This past Saturday the Winter Market in Westport NY, was canceled for anyone not selling produce, it would have been my second event of the year.
This coming weekend, I was scheduled to attend my first outdoor art market at the Hudson Valley Maple Sugar Festival. I would have had my own booth outside. Yes it could be cold, but it would have been exciting as well. I bought a new Easy-Up with walls and build a way to hang my art. This delay will give me time to do more testing and experimenting on how to show my work without being a major paint to set up.
It is kind of early to figure out when I will be able start showing my work since in New York State we are locked down until the middle of May at least. Living in the Adirondacks it is about as far away from the City as you can get, and still be in New York State, but we need to have the visitors to make it work.
Unfortunately I just was informed that the first date for the Essex arts and Craft festival on July 5 has been canceled.
This leaves me with only 1 confirmed date where I will be showing my art. This will be a return to the Essex County Arts and Crafts Festival in Westport NY. The art fair will be held on August 3rd, essexartsandcrats.org. I have been trying to find other events to have a booth to show my art.
Once I know more about new events I will add it to may calendar.
The past week has been spent finishing one last driftwood frame and painting the blue jay to fit. This time it took a couple of tries to get the painting I wanted. I always learn from my less than acceptable work (mistakes). Balance and placement within the driftwood frame is very important to me.
I also spent time finishing another lamp and drilling stones. The process of making stones fit is a lot of trial and error. One of the biggest challenges is drilling on an angle to fit stones on an angle.
Slope driftwood and stone lamp
I also spent some time doing a little drawing, planning for future dog paintings.
I have made several cards from my paintings and the were very popular at the art market I was able to do before the lockdown. These as a few possible subjects I will work on to expand my offering.
On to part 2 of my week of driftwood frenzy – Lamps. I was able to spend some time on the beach collections more driftwood for my drying bin. It takes weeks to prepare driftwood for working into art.
These lamps are special, they were claimed by my wife even as i was making them, and are now in our bedroom on the night stands. With these lamps the I didn’t use normal beach stones, instead I used some of my stash of rock crystal to make the pieces special. The base is a slab of rock crystal on black walnut. The top of the lamp body glows with a large rock crystal ball.
Driftwood and Rock Crystal Lamp 2
Rock and Driftwood Crystal Lamp 1
These lamps are the only ones like it I can build, I have no more rock crystal bases. I don’t have a current resource for more.
Still sheltering in place … and not upset about it.
This past week in the studio had led to a frenzy of new driftwood inspired art.
I completed 8 more driftwood accented frames. With each new frame, I compose new paintings to fit the frame. Its different for me to have to scale my pieces for the frames. When making the frames I look for the right place to blend and fit the connections to the wood used to build my normal frames. Once I have attachment points I will then lay out the scale for the balance of the frame determining width and height to achieve balance.
These paintings are larger than my regular paintings, so scaling up has been part of the challenge.
The shelter in place continues…. you see me here with a make made by my wife. She is a quilter and talented fabric artist. She is making masks to donate and is now also making scrubs for the local hospital. I am proud of her and will be helping wherever I can to make supplies to donate. We only go out once a week or so to do the essential shopping. We will continue to do the shelter in place till the end of the month, or when they say it’s ok to go out. I really hope that we will have the various markets I was planning to attend.
I am doing my part to help the economy, I have had to order more paper from Dick Blick since I am doing so many paintings. below are a few of my recent ones. I have also broken out a stash of large paper for some of my new series of driftwood accent frames in large formats. I had to order new blades for my band saw, cutting driftwood for my lamps and frames, I discover a few embedded rocks and broke 3 blades in 3 days. Ordering other lamp parts as well, we are keeping the delivery guys busy.
Holy cow is right, these were done for a friend of my wife who loves cows. These won’t make it to my gallery for sale, but they were so much fun I will do more.
I have also completed a few more of my driftwood accent frames. The Bluebird on a branch and the Cedar Waxwing are hanging on the wall in the living room. I am really happy with the way the painted branch fits is an extension for the driftwood. I find that making the driftwood accent frames is an exercise in fitting and adjusting.
Digging into my bin of driftwood puts many ideas into my head, I am working on 4 new lamps and 3 more driftwood accent frames.
With nice spring weather and temps in the 50’s, the outdoors is calling, winter was not kind to the yard so yardwork is now a priority during the nice days.
A week if shelter in place has let me spend a lot of time in the studio. I have been able to finish several paintings, make more frames and build a few lamps. I like spending the time working on new projects and some worked and didn’t, the ones the need work (failures) are on a shelf waiting for inspiration.
The featured piece on the blog is a painting that will not go on the market right away. It’s a unique frame and painting and was an experimental piece. I can see it being a future series, when I can find the right materials.
I finished several paintings a few are in the gallery below.
Kinsley
Jeremiah
Colton
Easton
Cameron
Madelyn
Angel
Robert
Nicholas
My new paintings included one of our previous dog Jill, a wire fox terrier. This one will not be for sale, my wife has already claimed it.
