87th Annual Spring Salon

21x36" oils, sold

on display at the Springville Museum of Art through 3 July 2011

My above painting, Sunset, was juried into the 87th Annual Spring Salon at the Springville Museum of Art. There were 1,008 entries and only 253 were accepted. It's an honor to be displayed alongside some amazing Utah artists.
This piece was purchased by a museum patron who visited the show.

Dusk

10x10" oils
sold

I love this background brown against the tulip's brightness. Surprisingly, there is a gob of brilliant spring green mixed in - the siennas overpowered that pigment but the green played it's part nonetheless.
This painting has already sold - thank you to my awesome collectors out there!

my mixing palette

Here is the newest member of the family- I picked this easel up yesterday while I was in Salt Lake buying art supplies. Totally impulse. I didn't mean to. It just jumped into my trunk (barely). The ledge that the painting sits on is adjustable up and down and my back is thankful - worth every single penny.

Family

24" x 36" oil
sold

I chose this title because these tulips are standing together alike and tall, like a family grouping. It's also a nice nod to the institution of families as close units, as dysfunctional and wonderful as they all are.

I really like how the light is shining on these tulips from the front. Usually my pieces have back-lighting or strong side-lighting. The light coming from the front makes these tulips a lot more confrontational and upright. Couple that with the burnt red background and visually it's very vibrant.

Listening for 5 o'clock

6" x 6" oil

sold


This is my yellow lab, Buttercup. Alpine Art of Salt Lake City, UT is my exclusive carrier of little doggie paintings and I invite you to check out their website or better yet, visit in person. It's up in the Avenues area of downtown Salt Lake amid old trees and other old buildings. You'd never know you were in the middle of a desert.

Every day, my lab can sense when my husband is almost home from work. She'll wait and watch and listen. His truck has an old tick in the wheel and that's how she knows a block away that it's him. It's her favorite time of the day. (He's never home by 5, it's always later, but since 5 is the stereotypical "quitting time" I like it for the title better than another random number of hour.)

Enjoy! *bark*

Tuesday night I had a group of girls come over to my studio to watch me paint. They are in my church youth group. I think they had fun, but I definitely enjoyed it. The painting got some more work done on it after they left and again today while it was still wet. The flowers are done, but the background will need another application once this one is dry. The reds I used when mixing the background color are very transparent and I don't like how it looks brushed on - I want it very opaque. Unfortunately reds take the longest to dry so it will be a few more days before I can mix and apply a more opaque background that still has that crimson brilliance.
These tulips are front-lit, a light angle I don't normally use because my paintings are usually top or back-lit. I like how confronting the row of them all are together.
The Thanksgiving Point Gardens opened on Saturday and I am so ready for hot weather and flowers. It's snowed and rained since Saturday but the sun is out today and I may take my dog to the canyon and try to soak up every speck of Vitamin D I can handle. I'm sick of drab.

Yesterday I took myself on a field trip and it was such an enjoyable day. I went down to Provo to the BYU Museum of Art and spent hours and hours there seeing their current shows. I even ate lunch at the Museum Cafe. It was like I was in college again (my building, the Harris Fine Arts Center, was across the sidewalk from the museum and I would spend a lot of time in the museum...they still have the same huge, perfect leather lounge chairs). One show in particular was just amazing - the Carl Bloch exhibit. My favorite pieces were the altar paintings.  I just have to mention that four of the five altar paintings have never been anywhere except their native church in Denmark or Sweden, so it's remarkable that they traveled to Provo, Utah of all places, and I was able to go see them, sit in front of them, stare at them and admire them. The figures are life-size, the colors are beautiful, the brushstrokes are there right in front of me, and there were two paintings I could hardly take myself away from - Christ in Gethsemane and Doubting Thomas. It was a good experience.