The Art Show: New DreamSurreal Watercolors and Other Work

 Okay, I'm going to take a shot at putting this show on view here. I don't know how well it will work; I would love to hear from you all, how well it works for you, and any suggestions you might have for improvement.

One other caveat: I don't have good photos of some of these pieces (sigh, boo!). I may try to get good photos, once the show is down. But for now, it is what it is. (You'll see which ones I'm talking about, I'm sure!)

First, a video (with a thump in the middle, where I bumped into the table or a chair while I was videoing):

[VIDEO]

I hope that works - I've never tried adding a video before, don't know how to post to YouTube - okay, NOW I know how to post to YouTube - or any of that. (Update - it says "video is unavailable," so I'll have to figure out more about that... deleting for now... Updated update: have now figured out how to post to YouTube, but not how to format a video so I can post it here...)

Next, in situ photos of the show - which is in the little library room of my church, Unitarian Universalist Community of the Mountains, in the northern California foothills - reflections and all.

And, spreads of the groupings - here's where my photos are not very good, in many cases, and for some of them I only have photos of the framed pieces, so you still get the reflection...

  Tech tip: to see any of these larger, click on the image to make it almost-full-browser-window size. (This is not the same as "full screen...")

Finally, the names of all the pieces (top to bottom, then left to right):

  1) Curtained Embryonic with Full Moon, 1996
  2) Satrine Tide in Eclipse, 1996
  3) The Horse's Ass Painting: a Self-Portrait, 1999
  4) I Think We Must Be Underwater, 2024
  5) Threaded Through, 2024
  6) Haiku Colors: Above the Earth, 2009
  7) Bow & Change, 1996
  8) Charged, 1996
  9) A Kindness of Tendrils, 2024
10) Chickenfoot Serpentine, 1999
11) Haiku Colors: Sounding, 2009
12) Gimbal Cascade, 2019
13) Peasoup Jam Session, 2019
14) Downward Oscillating Ripples, 2019
15) Doppler Triffid, 2019
16) Denning: Gone to Ground, 2019
17) Infinity Horse, Interlaced, 2024
18) Haiku Colors: Haiku Sky, 2009
19) Haiku Colors: Incipient Reach, 2009

And - the Wall Intro.

Art Show is up, and starting work on new Dream Surreal watercolors

 Got the show hung today, with help from Phil Horning - thanks! And cheering on from a few passers-by in church (UUCM - Unitarian Universalist Community of the Mountains, in Grass Valley, California). Phew!

Meanwhile, I'm enjoying more breathing space as the pressure to get ready eases off, and have been starting painting on two of my three new pieces. Yesterday I started on night sky with a full moon, behind/among branches - which means the night sky is all in pieces.

I had taped the edges of the sheet, and thought that I could paint my washes right to the edge, and have the tape block it. But I started seeing hints of spreading bleeds of color showing through the tape... and realized that when I get the paper that wet, it acts like sponge, and pulls the paint along, and the tape is no barrier. In fact, now that I think of it, the tape may exert some capillary action on the paint, acting like the opposite of a barrier...

I pulled up part of the tape once the paint had dried enough,  to check whether what I was afraid had happened, had really happened. Yep. The paint bled under the tape. Oh, well. The effect is kind of interesting, though I'd really prefer having crisp edges to having some interesting effects, but I think I can live with it. I am wondering if a better brand of drafting tape would keep this from happening...

I like the moon, though, with a ring around it.

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Exhibit: New DreamSurreal Watercolors and Other Work

Now showing, at Unitarian Universalist Community of the Mountains - in the library - at 246 S. Church St., Grass Valley, California:

                     New DreamSurreal Watercolors and Other Work

 

March 20 - May 15, 2024

by appointment (contact me), or

Reception: Sunday, April 14th: 12:00 - 3:00 pm

RSVP

If you can't get there in person, here's (my attempt at) a virtual viewing.

 

And - to learn more about my art, see more of it, and order prints and other stuff (mugs? jigsaw puzzles, anyone?), this post will tell you more.

Where to find my art + some helpful instructions

I show an extensive range of my work on FineArtAmerica:

My FineArtAmerica gallery

Included are collections of animal portraits, more Dream Surreal watercolors, collages, other abstract pieces,  and other work. (Click the Collections tab under my name, then click the collection you'd like to see more of.)

