More Artist's Conversations

I love when I can meet up with artist's friends to talk about our favorite subjects, painting, techniques, galleries, you name it. We covered a lot of that tonight when I had dinner with Nita Leland and Cheryl McClure. We couldn't stop talking, one topic quickly leading to the next. Nita is in town giving a workshop at Artist's Showplace, where I was once part owner. I still don't regret walking away from that (too much work kept me out of the studio) but I do miss the community of friends. It's not far from my house, and I really have no good reason that I haven't kept up with anyone, except that if I'm in town, I'm working.

I did get approval from the mockups I delivered on Tuesday, so that's a go for four 18" x 66" paintings, and eight 18" x 15". They will be installed in sets of three, a small one, the long one, then another small one, to create a long horizontal. And they'll be hung in Mercury Grill, a high end restaurant in North Dallas.

Also got color approval for the 20 small paintings for a spa in San Diego, they will be framed in floater frames and hung together in a grid. A nice periwinkle blue. So that's also a go. Both of these projects have short turn around times, so all of a sudden I'm really busy.

Too Many Ideas

Now that Karen is headed home, I'm up on the mesa with too many new ideas, and everything is packed. I'm making sketches of compositions that might come alive when I get home. It's always better to have ideas than to have none, so I'm grateful for this latest surge of creativity. I think it was spawned by the combination of looking at gallery work and conversations with my artist friends. What a treat the past few days have been!

Art Critiques with Raya and Karen

Generations 6, 20 x 30

I took advantage of Karen's being here and brought out my new paintings for critique. She likes them! I might be on to something.

For her first day here, we did the obvious, picked up Raya, ate out, and went gallery hopping. It doesn't take long to hit overload, and when that happened, we put our feet up at Raya's fabulous studio, and had a cup of tea. The conversation never lagged as we discussed art fairs, galleries, and the art we had seen. We each have different perspectives and weren't shy about sharing our opinions!

It's another gorgeous day in northern New Mexico, and we're staying home to have a peaceful art day. Karen will be sketching, and I'll be finishing my last painting in the Generations series.