Wash, rinse, repeat

A couple of posts ago was my 1000th "official" post on this blog (not counting the old, home-spun blog I started earlier. In total, I've been blogging for nearly six years now.

I was updating my Purchase page...sort of a master list with thumb nail photos of every single painting I've ever done...I realized I didn't have photos of quite a few pieces. I started browsing my blog archive to see if I could find some, even if they were just "in progress" (and vowed to take better photo documentation of my work in the future).

Anyway, I ended up sifting through my archives for hours, and it was fairly enlightening! I mean, I used to keep a private journal growing up and periodically I'd go back and read through it. But I don't go back and read through my blog very often, but I'll give you the gist of it:

"Ahhhh, I'm so stressed out about this show coming up that I haven't done any work on. I'll never finish in time. I'm such a loser, I'm not a *real* artist anyway, I shouldn't even bother"

"YEAH! Painting is the BEST.... WHEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEE I couldn't stop even if I wanted to. I think I'm high on paint fumes but it doesn't matter because I'm BRILLIANT"

"Show went OK but I didn't sell as much as I'd hoped. Bringing back the unsold work makes me feel like a loser, why do I even bother?"

"Completely blocked, have been unable to paint for months. No worries though, my next show is still months away. I'm not going to procrastinate this time!"

Hmmm, so here it is mid June, my next opening is August 7th (about a month and a half away). I haven't started any new pieces yet. I have, however, put a blank canvas on my easel. I've also thought a lot about starting, and I've worried a lot about not starting. And now I'm writing about the need to get started, and the fact that I feel like a slug and a Loser...so...it's good to at least know this is obviously just part of my "process"...as they say in the bizz.


Elise on 06.16.09 @ 08:31 AM AK [link]

Sandy Beach Pump House

Some people have contacted me in the past about interest in the Sandy Beach Pump House.

The size of the printed area is 14"x10.5" and the total size of the print is 17"x13". It sells for $40.00 + $5.00 shipping and handling if you live outside Juneau/Douglas. I'm attaching a weird photo of me holding the print so you can get an idea of scale.

Cheers!



If you're interested, I should have the link to paypal and credit card payments set up on my prints page in the next couple of days...but I can always email you an invoice if you have a paypal account.

In other news, I have FINALLY started working on my show for August. I'm still in the "conceptual" phase, but it just feels good to be working again!

Elise on 06.15.09 @ 04:50 PM AK [link]

A picture is worth a thousand words

Sorry to anyone out there who still checks in on this blog from time to time. I haven't been updating it for awhile. Summer's hard, you'd think we'd be less busy but in some ways, it just seems like there's so much more to get done in the summer. My list is really long and quite depressing, though I'm making good headway.

The show went pretty well, I sold 3 original paintings and 8 prints. The sell of the prints counter-balanced the relatively few paintings that sold.

2 of the paintings that sold were ones I had reworked from previous shows. I'm not sure how I feel about that.

I need to get cracking on my show for August, but my heart isn't it in. I've been sick a lot lately. I've been feeling pretty down in the dumps too. There have been a lot of overwhelming changes in my life, much of which I can't write about because of privacy issues.

It's just been hard. And then, I heard this horrible BBC report on the radio the other day about the plight of women refugees from Darfur and I felt like a spoiled little brat.

Anyway, I will try to post more regularly...even if the posts aren't very interesting. Below is an image of my show from the day of the opening.




Elise on 06.09.09 @ 02:49 PM AK [link]

Tonight's the night

Well, tonight feels a little anti-climactic, but I'm still nervous as hell. I was able to shrink wrap 12 prints last night. I got a tip from Rob Roys about how to do a better job on the shrink wrapping. First off, let the little heat stick get good and hot before trying to melt the seams. Secondly, use a straight edge (I used a long metal yard stick). The difference was amazing. I had these perfect seams which made the actual shrinking part a piece of cake.

These prints actually look professional, as opposed to having a bunch of extra hole-ridden plastic on the back-sides. I know of 2 or 3 people who plan to buy prints, so even if none of the paintings sell, the prints selling would be AWESOME!

