July Art Exhibit at Gryphon Cafe: July Trilogy

Early this morning, I went to the Gryphon Café (105 W Lancaster Av, Wayne PA) to hang [my part of] the July show. I am sharing the available wall space with two other artists: Dae Rebeck-Sanchez and Pat Jordan. We plan to host an artists’ reception there on Friday, July 17^th, from 5 till 7 pm.

Please consider stopping in if you're not otherwise occupied at the time. I'd love to see you! We will be offering red and white wine and finger food type appetizers. Non-alcoholic beverages will be available for purchase at the Cafe's counter. You can treat your stomach with food and drink, and treat your eyes to some interesting artworks!
The exhibit is entitled
"July Trilogy: Artworks by
Jeanne Guerin-Daley, Pat Jordan and Dae Rebeck-Sanchez
Pastels, Photographs and Mixed Media

I have some recently completed pastels hanging that have not yet been seen on the website or at any other venue as of today. This show will hang until August 2nd. Sold items will continue to hang until the end of the show, so this will be the last chance you will have to view my pastel entitled “Sunflower Play.” That sold this morning at the hanging. (They’re going fast, folks!)

My white azalea painting on which I had been working on lately and of which I had posted some pictures on this blog, has finally been completed matted and framed. Thanks to some of my fellow ARTsisters, their feedback from a recent crit helped me to steer myself in the right direction on it. And buying that softer, whiter pastel stick that I needed really helped it to make the grade. Come see!

Above is a preview of one of the pieces hanging there now.

Image:

"Terry's Mountain Laurel"

Pastel on Wallis Paper

(c) 2008 Jeanne Guerin-Daley

Work will hang until August 2nd.

Azalea Pastel Painting Progresses

Thanks to some great feedback from my fellow ARTsisters, and some extra tolerance from my family (they allowed me to neglect them for a bit so I could paint longer!) I have improved the azalea painting from what it was. Fixed some incorrect perspective and added some darker values in the shadow areas. Found the need to buy a couple more pastels to finish. (My whitest white isn't soft enough to lay on top of the thick layer of the light azalea blooms and they need to be lighter still.) So it's off to the art supply store for me when I get a chance. I hope to finish it in time for the upcoming Gryphon Cafe show. More on that later when I get another minute.

I also started a new pastel with some bold and bright colors with which I'm having loads of fun! (I tend to work on multiple things at once.) I think it comes from being a mom! We moms all have to learn to multi-task in the bottle/diaper/stroller years!

White Azalea Pastel Painting in Progress-as of June 17

I talked about this painting below in the previous post (see "Painting after Nicolas" below.)

I just now got it photographed with the help of the morning sunlight. I feel there is still work to do on it, but it is coming along.

Painting After Nicolas

For the latter part of the afternoon today and into the early evening I drove to the airport with some of my kids to meet a Spanish cousin, Nicolas, at the airport. After meeting up with him, we all went to my sister's house where he'll be staying for awhile, and we had a nice meal of pizza.

After getting home from that, I found that my husband had made himself some dinner. As I passed by my White Azaleas pastel, I heard it calling me. Hmmm. No dinner to make. No urgent commitments; I'm there!

So I grabbed the chance, picked up a purple pastel stick, and began to develop the forms and colors once more. I worked for more than an hour I think; I didn't really keep track... I imagine that many artists are like me in that sometimes when they really get into it ("it" being that "zone" where creativity sparks and sizzles!) time is of no importance. The here and now is only what counts. This is the art time that I treasure the most.

And this is what happened tonight. I think I made several improvements to the picture, although I can't show it to you yet. It was quite dark out when I quit (around 1030, or 11pm) and I'd rather photograph it in tomorrow's daylight than to try to use a flash tonight. With my limited photographic skills, it would do weird things with the colors I'm sure! Busy day tomorrow, but I will try to post the picture by nightfall.

I spent much of the time developing the shadow areas behind the flowerpots and the shadowy and light-filled sides of the stone column. I am not yet pleased enough to say it is finished, but I think things are developing along nicely.

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Latest Exhibition News: I'll be exhibiting along with two other artists at the Gryphon Cafe for the month of July. Spoke to the owner today; the dates aren't set in stone yet. More on that when I know for sure but the hanging date is slated for July 5th. I hope I can finish and frame the azalea painting by then.

There are two pieces (cyanotypes) hanging there now for the month of June, along with my fellow ARTsisters' artwork.

Mothers Day; Pastel Painting Day

This year, I took full advantage of the opportunity to indulge myself on Mothers Day! My kids know that the one thing I love to do the most is to make art. So Mothers Day means Mom makes Art and Dad makes Dinner! (Some of the kids helped too!)

I also took full advantage of the beautiful spring day that we had, and the flowers that were in bloom. The irises were still making me wait, but there was a white azalea bush in full bloom, and some red geraniums in clay pots and some deep purple petunias just asking to be painted! So I set up my french easel out in the front yard and over the course of the day, I worked on two pastel paintings.

For the first one, I focused on the hanging pot of petunias (You can see the petunias in this photo of the 2nd pastel painting-in progress.) I worked on that for awhile, then put it aside to start another, which I also didn't finish (as you can see here). The petunia painting frustrated me because although I thought I owned a large enough assortment of colors, it appeared that I had no pastel color which was quite right to represent those petals! The actual flower is a deep reddish purple. So in order to paint it in bright sunlight, I would want to have at least three pastel sticks which could show the color for the medium value, as well as a dark (shadow) color and a light one for the highlights. Then of course I'd use other colors to blend in for variations in the light, but what I was getting was just not at all what I wanted! So I decided to quit while I was behind! One thing about pastels: you can't mix them like you can with paint! The color of the stick is the color you get when you lay it down.

Now, there is a certain amount of mixing you can do by applying color in layers, but you still need a certain amount of the right hue in your color stick. I also think that maybe the scale of the painting isn't right. It might be better if the image was much larger, but I'm still deciding about that.The other one (the one shown here) had a nice start I think. I incorporated the geraniums and the white azalea in a composition including the front steps. It stayed very loose. Maybe too loose! It definitely needs more work and development. We'll see how it goes.

Mothers Day is over now. Back to the real world!