Obviously I am not a journalist. I paint therefore I spend little time here and more time painting.

Two of my paintings have been accepted in to a show at the Broderick Gallery down town Portland, Oregon.
"Unexpected Beauty, Street Views"
Proceeds benefit Street Yoga (a Portland non-profit organization for helping youth on the street)
The show hangs from February 5, 2009 through the first week of March.
I'm moving up in the world.
:-)

I won an award.
News From... The Kingstad Gallery Portland Plein Air & Studio Painters' Annual Exhibit 2008
Expressions of Nature/Expressions of Self

juried by George Broderick, Eric Kingstad & Lora R Fisher

awarded me an honorable mention for my "End of the Tile Factory" painting.

www.kingstad.com/gallery/gallery_home.html


I actually painted the scene while with the Pacific Plein Air Painters group out of Hillsboro but was able to enter in this show with others I painted with the Portland Plein Air & Studio Painters.

  Look Look I sold another painting.  "Cafe in the Heat of the Day" sold at our local annual Columbia Arts Guild event held in conjunction with the Scappoose Sauerkraut Festival.  The owners of the cafe purchased it.  If you come to Scappoose you may be able to view it in the near future at the Old Town Cafe E. Columbia Avenue, right next to city hall and the police station.

Man have I been away from here for a long time or what?

I don't seem to be able to journal, blog and paint at the same time.

But I do have two new trompe loeil designs finished, have been painting plein air all summer and have 5 works in a show at the Kingstad Gallery.  "Portland Plein Air & Studio Painters Expressions of Nature/Expressions of Self"

For a sneak preview of the show go to http://urban-plein-air.wetpaint.com/

x

Sold is such a lovely word.  Two of my paintings sold at the South Store Cafe in Scholls.  One was a wetland stream scene and the other was sunlight through a hole in the roof on an old brick chimney.

Very satisfying to know someone likes them well enough to pay for them.

Went painting today in the yard of one of the Pacific Plein Air Painters.  His wife works for the doctor I used to work for for more than 8 years.  She is also a Master Gardener and they have a lovely forested area with all sorts of flowers and benches and bird houses and trails and wonderful things to paint.  I started a nice little painting with a small birdhouse bench and some Iris in the foreground.  Now I have two unfinished outings with Iris.

I hope to be able to go to the Portland Rose Garden to paint soon and then to Lake Sacagawea in Longview.  Those will both be beautiful this time of year.

I have completed the Sauvie Island Reflections paintings I was working on and have it posted in my blog.  I entered three pictures of it so you can see the stages it went through. 

http://maeona-maeonasart.blogspot.com/

 

I have been busy painting and my husband has been busy making frames for my work.  The weather is still so iffy that it makes it hard to plan to go out to paint.  Last week three of us carpooled to Salem and the Schrieners Iris Garden to paint.  What a beautiful place.  They have way more than just Iris and we had a great day painting.  There were also other artist and photographers gathered there as well.

I went out with the Portland Plein Air Painters to Sauvie Island one day recently and painted.  The day was cold, windy, and sometimes rainy. There were 6-8 of us set up inside a wildlife bird watching station painting views over a small lake.  At one point in the day a bus load of 20-40 kids unloaded to identify birds but really didn't accomplish much.  They asked us about painting and tried not to get in our way but it was really crowded under the roof.  As they were leaving I pointed out some swallow nests under the roof and a robin's nest at the end of the building otherwise they wouldn't have seen anything.  They all piled back on the bus and headed to their next stop.  Can't imagine that any self respecting bird wouldn't just flee at first sight of them.  Anyway, I have about completed the painting back in the studio.  It has turned out ok but nothing in really thrills me yet.  I have a second painting drying too that I did of a culvert and pond at Peteresen's Farm in Hillsboro with a couple of other ladies from the Pacific Plein Air Painters.  It seemed rather blah at fist but I have now added an antique tractor to it that gives it something to look at.

Yipeeee!  I sold a painting.  That is always my first reaction.  My second one is oh dear I will never see that painting again.  Then I remember I have photos of it in my files.

