Hydrangeas In A Small Ginger Jar

Back in December I painted a small painting for the 10x10 fundraising show to benefit The Art Guild of Port Washington.  It was the yearly fundraiser and there were so many beautiful paintings for sale.

Since the canvas was small, I decided to use my small ginger jar and add some hydrangeas.

While the original set up was cute, if you've been following this blog, you know I like to fill my canvas with flowers  The single bloom was just not working for me.  Luckily, the hydrangea bush is right outside my studio, so I simply clipped a few stems, stuck them in the vase and got to work.

Now things started moving along.  It was at this point that I knew the painting would work.  Always a great relief.

The pattern going in.  Always a scary time!

And here is the finished piece.  Painting for a fundraiser is always nerve wracking.  I really wanted this painting to sell.  I told my husband that if it didn't, he had to buy it ( and that exact thing happened in an episode of Midsomer Murders, so I'm not totally crazy!)  Luckily, it did sell and the fundraiser was quite successful.  We had a great night for a great cause.

Cast Drawing At Grand Central Atelier

Hello All!

If you follow me on Instagram, you know I have been out of commission with a broken shoulder.  It will be a bit before I am back to painting, but I am going to attempt to put up some blog posts.  I am typing with one hand so there won't be a lot of text, but I have lots of pictures to show you.

First up, I did a cast drawing course at Grand Central Atelier.  Around this time last year, I was feeling burned out and bored with what I was doing.  I actually thought it might have been time to move on from painting and start doing something else.  After thinking about this for a few months, I decided to try something completely different than I had ever done before.  I had never done cast drawing before, so I decided to give that a try.

Cast drawing is completely different from my usual way of working.  It is very precise and you can spend weeks working on one little area.  It turned out to be just what I needed to jumpstart my artistic life.

Here are some photos of my progression of an ear cast.  I have reached my typing limit, but if you have any questions, leave me a comment and I'll answer there.

The above photo is where I ended the last night of class.  This was such a good exercise for me.  I'm hoping to do it again this summer.