M&Ms are next.

I did the setup for the M&Ms.  Take them out of the package?  What background color to use?  Plain or Peanut?  I'll unveil the details tomorrow.

Now a very sunny Yellow Daylily

This morning I started a startling bright yellow day lily in the sun light.
I also got a critique on the Garden Fairy and it's not done yet, can you imagine?  Oh well.
I almost finished the red geranium of yesterday with the progressive photos.
My Blue Lace Cap Hydrangea is posted on DPW and my FB fan page.

I received an email today from Connie Hayes and her summer program in Italy.
What a great place:  JSS IN CIVITA.  Check out this site.  Tons of information there with videos, etc.

Oh no, not done yet? Garden Fairy

Garden Fairy, 11x14, oil on board.

Yesterday I thought I should call it, The Frog's Left Foot!  ha ha  I went in and glazed it to knock it down a little as it was catching my eye.  I also fiddled with the sky AGAIN.  And added to the outcropping of cat-in-9-tails.  Am I done yet?  I hope so.
Today I put this painting up on the DPW page and my store page, and DPW adds it to my Facebook Fan Page (nice feature).

I started a red geranium yesterday and will try to do a progression of photos while working on it.  Red is such a strong color, but it is fun. :)

Baby Ruth, great story

Today's post to DPW will be my Baby Ruth Candy Bar.  I like this painting the best so far of my candy bar paintings.  Coincidently, yesterday I received a newsletter I get about my other love, roller skating.  In it is a story about a couple, Edna and Harold Owings, a California couple, who are celebrating their 82nd marriage anniversary, and are the Longest Married Couple by Worldwide Marriage Encounter.  They had a Baby Ruth Candy Bar CAKE for the occasion because Harold gave Edna a Baby Ruth Candy Bar each day in the 5th grade! I'm going to send them a giclee of my Baby Ruth Candy Bar painting.
Harold and Edna Owings, married 82 years
Watch video here:

A Garden of Flowers

No picture yet, but I'm working on a 9x12" painting of a section of my garden.  It's beginning to feel a little more like Spring, if only indoors!
My student today will be working of folds of cloth.

My new web site is up!

See my new web site.

I'm still tweeking it, but it's in good shape now. 
I've been posting daily to Daily Paintworks and my FB fan page, trying to pay attention to business.
I've also been painting every day and have a few paintings in process.  Now that I have the go-ahead for my Flower Show (solo art show) I have to get back to painting flowers.  Then there is all the stuff you have to do to make flyers, etc. 
Today I touched up three paintings I thought I had finished, the Sky Bar, the Chunky Candy Bar and the Garden Fairy.  The Sky Bar is up on my DPW Gallery Page and the first day of the aucton (today) it's priced at $25.

Solo Show coming up

I was glad to hear yesterday that I'll be able to have another solo show at the Rhythm Cafe in lovely downtown Merrimac MA.  Don't have the dates yet, but it will be mainly flowers.  I have to see what I have and then plan to fill in and, of course, there is the framing.
The show at Newburyport Art Association is still up and I haven't heard about whether I got into the regional show yet.
I painted this morning at the portrait group

and last night I finished the Baby Ruth Candy Bar. 

Mounds Bar today on DPW

I've been painting up a storm, well, trying to keep up with the weather outside anyway.  It's actually getting up over the freezing mark today and tomorrow.  That will be exciting.  It's raining but I don't care, I just like it warm.  I started a Baby Ruth candy bar and another flower painting.  I worked on the garden fairy, it's really in it's last stages at this point.  Almost ready for prime time.  I worked on the blue lace cap hydrangea, and it's just about finished also.  Too bad I'm off today to the Addison Museum as I'd get a lot of painting done.  I already posted this morning on DPW, etc. and trying to keep up with the administrative aspect of this artist business.  Go to my DPW site to see that I've been faithful about posting, some are auctions and some are straight up postings. 

Are we ever finished with a painting?  I keep going back--giving them another nudge.