The one sold was "McKay Creek Wetland".  One of my 2008 Plein air paintings.

http://urban-plein-air.wetpaint.com/

I have just recently joined the Portland Plein Air Painters Group online and I plan to go to my first meeting with them this coming Tuesday.  This should give me more choices of places to go paint.  I really enjoy my small Pacific Plein Air Painters.  I feel very comfortable in the smaller group but my ArtBiz coach says branch out and try "scary things" so here I go.

Ok, yes I know I'm a bit crazy but I get bored just reading. After all artists are visual.  So I am creating my very own colored pencil folk art Bible.  As I read through each chapter I make notes about things that I visualize. I then draw them on a poster size 24" x 18" drawing paper and proceed to fill it in with colored pencil.  If you want to take a peek at it here is the address:

http://urban-plein-air.wetpaint.com/

Whopeeeee...

I have had five pieces of my NW Coast native American designs accepted at American Trails Gallery in Ashland, Oregon.

Orca
Frog
Shasta Bear
Facing Raven
Eagle/Raven engagement set


http://urban-plein-air.wetpaint.com/

It is going to be 75 and sunny today instead of Oregon gray.

Yesterday I sent 5 Northwest Coast Native American designs to American Trails Gallery in Ashland, Oregon.  I have packaged two watercolors for shipment to Salem, Oregon and am getting another watercolor ready to send to Cincinnati, Ohio.  I am putting finishing touches on an oil painting for a show in Scholls, Oregon.  Feels good to be productive and have the sun out!

My latest 2008 plein air paintings have been posted to my wetpaint site.

http://urban-plein-air.wetpaint.com/

A very interesting thing has happened.  I've gone out on the web to look for a picture of the painting and have only found a version that has adults "line dancing" with a very similar airy background.

Do you have any enlightenment for me?

I started typing this little ditty about a painting called Spring Dance in hopes that it would inspire me to write something more than I got and did my chores and then went to my studio and painted today.  That's just what I have been doing lately.  I have orders for sending 5 of my Northwest Coast Native American designs to American Trails Gallery in Ashland, Oregon.  I also have an upcoming show with the Pacific Plein Air Painters group.  That show will be "Colors of Scholls', at the South store Cafe.  So I have just been busy painting and not very creative typing.

Spring Dance- entry 2
"Poets, artists, and musicians alike love to sing of the spirit of spring.  It is a story each one tells just as he likes, but no two stories are ever the same.

One modern painter, Frans von Stuck, has told his story of spring as it has never been told before.  He knows the happy season is just beginning.  He knows it is the youth of the year.  He knows all nature is waking to life.  Everything is new.  Everything, is fresh.

All his colors are as light and airy as the gay young figures sporting about.  The trees are a light leafy green.  The sky is a delicate blue.  The clouds are airy and light.  Even the distance is o'erspread with a delicate haze.

Early golden buttercups are laughing in the bright green grass.  Above dance the gay, lithesome maidens in tints of green, yellow, and violet. The whole scene is enveloped in the soft, delicate atmosphere of early spring.

While the figures frolic about, the trees, the clouds, and the distant hills swing in the tune of their dance.  the tree, at the left, leans with the two figures nearest; that at the right turns its leafy branches echoing the figure in violet.  Even the clouds take on the curves of the dancers.  The artist has left a rift of blue above which repeats, with outstretched arm the maiden below.  This the artist makes all teh parts of his picture swing together.  It is this that makes rhythm, and gives music to the whole scene.

The painter added a touch of brilliant red to the picture.  This gives a beautiful strong note to the spring song.  It helps to keep the dancers down to earth; otherwise they might go flitting off to the clouds, so light and airy are they.  This brilliant note serves as a happy contrast to the bright pretty green of the hilltop.  Notice that it is repeated ever so little, at the left and right, in the subtle suggestions of flowers."

"Oh to live is to be jolly!
When Springtime cometh with
The summer at her heels!"

My personal spring this year has been colder here in Oregon than in the past.  Record rain, record, cold, for the month of March.  Maybe that is why I have been drawn to this painting and why my own creative skills seem to be drained.

