The Madera Ag Show

Last Tuesday was judging for the Madera Arts Council "Ag Show" and the reception and awards were on Thursday evening, September 16th. There were about 74 accepted entries and the judge was Paul Buxman, a artist and farmer from Reedley. I love his work, but I wasn't sure he'd love mine. So, I was pleasantly surprised to find that "Fowl Weather Friends" received a second in the Poultry category. Good friend Grace Rankin's wonderful Rooster got first place and fellow Timberline artist Janet Morita's beautiful white chickens got third place. Here is a photo of my entry:











My second entry was entered in the "Vines' category and it is called "Rose Window" because it is a painting of bottles of (Rose) wine in front of a Rose Window. A play on words, as is often the case. :)

Painting a half sheet painting still feels very strange to me--I'm not in MY element while doing it, but it is nice to have paintings in a variety of sizes available. The poultry painting is my normal full sheet, framed to 30" X 38" and Rose Window is framed to 22" X 29". This is Rose Window:


The Ag Show is held at the Circle Gallery in
Madera and is a show well worth viewing. For
future reference, the categories offered are these:

Citrus

Dairy

Farm Machinery & Structures

Fruits & Nuts

Irrigation

Livestock

Poultry

Vegetables

Vines

Entries are made by category rather than by medium, so this is a unique show in that respect.

More photos from Fremont

Here is Grace showing one of her wonderful travel sketchbook/journals. She usually uses pen, not pencil, which was an "a-ha" for some people last night.

 I am going to include some other photos from last night and then tell you of a personal challenge I've been dealing with regarding photos, my iPhone, and blogging. I used to be able to hook my phone up to the computer and have an immediate link to iPhoto start up. My new photos on my phone were transferred to the photo program where I could edit them, name them, and store them for easy retrieval and use. But after a recent update to either the phone or the computer, things stopped being so easy. But tonight, I was able to get it figured out (yippee!) and get my pictures off my phone again. So that was a MAJOR step for me. The next one is to figure out how to manipulate the pictures and text consistently to do what I want to do, in terms of format and placement. It's all very hit and miss and never quite what I intend but I never have quite enough time to master it! At least I usually know what my next challenge is, right? Good night for now!

Tonight in Fremont...

...went very well. There were about 18 people in attendance and they seemed to enjoy our presentation about sketchbooking and journaling. People learned new things about making their own books, embellishing commercial books, and about the process of journaling with a pen rather than a pencil. I will share photos when I get home because I don't seem to be able to do it from my phone to my blog.

Good News X 2!

Things have really been happening for me artistically, of late. At the Ficklin Event last Thursday night, I reconnected with Ray and Tammy Krause of Westbrook Wine Farm whom I had met about 4 years ago and stayed in touch with via my newsletter. They saw "Italia d' Oro" at the Art Stand Gallery and felt it would make a very nice wine label. Having seldom taken it out and not having sold it, I decided to take it to the wine event last Thursday night. In a rare lull during the evening's busyness, I took it next door (to the next table over) to show it to the Krauses and remind them that they had seen it long ago. Ray immediately purchased it and announced that it will adorn a future wine release from Westbrook Wine Farm! They are thrilled to have it and I am thrilled to have them have it! I think it was meant to be from the first time they saw it.

It will be so exciting to see one of my favorite paintings of mine gracing a wine label on a fabulous wine. I did the painting of a small, nameless hilltown in 2002 during my trip to La Romita Art School when I spent two weeks 60 miles north of Rome, near Terni, Italy. It is a small painting--about 11" X 14" framed--and was done in watercolor on Yupo paper. The enhancements were done with gold gel pen because I found Italy to be truly "golden" and the paintings done while I was there reflect that fact.

I loved my stay at La Romita and am so excited to report that I have to opportunity to return there yet again next summer (July 2010) to co-teach a class with my friend and fellow artist and traveler, Grace Rankin from Fremont.

Day 3 (Sunday) of the workshop

Today, we watched Jean Warren tear up a discarded painting and select pieces of it as a starting point of a new painting. We spent day 3 of the workshop doing the same. It was an interesting process and I enjoyed it. Most of us still came out with something that was semi-representational, partly due to the subject matter in evidence in the original painting. I know mine was much more
objective than I intended for it to be.

We ended the day with a critique followed by picking up Grace at the gallery and going out to dinner. All in all it was a good workshop and a very fun 3 days. Grace and I work well together and inspire each other in our painting efforts. I miss having her in Oakhurst. We've decided to try to get together on a fairly regular basis, meeting at one or the other's home to paint and visit.

No photos of the new work as yet. . . .

Friday, April 17th

This morning, Grace and I drove to San Jose for Jean Warren's abstract workshop. Jean is from Bodega Bay, California and there are 17 people in this class offered by the Santa Clara Valley Watercolor Association. The workshop is at Herbert Hoover Middle School in San Jose and it is right across the street from the Rosecrucian Egyptian Museum.

We started the day with a short introduction by Jean and then we walked across the street to the museum grounds and sat on our stools around the obelisque in the garden. She led us through some contour drawing exercises, encouraging us to really "see" what was around us and to capture the essence of the gardens in our memories.

After about an hour, we returned to the classroom and began our day by watching her demonstrate what she wanted us to do on Day 1. I am not going to attempt to "recapture" or outline the day in much detail because that requires that you take the full workshop and it would be unfair to present too much of the information here. But suffice it to say that we worked on capturing what we had seen in the garden in a quick rhythm wash of putting down the colors and the feelings that we'd experienced and then continuing to paint on top of the color. At the end of the day, we each put our work up and talked about how we felt about the day's efforts.

When we got back to Fremont, we were treated to a wonderful dinner at Grace's neighbor's home, worked on our paintings a little, visited a lot, and went to bed early to be ready for Day 2 tomorrow.

Thursday, April 16th--on the way to San Jose!?--via Fremont

Today, I drove to Grace's house in Fremont, with a lot of stops along the way--at the Mushroom Farm in Sanger, at Circle Gallery in Madera, at the Hilmar Cheese Factory in Hilmar (north of Merced), at Forrest's Music in Berkeley, and finally on to Fremont in the late afternoon. I stopped to get cheese and mushrooms for Grace and Jack, and to drop my oboe off for it's annual "physical" in Berkeley. I'll pick it up again on Monday morning.

The weather was beautiful, the traffic was light, and the directions (thanks to Daniel in the GPS!) were perfect. Before dinner, Grace and I went to the gallery in Niles to see her showcase which will have it's reception on Sunday afternoon. It looked really good--she has put a lot of work into it and it shows. We compared notes on what we've been doing in terms of marketing etc. and oddly enough, we've done lots of the same things in the last few months. Obviously, the push to improve our marketing strategies goes hand in hand with the current economic conditions.

I'm sure I'll sleep well tonight, but maybe not--in anticipation of the workshop tomorrow.

Off to a workshop--

I'll be leaving tomorrow morning to stay with my friend Grace in Fremont and to attend an abstract workshop presented by Jean Warren. I may be "out of commission", in terms of blogging, for a few days depending upon time and circumstances. I will take my laptop but I'm not sure if I'll be online at all until I return home next Monday evening. If you don't see new posts for a few days, don't be surprised. I'll try to take photos and take good notes so I'll have a lot to report when I return. I am really looking forward to the workshop, but the timing isn't the best with my Reedley Show hanging next Wednesday. I'm just about ready for it but there is so much to do in preparation for even a relatively small show. I'm planning for about 20 paintings, just so I have a choice when it comes to actually hanging them.

More soon!