Posts

Consistency - a good reminder

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Originally published 8/7/12, a few updates made for republication. ___________________ Kokopelli Conga  ©Jennifer Love I am a fan of Jason Horejs' book, Starving to Successful , and am represented by his gallery, Xanadu (brick and mortar gallery located in Scottsdale, AZ), in their Studio Artists section online. ( Click here to go to my Xanadu page.)  I receive email with info and blog articles from Jason and Xanadu gallery quite frequently. This blog article , written by Jason - from a gallery owner's perspective, is a good reminder about consistency in work (whether style or subject matter). As artists, I think we don't always remember to think of ourselves as a business. We need to create a marketable product and inspire confidence in the gallery owners who carry our work. They need to know that they can replenish our sold pieces with other pieces that are easy for their clientele to recognize as being our work. Kokopelli Circle Dance  ©Jen

FRIDAY FEATURE: Featured Artist ~ Lester B. Lee

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Here is a re-post of my  Friday Feature of artist  Lester B. Lee (first published 5/1/15). Enjoy! ________________________________________________ Lester Bird Lee...from the "Old School" I met Lester B. Lee on my first day of art class in 8th grade. Fresh out of graduate school and already an amazing artist, he took my art education to an entirely new level. "Mr. Lee" was (and still is) a natural teacher - motivating, great at constructive criticism, and he never made you feel that you weren't good enough or talented enough to learn the fundamentals of art - even though I'm sure our 14-year-old art skills were seriously lacking! He used a systematic approach to teach art basics to his students for the first half of the year. Then, after having introduced a variety of mediums and techniques, he allowed the students to write a contract with him to complete a certain number of assignments of their choice for the remainder of the year. Some of those

Inspiration and Blooming Aloe Vera

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Re-post (first published 4/29/12).  ______________________________________ Inspiration! One thing that is wise for an artist these days is to have plenty of your very own, original reference photos whenever possible. It's also good for an artist to plaint en plein air when you can to just get a good reference on color and how light and color intermix in nature rather than a camera interpretation. I don't paint en plein air a lot, so I am trying to do that more often to let my brain work on the color theory. So, while we were out of town visiting Mesquite, NV last weekend, I painted my little "Bottle Bush" painting en plein air one morning. I also took some good reference photos of the Bottle Bush and also an Aloe Vera plant that is about to bloom to add to my reference photo file. (I've never seen a blooming Aloe Vera before - have you?)

FRIDAY FEATURE: Featured Artist ~ Catherine Darling Hostetter

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Here is a re-post of my  Friday Feature of whimsical artist  Catherine Darling Hostetter (first published 4/24/15). Enjoy! ______________________________________ I am trying a new thing with my blog that I am going to call FRIDAY FEATURE. These posts might include Top 10 lists, products/services I have found useful, or other art-related topics (beyond writing about my own art).  To start out, I am writing a series of features about artists I admire. My goal will also be to provide some personal input from each artist - though that might not prove to be possible in every case. But, I will try my best. With that, I welcome you to my inaugural FRIDAY FEATURE post...let's begin! Welcome to the wonderful, witty, and whimsical world of Catherine Darling Hostetter! "Adoggio" ©Catherine Darling Hostetter Catherine, a full-time artist from Midvale, UT, also happens to be a friend of mine (though I don't get to see her as often as I would like). A

Exhibitions, Workshops, Paint Outs and Nibbles

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Where has 2016 gone? Only a few more weeks until the new year. The holidays are upon us! The first few months of this year, I busied myself preparing for an exhibition at the Utah Arts Festival Gallery and finishing up my two years as the Newsletter Editor for the Utah Watercolor Society (UWS). I had been asked to take on the UWS Vice President role for the coming 2016-2017 year and, in June, I was voted in as Vice President. Since then, I have been super busy with all the duties that come with the role of VP! Over the summer, I also learned that I had been selected for another exhibition at the Utah Arts Festival Gallery - but this time for their October show! So, in addition to the VP duties, I worked hard to prepare eleven new paintings for this show. In October, I was also privileged to be the UWS liaison to Iain Stewart , the national artist that UWS hosted for our 2016 Fall Workshop. He was also the juror for our Fall Member Exhibition. What an amazin

Painting for Fall

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Summer FLEW by!  Our summer was filled with tee ball games, coach pitch baseball games, and visits to grandma's house. I spent a good amount of time in my continuing efforts to complete a KonMari sort and tidy of our entire house. We are at the "miscellaneous" category in the discarding process. It's a long process for me, marked with many detours. Not the recommended (tidy all at once, in one "event") process from Marie Kondo. But, I have not lost sight of the ultimate goal, and continue to tidy by category and just keep picking up where I left off whever I can devote a few hours or a weekend to it. It is slowly, but surely coming along! (See my previous blog post " A place of Sanctuary: If I tidy up my home life, it will benefit my professional life ."  to read why I think it's important to complete this tidy project.) Along the way, in July, I also received notification that I have again been selected for a group showing (3 artists) at