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Virtually every time I put together a group show or event, I am reminded of the comment (I do not know who the original speaker was) that getting artists to follow rules and deadlines is as difficult as herding cats. We have 4 cats in our house, and I can honestly say that "herding" them is a lot easier than getting artists to comply with deadlines. In one respect, the cats and the artists are the same ... promise free food and they will come! With artists, the promise of prominent press coverage is also a draw for many of them, for some a bigger draw than free food.

For every dozen artists who read the prospectus, follow the rules, and submit their info on time, there are another 3 to 5 who will frantically call or e-mail a day or 2 after the deadline saying "Oh, I totally spaced! Can I still ..." ... insert "send my check", "send my titles", "get in" or some other phrasing that translates as "I had total disregard for your requirements which are trivial and unimportant to me but I still want to be in your show."
Sometimes these requests come just a day or 2 before hanging ... with show date announced a month or more in advance ... and even though my answer is "Sorry, the inventory sheet is already printed and all the tags are made" I will still get "Well then can't I just give you ONE? You can print ONE tag, right?" Um ... no - I print them on SHEETS of business cards and I'm not wasting a whole sheet to print one ... for which you STILL haven't given me price, size, & location of scene ... our next change-out is in June, PLAN to put it in then.

And there's the inevitable comment "Well, can't you just write it in on the inventory sheet and hand-write a tag? I'll do it myself?" or "What if I make my own tag?" Oh sure, why not? - that will look VERY professional! Even though my NHPleinAir Artists group is a mix of professional and hobby artists, when I put together a group show to showcase our works, I do my best to keep our shows as professional looking as possible. One tag that's hand-written can totally destroy the entire look of a show and reflect poorly on the entire GROUP, not to mention on the individual artist. And hand-written entries on the inventory sheet also speak volumes to our host venue, saying "This is not a group to be taken seriously - they're slip-shod and disorganized."

All that said, I fully understand that there are times when things just get out of hand and time runs away from you, and I will sometimes make allowances. But I also find that once I've done that, it seems to be the same people who ALWAYS had a crisis and need special treatment and I've actually recently come to believe that, except in rare circumstances, being "nice" and giving in only serves to enable the behavior! In networking, I learn that the same folks are guilty elsewhere as well! It's a pattern - and they're allowed to get away with it, and so never have to learn the importance of following guidelines and deadlines. And then it snowballs into "Well, you let me in the last time, even though I was late..." Where does it end?

I prefer herding cats ... it's easier, and there are no decision to be made! Put out treats or food, or start flipping the ribbon toy and they'll come and purr and rub my legs and sit in my lap. No wanting a different treat or "I'll come later" - they know to do it NOW and don't argue that they're too busy!

In the years since I started taking classes in painting I've learned that if you have 1 or 2 really good and competent teachers, you may not learn anything NEW in workshops with other teachers. You will hear all the same rules, the same formulas, the same theories, etc. You may hear them presented in a slightly different way and with different examples to illustrate, and each workshop will reinforce what you've already been taught and, maybe, remind you of things you've forgotten. Some teachers may be more creative or innovative in their approach, but they will give you the same information. Some teachers may introduce you to new colors that you would never think to try, but you'll get the same tried and true "rules" for color mixing. And, if a regular classmate happens to be in the workshop with you, you'll look at each other and smile and nod ... "Yup, she taught us that too!"

And once in awhile, if you want to push yourself into actual growth, you will sign up for a workshop that is somewhat above your level of experience or with a teacher whose paintings you admire but who paints in a completely different style that you're not quite sure you want to DO but think you might learn something useful from the experience. And the painting pictured here, a full sheet (22x30) watercolor (laying on the floor under the table for photographing) is the result of such a workshop.

I love watercolors - they are probably my first love, although I also paint in oils, acrylics, and pastels. And all of my watercolors are very "tight" and detailed and technically challenging. The painting shown was achieved by working wet into wet and splashing and spraying with a spray bottle - something I would NEVER have had the guts to do on my own! And I absolutely love the results and can't wait to try this again and maybe even en plein air.

The value of workshops/ ... reinforcement of what you have already learned and sometimes UNlearning what you've previously learned!