If there's a piece that you love, you can order prints or greeting cards of it on the FineArtAmerica website, quite easily. If you'd like a mug or a jigsaw puzzle, a phone case or a notebook with this art on it, and all sorts of other stuff - shower curtain, anyone? - that's a little more involved: see instructions below.

And if there's a piece you love, and would love to have a mug (for example) with it on it, but it isn't available on a mug, let me know and I'll add it to available images. You can put your request in a comment, at the end of this post, or contact me:

 Email me

To order mugs, jigsaw puzzles, phone cases, totes, etc:

1) Go to my FineArtAmerica link.

2) Click the Shop tab under my name.

3) There will be a sidebar on the left; under the Search box, there's a dropdown menu that says Department; if you click that you'll see a list: All Departments, and Wall Art, are the top two, followed by Home Decor, Apparel, Phone Cases, Stationery, Lifestyle, Beach, and Totes & Pouches.

4) Click the Department you want, and more options will show up. For example, Lifestyle gives you choices including Totes, Coffee Mugs and Jigsaw Puzzles.

5) Click the option you want, e.g. Coffee Mugs. You will then see, in the central area of the page, a selection of mugs for my various collections. There are more available than are shown on this first page; to see all the available designs, ->

6) click the Collection you want (e.g. Dream Surreal Watercolors). Then you should be able to see all available designs, which will link you to an ordering page. 

IF YOU DON'T SEE THE PIECE YOU WANT (after clicking on the collection), LET ME KNOW AND I'LL ADD IT.

Then -- holy cow! You can customize your piece all sorts of ways. Change the background color; zoom in, or out...

Finished photos of these last four Dream Surreal watercolors

Phew! Taking deep breaths!

After a bit of a saga in trying to get good photos of my new pieces, I finally got good ones. Here they are:

                                 Infinity Horse, Interlaced

 

                                I Think We Must Be Underwater

 

                                A Kindness of Tendrils

 

                                Threaded Through

 Now I'm getting ready to frame them (another saga, but I have my mats and frames now), and will hang my show next week, with these and some earlier Dream Surreal pieces, and some other work. To be decided.

 

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Drawings ready for three more new paintings

Working titles: DS #5, DS #6, and DS #7.

DS #5:

 

Upper image is the tracing, ready to transfer; lower image is the drawing from which the left side of the painting-to-be is taken.

DS #6:

Trees with a moon, a self-portrait with my hair wrapped in a towel from close to 50 years ago, and a toy draft horse colt reiterated.

DS #7:

With a sketch-painting that's forming part of the left side:

Moving ahead! Kind of exciting!

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DS #2: A Kindness of Tendrils: Really finished!

 I am partly on to getting new drawings ready for new paintings, but I keep deciding this one is not quite finished. So I did some more on it Tuesday and today. Tuesday I added the three dark red circles or sets of circles (at both ends of the bottom, and at the middle-ish top). Today I added a little more to those circles, and also did a bit more stuff to the right-hand wolf cub. Now it feels really finished, with a more intense energy.

Now I'm on to composing new paintings. I have one drawing ready to transfer already, put together some pieces that were really exciting for a second one Tuesday, and got a third one going today, with some pieces gathering for a fourth one I think. And spent time going through older sketchbooks, and contemplating and percolating.

 

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DS #2: Final stages - finished

Last week I got three painting times in.  Here are the final stages of DS #2, which is still looking for a title, but closer to finding one - more about that below.

 

 I added a big blue circle. I was definitely not sure, at this point, if it added anything, but was reserving judgement. I did more work on the howling wolf cub that's sitting in that blue circle; gave the horse a belly line; and I added a string of circles on the left. I really liked those circles! I also felt like I wanted, next, to surround those circles with some green.

 

I surrounded circles with green. Yes! Love it! I also ran an orange line along the bottom, into that blue circle. I think that maybe helps, but that blue circle is still kind of overpowering the rest, and not cooperating with anyone else... What if I add another blue (half-) circle, cattycorner to it?

 

I think that helps. One thing that's going on now, that I like, is that the axis - the imaginary line - between the two blue circles accentuates the angle of the horse's head and stance.

Signed and dated... but I feel like there's still something else needed...

So, a title: how about A Kindness of Tendrils? Or maybe, A Kindness of Tendrils and Equinity?

 

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More on DS #2 - some bigger changes

I decided to take some bold risks here, and have put more circles on the horse. Well - that is to say - I put circles on the horse - there were none there before; that makes for more circles in addition to the big yellow one.

I also added some cerulean around the big yellow circle, and purple with little blades.

