Have been neglecting my blog, and my art!

It has been a while since I last blogged! Or, for that matter painted.

This time of year there are a lot of things to distract me from my pledge of painting daily. I painted regularly up until about two weeks ago. I finished the three small paintings of my oldest grandchildren, scanned them, and have packed them up for delivery Christmas day to their other Grandmother. And, I have started a new painting - a Mexican beach restaurant scene with a group of Mariachi players.

My first distraction was to take time out to design, compose, and publish our annual Christmas Letter. The decisions of choosing photographs and selecting stories is quite lengthy. The stories must be interesting, but not boastful. There are too many annual letters talking about "we did this, we did that," perhaps more to impress the reader than to just bring our far flung friends and relatives up to date with our own and our family's going's on.

We had to get them out fast (we were already very late) because many must be sent to relatives back in England and Wales by regular mail. So many of our older relatives do not have email.

But quite a few were able to sent by email to our "younger" and more mod friends and a scattering of relatives.

In the middle of this rush, my trusty printer stopped printing. We had to take the letter to FedExKinko's to prepare color prints. And hand write all the envelopes.

But, perhaps the primary distraction is that we have decided to upgrade several things in the house. The principal item of which is to install a big screen TV in our den.

Everything has to be done in stages. First the older TV had to be moved to another room. Then we had to dispose of the old wooden cabinet. Then the room had to be emptied so that the carpet could be cleaned.

While this was going on we had to choose the new TV and accompanying sound system. Plus select a wooden stand to put under the TV. The big items were coming across country from New Jersey. The smaller items from local stores.

Then when they arrived I had to assemble the wooden stand, and install the new sound system (which involved a lot of running hidden wires around the room). When the TV finally arrived and was unpacked, I had to ask a neighbor to help me lift it into position - I am getting to old and feeble to do all of these physical things.

Now all is done. Peace reigns again around the house. The new TV is wonderful. Very soon I will get back to painting again - every day!

New Painting and Consequential Issues

At long last I got my recent painting of "Marty and Diane" back from my photographer. I immediately shipped it off to them as an early surprise holiday gift.

A few days later I received a phone call Marty expressing strong appreciation and thanks, and then tentatively asking if I could alter Diane's nose.

My wife, my resident critic, never liked the way I had painted Diane's nose. I had struggled with it, but thought I had got it right. One of the troubles of painting portraits of friends, family, and of course commissions, is that the likeness has got to be good.

After the phone call I blew up in Photoshop the original photograph to show Diane's nose, and also the same area of the painting. The comparison was not so good. The photograph showed the nose both shorter and softer. I wish I had done this before I completed the painting. I guess that is how one learns.

Marty (a really old friend) and his recent new wife Diane, live in San Diego, and are planning to travel up to see us in January. They will bring the painting with them, and I promised to apply my painterly skills to adjust the offending nose.

Artist Statements

Alison Stanfield in her recent Art Business Blog talked about the importants of artist's statements. Particularly she referenced an article by Dane Stickney of the Omaha Herald-Tribune entitled " Artist statements shed light on artists ideas," and her e-book and short podcast linked to her Blog.

I have always had problems with my artist statements. They have been almost a bio/resume or sometimes just a story, and not the kind of statement that Dwain and Alison talk about.

Each painting on my website and everywhere my paintings are shown online there is a statement that probably is not doing what it should be doing to let the viewer know what I was thinking when I painted that painting.

Now is the time when I should revisit all my active statements. It is a project for the new year.

More New Paintings

At last the latest 10 x 8 inch oil color on canvas paintings of my Grandchildren were dry enough for me to scan them. These are "Kevin 2007" and "Diane 2007."

I will be giving them to their other grandmother tomorrow when we get together for Thanksgiving. I have made full size prints on paper for their parents and ourselves.

They will be soon posted to my website and to my Imagekind art print website.

Catching up once again

Time goes by so fast. I had not realized that more than a week has gone past since I last blogged.

I have been painting regularly each morning. But somehow in the afternoons, when I have been doing my blogging, I have family tasks to do, and have not been thinking too much about painting. Still, I now come to the task with a fresh mind.

I am continuing to work on the last five small (10 x 8 inch) portraits of my grandchildren. They are all to be Christmas presents for their respective Grandmothers. I have to finish the paintings of the two youngest, Diane and Kevin, by this coming Thursday, Thanksgiving Day. There is our usual family gathering for Thanksgiving, and their other Grandparents will be visiting us that morning, and we will not see them again before the holidays.

