Palette To Palette At The Art Guild Of Port Washington

This month there was a really fun show at The Art Guild.  The subject was food, so of course this was a show I was interested in.  If there is one thing I have, it's food paintings.  I submitted two and they were both chosen.

Wine And Fruit, 16x20, oil

Fruit In A Spode Bowl, 12x9, oil

There was a very nice reception and awards ceremony and I thought you might like to see some photos of this interesting show.

As you can see, there were lots of fruits and veggies, and why not?  Both have been used by artists for centuries.  Sometimes just for their beauty, other times as symbols for something else (fertility, farming, gods and goddesses, and marriage are just a few examples).

And... I'm very happy to say that my painting, Wine And Fruit, was awarded third place!  This made me so happy for a few reasons.  It's always nice to receive recognition for your work, and you may remember that this particular painting had me tearing my hair out for months.  Getting that wine decanter right took many, many tries.  At the reception, people kept asking me about the lace, figuring that was the hardest part of the painting.  As it turned out, it was one of the easiest!  The lace went in on one afternoons work, I did a few touch ups, and that was it.  The decanter is what took forever.
But I'm so glad I stuck with it.  Sometimes I see people give up on a painting and call it done just because they are sick to death of it.  I absolutely felt this way about the painting a few times, but the stubborn Taurus in me kept going.  I do think you have to be a bit of a perfectionist to be an artist.  Just like in any other endeavor, you have to push through the bad to get to the good.  I recently found out that Winston Churchill (who was also a painter) said "If you are going through hell, keep going".  Not that painting is hell, but you get his meaning.

Thanks to The Art Guild for a great reception and to juror Susan Goetz Zwirn.  Next up at The Art Guild, the 10x10 fundraiser.  I finished my painting yesterday and will give you the play by play in my next post.

The Nippon Club Culture Courses Exhibition 2017

Wednesday evening I had the pleasure of attending an art exhibition at the Nippon Gallery of the Nippon Club here in New York City.  A friend of mine had some paintings in the show, so I got to see her work, as well as work by other members of the club.

The wiki page for the Nippon Club states that the club exists to "enhance the unity of Japanese people in New York City and to foster relationships with the American people".

The Club has a beautiful exhibition space that showcased not only the paintings, but calligraphy, photography and Ikebana (the Japanese art of flower arranging) as well.

The show is on until 5pm tomorrow.  If you are local or visiting here in New York, I urge you to stop in and take a look at this beautiful and interesting exhibition.

How To Set Up For A Floral Painting Workshop

Last month Gregg Kreutz was back at The Art Guild Of Port Washington, this time for a two day floral workshop.

We had a sold out class, so we needed fourteen floral set ups.  Thirteen for the students and one for Gregg.  My studio mate is a very talented floral designer and we worked together to get everything done for the workshop.

We gathered a ton of flowers, fruit and various vases and objects and got to work.

Once we had everything gathered, we began to do the set ups.  As you can see, the beginnings of a still life set up are not very glamorous.  Several weeks before the workshop, we began collecting milk crates to use as a base.  A few days prior to the workshop, we got the wooden shelves at Home Depot. You just tell them the size you want and how many and they cut them right there.  We then stained them using Minwax Dark Walnut, the same color I stained the shelves in my studio.

My bud Ilene and I work very well together, so we always have fun setting up.  I'm good with still lifes and she is great with flowers, so between us we get it done.

After placing the wooden shelves on top of the milk crates, we put a presentation board behind the crate in order to hold the fabric.  We got these from Staples, but the party store near my house carries them as well.  We draped the fabric over the board and then secured it in place with large clips.

It was then time to get to the flowers and fruit.  We started by picking out a vase that worked with the particular fabric we were working on.  We would then choose flowers that complimented them both and then we would decide if the set up needed anything else.  Some we left with flowers only, others we added fruit, petals, another object or something else.  You can't really decide in advance what you will do.  Once you have your main pieces in place you have to experiment a bit to see what looks the best.

Here are some of our set ups.

This is the set up that I painted

You'll notice in the photo above that there are post it notes on the shelf.  Due to the fact that we did the set ups the day before the workshop, we did not want to leave cut up fruit or petals out an extra night, so we used the post it notes as reminders of what needed to be done the next morning.  They were very specific - "apple slice", "rose petal", "green leaf".  The first morning of a workshop can be a little chaotic and you don't want to have to try and remember what you wanted for the set up.  With the reminder notes you can just get down to business without having to think about it too much.

Gregg starting the workshop with a demo

One tip, make sure you have extra fruit and flowers for the second or third days of the workshop.  Things often have to be replaced, usually cut fruit or some of the stems, and you don't want to be caught short.

Setting up a still life is a lot like being a stylist.  There are two guidelines that I follow:  You want the shape to be triangular and the set up should read from left to right.  After that, it is really a matter of using your eye to see what works.  This takes some time, so don't rush it and don't worry if you don't get it right the first time.  After we set everything up, we went back around to each still life and double checked that everything was in order.  Sometimes things stayed the same, others we adjusted by either adding something or taking something out.  On one of them, we spent some time deciding if we were going to use one grape or two on the shelf.  There was a guy in the office fixing the computer and I'm sure he thought we had gone completely off the deep end, but these tiny details matter.  You don't want a boring or incomplete still life set up, not for yourself and certainly not for a workshop.

We had a great two days painting flowers and the students raved about the set ups.  I was so happy that people really liked them because you want to do the best for your workshop participants. As for my painting, I decided to use a 16x20 canvas so I didn't get very far, but I did manage to get the whole canvas covered and I am working on it now.  Luckily, my floral designer is right across the hall :)

Have any questions about  setting up?  Leave me a comment!