Gessoing edges

Isle of Palm II, done. Gessoed the edges of the canvas a mid-value gray. Tomorrow or Monday I'll varnish and the darks will deepen and the lights will glow.

TCB day

Did adult artist chores today - like wrote two artist's statements, filled out juried exhibit application forms, reviewed call for artists sites for shows of interest.
Yesterday I finished the Isle of Palm II. Tomorrow I'll gesso the edges of the canvas dark gray, Monday varnish it, and Tuesday drive over to my gallery, Twinhouse. I'm also scouting for the right frame for the Priest's Laundry. I feel it needs something simple, wide and black. Classic and sleek.
All this and turned in a piece to the magazine, and scouted venues for another department. Perhaps most important, got a crisp new edge to my basic bob. Nothing like a precise haircut to convince you that all could yet be well with the world.

Back from Black Mountain NC, and back at the easel - laid in the bench today.
Found out I've been accepted for another juried show - Metropolitan Strozzapreti is going to the Atlanta Artists Center Annual National Juried Exhibition (opens Sept. 6 in Atlanta's Buckhead district). I'm psyched!
Working on the big San Marco piece, the detailed commissioned view of Venice and the sweeping sky scape of Isle of Palm II makes me feel wonderfully stretched and supple. It's like running, swimming, and yoga each use muscles in a different way.

An acceptance letter came today from the SCAA - my painting, Lamott Tomato is accepted for the 2008 21st National Juried Exhibit. I'll put together an artist's statement and drive my work over to the venue for the August 18th opening.
Let me confess. I am not cool. I am thrilled. Especially since there will be an exhibit book and my painting will be in it.
I'm just saying.

San Marco

I've been distracted with travel, pitching freelance, and working on a commissioned piece I don't want to post until it's done. But today was one of the best days of painting ever.
It's a big canvas for me- 30x40. I'd primed the canvas with gray acrylic gesso weeks before. it's a new thing, starting from a midtone value and I wasn't sure I'd be able to see my grid. I ended up using chalk which worked like a charm. Tuesday I did the drawing and it turns out I love drawing on gray. This morning after my run and shower I went straight to the canvas. Painting from 9 to 2-ish I did some of the strong vertical bands on the left, and blocked in the sketchbook.
After lunch I came back and worked on the floor tile and some shadows cast by the high-backed wooden bench and the Savonarola chair. Washed up my brushes at six. I can't wait to get back to it tomorrow. My daughter likes it 'as is. I think it looks like the bench and chair are wearing gray pinstripe suits. But I'm looking forward to laying in the wood grain.

Third day running I've worked on the Venice Laundry 2. So minutely detailed and I drill down until the world is the size of the end of my brush. I'm always surprised when I look up at 5pm and see there's more canvas covered.
Planning a trip to Vienna next fall and the thought of a week devoted to all the lustrous, detailed northern Renaissance paintings is incredibly enticing. Not to mention everything you eat apparently comes 'mitt schlag' (whipped cream). I'll be back in Venice for a few weeks as well. I guess this will be the V-towns Tour.

Working on another view of the Isle of Palms. This one has more of the sense of enormity that I was trying for. I think the silhouette of part of a beach house in the lower right is what gave it the sense of proportion.

The rest of the day I worked on the second Venice Laundry. It's so much specificity and and I still don't have paint on all of the canvas - but I'd say two more days an I'll be able to start layering in the subtleties and detail.

Went back to the first one (Priest's laundry) and worked on a door that wasn't quite right. I'm going to add a touch of detail to the doorknob and then I'll finally be able to let go of it.
I toned a canvas and gridded it with white conte and will start the drawing this week. I like have three balls in the air.