I now have prints of the Pump House Sandy Beach for $40.

The "Book of Dreams" for $45.



And "Lion's Head" for $75 (it's much bigger)



As well as some of my other prints.

I don't think many people will come tonight but I intend to have a nice time either way.
:)
It's the new me!

Elise on 05.08.09 @ 02:17 PM AK [link]

The Artist Reception Cometh

Well, I'm back in Juneau and the artist reception will be this Friday night (May 8th). I am a little worried about it, since they already had the First Friday opening and I'm not sure how many people will attend but we shall see. Hopefully I won't be standing around for 2 1/2 hours alone (AWKWARD!)

I did sell a painting at the opening, and have had several requests for prints so that's cool. I'll bring prints to the artist reception, so the gallery can have their cut. Aaron attended the opening on my behalf last Friday and stayed most of the night. He said it was well attended even though the weather in Juneau was amazing that night. I feel really pleased with the pieces, and not too distraught that the show didn't sell out.

:blush:

Below is the file for the posters I made for the show. I used a 17"x11" sheet of paper and had them cut into two 8 1/2 x 11 posters (to save $$$).






Elise on 05.06.09 @ 01:51 PM AK [link]

Tonight!

technorati tags: Panic-ish

Tonight is the first Friday opening for my show at annie kaill's.

Due to a scheduling snafu on my part, I wont be there.

There will be another reception next Friday that I'll be at, but I'm still really worried about how tonight will go. Aaron is my biggest fan and is convinced that I will sell work tonight, but I'm not so sure. I don't want him to feel sorry for me if nothing sells.

The bottom line is that I feel great about the work. I worked as hard as I ever have on this show. Can't that be enough? Why do we as artists so often judge our success based on how much sells?


Elise on 05.01.09 @ 03:18 PM AK [link]

Risk taking behavior

looking at the calendar today I realized that by this time next week I'll have to have all of my work framed and ready to hang at the gallery. I'm leaving Wednesday after work to go to a conference in Albuquerque NM and I won't be back until the following week. I will miss the First Friday opening but there will be an "artist reception" the following week.

In addition to framing I still have to:
Put the finishing touches on a few pieces and sign everything
Pray the paint dries in time
Name and price the pieces
Write something for the paper
Create and hang the posters for the show
Mail out invitations

Now, some of you may recall that over the holidays I had to reformat my hard drive. I thought I'd backed everything up, but somehow I forgot to back up the most important folder on my computer...my "Art Business" folder. It had my MAILING LIST! My holy grail, the thing I have been working on for over 10 years. So, I may send out e-vites this year, which is a bummer but what else can I do?

Anyway, I took a few risks with this show but I'm not sure if some of them were improvements or not. I can't feel too badly about them if they weren't though, because if you stop pushing yourself to grow as an artist you won't get any better.

There was a real push-pull this show in terms of whether to go more realistic or more stylized and abstract. Use more blended colors or go with pure ones. I decided that I would just do whatever felt right for each particular painting and not worry so much about the group as a whole.

In some ways I think this show would look better spread out single file rather than grouped on a wall all together...but that's a limitation of the space I get. And, it's at my favorite store in Juneau so believe me, I'm not complaining!!!

I have to make a decision about which art work to use for the posters. My favorite piece has nudity in it so some places won't let me hang it with them (also, they get stolen faster). Maybe I'll make some nudies and some clothed so I'll have options.

Damn, I better get busy! I've been so focused on painting that I've dropped the ball on everything else.

Elise on 04.21.09 @ 08:43 AM AK [link]

The "Do-Over"

So, I had this painting that started out as a landscape, and it was "so-so".

I decided it would be more interesting to have a woman in it, so I added one, but only small in proportion to the rest of the painting.

I realize 2 constants in my paintings. First of all, that I feel a compulsive need to outline everything. And secondly, that for pieces that have figures in them the figure has to take up a certain percentage of the canvas. The new figure essentially wasn't big enough.

So I painted over the other figure with a newer, larger (totally different) figure. This added the problem I mentioned before, where texture from the underlying painting (mountain and rocks) were showing through on her face and body. I tried scraping it off but I couldn't get it all. And, if you have any kind of gloss to your oil painting, gallery lights will really highlight all that texture (you can see the mountain and rocks underlying the figure).

