Kim's Tulips

When I visited my daughter in La Quinta, CA she had the most beautiful bouquet of tulips sitting on her kitchen counter. I was fascinated by them and took a bunch of photos. I recently painted them and am pleased with the outcome.

When I go to places either new and exciting or the same and indifferent there are things I see that summon me to paint them. I have hundreds of photos, and pictures as well as memories and I only get to paint some of them. I have more things inspiring me than I have the time to cultivate. I am very thankful for this as I will never run out of ideas to paint.

This Saturday I'm participating in the Fairfield Days Summer Art Show. It will be at the Fairfield Shopping Center at the corner of Kempsville Rd. and Providence Rd., Virginia Beach, VA from 10:00 am to 5:00 pm. There will be food, live music, a giant water slide, an indoor train show as well as the art show of local artists. If your not doing anything on Saturday stop by and see the art and begin celebrating your 4th of July holiday. It will be a red white and blue day!!!

Life Drawing

I must apologize it has been too long since my last post. I'd like to say that I have been busy but I have had more free time than usual. I am enjoying being less busy and I guess I'm not moving at my usual quick pace. (So does that mean that I'm not getting any more accomplished?)

I am spending more time painting and that has been very satisfying. I have been working hard at creating a bison on an icy tundra. It has been a long and time consuming project but I have definitely enjoyed the process. It is almost done and I think that I will be satisfied with it.

In my last post I said that I was going to decide on a few new things to work on this summer. Well I am attending a Life Drawing session at Artistic Creations. It is something that I've always wanted to do. But because I've never done it before I was a little nervous about it. The nudity does not bother me as I have great respect for the human form especially in an artistic context. But I was concerned as to whether I would be able to do the models justice with my drawing abilities. I was able to immediately relax and enjoy the learning experience. I am so excited about this group and feel my drawing skills will certainly improve.

The second thing I'm doing at this time is making a weekly trip to the Botanical Gardens. I am currently using watercolor pencils to capture the essence of that which I'm painting. Again it is the experience of taking my subject from it's three dimensional life and turning it into a two dimensional form.

What a wonderful summer I' going to have!!!!

Pineapple

I bought a pineapple from the grocery store and became so fascinated by the shapes and colors that I just had to paint it. This is how I usually come to paint something different than my usual repertoire. It was so much fun playing with the shapes and the colors. (I do believe that the colors are a little richer in the painting itself.) I also like putting it in a tall and thin shape. I think it exaggerates the height of the pineapple itself.

Now I have to say that taking a break and having fun painting a pineapple is not what I should be doing right now. I need to start working on paintings for the show at Pembroke 4 Art Gallery at the end of July and new paintings for the Seawall festival at the end of August. But don't I always tell my students that having fun painting is the most important part of your artistic experience and that your paintings always improve when you are enjoying the process?

I'm making a transition in focus at this point in time. I'm going to have alot more time on my hands to spend working on my painting and pursuing other interests. My problem is that I always want to do it all and I can't always allow myself to try to do everything at the same time. So I need to sit back and figure out what is the most important things to work on and try and just focus on them. Let's see how well I can do with that!