After time off forced by medical issues, I'm back to doing private art instruction for both adults and youth and have, within the last 2 weeks, reawakened to the fact that we have so much to gain from our students ...
... when only working for one's self, it is easy to fall into the trap of doing what works automatically and without really thinking about the process. Working with a student actually forces one to think through the whole painting - the design, the composition, the colors, the direction of brush strokes ... all of those things that we tend to do automatically, but which need to be EXPLAINED to a student.
First, there's the selection of a photo (if we'll be working from photos) if the student says "Whatever you think I should try". Does s/he need development in creating 3 dimensional forms? in color mixing? in recognizing values? Searching through one's extensive reference library with an eye to developing specific skills in a specific student makes one looks at the photos completely differently. Which could, in turn, lead one to find a photo that was forgotten but that just HAS to be painted, as was the case with my pencil study that is the illustration for this blog entry.
Then there are the inevitable questions if one does a demo ... Why did you make the river bend there? Why did you choose that blue rather than this one? Grass blades are vertical, why are your brush strokes horizontal? How do you make the strawberry look like it's on the table and not floating in the air? And the teacher has to think through how to answer the questions in a simple, concise, and easy to understand manner ... which actually forces one to think "Now, why DID I do that?"
Having students makes one think through and evaluate one's own processes, which, very often, can be the key to bringing one's own work to the next level.
We have a lot to gain from teaching others ... I highly recommend it!

Today's blog entry is more of a question than a statement on anything. I should start by saying that I do have a bit of a reputation for being able to see things in paintings, much like seeing animals in clouds. I can often see animals or people or other things that the artist did not intend and probably does not want to have in the painting because once the thing is seen it distracts from viewing the rest of the painting. What has been seen cannot be unseen, you know?
So this morning I saw a FB posting of a beautiful painting by an artist whose work I admire. The painting was a simple and beautiful interior scene in an old house. And I just had to ask him if he also saw the woman in the scene. His reply: "Ah, what?" I suspected as much.
Some artists are open to further explanation and others are completely uninterested in seeing the hidden, possibly subliminal, images. He was receptive, so I quickly pulled the image into photoshop and outlined her for him. She's really nothing more than what he painted as random shadows on the wall, but she is (to me) clearly a dark haired woman with Gibson girl type hairdo in a long victorian style skirt and with a short cape or long ruffle that comes from her shoulder to her elbow. She also appears to be holding a baby or small child.
He didn't say that he doesn't see her, but did say it was "a stretch" for him and invited me to view the paintings on his website to see if I see anything in any other paintings. It seems that he's done that same house many times (it's beautiful) and of about a dozen paintings I only see her - or what might be her - in a total of 4 but none of the others as clearly as in this first one viewed this morning.
So - why is he drawn to paint scenes in that house? What is it, possibly - other than the beautiful architecture and furnishings - that attracts him? Or is there a voice ... a Muse, if you will, that directs him to paint it? I ask this because I have recently had a startling revelation of my own. There is a lovely scene at an orchard in the next town over from me ... typical New England scene with forked dirt road, apple trees, pumpkin patch, old farm house, red barn. The dirt road is in the orchard and the farmhouse is across the street ... a very busy street. If you sit at just the right places in the grass alongside the dirt road, you can't even see the busy road. I've done more than 5 paintings from positions within about 20 feet of each other because whenever we wind up painting there I am just somehow just "called" to that scene. So at a recent local art show I had 2 paintings of that scene hanging near each other and realized for the first time that they were slightly different views of the exact same location. I mentioned this in conversation with a patron who commented what a beautiful view it is and she said "You know that there was a fatal car accident right there many years ago, don't you?" Wh-a-a-a-t? No, I did NOT know that! And she suggested that possibly a spirit was guiding me to paint that location. After seeing the woman in someone else's painting this morning, I'm going to have to take a close look at my paintings of that spot and see if there is, maybe, a faint image of a man somewhere near the tree!
I have half wondered before, but now have some serious questions as to why we sometimes feel compelled to paint a certain thing or place ... if we are being directed or guided by forces unknown to us?
Your comments & experiences are welcome, as always!

In preparing lessons for my private students, I tend to research all those helpful tips ... the "rules" ... for creating "good" paintings. For every aspect of a painting there are rules ... limit your values ... simplify the design ... see the shapes ... use odd numbers of objects ... vary the size of the sections ... etc, etc, etc. And sometimes the "rules" can be conflicting - don't put anything important in the middle vs make sure there's something interesting in the middle ... warm light, cool shadows vs incorporate warm colors in your shadows. So many things to learn and remember and make sense of!