Actually the these two paintings are finished, except for labeling and scanning for my records (and reproduction). Diane's portrait has been finished for about a week. Kevin's I coated with medium last night and am waiting for it to harden enough to handle for the final labeling and scanning. It should be OK by Wednesday.

The other three portraits, Sara, Megan, and Dana, are progressing somewhat in parallel. Sara's will require another few days of work. The others will take a little longer. These can wait, for we will see their other Grandparents at Christmas.

Last Wednesday I was sitting once again at Gallery 113. Before arriving at the gallery, I stopped by Scott Mclaine, my photographer, to drop off recently finished the "Marty & Diane" portrait for photographing. It is too big for my scanning.

Scott was telling me about his task of photographing the items at the Santa Barbara Museum of Art Chinese Clothing exhibit I blogged about last week. He is their official photographer. Many of these items had never been out of storage before and had not been documented. He said that it took almost two months.

The show at Gallery-113 was very big. It was hung Salon Style from floor to ceiling. My piece was in a good place, high up near the door, and well lit. But there had been very few sales. There was very little traffic that day, even though it was a nice outside.

I have decided to discontinue my small advertisement in the local weekly CASA Magazine. Though it has given me a lot of recognition amongst the local art community, it has not brought any sales. It costs $65/month, cheap as advertising goes. But I think it is time for a change.

For some time I have been thinking about publishing a book of my single person portraits. Self publishing with online print on demand has become very inexpensive. I have all the software and digital images to do the job. So I will give it some more thought, and study the situation for a while.

Opening of two exhibits at the SB Musum of Art

Yesterday (my birthday - 78) we went to an Opening at the Santa Barbara Museum Of Art. As Members we had a special invitation. They have two new exhibits: "Everyday Luxury: Chinese Silks of the Qing Dynasty (1644 - 1911)," and "Identities." Of these, for me, the Chinese exhibit was by far the most interesting.

The Chinese exhibition showcases selections from the Museum's collection of Chinese costumes and textiles from the last three hundred years. The exhibit is beautifully staged and curated. There are extensive and informative signage describing the exhibits. Unfortunately the aisles were packed with people and it was not easy to spend the time the exhibit needed to take in all the details. I will be going back at a quieter period to have a second look.

The "Identity" exhibit is a rather mixed collection of items expressing various artists' feelings about racial, sexual, and cultural identity. Many of the exhibited items I had seen before. It seemed a letdown after the brilliance of the other exhibition.

Took a few days off!

We took off for a few days and went up the coast a hundred and fifty miles to the small coastal town of Avila Beach, California. It is hidden from the main highway and missed by most travelers.

Actually there are two neigboring communities: Avila Beach and Port San Luis, about two miles apart. For many years they were an oil processing and fishing community. A long oil rig servicing pier still pokes into the nearby ocean, servicing the occasional boat. A few years ago the oil industry decided that the location was no longer needed for major oil storage and processing and closed down and removed much of their operations.

Unfortunately, the oil processing had contaminated much of the ground below the small town of Avila Beach. The oil company was required to dig up much of the town and then pay for it to be rebuilt. Most of the quaint old stores, small hotels, and homes were torn down and the ground beneath them dug up.

We have visited the community several times over the years, both before it was torn down, and since. Our last trip was three years ago when the rebuilding had just commenced. At that time (and again this time) we stayed at an older hotel that is on the beach front, but halfway up a hill, and just above the oil containation.

Today the hotel is old compared with much of the new community. But the owners have played on its old fashion features to make it unique. Each room is different and provides some special ambiance. We stayed in the same room as on our last visit; a suit overlooking the beach. We were able to go to bed with the ocean waves crashing outside our window. It brings back memories of our youth when we lived on the beach at Malibu.

The weather was not the best, which we had expected, cold and a little damp. But there were few other visitors around and we shared the beach front and pier mostly with locals. There were many new places to explore and the long fishing pier to walk along. Mostly we just lazed around and read.

On the Thursday evening we drove into the nearby university town of San Luis Obisbo. That night they have a large street fair and farmer's market. The main street is blocked off and filled with stalls and milling people. Unfortunately, at this time of year it is dark and not too suitable for photography.

I had intended to look for new material as we wandered around. I took some photographs but was not much inspired. Twice we went to the nearby tiny community of Port Saint Luis. It is a tiny fishing port with its own pier and a fish processing plant. The whole bay with both communities is a natural harbor with many fishing boats and a big boat repair yard at Port saint Luis. The photography opportunities were better, though scarce on the interesting characters for portraits I usually go for.