Four new paintings in the gallery

The painting are up in the gallery and I've sent out my own email notice. I've already had some kind responses and many of them cite the dawn painting as the one they want to see the most. The gallery has it, but did not hang it as they are concerned about how different it looks from my small, precise, detailed works. My instinct says it will find the right buyer, and be loved and appreciated.
We'll see how it works out.
Here's the email, with brevity as its chief virtue:
Four new works by Virginia Parker
Now showing at Twinhouse Gallery, 2815 Peachtree Road, 404-233-3433, Twinhouse.com
Two more in the Table for One series and two cloud-inspired works

three new canvases

There's something provoking and mesmerizing about a fresh canvas. To have three in various states of beginning is ticklish and galvanizing.
Painting has commenced on the first one - two rounds so far. It still has a third or more of the white gessoed canvas visible, but I work steadily and patiently. It's the second in the Venice Laundry series, a commission, and the elements are familiar to me from previous works; crusty brick and stucco walls, boats and reflections in water, shifting sliding water, iron railing, laundry like prayer flags, sky.
The second canvas is drawn, and the initial paint is mixed, but I haven't started. Tomorrow looks promising since the Venice canvas will be too wet to proceed without extreme caution. Better it has another day to dry. This is a larger canvas of ocean and skyscape that requires different brush work, lavish motion, melting edges.
The third canvas is the biggest - 30x40" - and I am experimenting gessoing it a mid tone of a neutral gray before I do any drawing. The reference photo is gridded into 5" squares in one half and 2.5" squares on the other. It's an image from Florence of a bench and a chair and an open book. Quite simple and for some reason indelible. I'd like to start drawing on it, but I have a deadline looming.

I worked on ithe copy for the article today, but I need to buckle down and get a sizable portion of completed by Monday. I'm distracted by a possible opportunity to go to Venice.

The Twinhouse show will open soon. Must focus on the here and now.
Life is good.

Spring Show at Twinhouse

These continue the Table for One series.














A new direction - sky and sea - I have three planned, one on the easel.


Getting ready to be party of a late spring show at my gallery. Turned in these paintings and hope to have two more - the dawn sky and the priests laundry ready in time. It's exciting! Plus, I love a deadline. Finally, two small works from the Swan House show.

Back to the Table

I finished the tomato - signed it on the vinegar bottle. Did a few small adjustments to the salt & pepper. Next week I'll varnish it. And in a couple of days I'll paint the sides with a dark gray color I plan to mix.
Spent the rest of the day working on the Met. All over it, but notably the glass, a few more layers on the pasta, the table edge, a reworking of the salt and pepper, the fork got an upgrade, as did the knife and bread, and the chairs. Actually the only things I didn't touch were George Washington and the sketchbook. In a few days I'll tackle the lettering on the museum map.

It was so good to devote a day to the brush. I did check my email periodically and fax an invoice. But this was a sweet, sweet day.
Tomorrow I'll work on the new Venice drawing. After I check it carefully I'll probably spend the whole day mixing my start-up colors.

focus and time

After weeks of focusing on the business of writing and adjusting the proportion of time allotted to writing vs painting, followed by a bout of bronchitis, I am at last free to paint. Today I began in a small way working on the fine details of the Lamott Tomato, the salt and the balsamic.
I have three works still on easel that needs looking after - the Priests Laundry , one of the first cloud paintings and the Met. And I just finished the drawing of the Venetian Laundry. All drawn and no color put together yet. So much pleasure in anticipation.

Tomorrow I paint. And the next day and the next.

A few breaks to visit the roses, to a riot of bloom. Also on the calendar- a visit to the theater, a friend's engagement party.

sea sand sky

Another layer on the reflection in the saturated sand, and the haze on the horizon, the lowest line of clouds in the distance. Deepened another layer of blues over the sky - radiant violet really helped here.

motion and stillness

Added another layer to the clouds and sky, and worked on the surface of the water. I loved adding the sky's broken reflection, bouncing off each angle of the surface of the waves.

The reflection off the saturated sand is still crude, but I don't doubt I can get it where I want it to be. Pondering the inclusion of more cloud in the upper right corner. I may just add some semi transluscent wisps.
I am drawn to the opposites - the crisp precision of the foam at the edge of the tide, the blurred melting refection on the sand, the stillness of the earth, the restlessness of the water. The invisible wind pushing the great towers of cloud.

Here's a closer look at the waves.

Isle of Palm

Here's the beginning. I painted the sea yesterday and the sky today. Trying to figure out the best way to render the there/not there edges of clouds. It's from a photo I took on the Isle of Palm last spring. What I loved was the way the sky reflected in the saturated sand.

I'm working on this using three reference photos. I love that it shows three of the four elements - earth, air, water - and the fourth, fire, is implied by the light.

It's only the first layer, but I think it's going to break the cloud jinx.