I’m proud to announced that I am one of twenty artists selected for this show held at the Kennedy Gallery in midtown Sacramento. As one of the twenty artists, we had to produced 25-8 x 8 inch paintings of a chosen theme.
Below are six of the 25 paintings that I had started in January. My theme is still life in cold wax and oils. I wanted to work in cold wax for its translucency. I found that I became more abstract with the background, that I’m freer to put in mark making and to create stencils for texture. I hope to continued working in cold wax.
The preview will be this Thursday from noon to 8 pm. The exhibit will run through May to July 4th.
I had purchased this cute little wooden watercolor palette from Etsy store, Go Draw, a few weeks ago. It’s made out of wood with 15 porcelain wells and mixing area. It is small enough to attached to a pocket size sketchbook with bull clips. But after not using it for a week, couple of the paints dried up and came loose. My only complaint.
I also have a metal one that is a size of a business card still have all the paints in the pans after many weeks of no use. This is from Expeditionary Art and this is the Pocket Palette. It has 14 pans which works very well for me. I carry only two water brushes, fountain pen, bull clips and a sketchbook along with a white uniPosca and a tiny water spray. I switching back to this palette.
Expeditionary Art does make art tool kit cases to fit a sketchbook and an art supplies. I bought the smallest one that fits a pocket size sketchbook 3 1/2 x 5 1/2 inches. The case measured 4-3/4″ x 7-1/2″ (12cm x 19cm) closed. But with what I carry, it only fitted the sketchbook, fountain pen, white pen, business cards and shop towel. I couldn’t put my bull clips and second water brush and the uniPosca white marker. When I closed it, it was bulky. I love the idea but have to pass on this one. So Expeditionary Art was kind enough to let me returned it.
I think I’ll just stick with my pencil pouch with the pocket palette minus the go draw palette. By the way the pencil pouch is from Cavallini Papers & Co in San Francisco. I might get their larger pouch from one of their distributors.
A commissioned watercolor portrait. Such a delight to paint. The challenge was making sure that the toy colors did not compete with the black and white portrait of Mosley. To solve that I worked on lightened the eyes and lightened up the colors in the toy. It worked!
Pencil sketch
Traced pencil sketch to watercolor paper
The colors of the dog toy competed with the portrait.
Toy reference
Pet portraits are available in my Etsy store, PaintingsbyMarlene. Portraits can be done in either oils or watercolor.
Some favorite sketches in my Stillman and Birn sketchbook. It’s the Delta series with nice white watercolor paper that doesn’t buckle. Most of my sketches are center around my garden. (except for the pear) Enjoy!
To see my complete series of daily sketches go to my Flickr album, Daily Sketches.
My still life paintings will be on exhibit at Logos Book from April 3rd to April 30th. It is composed mainly of fruits and some vegetables, a china rice bowl, a bright orange vase with a purple flower and even a copy of a Matisse that served as a background. Most are painted purely in oils with brushes but there is one in cold wax and oils and one palette knife. Prices ranged from $95 up to $180.
I had made a sketchbook! My sister had given me a red Chic Sparrow cover. So with it I bind up some blank sheets from a drawing pad and create a 4 x 6 inch sketchbook. This little red sketchbook is for daily sketches.
I had been busy with painting more dog portraits for Pets Lifeline in Sonoma. Here are some of them and their stories provided by their owners.
Gemini – “Her name is Gemini. I adopted her in April 2020 from the Napa Animal Shelter; she was found wandering the streets after just having puppies. The shelter vet assumed from her physical condition that she was held for breeding. She escaped her captivity by gnawing her way through her kennel, breaking off her top 6 incisors. While escaping a broken wire ripped open the right side of her face, leaving a scar that unfortunately most people stare at instead of looking at her adorable ears or different colored eyes. With a beginning like that, you would assume she would be timid or not like people…au contraire, she’s so affectionate and LOVES both people and dogs of all shapes and sizes!”
Apollo – “We lost Apollo this month, he was my son’s best friend. He was a gentle giant who loved everyone.”
MoMo – “His name is MoMo and he was a rescue from Golden Gate Lab Rescue. He’s got a heart of pure gold like most doggies. I have raised dogs for people with disabilities for www.cci.org and they are always goldens and labs. MoMo is a rescue, MoMo is the name we gave him and is short for Monte Montgomery 😉 He has the most gorgeous chocolate eyes that are very large and he looks right into your soul… “
