unfortunate tendency to create painfully obvious word play- ARTifact.

There are two bands called, with various spellings, artifact. One from Nice, where my husband grew up and one from Norway, to which I don't even have a tenuous connection.

These two examples are not finished. I would like everyone to be surprised by how fantastic the finished paintings will look. I don't know if I'll be able to finish the lower one. The shapes are so satisfying to look at. They speak something to the depths of my being. I don't want to mar them but I don't want the paper to remain so exposed.

Art walk is the sixth of May. My studio will be open during the day for calmer viewing from 12 to 4. I'll take a two hour break and be back at 6pm until around 9:30. I hope to see some friendly faces there.

Another large, monochromatic figure.

Evening Song
acrylic on paper
22"x30"

 I managed to confuse the computer and I cannot add the drawing, as I wanted to. Screwy machine. It's the end of a long day and I'm tired, in a good way.

I finally figured out how to approach figure painting. I've been told over and over to draw the general before the specific. I need to paint the solid figure before putting in the shading. That will make the gradual shading easier. And more fun because you can see the figure emerging as if from a block of clay.  Next week, I'll try a more neutral color scheme. I was thinking that her face is too large, even after I brought the eyes down, but the real problem is that her left hand is too large. And I was feeling pretty good about how I handled them. So that's the job for next week, reduce the back of her hand.

Nostalgia: works on paper

Grounds for Hope
multimedia on paper
22"x30"

It seemed to me that my Nostalgia Series was better received this month than my What's Next Series was last month. Though I don't have any concrete way of telling as nothing has been sold from either one. I had more people interested in talking about the Nostalgia paintings. So I have been working on some paintings on paper.  Perhaps it's the landscape effect of the hard lines which mimic a horizon.

I'm having a lot of fun with these paintings. I can get a lot more effects on paper, more easily than I can on canvas. I can get right to painting without a lot of fussing.

In painting this series, I was thinking of the potential of the past and how it can effect the future. 'Grounds for Hope' is either life developing under water and on land or an embryo and the promise of life it contains.

A daffodil for spring.

A daffodil for spring
acrylic and pencil
22"x30"

Again, I approach figure painting with trepidation. So that I could get a handle on gradual value change (well, gradual for me) I kept to a restricted palette- yellow, orange pencil and titan buff. At the end, I added green gold because the yellow was hurting my eyes.
I get so much satisfaction from a good figure drawing and when I achieve a passable figure painting. Some people feel that a painting should have soul. I agree that a painting should have some reason for being, some philosophy or thought behind it. But when I'm honest with myself, I paint because I like doing it.

Looking at the photo, her right shoulder does not recede enough so I painted a little yellow on it. This is a very modern painting, it's already obsolete.

When are the installers going to come? I'm starving.

new paintings

I'm blogging from art walk. These are my most recent paintings. They are acrylic on paper with water soluble crayons. They are in my Nostalgia series.

The colors and shapes are simple which hark back to earlier times when life was lived in the present and with in an comprehensible world.

We've seen a lot of people during art walk, brave souls coming out despite the uncomfortable weather.

I stopped talking and started doing.

folio for new book

I have been wanting to make an art book for a couple of years now but haven't quite dared to commit myself. Also, words don't flow quite as freely as images do for me but I want to use verbiage in my art, I'm not quite sure why. I think because I work on a few levels at once in my personal life, I want that to exist in my art as well. Images appeal to a deeper more common level than words do but we all use words everyday.


I had heard that gravitation was not a provable theory so I was doing research on it to understand whether that was true or not. I think I was mistaken about that but as a concept it is evocative of emotional states. Then you get into the idea of spacetime, which is fascinating. I can see space being curved but not so much time. Gravity is not a force that acts on objects but they follow the curve of spacetime. If a reader feels that I have misconstrued the subject, feel free to draw me a picture about it.

A painter's playground.

This method of uploading one's blog is new and fancy. I'm not sure what I think yet. I did two paintings today but I'm going to save the other, in case I have a dry spell this week. You never know.

I set out to work on a new book. I have some text ideas and visual ideas but it just wasn't coming today so I went with what would come. These are on flimsy paper so I almost ripped it but acrylic makes paper amazingly resilient.

I saw Tom Semple's paintings in the Firehouse Cafe and I thought I'd try a more muted palette, thinking that if there aren't such drastic value changes, I could still fool around with energetic shapes and strokes. Can't seem to restrain myself.

First the drought, now the flood.