My wife the dog and I spent time on the local beach scavenging for driftwood and stones for my lamps. Niko was in and out of the lake swimming several times, I know its mid March but she is a lab and her tail wagged the whole time. The driftwood will have to be dried before i can work with it.
I pawed through several pieces of driftwood from my storage bin and came up with a few pieces that inspired me. These lamps are a little shorter at 22″ with shade, than my prior version and I am waiting on new sockets to finish them off, I use a dimmable socket and didn’t have any to finish the lamps.
I decided, with the shelter in place mandate, to order them and not go out to the local hardware store. Once I complete them they will go up for sale.
I was able to participate in the Westport NY Winter Market on March 14, 2020. This a winter farmers market held in the Heritage House. I had been planning on this market to be my first of the year, well before the craziness of the Coronavirus started. I build stands for paintings that were made to clamp to a table. I had to bring my own small folding table, along with a couple of other tables, and using my bins with a top to hold a rack of my paintings. I had a 8′ by 6′ space to display my art, I pre-staged the layout in my home based on the limits. I was pleased with my small space, it came together quite well.
My wife had invited a few of her quilting and master gardener friends and many of them came, despite so many other events being canceled. Some of her friends had seen my work at my home. I recognize the need to build a mailing list and contacts, this will be a challenge for the future.
I was able to sell a couple of paintings and I made contact with a few people that requested other paintings. I didn’t want to start with commissions for their requests, so I will make them on speculation. All the new requests were derivatives of projects I am already working on. Once I complete items, I will let the people know and if they want them then we can close the deal. I was able to sell some note cards that I had made to test the market for such items. I was surprised that they were a good seller and had request to extend the cards available. These will be an item for every show.
Of course my first show coincided with the start of the Coronavirus pandemic. several events had already been canceled and as of writing this almost everything is being put on hold.
With the Winter Market complete , I am hoping that the one in April will go off as planned.
Coronavirus
With the first instance of the virus being reported in the area, the shelter in place recommendation I think it will be an interesting spring. I will take this time to make more art and work on projects around home. My wife and I are not “High Risk” but I am glad that I know that I now work for myself and had planned on taking a year to get everything in place. I will admit that my retirement investments have taken a large hit, but I am sure it will all come back eventually. I’m not one to panic and my wife and I both flexible so I don’t worry about the future. I am going to enjoy my time working for myself and building my art business.
I have ordered a few supplies and I will make a lot of art to build up an inventory of products, and take time to explore more areas of interest.
I have already worked on several new paintings in the last couple of days, with one new one that I have great hopes for almost completed. It mixes a couple of materials an I like it so far, so this is a teaser for a post later in the week.
This week I have spent my time painting. I have completed several paintings and made another dozen frames for those paintings. I have been painting dogs and cats, I find that painting puppies is most enjoyable.
I am watching the events unfold around the corona virus and hope that the panic will subside soon. I’m not sure what effect it will have on the farmers markets and art fairs, but I intend to go if they are held. I will miss the sporting events most, I love to watch sport while working around the studio.
This is my sad hound dog face, I am missing hockey most of all. I wish I had good internet, I would like to watch Youtube events, like the curling events form Canada.
I find that when I am unsure what to tackle next, I clean up the shop. The act of cleaning and organizing seems to reset my creative process. This week I discover that needed to take time to organize my online workshop. I realized that I was showing items on my website that I have already sold. I had a collector come to my home to pick out a few paintings for a baby shower gift. It was nice to get the positive feedback and she had been to my website and ask if I had any more available. I was able to load all my current paintings and I still have to photograph and add more of my sculptures and furniture to the site.
Check out my gallery for all my current paintings.
Creation
I have painted several paintings of our dog Niko, and on request completed paintings of Hazel and Fuji for family. I will do pet paintings on commission, with a good photo.
This past week I start painting dogs and cats. Several of them were memories of my youth. I love being a full time artist, I have the time to try more new things.
The cloud with the crystal rain drops is a whimsical night light. Just another tangent of art without boundaries, going where ever my thoughts take me.
By using Swarovski crystals it sparkles and shows rainbow effects on the wall. The cloud lamp is made to use the 5v led strip lights so that it is powered by a USB charger, like the ones use to charge phones.
This is a new take on my original umbrella light. How did this all start, I was playing with a strip of LED lights that I used in my tall wood strip lamp and had a jar of tiny crystals on my workspace, I saw the sparkle and thought of slashes in water. Pick a few crystals and add a little wire and raindrops. a little wide and raindrops.
I will sell the lamps soon on my site.
I have included several build pictures if you want to try building it yourself. LEDs were purchased from amazon. Crystals were ones I got from a clearance sale at Swarovski Lighting when I worked there. I used separate pieces of 1/4” plywood to make assembly easier. The switch and 5.5mm plug were also purchased at Amazon. I made sure the base would be heavy enough to avoid tipping and thick enough to allow installing the plug and switch. Paint with enamel paint and a quick spray of blue paint. I then added the crystals with a dab of hot glue.
Let me know if you have questions about the build.