And then we have a rebel like Pablo Picasso who trained as a classical artist and described himself as of moderate ability and because he was, apparently, getting bored with following conventional rules, he decided to shake things up and break those rules - as many ways as he could - allowing him a new sense of freedom and creativity and spurring him to admit "It's taken me a lifetime to learn to paint like a child" ... or something very close to that.

Children don't have the fine motor skills to control their brushes and crayons the way many adults can and they don't have the baggage that comes with having to do things "right", so they have the freedom to draw and scribble and use bright colors and CREATE without worrying about it being "wrong". But for the same reasons, children also have an intuitive sense of what is "right" (or wrong) and have not yet learned the social "sophistication" to diplomatically state their opinions but instead will say exactly what they think.

In recent weeks I've seen a lot of mediocre and even "schlock" art and heard the "there are no rules, art should be FUN!" argument on a regular basis. It is this artist's humble opinion that, simply because of the physics of the universe and human visual perceptions of it, there ARE indeed rules and that we are free to choose whether to follow those rules or not follow them, but before we choose to break them we need to have a basic understanding of them. Freedom is not simply utter chaos but, rather, there is actually an order within the freedom. Put another way ... how do you know you're free if you don't understand the boundaries of confinement?

Well! Once one starts a blog, I suppose there is an expectation that the author will continue to create entries - it is, after all, supposed to be LOG. Problem is, the author needs to actually remember that she started a blog and then come up with something about which to write.

Although I have been painting a lot, I've been remiss in photographing, framing, posting and haven't logged in to put up anything new and so haven't actually seen that I indeed HAVE a blog. OOOPS!

This weekend I will be demonstrating, exhibiting, and (hopefully) selling at Art in Action in Londonderry, NH. Art in Action is much like an open studios tour, but the town of Londonderry is very spread out and doesn't actually have a downtown in which there might be studios. So area artists come together with some artwork and bring their easels and paints or whatever their mediums and do a sort of open studios in one big location ... actually, it's 2 generous local businesses who host the artists. And thinking about this coming weekend made me remember Art in Action back in May ... hence CAMELIA, the blue camel.

One of the artists showed up in May with her leg in a boot/air cast and rather than giving the ho-hum answer of "I tripped & fell on the stairs" she creatively explained that her pet camel had stepped on her foot while she was feeding her. I'm primarily a plein air painter, so later in the day asked if we might come over to paint her camel and with a suspicious twinkle in her eye she said "Well, you COULD ... if you were able to see her. She's shy." Later, still not sure where this was going, I asked if she was a Dromedary or a Bactrian and the answer was that she's an extremely rare three-humped camel. And she's blue. Uh huh. So, anticipating more fun than and more lively visitor interraction than if I was just putting finishing touches on my normal landscape paintings, I quickly found photo references for camels and created Camelia ... which, at the end of the event, I gave to the artist as a portrait of her camel.

We all had some good laughs as the painting developed, it prompted some wonderful customer interactions in all of the booths in my area, and it was fun for everyone, but my real point is ... you never know where, when, & how you might find inspiration and even something silly can trigger whole new insights and creative avenues!

I'd intended a different topic this week, but this morning's experience dictates this content!

I can only truly speak for myself, but know many painters echo my sentiments. The vast majority of us experienced plein air painters truly do not mind being approached while we are working - really! I say "experienced" because with that experience comes the wisdom to find a secluded or isolated spot if we really don't want people around and if we are set up in a public area that means we ARE approachable. Within certain parameters.

I don't mind chatting and answering questions - you can stand by me for an hour asking me questions about technique, color mixing, composition. I'll chat with you about your Great-aunt Millie who was a popular watercolorist back in the day. I'll recommend teachers or informative websites if I'm familiar with your area. And I'll discuss my equipment and suppliers. Whatever! But please, please, please DON'T TOUCH! Do not touch my chair, my easel, my brushes, my palette, my painting, or my person. Touching is an outright no-no ... and that includes your children and your dog(s).