Painted all day today

Well, not exactly true, first I had to do all kinds of computer work to post things here, there, and everywhere.  So now this daily blog is kind of a relief to write as it's casual, sort of not part of my work day.
Well, I completed three paintings that were in process.  Like cleaning house I guess.  Now I can start something new.  When my student was here this week, I didn't paint as we were struggling with how to paint folds in fabric.  I mentioned before that I was tiling my kitchen backsplash with all my 6x6 paintings.  Now I'm thinking that I'll do a big one for behind the range, maybe encase it in epoxy, but actually sealing it with varnish works fine too for cleaning purposes.  I've had a painting in my kitchen for probably 15 years and I just wash it off from time to time.  I'm a little tired of painting oranges, so that's over with for now.  I cut up and ate all the veggies that I was going to paint and put them in my boiled dinner the other day.
So I'm now posting my paintings to the shop page blog, the DPW site and the Facebook Fan Page.  Actually DPW puts it on the Facebook page for me.  So the page to put your subscription email address into to see my paintings when they are posted is--go here:  Shop page.
In order to see my new website for now is to actually type it in as http://www.marypyche.com on your browser's address line.
Maybe I'll paint another candy bar tomorrow.  I didn't even realize it, but while I was busy painting today we got a foot of snow with more still coming down.  We were supposed to get 2-4 inches.

Another day at the office.

I've got a few more things taken care of, like getting my domain name straightened out and transferred from Earthlink to GoDaddy and uploading my new website to Weebly and pointing the domain name to it.  I guess it takes a few days for a new site to populate the web, so I guess it will take a little bit longer before we can actually see it.  When I see it, I'll post the address here.
I also trudged through pages of online instruction to get Google Analytics to work in order to get a code that Daily Paintworks uses in conjunction with my site there on DPW and also links to PayPal.  When they talk about the web, now I'm stuck in it for sure, just like the spider and the fly.
My new Facebook Fan Page is also up, but curiously it somehow integrates with ones own Facebook page, at least partially.  I'm still trying to figure this one out.
I also painted today.  I'm working on another ORANGE painting, this time, slices.  It's not ready for prime time yet, and who knows, it might never be.  ha ha.  Most likely, I'll be able to figure that out as well.  Funny things is that I could smell the orange so much while I was painting it because of the lights being on it, and I was thinking "paint and sniff".  Actually when I realized I was smelling it, I thought it was my imagination at first.  I'll give it another go tomorrow.

Busy Painting Day

Painted for The Citrus Challenge on DPW

Painted for The Stroke Challenge on DPW

I guess you can guess that I love a challenge.  I also love a bargain, but that's another story.  These are 6x6" oil on panel.  I really enjoyed painting them, especially copying Carol's stacked cups.  Today I'm going to paint another painting with oranges, some will be slices.  I'm trying to get that translucent look of the pulp of the orange, we'll see.

Stripes with Orange, 6x6

Stripes with Orange, 6x6" oil on museum quality board

I'm personally charged up over this semi-abstract interpretation of a stack of plates with a cup and orange.  The impetus for the stripes comes from the fact that my printer was running out of ink and you know how stripes appear when that happens?  I ran with it.
I'm a lot closer now to finishing my new web site as the domain name will be finally transferred by Sunday, so they say.  I've been a member of DPW for years but have not fully participated, and now I'm gearing up for that as well, so my PayPal account, Etsy account, Facebook Fan page, and a couple of other blogs are all ready for prime time.  Hey, at least I'm getting those new year's resolutions checked off my list.

Happy Valentines Day

When two hearts beat as one--the sentiment for these graphic style paintings which incorporate the use use of heavy impasto oil paint as well as enamels in silver and gold.  These are two 18x24" paintings that were painted in this theme about 8 years ago probably for a show where they would be appropriate like Valentine's Day and I was thinking about the new McMansion people down the street who are young and might like a painting like this.

So the first one titled Two Equals One has a white and red background with cascading hearts intertwined with the title 2=1.  It is outlined with silver and gold enamel as are the hearts.  The central fields of red that glow with various shade of dark red to warm glowing reds is also transected with a gold  X design.  It has a metal brushed gold floating frame.

