2010 Reflections - Solo Exhibition

A big HUGE, maybe the BIGGEST highlight of 2010 for me was my first full scale solo exhibition of Paper Paintings at Maitland Art Center (MAC) outside Orlando, FL. Exquisite Harmony was well attended by the community thanks to the marketing efforts of Gloria Capozzi at MAC.

Richard Colvin, the curator at MAC, was amazing in his encouragement as I spent the year preparing the show in the theme of "Music," something a little different for me. Not only did Richard offer me the opportunity to exhibit, but he attended the United Arts of Central Florida grant application review meeting in my stead.

Many thanks to United Arts of Central Florida for giving me a Professional Development Grant (my second from them) which helped in part to fund Exquisite Harmony.

Many thanks to the entire staff of the Maitland Art Center for all their amazing efforts in making the show and coordinating collage workshop a success. Heather Corino in the gift shop has sold many Flashbags™ and other unique Paper Painting gift items.

Barnyard Friends and Fowl

How Now Brown Cow?

Here is a snapshot of  my latest cow in progress. I am feeling under the weather, so I have stopped working today at completion of the background in this piece. This stopping point is a good thing because it has prompted me to take a photo in progress and explain where we are at this point. After all, I promised to keep you in the loop on the progression on these new pieces.

• The Cow is still in the under-painting stage, she has been quickly painted with acrylic (directly on unprimed panel) to give me a color sketch to adhere my paper over.
  
• The background is the first part of the Paper Painting I work on, this way when the edges of the cow meet the background, they are laid on top.
  
• Since I am not feeling up to all the details of my cow, the background sky was something I could work on for a few hours this afternoon while I watched the kids bouncing on the trampoline from my studio in the back yard.
  
• I have used my favorite free art medium, Starbucks bags, in the green foreground
  
• My daughter's school sent home a great damaged book from the library for me to use for collage materials, you can see evidence of it in the small branch art at the top left

Stay tuned to see how the cow and her nose (my favorite part!)  progresses, her friend in the pasture has just enough detail that we know she's a cow, without making her a focal point. I chose to darken the pasture underneath the cow so that the part over to the right stand out more. Right now the contrast might be too much, but I will wait until tomorrow to decide for sure.