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.

Honeysuckle Pastel Painting

Busy time for me right now,... I have much work to catch up on, so this will be short.

Over the weekend, I went camping and managed to complete a little pastel painting of honeysuckle blossoms in front of a tree trunk. I tried something new (for me) this time. I applied the pastel color directly onto acid-free mat board which had a dark blue suede finish. It was an interesting experience. The suede-like surface had a very soft feel to it. it accepted the color from the pastel stick beautifully, and the dark blue gave me a nice dark color that peeked out from behind here and there.

I'm not sure yet how I feel about the fact that it seemed hard to achieve a crisp sharp edge though. For the images in this piece, leaves, bark, honeysuckle blossoms, I don't think sharpness is necessary. I will certainly explore this more.

Image: (c) 2009 Jeanne Guerin-Daley

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!

Cyanotype Photogram with Pastel

"Boston Ivy Climb" (c) 2008 Jeanne Guerin-Daley

This is one of the pieces that was submitted for hanging at the upcoming ARTsisters exhibit at the Appel Gallery which is in the Jewish Community Center in Cherry Hill, New Jersey. Their address is 1301 Springdale Rd, Cherry Hill, NJ 08003

There will be an artist's reception on Thursday, May 7th, 2009 from 7 to 8:30 pm. I plan to attend that.

It is an example of my exploration into the mixing of cyanotype photograms with other mediums in order to introduce color and create a new environment/feeling. (It is one piece of paper, matted with a double window.)

The gallery space there is quite expansive, and there was a lot of interesting artwork submitted; it should be a good show.
To view the Appel Gallery's website, click here.

"Orchids in the Mist"

Hi, guys.

This is the image I selected for my postcard to announce the latest events in my world of art.
The postcard will have information on the back about when and where one can check out some of my new art.
If you're on my mailing list, you'll be receiving a free (postcard-sized) copy of this piece, entitled "Orchids in the Mist." Watch your mail for it!


(If you're not on my mailing list, but would like to be, just shoot me a quick email. Go to my new website,
http://www.jeanneguerin-daley.com
and click on the "Contact Jeanne" link.
You can leave me a message asking me to add your address to my list.)

So,
about "Orchids in the Mist..."
This piece was the result of a combination of experimentation with pastels and cyanotypes ...(and of orchids too of course! I just love the look of orchids: the shape, the colors, the delicate nature of the flower. I hope to own a real orchid plant someday!)

I was able to take home some leftover cut orchids from a big party that was held at Nemacolin Resort about a year ago (long story,... ask me sometime...no, I didn't attend the party,) and I was amazed at how long the orchids lasted! As the lower flowers started to wilt, younger, new flowers blossomed at the top end of the stem.

Thanks to Bonatso's Flowers, and my husband's Valentine's Day gift to me this year, I recently had a chance to have a real orchid sprig (among other beautiful blossoms too!) to observe and study. First, I chose a cyanotype photogram that I had made last summer. In my opinion it didn't have enough ooomph to hold its own as a piece of art, but it looked like a great base for something else! So I decided to play around with pastels on top of that beautiful Prussian blue base color that cyanotypes provide.

I had a lot of fun playing with the mediums. I used the pastels to depict the shades of the orchid, but also to portray a mysterious atmosphere in the background of the flowers, an atmosphere resembling a vague, misty place, filed with questions and ambiguity. isn't that what art is about? Ambiguity, asking questions, looking for answers?

I hope I succeeded in creating a mystical place for one's eyes to wander through, to search, to enjoy.