Etsy Treasury Feature: Out My Window

My Watercolor No. 39 has been featured in another Treasury. Jen from Autumn to May curated this wonderful Treasury entitled Out My Window. This is certainly my kind of palate, greens and greys. There are some truly lovely items in this collection, my neighbors to the left and right are particular favorites.

On the Easel: No. 43 Continued

No. 43

 Photographing my paintings is something I'm not great at, not for lack of trying. So far, I've been working on this painting for roughly 30 hours and though not photographed well, the shifts in color are subtle and luminous, the paint having been built up in layers. The layers have also given the painting a wonderful surface, thick and modeled in some areas, and thin and soft in others. My previous paintings on wood have relied on wood grain for texture but in this painting, being my first on canvas in over a year and a half, I've been focused on building up paint for texture. I unfortunately have again reached that painful place of uncertainty, not knowing whether or not the painting is finished. Just as with my last commission painting, this uncertain feeling is in large part due to my (delicate artist's ego) fear that they won't like it. Alas, uncertainty is part of the process.

Etsy Treasury Feature: I Enjoy Being a Girl

My Watercolor No. 39 has been featured in a lovely Treasury titled I Enjoy Being a Girl, curated by Jaros Designs. The list is soft and feminine in sea foam greens and soft pinks. Jaros Designs is one of the founding members of the Etsy Team and blog Curation Nation, an Etsy Team who's soul mission is creating treasury lists. This is the second time one of my watercolors has been hand picked by a curatorial Etsy Team.

Watercolor No. 39

Artists I'm Looking At: Art Basel Edition

I wrote this blog post last week, but with Cataclysm dropping last Tuesday and the holiday and what-not, I've been a little distracted.

Having grown up in South Florida, there was a strong part of me that wanted to be rid of this place. I'd felt negatively about it for years, "it's too hot, there's nothing to do, if I go outside I'll get sunburned," the list of complaints goes on.  It's why my siblings and I attended colleges elsewhere. Yet, somehow we've all returned home.

Perhaps I've matured. Perhaps my baneful negativity has subsided (unlikely), but the number of culturally aware, artistically mined, and entrepreneurial spirited individuals seems to have risen. Miami is a mecca of cultural diversity and artistic prowess. I've never had any interest in living New York or LA, but perhaps Miami isn't so bad after all. Of course I could just be saying this because Art Basel was this weekend.

While my pockets could only afford me one evening at the event, I had a blast. Below are some of the works that I loved from the show.

Frank Stella

My response upon seeing this from across the room was, "Holy Crap! That's a Frank Stella!"

Gustavo Bonevardi

Detail

Thiago Rocha Pitta

Thiago Rocha Pitta

Suspended by Michael Raedecker

Present by Michael Raedecker

Phoenixallee by Kailiang Yang

Sommer 8 by Kailiang Yang

Etsy Treasury Feature

I loved the idea for this treasury. April from withaflourish describes created this curated list to promote undiscovered shops. All shops featured in this treasury have less than 20 sales and many are affiliated with the Team Discovery, an Etsy Team, specializing in finding and highlighting individual, unique, undiscovered gems on Etsy. My watercolor, Landscape No. 13, was featured in the treasury, which was gorgeously curated.

Artists on Etsy: Graham Heffernan

I am often frustrated by the quality of fine art on Etsy, but when you dig there are some really wonderful contemporary painters, such as Graham Heffernan.

Blue Room (22 x 24" oil on canvas)

Graham Heffernan  earned his BFA at Rhode Island College in 2006. In his senior year Graham Heffernan won the Special Talent Award, a merit based scholarship recognizing students with exceptional talent in the visual and performing arts. I don't know what his work looked like in college, but this stuff is brilliant.

Grey Abstract (12 x 12" gouache on paper)

Before reading his statement or profile on Etsy, I noticed how spacial these works are. It's the kind of dynamism I really enjoy in paintings. While Heffernan uses planes of flat color, the paintings have depth and spacial awareness, especially Blue Room and Grey Abstract. The surface is certainly not flat, the attention Heffernan pays to the surface texture of his paintings is gorgeous. He admits in his artist statement that he often gets lost in the materials he uses. 

Graphic and bold, Heffernan's lines set a distinct rigidity to the paintings, yet like so many minimal abstract artists working in line, the artist's hand is present as the edges distort just slightly.

 

Graham Heffernan's paintings are gorgeously minimal and meticulously painted. One of these days, when I have the extra cash, I'd love to own one of his works. 

 

 

Circuit 5 (20 x 20" oil on canvas)

Circuit 5 (Detail)

Circuit 7 (12 x 12")

Graham Heffernan's Artist's Statement:

"In my work I deal with spaces. Abstracted interiors with a musical arrangement of elements. Every painting is stripped down to it's minimal qualities in my attempt to approach the essence of a space. Materials, such as paint, gel and paper are another main reason that I create this art. I get lost in materials and often they take over the artwork and pieces become totally about materials (i.e. Gel Squares)."

Space / Rythm (4 x 4")

White Abstract (7.75 x 7.75")

Finding Graham Heffernan's work on Etsy renewed my faith in the site as a viable place for selling fine art.

On the Easel: Key Limes Study

Lime Study 1

Lime Study 2

Lime Study 3

Lime Study 4

Lime Study Group

I've been frustrated recently with my work, with abstraction, and with people's general unwillingness to understand abstraction. Rather than allow the negativity I'm feeling to influence the paintings I've been working on, I decided to work constructively, spending my day on still lives. This morning I came downstairs to find key limes my dad brought up from the garden, so I grabbed a few.

These little still lives are painted on wood and are quite small, the largest being 5 x5". I'm afraid my inexperience in still lives is terribly evident, but now I've worked the desire for representational images out of my system.