This was a real drag, as I liked a lot about the new painting other than the texture issue. One thing I didn't like was the rocks to the left of her. Even though I knew the texture issue had ruined the painting, I kept trying to get this pile of rocks to look right. Aaron agreed that the rocks weren't working.

Then I had an epiphany, quit wasting my energy and time on this painting and simply start a new one, keeping all the elements I liked and getting rid of the elements that weren't working.

So, last night I spent a total of one movie (Underworld) starting the remake of the dysfunctional time-sink. The new painting is awesome (imho) or at least, it's way way better than the other one that I kept trying to "fix".

I have never really done that before (to my knowledge) and it was a very positive experience because I knew exactly what I wanted for the new piece. Later I will post you versions of each painting to show you what I'm talking about.

Anyway, I'm waiting for Aaron to finish up at Earth Day out at the Glacier Visitor Center. We went out there to check out gutter gardens. It's such a cool idea for Alaskan's and I believe that Aaron and I will be starting one of our own soon.

OK, back to painting!



Elise on 04.18.09 @ 02:55 PM AK [link]

I Dreamed a Dream

So, everyone has probably already seen this by now, but it really touched me and I wanted to share in case you haven't seen it yet.

Susan Boyle on Britain's Got Talent.

I was wondering why this performance has touched so many people so deeply, and I think it's more than the fact that she is older and plain and has an unexpectedly beautiful voice. I think it's because we know that she's never been kissed, lives alone, has had a hard life, and yet she's still dreaming of being a professional singer...and the song she chose "I dreamed a dream", is a song about a person who's looking back at how all the hopes and dreams they had for their life were crushed. And yet, Susan Boyle's dreams may actually come true! Sometimes when your dreams seem impossible, there's still hope.

God, this performance really got to me...and I'm not one to forward youtube videos around and I'm not an American Idol fan or anything. I just relate to this woman, and I hope that wonderful things begin to happen for her.

In other news, last night was a WONDERFUL night in the studio. Some days I paint and paint and paint and have very little to show for it. The night before last (for example) I took a painting that I'd finished (signed and everything) and I wanted to fix a bluish shadow on her chin that was bothering me.

Next thing you know I was changing her mouth a little, then her nose was off, then her eyes, then the shape of her face. I spent hours re-painting something and ultimately, it looked better before I'd started.

But last night...I took a new painting that I'd done on a whim with very little planning, and I developed it some more, and it looks so good to me.

I know I'm not posting stuff right now (my pieces) and I'm not sure why. I think because it's close to my opening and if I post things and no one says anything then I'll feel like they must be terrible and I'm already totally stressed out. So, I will consider posting a few images when they are getting closer to being finished.

Right now I have about 8 paintings that are nearly finished, and two or three that are still "in progress" that I may or may not choose to have in the show depending on how they pan out.

Still, last night in the studio was a delirious trance of painting goodness. And I'm pretty sure it wasn't just the painting fumes.

:blush:
Elise on 04.16.09 @ 11:00 AM AK [link]

New Canvase Storage Unit!

So, below is the canvas storage unit that Aaron built for me after I loaded it up with paintings, new canvases, and frames. I had a lot more stuff than either of us realized! My studio seems twice as big now that I don't have to crawl over heaps of precariously stacked paintings in order to get to my chair.



The top unit stores canvases 30"x40", which is as big as I paint these days.
The middle unit stores canvases 24"x"30 and 24"x36".



The second from the bottom stores canvases 18"x24" and 16"x20".
The bottom stores 14"x18" and smaller.

In the previous entry there are a couple photos that show it empty so you can see how it was built. It only took him a couple of hours. I think he used a sheet of plywood, 3 2x4s, and 1 1x2. Then he used wood screws and wood glue and I think that's it. I know it cost under a hundred dollars to make.

This thread on Wet Canvas shows how to make a cheap storage rack for wet canvases, if anyone is interested.
Elise on 04.13.09 @ 08:32 AM AK [link]