Chastain Park Arts Festival Oct. 17th & 18th

Chastain Park will have its 1st Annual Arts Festival
It will be October 17th and 18th.
Saturday 10am to 6pm
Sunday 10am to 5pm
I will have paintings at the Chastain Art Center booths. In those 3 booths there will be pottery, paintings, jewelry and everything else the center offers. I have been told that there are 120 booths of artists. So please come out and take part in what will be a tradition for the area. I will be at the booth from 12-3 on Saturday.
Directions: from 285 and Roswell Road0- Go inside the perimeter and make a Right on West Wieuca Road (there is a Avril car wash on the right) go through the stop sign and you will come upon the Chastain Park area. I am not quite sure where the booths of the artists will be located, but I am sure there will be signs.

Whimsical Fury 12 x 16 on Panel

I painted this bird's nest at the workshop with Roseta. It was the first thing we all painted. We were asked to bring in birds nest along with eggs if we could find them. Everyone really loved painting the different nests they had brought in and afterwards we did a class critique. Every painting was unique and beautiful. Because of the rains I was late that first day so I had my own setup and my own bird's nest that I found at the house. This is the most successful painting that I did that week of the workshop. I learned that I really like painting my own setup and during a workshop I like having my own area where my supplies are located. At this facility you have to bring your own lighting, easel and things to paint. The rest of the week the way it was spaced I had to paint with other students and their still life setups. Sometimes I have found this to be easy and fun, but for some reason the room was too tight and therefore not comfortable for me to paint and the result was I was just out of sorts and struggled after this painting. I did learn different techniques from this workshop so the end result will be beneficial for me.

Roseta Santiago Workshop

A few weeks ago I took a workshop with Roseta Santiago at the Quinlan Art Center in Gainesville, Georgia. Roseta used to live in Atlanta, and now lives in New Mexico. She has studied under many of the same artists that I have so I thought I would learn some additional skills. The paintings below are all experimental. Each painting gave me different challenges along with having a medium problem all week long. My medium started to clump up during the gourd painting and brass bowl painting so I ended up switching mediums. The workshop was during the flood week so the combination of not having a full bottle of medium along with the humidity gave me problems. Also, there were many other students painting the same setup and objects seemed to move from day to day. In the Gourd painting the paint would not dry for me to do some glazing so finally I had to move on to another painting. The brass bowl painting also gave me problems with the medium and since I had lent my lights with the first painting(other students were painting same still life) I had no lighting for the second painting and was really working in very dark circumstances. When I paint at home I usually paint in low light, but this was ridiculous. On the Gold Rim painting Roseta actually came over and painted the beautiful gold rim so I can't take credit for that. It was great to learn how to layer the gold colors to get that look and then how to add the highlight of white. Also, I think in this painting there should have been some leafy stem in the painting; its boring to me. I would say that I learned more about glazing, how to change a painting that you might not be happy with, painting fabric and then glazing. Roseta is wonderful at marketing and was great in sharing her information with us. If you go into a Bass Pro Shop the murals in the stores were painted by her. After painting 23 of the stores she decided to go into oil painting full time.

Sold paintings from Brushstroke's Show

I just wanted to thank my friends for coming out to the Brushstrokes art show this week. We had a great time and it was fun seeing everyone. I wanted to thank the Berman's and the Young's for purchasing my paintings. I hope you enjoy them. Below are the paintings that were purchased.

Brushstrokes 2nd Signature Art Show and Sale

This is the first year that I am participating with the art group Brushstrokes. The show will be located at TULA Art Center.
It is located at 75 Bennett Street, Atlanta, Georgia 30309. To get there take Peachtree Street South and pass Justin's Restaurant on the right at next right will be a light and that is Bennett's Street. Go halfway down the street and Tula is on the right.
The show runs from Tuesday, Sept 29th-Sunday, Oct. 4th
"Cocktails & Canvas" is Thursday, October 1st 5:00-9:00
Gallery Hours are
Tuesday, Wednesday and Sunday 11:00 to 4:00
Thursday 11:00 to 9:00
Friday and Saturday 11:00 to 8:00
A percentage of all sales will be donated to the Youth Program at Chastain Arts Center.
Please stop by during the week if you have a chance. There are around 20 artists participating.

Blue and Gold 11 x 14 on Linen

In this painting I wanted to use the flow blue cup and plate that I found in a box after cleaning out the garage. It was a great surprise to find some flow blue because I had wanted to buy some for a painting. There were a few more pieces in the box that I will paint at a later time. I put the antique with the newer gold vase that I like to paint. After taking the workshop with Nancy Franke she said she had a lucky green pitcher and I have this lucky gold vase. I decided to use her palette of colors for this painting, to see if I would get a lighter feel still painting in the old masters style. Her palette is minimal and I am used to more colors. I did add the yellow ochre for the palette. The minimal palette is a challenge in getting the color you want without it ending up muddy. I know how to mix colors easily since that is what I do for my daily job, but in oil painting I think its great to have a larger palette for truer and cleaner colors. Also, when you are painting something that is red, be it a flower or an object, many times you will have to buy the red you need because in many instances you cannot mix colors to get certain reds.

Cupcakes 9 x 12 on Panel

The new challenge for DSFDF was the theme of cupcakes. Karin was inspired by the painter Wayne Thiebaud, who is known for his paintings of cakes and pies. If you go to the website that I have mentioned at the bottom of all the paintings there is a YouTube video of an interview with the artist and his work. With this painting I definitely wanted to do a knife painting. Using the palette knife was just like putting frosting on a cupcake. The thick luscious paint really made me feel like I was using frosting instead of paint. Afterwards I had to bake a cake.