A New Gallery!

Last Friday I went to meet with the nice folks at 13 Forest Gallery in Arlington to see about showing some of my work there. They selected three pieces of mine and one of Polo's. Yeah! How exciting is that?. The gallery has a great location along busy Mass Ave and they have a wonderful variety of artwork on exhibit there. We are thrilled to be a part of their collection. They have a new show opening next Friday from 7-9 so stop by and check it out!

I also want to give a big thank you to "my two Kims" for their encouragement.

Out the Back Window

Out the Back Window

Oil with a palette knife on cradled artist board

8" x 8" x .75"

Click on the image to enlarge

While we were in New York City a few weekends ago, I took a bunch of photos as inspiration for new paintings. It's pretty easy for me to get inspired in New York. This painting was done from a photo I took looking out the back window of my friend's loft. I painted it in one sitting at my art class last night. (I guess that is technically considered alla prima?) I really prefer to keep working at a painting while it's still wet. Especially with the thickness of the paint that I use. I'm excited to do more of these.

Time to "Think Spring" again

I just found this scan of a series of mini paintings that I did awhile back for a small works show. Each one is only about 2" square. Made me think of spring and I hope it does the same for you no matter what that pesky groundhog sees today.

I am also thinking of my friend Haydi today and sending warm thoughts her way.

Camouflage

We were in New York City this past weekend and spent the day at the Museum of Modern Art. This was one of those moments when I'm so glad that I had my camera with me. We turned the corner into the Jackson Pollock room and saw this guy who was wearing a camouflage coat that looked just like one of the paintings. Too funny. I imagine him saying to himself "I am so drawn to these paintings, but I don't know why."

KenVi palette knife portrait commission

KenVi

Oil with a palette knife on cradled artist board

12" x 9" x 1.5"

Commission

Click on the image to enlarge

My good friend Wendy asked me to do this painting of her parents Kenneth and Vivien, otherwise known as KenVi (a la Branjelina, Bennifer, etc ). You may remember I did a painting of Wendy and her new husband on their honeymoon in Spain a few months ago. This photo of KenVi was taken at Wendy's wedding last summer where I had the pleasure of spending the time getting to know them better. Such a warm and generous couple of folks. Her family is meeting up in Florida this weekend and Wendy plans to surprise her parents with this portrait. I am jealous of the warm weather they will be enjoying. Is summer here yet?

Masquerade Show and Pastel Demo

After John Singer Sargent, Daughters of Edward Boit

by Frank X. Quinn

Last Wednesday was the reception and awards presentation for the Foxboro Art Association's show called Masquerade. The painting shown above was done by my friend and fellow painter, Frank Quinn. An ambitious undertaking and didn't it come out great? If you look very closely in the bottom left corner, you will see an electical outlet (so clever, Frank!) .

Everyone did an amazing job painting their own version of a famous painting or in the style of a famous painter. I wanted to show you some of the entries, but the room was very crowded so my photos aren't the best. They will give you a sense of the some of the entries anyway.

Below is the first place prize winner, painted by Diane Scotti (after Sargent). Really beautifully done.

Here is a link  that shows my entry, inspired by Mary Cassatt's painting Mother and Child. Everyone enjoyed the show so much, they are talking about making it an an annual event. 

The second part of the meeting was a pastel demonstration by portrait artist, Alain Picard. It was an inspiring presentation and very entertaining as well. How many of us could paint under pressure like that if front of a large group of art critics? His work is simply stunning. Here is a great shot, taken by Frank, that shows the model and the artist with his painting in progress.

I also took this shot of his pastels because he said he got these trays at IKEA for $6 each and he can stack several of them without crushing the pastels. Pretty cool, huh? 

Do you have art supplies or materials that you use that were actually meant to be used for something else? I think that might make an interesting future post–how artists get creative with art supplies and tools. Even better, send me photos and I will post those too.

Warming up with wrinkles

Wrinkled

Oil with a palette knife on canvas paper

7.5" x 8.5"

Click on the image to enlarge

I started off the new year with this painting done in my Thursday night class from a photo reference that was suggested by my art instructor, Kim Morin Weineck. She thought that the wrinkles would provide a great palette knife exercise. She was right. It was also great practice for mixing skin tones. As she noted during critique, my skin tones in the past have tended to be pasty white and chalky, but these came our much warmer and richer. I also have started adding impasto to my colors and like the way it thickens and extends the color without altering it.

This is actually a famous artist. Can you guess who it is?  