I painted this from a half-done drawing last week, my first week open at the studio/gallery. My head was reeling from what I had just committed my self to and I just wanted to sit there and catch my breath. After a while, I felt compelled to put brush into paint and move it around, though I didn't feel capable of creating anything worth while. I started this and then finished today. Sometimes I do better when I tell myself that I'm just fiddling around. I don't know if this is great but it did turn out better than my recent efforts when I was trying to accomplish Great Art.

Taking the photo is like stepping back to view what you've just done. In this photo, his right hand looks a little silly. Maybe it's a little too big but it is closer to the viewer than is his face... don't know. I'm too close to tell.

Drawing

I have been doing a lot of drawing all week, attending the various daytime modeling sessions that are available to me in Bellingham. I realized last night, though that my self-imposed deadline for practicing my skills is almost up. It was in October that I resolved to concentrate on figure drawing in order to have a bank of skills from which to draw.

Now that I'm 'settled' in my new space, it's time to start seriously painting. I don't really feel settled, it's kind of public. Mostly I'm making excuses to myself. To the paints! Tomorrow will be soon enough!

New Gallery.

I have opened a gallery in the Bay Street Village building near the Blue Horse Gallery in Bellingham, Washington. This is my first week open. It's not as if I had a lot of things to do, move a few things in, get licenses and talk to new people but I'm wiped out. It's the talking that did me in I think.

No sales, but then I didn't really expect any. A few people took interest in my paintings, at least. That was encouraging. I think my market is in more urban areas so I'm looking at this venture is a warm up for when I move out into the big world. I did manage to do a little painting yesterday and to attend a couple of model sessions this week and that's keeping me from feeling as if I've completely gone off the rails.

The way it goes.

I spent this afternoon in the shredded painting in the photo. By the time I was done I had turned a neat drawing into an unshaven androgynous weightlifter. So I tore it up. Man, was that satisfying. Now I like it again because parts of it was sheer genius. Okay, so I exaggerate, but i did like the hand and other parts were alright, it just didn't go together. There wasn't enough information on the original drawing.

Perhaps I should transfer the drawing to the painting surface but I still live by the dream that I can paint from my drawings. Some how I got the idea that the greats did their paintings that way.

Catching up.

I'm back. I had a big week last week. I hung my painting in Allied Arts of Whatcom's 2011 Juried Artist Series last week and attended the artist's reception on Friday. Allied Arts has the showing artist give a talk about their art which is good practice. It felt like mine went well enough. People had questions and someone told me that they found it interesting. Whew.

I also have two paintings hanging in Works on Canvas's Size Matters Show. I spent so much time on the business of art that I did no art last week. It's the way it goes.

In March, I'll be moving the Kat Schneider Studio for at least three months to 301 West Holly St. Suite M5, Bellingham, WA. It will be interesting to be downtown and I wonder if it will impact my practice any. At least I'll be closer to the modeling sessions and it'll be easier for me to establish my own.

Lesson Learned.

You may feel that you have seen this before.

The painting was looking a little 'piecey'. It wasn't coalescing (can't believe I spelled that right) until I took a large flat brush and applied a light coat of an off-white color to it. It should be self-evident, but until I did that, I didn't realize that bigger canvases need bigger brushes.

As my son would say, face-palm moment.

new work on top of old one

I have agreed to participate in Works on Canvas's Size Matters Show. So I took a large failed painting from a class and re-painted it. Already this photograph is out of date because, in looking at the photo, I realized that the lines are too hard, took a paint brush and painted over them. I really should make myself stop around five. I get too tired to be sensible.

I waited forever to work on this painting because I was afraid that I wasn't going to be able to do anything worthwhile. If I keep that attitude, I'll never do anything so I decided to plunge right in. At the very least, I can tell myself that someday, if I keep practicing, I'll get better. Certainly won't get anywhere dithering. I know that I can do something more subtle as there is an example earlier in this blog. Someday I'll be able to do it purposely, not by happy accident.

Pacific NW Abstract Show

Tomorrow, I drive to Anacortes to attend a drawing session afterwhich, I drive to Stanwood to deliver this painting to the Gallery by the Bay's Pacific NW Abstract Show. I will be showing with many other local artists. I feel lucky to be able to participate.

Now that the holidays are over, I am looking forward to taking up my regular schedule of drawing and am ready to move on to painting. I have also signed up for a Gage portrait painting class. We'll see if I'm able to absorb anything useful there.