And I worked a bit more on both of the wolf cubs.
 

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DS #4 (Threaded Through?) - really finished, now

Well, yup, I did some more. Now I'm very happy with it!

 Another biggish circle on the right - with purple edge; some warm orange-blond added to the foal's tail, which connects to the yellow circles; and some green edge/background to the big leaf.

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DS #4: Finished (or all-but)

 I've gotten some extra painting time in in the last couple of weeks - yay! Today, unexpectedly, I felt like #4 was just about finished, as I was working. I added some strings of circles, and one larger orange circle, and then a green edge to the orange circle, and framing lines in opposite corners. I think that does it!

And I think I have a title, now: Threading Through. Still sitting with that...

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More work on DS #2 and DS #4

In the last two weeks, here's how things have shifted on DS #4:

 First, a bunch of bright yellow green added itself around the foal.

Next, after I finished doing all I wanted on the foal, I overlaid curls and waves and curliques of colored line, and a curled up end on the sort of wave rising up through the big leaf. And added the first of the strings of circles.

On DS #2, I faced working on the first howling wolf cub.

And more on the wolf cub, and did more on the horse's eye and forelock and body:

 

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Finished photos of Underwater and Infinity Horse

 I'm posting these now, but I'm hoping to get better photos; these are scanned, and the look of the paintings has been somehow flattened in them; colors seem opaque rather than transparent and full of detail. If (once) I get better photos of them, I will replace. But for now:

                                                

                                Infinity Horse, Interlaced

and:

 

 

                                   I Think We Must Be Underwater

Underwater suffers more from the thick heaviness that the scan gives it. All the same, I love these pieces.

Work on DS #4 and DS #2

 Here's how these two are coming along, since Tuesday's work on them:

More detail work on the foal, and I've added a swathe of bright yellow green around him, which I like a lot! And:

A bit more purple around the horse's head, and tidying up in the strands of his forelock; and a little more work on the wolf cub, which I still approach very nervously.

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Underwater: finished! And more work on DS #4

 Got several painting times in this week, too. So happy about that. Tuesday I "finished" Underwater, and signed and dated it. I knew there might be some little thing that I was not quite satisfied with, as is often, or almost always, the case, and indeed, I was not totally happy with the dog, so I worked another 5 minutes on Thursday, and felt happy with him.

This is the "finished" stage. I felt like the painting needed more energy, more intense color, and more repeated elements to carry the eye around the painting. So I intensified the color of the orange circle, which may or may not be a sun, and added little flaring bits to the green curve outlining it, and extended that line leftwards with some purple; I brightened the woman's arms and chest; I worked more on the dog; and I added the yellow rectangles with green centers to the tree trunk, also bringing some of that bright yellow up into one of the branches. This pleased me very much!

And here's the dog after that extra five minutes...

 

And a clearer look at those yellow rectangles, and the woman.

Friday afternoon I got some more painting in, this time on DS #4. I have felt very nervous about working on the foal, but was able to spend time on it, and am very happy with how he's going. I also learned more about how and when to use my fine brush - I have preferred to use brushes with fat bellies and fine points for doing fine work, and have felt frustrated with trying to use fine brushes for details, but this time I felt I was getting the hang of it.

I Think We Must Be Underwater, and Infinity Horse, Interlaced, have now gone off to be scanned. Yay!

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Underwater: Very very very very close...

 Got a third painting session in this week, yay!

This is very very very very close to being Done, now...

For balance and energy: added green lines/outlines along one side of the orange circle, and around the creature's tail and along some of the upper tree; a dark blue under the creature; more red-brown in some of the upper branches, and then some purple and blue in the trunk; and worked more on the dog.

So close! I think it's time to sit with it; pretend I'm not looking at it, and catch it by surprise; look at it out of the corner of my eye... and let it tell me if that's all, or if there's some little thing it still needs. Maybe something more on the dog...

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More work on Underwater - getting close

Had a week off due to, not holidays, but covid which I had instead of holidays - and was too sick to mind, but I'm better now... So, I got to paint twice so far this week, and here are the two updates:

Added the line below the Creature, did other work on the Creature's head and body, and worked quite a bit on the dog, and a little on the woman's body.

Today, added another line below the Creature's body, worked more on the dog and more on the woman's face; and did some other little tweaks and fixes.

Tech tip: do you want to see either of these larger? Click on the image to make it almost-full-browser-window size. (This is not the same as "full screen...")