Call for inspiration

These 3 painting were done from some of my family's old photographs. They are currently hanging at Custom Art Framing & Gallery 9 in Norwood and have inspired a few people who have seen them to commission me to do paintings from their own family photos. I mean, don't we all have photos just like this at home somewhere?

Which sparked an idea.....

I have an art show scheduled for the month of June and I'd love your help. I would like to invite you to submit a family photo or two of your own that you think might make a great painting.

Here are the rules:

1. Please don't send photos taken by a professional photographer. The photo must have been taken by you or someone you know.

2. Preferably color but black and white is ok too

3. Preferably nostalgic

4. Preferably with people

5. Email a jpeg image to anngorbett@gmail.com and provide a little info about the image, who is in it, and the approximate date the photo was taken if you know it.

6. The last day to submit an image is March 1, 2010

7. By submitting an image, you agree to allow me to use it as inspiration for a painting, choose the composition and the size, exhibit in shows, post on my blog, and offer up for sale.

8. You are by no means required to purchase the painting.

Take a look at my Family Album Series to view previous paintings I have done from family photographs.

I am excited to see what you can dig up!

Oh, and by the way, my mother, who is in 2 of the 3 paintings above, would have turned 76 today. She shared her birthday with Elvis Presley. I'm sure mom and The King are having fun somewhere today.

Random silliness

In my blog side column, I have a Google translation widget which is fun to play with and pretty amazing to see how quickly your words can get translated into other languages.

In Spanish, palette knife gets translated to "la espátula". In French, it's "un couteau."

That's cool.

So, meet the extended palette knife family from Mexico....

Silly, I know.

A Trip to Portland (not Oregon)

Our wedding anniversary is December 30 and every year we like to spend the night away from home somewhere. Never far, just away for the night. This year we chose Portland, Maine which neither of us had ever been to before. (funny aside...when we told my stepdaughter that we were driving to Portland, she said "You're driving to Oregon?") 

What a lovely old port town, very artsy, lots of galleries to visit, interesting restaurants, and wonderful old streets and architecture to explore. We stayed at a hotel that used to be an armory, very quaint and perfect location, right downtown. 

The next day we visited the Portland Museum of Art and I've included a few photos from our visit. We were very impressed with the museum and it's artwork. While they allowed photos to be taken without a flash, they were very strict about not taking photos of artwork that belonged to a private collection. These were marked with a little icon that I of course missed the meaning of until a nice guard kindly explained it to me.

One of our favorite parts was the N.C. Wyeth room. The only painting you could take a photo of is the one below so I also took a close up because the detail on the fish in the boat was incredible.

They also had several signs telling you to remain at least 18 inches from the paintings. I happened to catch Polo, ever the rebel, violating that rule. I hope he wasn't breathing too hard.

On our way out we noticed these huge apples on the wall down to the cafe. They reminded us of Polo's recent series of apple paintings so we had to get a shot of that.

We were surprised to see that when we came out of the museum that the roads and our car were already covered in snow. The ride home was a slow one and we even witnessed a scary spin out and a car being towed out of an embankment. Luckily we made it home safely.

We will definitely return!

What a year it's been

Happy Anniversary dear little blog. It was one year ago today that you were born and what a year it's been. Such pride I feel as I clear the list of exhibits and events that I have participated in this past year to make room for new and exciting opportunities in 2010. 

Bring It!

Portrait Swap

Artist Suzy Charto

Oil with a palette knife on cradled artist board

8" x 8"

Click on the image to enlarge

This is my entry for the latest challenge from Karin Jurick's blog, Different Strokes from Different Folks. This mystery artist will also paint a portrait of me from a photo that I submitted. I remember looking at all of the amazing portraits that were painted last year and knowing that I would want to participate should Karin do it again. What fun this was and I can't wait to find out who my mystery artist is.

UPDATE 12-29-09 Suzy Charto is my mystery artist! Here is the link to the painting she did from my photo. Her blog is so fun to read.

Oh, and this is really cool. Karin is making videos of all of the portraits and posting them on You Tube. There are 4 parts to the series. Check them out!

At Last

At Last

Oil with a palette knife on artist board

10" x 10"

Commission

Click on the image to enlarge

This lovely couple was married in June and their theme song was "At Last". Well of course I've had that song in my head for the last several weeks as well as the entire time I was painting, but then again, it is a great song. The bride's sister commissioned me to paint this as a Christmas gift for her sister, just like the other wedding commission I posted a few weeks ago. Sisters are awesome.

What are those things?

