July Art Exhibit at Gryphon Cafe: July Trilogy

Early this morning, I went to the Gryphon Café to hang [my part of] the July show. I am sharing the available wall space with two other artists: Dae Rebeck-Sanchez and Pat Jordan. We plan to host an artists’ reception there on Friday, July 17^th, from 5 till 7 pm.

Please consider stopping in if you’re not otherwise occupied at that time. I’d love to see you! We will be offering red and white wine and finger food type appetizers. Non-alcoholic beverages will be available for purchase at the Café’s counter. You can treat your stomach with food and drink, and treat your eyes to some interesting artworks to view!

The show is entitled:

July Trilogy: Artworks by

Jeanne Guerin-Daley, Pat Jordan and Dae Rebeck-Sanchez

Pastels, Photographs and Mixed Media.

I have some recently completed pastels hanging that have not yet been seen on the website or at any other venue as of today. This show will hang until August 2nd. Sold items will continue to hang until the end of the show, so this will be the last chance you will have to view my pastel entitled “Sunflower Play.” That sold this morning at the hanging. (They’re going fast, folks!)

My white azalea painting on which I had been working on lately and of which I had posted some pictures on this blog, has finally been completed matted and framed. Buying that softer, whiter pastel stick that I needed really helped it to make the grade. Come see!

Above is a preview of one of the pieces.

Image:

"Terry's Mountain Laurel"

Pastel on Wallis Paper

(c) 2008 Jeanne Guerin-Daley

Deer Dinnertime

I chanced upon this deer dinnertime one day on the ride home after a day of (house) painting in Penn Valley. Maybe a reference photo for a painting someday.


Happy Fourth

Latest Exhibit of Jeanne Guerin-Daley's art

Calandar marker!
July 17th
from 5 to 7pm
If you're free that evening, scoot on over to the Gryphon cafe for an artist's reception.
I will be one of three artists exhibiting art there.

Located at
105 W Lancaster Ave, Wayne, PA 19087
a couple doors down from the movie theatre

More details later

Azalea Pastel Painting Progresses

Thanks to some great feedback from my fellow ARTsisters, and some extra tolerance from my family (they allowed me to neglect them for a bit so I could paint longer!) I have improved the azalea painting from what it was. Fixed some incorrect perspective and added some darker values in the shadow areas. Found the need to buy a couple more pastels to finish. (My whitest white isn't soft enough to lay on top of the thick layer of the light azalea blooms and they need to be lighter still.) So it's off to the art supply store for me when I get a chance. I hope to finish it in time for the upcoming Gryphon Cafe show. More on that later when I get another minute.

I also started a new pastel with some bold and bright colors with which I'm having loads of fun! (I tend to work on multiple things at once.) I think it comes from being a mom! We moms all have to learn to multi-task in the bottle/diaper/stroller years!

Orphan Works Bill: It's Back!

Hear ye, Hear ye!

All you illustrators, artists, writers, songwriters, musicians and other creative thinkers:

If you care about protecting your right to copyright (which for us means your right to make a living), please do your part in fighting against this bill from getting passed into law without proper changes being made..

Get involved.

Read about it here.
http://ipaorphanworks.blogspot.com/

Help me spread the word to all interested parties. Let's get our voices heard!

White Azalea Pastel Painting in Progress-as of June 17

I talked about this painting below in the previous post (see "Painting after Nicolas" below.)

I just now got it photographed with the help of the morning sunlight. I feel there is still work to do on it, but it is coming along.

Painting After Nicolas

For the latter part of the afternoon today and into the early evening I drove to the airport with some of my kids to meet a Spanish cousin, Nicolas, at the airport. After meeting up with him, we all went to my sister's house where he'll be staying for awhile, and we had a nice meal of pizza.

After getting home from that, I found that my husband had made himself some dinner. As I passed by my White Azaleas pastel, I heard it calling me. Hmmm. No dinner to make. No urgent commitments; I'm there!

So I grabbed the chance, picked up a purple pastel stick, and began to develop the forms and colors once more. I worked for more than an hour I think; I didn't really keep track... I imagine that many artists are like me in that sometimes when they really get into it ("it" being that "zone" where creativity sparks and sizzles!) time is of no importance. The here and now is only what counts. This is the art time that I treasure the most.

And this is what happened tonight. I think I made several improvements to the picture, although I can't show it to you yet. It was quite dark out when I quit (around 1030, or 11pm) and I'd rather photograph it in tomorrow's daylight than to try to use a flash tonight. With my limited photographic skills, it would do weird things with the colors I'm sure! Busy day tomorrow, but I will try to post the picture by nightfall.

I spent much of the time developing the shadow areas behind the flowerpots and the shadowy and light-filled sides of the stone column. I am not yet pleased enough to say it is finished, but I think things are developing along nicely.

* * * * * * * * * * * * * * *

Latest Exhibition News: I'll be exhibiting along with two other artists at the Gryphon Cafe for the month of July. Spoke to the owner today; the dates aren't set in stone yet. More on that when I know for sure but the hanging date is slated for July 5th. I hope I can finish and frame the azalea painting by then.

There are two pieces (cyanotypes) hanging there now for the month of June, along with my fellow ARTsisters' artwork.

White Azalea Pastel Painting Progressing

Today I gave myself an hour for art.

I have a multitude of things I should be doing today in order to achieve my many goals, most of which were related to household responsibilities. Call me selfish, but sometimes I just have to do for ME

So I set the alarm on my cell phone for exactly one hour, and I started to get my hands dirty with the pastels.

I began to work on this pastel which I had started on Mother’s Day this year as a plein air painting, when the white azalea bush out front was in full bloom. Every year I get so impressed at the incredible show of white blossoms, a bright and strong statementwhen viewed together, yet so thin and fragile when seen up close, individually.

Also every year, I am always disheartened at the extreme short length of the show. We get a real treat for what seems like 2, 3, maybe 4 days. Then the wonderful white turns into an ugly brownish haze which is the deadening blossoms which drape morbidly over the stems. It is a bush of opposites; it goes from very beautiful to quite ugly in such a short time!

So this year, not only did I take advantage of that beautiful sunny Mother’s Day (Click here to see blog post dated May 11, 2009) but I also took some photos of the scene to be used for reference later if needed.

But today, I didn’t use the reference photos. I’m not interested in getting everything to appear exactly as it is in reality. I’m more interested in some semblance of what is(was) there, with the addition of a sense of the stillness, mood and temperature of that day.

I worked on each area, starting with the stone column, reworking the coloring and the value differences between each of the two sides of it. (One side is in full sun, one side in shade.) Then I move to the concrete steps and reworked them quite a bit. I think they definitely look more solid now, although I think I sacrificed some sense of freshness in application in doing so. Do you agree?

I also added in more detail in the geranium plants and touched the back hedge and woodpile a bit. Then it was time for those azalea flowers! To try and paint the thousands of individual blossoms would be insane of course. I tried to first lay down some areas of some of the colors that I see in those whites: a lot of blue-purple-grays, some pinks,... Then I went over that whitish blur with two different white pastels, making marks that suggested the sharp angles of the blossoms' edges. This second pic shows the bush half done, then I worked for awhile longer, and the next picture is what it looked like when the alarm went off.

This one is a journey for me; a journey I am enjoying.