A new blog, and a good one!

I take art classes through our local community college. Most of the classes I take are taught by Kate Kiesler, whose work I admire a lot. The above image is hers, not mine. I am getting better, but not that fast! This is titled Western Landscape, and is north of where we both live.

I go to Kate's website frequently to see what she has been doing, and now I find that she has a blog. In it, she talks about her process of painting and the challenges and rewards she finds in using art to make a living. I found it very beneficial and think that you might too. She puts a lot of thought into it and has a really good art history background that comes through as she writes.

She also filled me in on how to get directly to my blog from my Fine Art Studio Online website, which I hadn't known how to do. I had just posted the link and people had to click twice instead of once to find it from the website. So if you need to know how to do that, let me know and I will forward the instructions to you. It is easy to do!

Back in town and painting again

After two and a half weeks in New Zealand preparing for our Watercolor Holiday, I spent a couple of days in Arizona getting over jet lag and painted this 11x14 oil while there. I took some acrylics to NZ with me, but never did use them. I thought they would be easier to travel with than oils, (they were) but I really don't like painting with acrylics. I did get them out once, but wasn't motived enough to look for a subject to paint. By the time I got back to the US, I was itching to get back into the oil paint. I have decided that if I ever want to hang in any galleries outside of Colorado, I am going to have to vary my subject matter as Colorado landscapes won't have much appeal in other states. My sister had this reference photo of these two puppies wolfing down their dinner and I decided to try dogs for a change. I got some wonderful sailboat and marine reference in New Zealand, and I need to get more fly fishing paintings done, plus I have a request for another mountain goat, so I guess it is time to work on a little variety in my subject matter. I am hopeful that I can get some more painting time in this week, but catching up after being away is never easy!