Landscape #2

This was also from a quick watercolor sketch I did this morning, and a lot of fun to do. It's 12" X 16" --- larger than my other recent paintings.

Landscape #1

I had a fun time doing this oil painting from a watercolor sketch I had done earlier while watching David Dunlop Landscape Through Time this morning. It's been a very enjoyably productive day today. 12 X 16 oil (I haven't posted the watercolor sketch - only the oil painting.)

Completed Acrylic of Willow

I started this acrylic a couple of years ago and only finished Willow's face, neck, hand and hair. The rest was left as a sketch. Willow always wanted me to finish it, so I finally did, in time for her birthday this year. It felt strange working with acrylics again and running into the same limitations that had always frustrated me in the past. The experience made me very glad that I'm not allergic to oils!

Sunday in Menton

This is another little one, on a 6 X 8 X 3/4" wood panel. I took the reference photos for this and the last painting on our last day on the French Riviera, a beautiful, if chilly, day like most of the others. We'd taken the local bus from Monaco to Menton for all of 1 Euro, and had a final wonderful lunch at one of the sidewalk cafes. Menton was somewhat atypical according to what our local guide had told us the previous Sunday, in that many businesses were open and quite busy.

Visiting Galleries in Fredericksburg

A good start to the day of hooky from our chores, an excellent lunch at Rather Sweet.

Gaye, Thad Hanna & Kris on upper porch of InSight Gallery.

Visiting Galleries in Fredericksburg

Yesterday, I met two artist friends, Gaye Sekula and Kris Kelson, for a day in Fredericksburg. Unlike my past visits to this picturesque little town, this one was not about shopping. After a delicious lunch at Rather Sweet we first went to the Whistle Pik Gallery to see their impressive Christmas miniatures show.

Gaye & I agreed that our very favorite painting was this one: http://www.whistlepik.com/artistworks.php?artistID=6424# by Jeff Legg. Though the photo is good, you can't really tell how wonderfully the paint was handled. I wasn't all that impressed by his other paintings, but that one is a true gem. There were lots of other excellent paintings to linger over and study, and we stayed far longer than we'd intended.

There was another gallery that we had to be sure to visit before closing, so we headed to the other end of town to the new InSight Gallery. I'd been so impressed by Whistle Pik that I was totally unprepared to be absolutely blown away by the art at the InSight Gallery. And it turned out that their opening reception was last night. They represent a lot of excellent and well-known artists (Carolyn Anderson, Nancy Bush, Dan Gerhartz, Qiang Huang, C.W. Munday, among many others) and the reception was attended by a number of them. One of the artists that I was most impressed with is John Austin Hanna whose son is one of the owners of the gallery.
Thad Hanna (above, with Gaye and Kris) gave us the extended tour upstairs to see even more beautiful original art and also a room of excellent giclee prints. Everyone at both galleries was very welcoming and gracious, and the entire day was fun from start to finish.

http://www.insightgallery.com/index.php

Contemplation in Menton

I painted this yesterday and today from a photo I took in Menton, France on a Sunday morning. The man was deep in thought, and his pose spoke a volume.

It's on a little 6 X 8 X 3/4" wood panel, my new favorite painting surface. Just as I was finishing painting the edges, I dropped it and gouged a couple of grooves out of the paint. Fortunately the paint was still so wet that it didn't take too long to fix it.

Giclee prints available at http://connie-schaertl.artistwebsites.com/

Upside down

Last weekend I decided to challenge myself with an upside down painting. I picked a photo I had taken looking down at the construction area at the new Austonian Building on Congress Ave. By painting it upside down it was impossible to focus on details. It was all shapes. But when I finally turned it right side up, I kinda liked the results.

This won first place in a Wimberley Valley Art League juried show.

Giclee prints available at http://connie-schaertl.artistwebsites.com/