Artist: Frans von Stuck
School: German
Dates: 1863-

Spring Dance-A painting of six youth holding hands and dancing in a circle on a hilltop.

"Ring ting! It is the merry springtime!
How full of hear an body feels!
Sing hey, trolly, lolly,
Oh to live is to be jolly!
When springtime cometh with
The summer at her heels.!
James Bennet- "The Master Skylark."-The Century Company, 1897.

Air and sunlight! Dance and song! This is the spirit of spring! Blue Skies! Leafy trees! Laughing buttercups and daffodils! Oh, to live is to be jolly

When springtime cometh with The summer at her heels!
So sang our maidens, everyone, as they skipped far away from the life of the world to the high green hill-tops beyond.  Here they sing and dance, and dance and sing, with sunshine in their waving hair, and flowers at their feet!

Great Pictures and Their Stories-Lester

How to Look at Pictures
"You must look at pictures studiously, earnestly, honestly. It will take years before you come to a full appreciation of art; but when at last you have it, you will be possessed of the purest, loftiest, and most ennobling pleasures that the civilized world can offer you." john C. Van Dyke.

Mentzer Bush & Company-The House of Beautiful Books-New York-Chicago

Great Pictures and Their Stories-Interpreting Masterpieces to Children-Book Five-By Katherine Morris Lester-Director of Art Education in the Public 'schools of Peoria, Illinois

Copyright 1930 - I was given this book by my mother and I find it quite engaging.  I decided to share it with you all in here.

Foreword
Picture Study is rapidly becoming an important factor in education. "Nearly every progressive city," says the Bureau of Education, Washington, D. C. "is making use of some form of picture study in its school system"

The twentieth century has ushered in the reproduction of masterpieces in color! To what heights of delight the children of our schools may be carried by the famous pictures of the world in color!
It remains only for the elders to choose pictures adapted to the childish interests; pictures which will cultivate a taste for the best in art; pictures which through the impressionable early years will lead to a true understanding and appreciation of the world's masterpieces!

In preparing this series of readers it has been the aim of those selecting the pictures to consider always the child's interest. The field of pictures is large. Not only have the "old masters" been drawn upon, but masters in modern art as well, including moern American Artists.  Thus constantly, through this series of pictures, the principles of beauty which made possible the "old masters" of yesterday are seen again in the art of today.

In the preparation of the text the child's interest and his ability to read are carefully considered. Real picture knowledge is conveyed in the child's own language.

In the primary grades the interest is largely in 'what it is al about." Consequently the text aims to satisfy this curiosity, and at the same time lead to unconscious observation of those things which are most alive to the little child.--color, life, action.

The vocabulary for Books I, II, and III is based on "The Reading Vocabulary," the Horn, Horn, and Packer list. 1925

In the intermediate grades, a lively interest in the story is always uppermost.  Gradually an appreciation of picture-pattern develops. Simple elements in picture making,--i.e. center of interest, repetition of line and color, --may be intelligently comprehended by children of the intermediate grades.

In the grammar grades great interest in the story continues, and with this interest there develops an appreciation of HOW the story is told, --the real ART of the picture.  The pupil not only learns that the picture is a masterpiece, but WHY. He thus acquires standards for judging other pictures.

Each picture is followed by a short sketch of the artist, told in a key adapted to the age and interest of the child.

The questions which follow the text will assist in developing an intelligent appreciation of the picture.

The author is particularly indebted to Miss Jennie Long, recently Supervisor of Primary Education, Peoria Public Schools for valuable criticism of the primary text. Grateful acknowledgment is also made for the opportunity of practical work with a selected number of primary stories in the schools of Peoria.
The manuscripts of the intermediate and grammar grade books have been submitted to teachers of these grades, to whom the author
is indebted for helpful practical suggestions.

The MUSICAL RENDERINGS for the pictures have been graciously contributed by Eva G. Kidder; Director of Music, Peoria Public Schools. The author believes this to be a very valuable feature of the test-book series.  The Author.

My collection begins in Book Five.

Illustrated with reproductions in color from the original masterpieces, by Courtesy of the Art Extension Society of New York.