That being said, I'm more than happy to pet (and even kiss) your dog(s) IF I don't have paint on my hands - but please don't let your fur baby approach at high speed, jump around, and knock over my easel! And no, I'm NOT responsible for grooming fees if your unleashed Tasmanian Devil (remember Taz from cartoons?) jumps up and puts paws in my palette or any other way gets my paints all over herself! Also true for ferrets and any other pets that get walked outdoors on leashes.

I love children and am happy to chat with them also. I'll explain how to find and make the shapes that make up what we see, to discuss color mixing ... see everything in the first paragraph ... but I am not the free babysitter so you can go catch a little quiet time for yourself. Read: "Oh, look honey! An artist! Why don't you stay and watch her for awhile? You know how you like to paint. I'll be over there." (1/4 mile down the road/beach and well out of earshot. And no, your children can't paint on my painting so please teach them that at home before they meet an artist in the field. If I were teaching a class I would have canvases or other surfaces for everyone. If I've spent 2 hours on a painting which is now near completion as a plein air study, I really don't want anyone else's brush strokes (or fingerprints) in it. It actually might be OK to ask - there are times when I might say yes - but definitely not when I'm working in oils because I also don't want your child(ren) touching my toxic materials! Again, the PLEASE DON'T TOUCH rule. I am horrified to have to say that this morning I had one otherwise beautiful little cherub ask if she could paint and when I said no and explained why she said "but I WANT to paint" and when I again explained why, she stamped her foot and said "Well what if I just mess up your paints, huh? What then?" Before I could answer, her toddler sister came running at my palette with her hands raised and I literally had to run interference because Mom wasn't even within my peripheral vision! When mom arrived on scene she looked at my WIP and said "Oh. You're really good at that!" That? LOL!

If you're interested in the painting in progress, don't be afraid to say so and ask the price. Sometimes a painting is available for purchase right then, sometimes it's actually a commissioned piece in progress, and sometimes I might plan to bring it to more detailed levels of completion, but it doesn't hurt to ask. But then please don't say "Oh. Well will you take x$?" and offer 1/2 (or less!) than the quoted price. Seriously - if you go to Macy's, Target, Prints n' Things, Pier One, IKEA ... ANY retail store! ... do you bring your intended purchase to the register and say "Will you take this much money?" When asked in the field, most artists (myself included) would quote you a price that's considerably lower than what the painting would bring under other circumstances, allowing for the fact that it's still wet, it's unvarnished and unframed, and there's no shipping involved.

So - its it OK to approach an artist in the field? Absolutely YES if we are set up in a public place. Just follow the same common sense rules and etiquette that you would when meeting new people under any circumstances, don't be rude, and keep your critters (regardless of # of legs) under control!

I was reminded yesterday of two pieces of advice for artists that were told to me long ago: one says that a competent artist can find something to paint anywhere, regardless of location. The other says that just because something is beautiful, that doesn't mean it's painting worthy. Good advice for all artists and also for buyers who want to commission an artist to do a painting of a favorite place.
Yesterday I participated in a paint-out on a truly beautiful college campus. It had been advertised as "in the tower garden" and somewhere there was mention of roses, so it was very disappointing to find only green lawn, some wonderful ancient trees, and coleus in planters on a patio/terrace. The organizer assured everyone that we were free to paint anywhere on campus because "it's all so beautiful". It was indeed beautiful, but for the next 1/2 hour I watched dozens of artists walking around complaining "I can't find anything I want to paint." I ultimately decided on the scene in the attached photo and managed a nice little (6x12) painting, but I don't know that the painting would be of ANY interest to anyone not somehow connected to the college. At least one artist wiped out the painting she'd been working on because it just wasn't interesting or exciting. Another artist later admitted that he'd taken a branch from one tree and tied it to another tree so that it could be in his field of view to enhance the composition and make his painting more interesting.
This is important information for artists and buyers. As an artist you have the "artistic license" to rearrange what you find - ideally without literally moving things and damaging flora and fauna! And as a buyer who might want to commission of painting of a favorite place, you need to somehow convey/impart exactly what it is that you love about the place. What is it that you see when you think of the place? What do you feel? An artist can choose colors and tweak lights and shadows to create a mood or an illusion of time of day, but when presented with a very pretty scene that's just green (regardless of the variety of greens), "pretty" doesn't always translate as a good subject for a painting!

