INSPIRATION IMMERSION in the LAND OF ENCHANTMENT

In September, my friend & fellow artist Kathleen Moore joined me for a 9 day visit to New Mexico. It was something of a trip down memory lane for me; I've been visiting the area since 1980 and my hubby & I spent parts of many winters RVing in NM.

We flew into Santa Fe from San Jose CA. Then we took the rental car on a fun circle tour. 

Our route

While we were in Santa Fe we spent our days checking out the Galleries and shops around the Plaza where we discovered some amazing art and took advantage of some incredible bargains. We quickly learned that food offerings everywhere were exceptional. As a retired architectural designer, I was fascinated by the local architecture. 

The ristras reminded me that I miss this decorative element - I need to order one!

 

After a couple days we headed to Taos via the High Road. This road winds through the hills and passes through tiny villages. We planned our trip to coincide with the High Road Art Studio Tour. Again, we were not disappointed with the art nor with the artists we visited. 

Our hotel in Taos was just a short walk from the Square, and we managed to put on plenty of miles. We discovered a major art festival was underway! Again, we had a great time.

While in Taos, we spent a day at the ancient Taos Pueblo; it is the oldest continuously inhabited city in the country. It's still very very poor, but many superb artists open their homes/shops and we again scored some great deals on jewelry and Christmas ornaments. It really amazed me that this city still uses a stream that flows through as their only source of water - they haul their water in buckets still today.

Heading from Taos to Chama, we stopped to visit the Earthship. This development is part of Great World Earthship community. It's located in the high-desert mesa near Tres Piedras and El Prado. It's a fascinating place that I urge you to learn about.

After a beautiful drive through the mountains, we arrived in Chama. The next day we took the historic narrow-guage steam train into Colorado High Country. The Aspen were turning, and everything was lush & green and streams were flowing. This was pretty exciting since the area has been in a drought and everything was brown the week before. We got lucky with all that rain!

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Next we headed back toward Santa Fe, stopping at Ghost Ranch (one of Georgia O'Keefe's homes). We visited the parts that are open to the public. 

Then we went on down the highway and explored the Georgia O'Keefe Welcome Center & Museum in Abiquiu. Another place everyone should visit, especially artists!

Finally back in Santa Fe we spent another day checking out the galleries on Canyon Road. More inspiration!

Our final day we went to the Santa Fe Meow Wolf - a new experience for both of us!

Back home after an absolutely lovely holiday for us two old widow-woman artists. 

Both of us found inspiration in literally everything we saw. Now we need to get busy and Create Art!

Catch Up Time

 I am so far behind with my posts. It's been been a very busy time for the visual arts here in the Tri-Valley.  I currently have paintings in six exhibits!

Here are my more recent pieces.

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Exciting Exhibition

 I have these two pieces in the Grand Opening exhibit at Latte da Vinci in Pleasanton CA. The reception is this Saturday, August 16, 4:00-8:00.

Occasionally I am 'driven to abstraction', and these are part of that series. Both are mixed water media on Yupo.

'Moving On', 16x7, and 'Midsummer's Eve', 7x17.

New!

 I painted these interesting mushrooms for my dear daughter-in-law Jenise Robbins Batchelder's birthday. She & I both thought the photo (see below) I took of them looked like flower blooms.

'Shroom Bloom', 8x8 watercolor on paper.

Art update

I've been rather remiss in posting, and much has happened recently. 

My 'Prickly Power' painting of a prickly pear cactus received SILVER (1st place) honors at the Alameda County Fair Art Exhibition. 

'Silently Slipping Away' and 'Death by Plastic' were juried into the Fragile Earth: A Call to Action exhibition at the Bankhead Art Gallery in Livermore.

And I completed four new paintings that are off to the framer now. See below

Prickly Power, watercolor 

Death by Plastic, mixed media on panel

Silently Slipping Away, mixed media on panel 

 

Vintner's View, 20x20 watercolor on Yupo 

Bird's Eye View,  11x11 watercolor on paper

Grapes Aplenty, 8x10 watercolor on Yupo 

 Fore and Pour, 20x20 watercolor on Yupo 

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Step by Step to the Finish

As promised, these images the steps of the process to finalize the mixed media intuitive piece I started when I gave a demo at the LAA/PAL General Meeting in June.

I worked on this off& on for over a week, giving it plenty of time to tell me where it was taking me.

The first one is the beginning started at the demo, and the last one is the finished piece, 'Silently Slipping Away'. 

This is where I started during my demo.

Here I added more paint to bring out the lower right.

I decided the Moon (or Sun) need to be red!

I used watercolors for the tree trunk and added gold acrylic

 to the boulders in the lower right.

 Final steps were adding dead branches to the tree 

and doing some value changes.

And there ya have it!

What FUN!!!

Last night I gave a talk and demonstrated a fun - and challenging - mixed media technique I love to play with from time to time.

My goals: get some people interested in & maybe excited about doing some intuitive painting, something new & different, and HAVE FUN!

I'm happy to report that audience participation was great - I do believe people were having fun. 

A couple friends shared pictures they took of me working. And I'm sharing the piece as it developed last night. I'll be working on this in the coming days and will post progress. These typically take 3-5 days complete, around 8-12 hours of work and a lot of drying time.