2 = 1, oil on stretched canvas, brushed metal gold floater frame

The second one titled Forever Together or Love You More has a black and red background with cascading hearts intertwined with the central feature of intertwined bands representing either two worlds or wedding rings.  It has a heavily textured application of paint and is outlined with silver and gold enamel.  The central fields are of passionate or hot red.  It has a metal brushed gold floating frame.

Love You More, 18x24 oil on stretched canvas, metal brushed gold floater frame

Father of Animation

This is a very early video which explains how animation began.  Scroll down to the video section.
Father of Animation Video

Today I'm headed down to Newburyport Art Association to check out the new Winter Juried Show.
I'm fairly happy to report that I have almost completed my new web page, at least to the extent that I can before publishing it with the correct web address and paying the small monthly fee to get added features to work.  I had to conform to their formatting for now, and later I can become more proficient at using code to improve it.
The other matter that I must contend with today is organizing my photos in Photoshop which, over time, have become so scrambled that I can't find anything anymore.  I started yesterday and have a good plan and this will enable me to move ahead more easily with various postings I'll be doing.  I'm making a new FB fan page to go along with my DPW membership.

I'm surprised to see that I have 10,000 page views on my adventures blog today.  Wow.

Regional show next up

I decided to put a stock frame on the two entries for the upcoming regional juried show.  I used this frame before and it looks almost as nice as the real gold ones and has clean lines that catch the light nicely and its not too costly.

I decided this because of time constraints.  I'm working again today, all day, on the new web site construction.  I'm not sure its worth it in the long run as blogs and other selling sites are very nice, quick and easy to set up and maintain, but I guess I just like going through the motions--it must be the 'creation' factor that we artists enjoy.
Here are the two entries, and they do allow for three I just found out, so I'll have to look at what else I might have.  I do have that 42" wide painting that was too wide for the current show in Newburyport.

Bear Hill Road, 12x36" oil on stretched canvas

And here are the two 9x12" entries that need the above frame.

Scraggly Sunflower, 9x12" oil on stretched canvas

Red Lily, 9x12" oil on board

It's snowing here now and has been overnight and will end later on today with accumulations of 8-12" so they say.  I'm off now to shovel then compute, so I hope where you are all is toasty.

Webbing daily and the COLOR RED

RED

Read the Robert Genn article this week and find out that: As a colourant for Cherry Coke, beetle blood is known as "Colour Additive E120." Processed meats are full of it.

How about that?

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My goal to get my new website completed is still on track and after spending tons of time working in Photoshop with the header idea I had, I may scrap it in favor of "simple" after all--not because of the design and I really like my artful header, but for the acceptability or current approval factor the simple design for art sites.

Concurrent and somewhat urgent goals are to enter two paintings into the regional show which will require that they get photoed, inventoried and framed.  I can't decide what I want for frames.  The yellow flower painting on stretched canvas can easily go into a natural floater frame, but the red flower painting on board is another matter.  I'm thinking I'll experiment with the idea of inserting from the front with about 1/8" allowance around it, into a regular frame or double frame--kind of like this, note the mounting.

The next decision is, "What color to make the frame"?  It's a somewhat dark painting.  Here is a picture of it before it was finished.

9x12"

I'm thinking a medium shade of a warm brown.  I don't know if I'll make it or try to paint something that I can purchase but this size frame is not common to find.

Winter Show Newburyport Entry

What a chore.  I've spent hours on the computer finding photos of paintings and ended up taking new ones of the two paintings I will submit to the next show in Newburyport (MA).  Since I have so many computers and thumb drives, it's all getting out of hand. 
The painting I wanted to submit is too wide to meet their specifications.  And then trying to submit my entry on-line as they would prefer, I just couldn't to that either.  Anyway, here are the two paintings I want to enter and I'll have to fill out the forms manually and put up the photos to their online gallery afterwards.  Even finding how they want the jpgs to be submitted was not straightforward--buried in the entry form itself.

These paintings are of scenes near my home.

Sunset on Farmhouse, 10x20" oil on stretched canvas with natural maple floater frame

Ridge on Bear Hill Road, 30x40" oil on stretched canvas with natural floater frame