A few years back we had a major problem with squirrels at my house ... a whole story that I don't want to get into ... but this year I've seen very few. No visible nests in the woods behind my house, either. Seems strange. Not so many chipmunks this year either. But I am hearing a lot of song birds and the occasional woodpecker, so we decided it should be safe to hang a feeder off our deck again. I got a small suet feeder and within 2 days the birds started coming. Then I saw the woodpecker and went and bought a seed block formulated especially for woodpeckers.

The occasional woodpecker? We have at least 2 distinct pairs of hairy woodpecker, a pair of downy woodpeckers - I can't tell if there's more than 1 male or female, they look the same to me. Flickers - I have no idea how many, but there's almost always a flicker out there! The pileated woodpecker that I can hear and sometimes see in the woods hasn't come within 40 feet of the house.

Within 1/2 hour's time I was able to identify no less than 10 species of bird at my feeder, and two different orioles just showed up day before yesterday. The biggest problem so far has been the grackles. They're not the most attractive bird, or have the prettiest song so they're not exactly what I was hoping to attract. But they are, by far, the greatest in number AND the most aggressive, chasing away the other birds. And they can go through an entire suet block in a single day!

And one of those critters - I don't know who - has told their friends, the squirrels, that there are feeders on my deck. The feeders were out for a good week, almost 2, before the squirrels showed up a few days ago. Brazen and fearless! I open the door and go out on the deck and one squirrel (the biggest one) sits back on his haunches and, so help me, glares at me! I take a few steps forward and he holds his ground. Two more steps and a stamp and he flies up into the air as if he's going to lunge at me and lands back on the railing. Two more stomps forward and he knows I mean business and takes off for the woods, going airborne and missing the nearest branch in mid flight. 1/2 hour later he's back - with a friend. And by sunset a $10 block of woodpecker seed is gone. If I'm home, I can chase them, but if I'm at work the squirrels have free access to the feeder.

But the BEST part of having the feeders is the photo ops. I think my next painting series is going to have to be Songbirds of my Backyard and the Squirrels who Antogonize them. I can stay indoors looking out the sliders or look out the picture window in my kitchen and paint from life or get some excellent photos with my zoom. I'll have to figure out a way to deter the squirrels (and maybe the grackles), but I'm amazed at the variety of birds at the feeders and will keep them up as long as I can!

I've never actually wanted to do a blog - don't "get" why anyone might be interested in me - but I've been dragged (kicking and screaming) into the 19th century against my wishes so here is my anachronistic anti-techie self!
I fell in love with NH on my first visit when I was about 13 years old and promised myself that someday I would live here. Fortunately, the man I married felt the same way and we escaped central NJ to live in southern NH some 25 years ago and neither of us has ever regretted a day here and we love NH more now than we did when we chose to move, if that's possible!
There are plenty of jokes about the seasons in NH, told lovingly of course! And since I'm primarily a plein air painter (that means that I paint out doors and from life) I've had lots of opportunity to experience the reasons for those jokes! "If you don't like the weather, just wait 5 minutes ... it'll change." True. "You know you're from NH if you wear your parka and your shorts on the same day." True! Example: This past weekend I was on an Artists' Get-Away Weekend in the White Mountains ... a twice yearly event loosely organized by fellow plein air painter Byron Carr that we've been doing for almost 10 years now. It's a wonderful relaxing, frustrating, fun, productive 4 days of painting en plein air (that's French, you know) with fellow artists. The painting pictured was done on Friday afternoon. The weather? At night and in the early morning the temps were in the high 30s or low 40s. Not quite parka weather, but definitely wool sweater with silk thermals or longjohns. But in the afternoon, the temps were up in the 70s! This time of year is what I call "Banana Days" ... you have to dress in layers and PEEL them off as the day warms up! And it's black fly season ... I do believe black flies could easily be our State Bird, if that position was not already occupied by the Purple Finch. Black fly season is good for our image though ... unsuspecting tourists think we're all really friendly and waving to them!
I'm NOT going to do this blog thing more than once a week and I hope to keep it short each time ... and to stick mainly to ART stories & comments. So you all can relax and enjoy and maybe even come back again to see what I'm up to (to what I'm up is more grammatically correct but sure doesn't sound right)! Now go spread some smiles and friendship!