Lanterns

Oil with a palette knife on canvas paper

8" x 8"

Click on the image to enlarge

I painted this from a photo I took on Nantucket this past summer. This restaurant had the most beautiful sidewalk garden with big white hanging lanterns that caught the attention of my camera. I sat down to paint this knowing it was going to be a hard read if you hadn't seen the picture, but it was so full of crazy colors and textures I wanted to give it a shot with my knife.

I Scream, You Scream

I just finished reading this book, The Rescue Artist by Edward Dolnick which was recommended by a fellow blogger (Thanks Katie May!). Interesting read about the theft and recovery of Edvard Munch's famous painting, The Scream. 

Did you know that: 

• The Scream is painted on cardboard with tempera and oil pastel?

• someone (not Munch) wrote on the painting "This must have been painted by a madman"?

• there is candle wax in the bottom right corner where he blew out a candle after working on the painting into the night?

• Munch actually completed 4 Scream paintings?

• The vivid red sky he saw and painted is believed to have been caused by debris from a volcanic eruption in Krakatoa in 1883?

This fragile painting, even though it was removed from it's frame, was recovered without damage by the undercover detective Charley Hill. Hill is from England, yet he was posing as an American from the Getty museum and it was funny to read about what he needed to do and say to make himself believable. A few interesting trivial tidbits: Did you know that the word "horseshit" is apparently only used by Americans? And that Americans switch the fork to our right hand only after cutting our meat? As a lefty-I was surprised by this because I cut and eat with the fork in my left hand.

The book weaves in many other art theft and undercover operations of Hill's as it develops the story of the recovery of The Scream stolen from a museum in Oslo the day that the winter Olympics started. Two men simply put a construction ladder up to the window on the second floor, took the painting, and vanished. Hill has also been working on the recovering the paintings that were stolen from the Isabella Stewart Gardner museum which has remained unsolved since 1990. Hope he can crack it someday!

Destination Wedding

Destination Wedding

Oil with a palette knife on artist board

8" x 10"

Commission

Click on the image to enlarge

This lucky couple got married in Mexico last year and as a special remembrance, her sister wanted a painting done of them together on this beautiful beach. She is going to give it to her as a Christmas gift. What a nice sister!

Support your local artists PART 2

In my continuing effort to encourage others to buy local and handmade this year, here is another great place to do your holiday shopping. Check out Boston Handmade Downtown store through December 24th for some locally made, super creative gifts. Also-check out the video that Nancy Rosetta has posted on her blog to give you an idea of the great items you can find there including her fantastic, one-of-a-kind jewelry. 

Happy Handmade Shopping!

Support local artists this holiday season

This coming Friday, December 4, Custom Art Framing & Gallery 9 in Norwood is having a Shop Til You Drop event from 6-10pm with wine, cheese, and socializing. I can't think of a better way to shop-I mean who else is doing that? If the mere thought of going to a mall makes you sweat with anxiety and dread (like me) why not support your local businesses and artisans by buying unique gifts for everyone on your list?  I can't think of a better, more meaningful way to deck the halls.

Yesterday I visited the gallery to have some framing done and drop off a few smaller pieces. I took a few shots of some of my paintings that are hanging there. The ones seen here are from my Family Album series, as well as two of my tree paintings. All done with a palette knife, of course. It always makes me feel so proud to see them. What a terrific job Julie has done transforming her new location into a wonderful shop. 

Life is a bowl of mashed potatoes

Life is a Bowl of Mashed Potatoes

Oil with a palette knife on 1.5" cradled artist board

10" x 10"

This painting was done last year from a family photograph of a Thanksgiving dinner just before we dug into that big bowl of mashed potatoes and mom's famous strawberry jello mold.  It is currently hanging at Gallery 9 in Norwood. I love painting from old family photographs. They bring back such fun memories. And I love Thankgsiving. I'm pretty sure it's my favorite holiday. It always means family, food, and a long weekend away from work. If you have a favorite family photograph that you might be interested in having a palette knife painting like this done, check out my commission prices in the side column. They make great Christmas presents! 

Happy Thanksgiving everyone, and eat lots of mashed potatoes.

Abstract #2

Abstract #2

Oil with a palette knife on canvas paper

8" x 8"

Click on the image to enlarge

This is my entry to the latest challenge from Karin Jurick's blog, Different Strokes from Different Folks.  Like the last challenge, I was trying to paint just the shapes I saw to keep it as abstract as I could. The photo was full of straight lines and angles-difficult to achieve with a palette knife, so I told myself that they didn't need to be perfectly straight and to just let go and had fun. This was the first time I painted while looking at the image projected on my computer screen. In the past I have printed out a color copy and painted from that. I'm curious what others artist do. Do you print out Karin's photo or do you project in on your computer or do you use some other method?