Arizona Painting

 

I like to say we are mud season visitors and not Winter Visitors to Arizona as we generally go down Nov. - Dec and then come back north to ski and fat bike when the real snowbirds head south. We camp in our small RV which is a Jayco Hummingbird, and mountain bike and hike and I try to paint everyday. Here are a few of my paintings done at camp. Some are oil and some are acrylic. 

Hatching a New Website

This is my 399th blog post in seven years and before I reach 400 I can proudly say I now have a website! As long as I've had this blog I've had on my to do list create a website. Every time I start to explore that possibility and start poking around at what is needed I give up.

Friends have told me just hire someone, it's not that expensive. But really I just wanted to do it myself AND I wanted to somehow connect this blog and not have to start over with a new blog as well.

 So ....I started looking into it for the umpteenth time this past week when the only thing left on my to do list was clean and rearrange the studio and all the art on all the walls in my house and unpack all the boxes of art from past shows. Gulp...didn't want to go there yet...and I've heard Wix.com is easy to publish by yourself.

Well I picked a template and started one- then sent it to my daughter to check it over. Ummm, she tells me "not to be rude, but you've made a big mess of it, would you mind if I had a go with it? This is something that would be really fun for me." Music to my ears!! No, not at all honey... that would be awesome!
She did a great job. Thank you Katherine!
Check it out here: boiseartist.wix.com/pammcknight

The Balance of Life and Art

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 The immensity of the canyon walls of Moab, Utah contrasted with our truck and trailer at our campsite.

"Newspaper Rock" supposedly 2,000 years of history (Canyonlands, Utah)

Riding Gemini Bridges trail

I just returned from a fabulous 3 week road trip through Montana, Wyoming, Colorado and Utah. I road my bike in a 110 mile "Cino Heroica" ride in Northern Montana. We went to Estes Park and did some hiking/climbing and stayed with friends Gene and Denise. Then on to see our daughter in Denver. From there  we rode the awesome single track in Fruita, CO and then it was down to Moab Utah to meet up with David and Amy. We checked out the Bar M trails, the Klondike Bluffs and Gemini Bridges. We were going to go straight home from there but decided to stretch out the trip just a little bit longer and spent a day in Park City Utah. Their single track mountain bike trails are the only gold rated ones in the US, and now I can see why. Beautiful, and the trail up was one way, which made it really nice. We had a great ride! Celebrating my 53rd birthday in style. Then it was only a short drive back home.

So here comes the balance...It's hard to keep up on everything I am involved with in my art from the road.
1. I had my daughter mail my bike piece off to NYC for the World Bicycle Relief Project! The benefit gala is November 29 and I hope to attend!
2.  I tried to keep up best as I could with my obligations to Boise Open Studios which is coming up fast (Oct. 13 and 14) come see me!!
3. and for Treasure Valley Artist Alliance...our next meeting is tomorrow at the CAAC in downtown Boise...an artist panel...hope you join us!
4. I was featured on Seth's Blog!
5. I sold a piece of art at the C.W. Moore Building in Boise through the Gypsy Gallery show!
6. This Thursday is our BOSCO demonstrations at the Boise Art Museum.
7. Friday is the BOSCO opening at the Visual Arts Collective. ( I have 2 pieces in the show)
8. Sold a couple pieces at the Boise Art Museum Gift Shop and at Green Chutes!
9. I am doing a step by step painting class at my sister's Chocolate and Wine Festival in Texas, October  20th.

It's great to have a double life. Now it's time to stay home and clean the studio and get ready for the tours!

The evolution of an idea...

I want to turn this old frame with a piece of board stapled to it (given to me by my friend Miriam)  into what will look like a piece of a tiled bathroom floor for a project I am working on. I have an idea for an upcoming juried show.

I went to home depot to gather ideas and I picked up a bunch of paint chip cards, I cut them all into 1" squares and was going to glue them down to create the tile floor and look- not nearly enough! I did not feel like driving back to the store and I wasn't sure about these anyway cause I am going to be pouring resin over the whole thing and didn't want them coming up.

Plan B is to paint tile squares....

First I covered the whole board with Gesso and let it dry.

Then I used painters tape and made horizontal stripes leaving a small gap between tape strips to fill in with brown paint.

I let the paint dry and then peeled off the tape to reveal horizontal stripes.

Next I used the same pieces of tape and put them across horizontally.

I then painted those spaces, let dry and peeled off the tape again. I now have a checker board pattern. Where the paint leaked under the tape, didn't matter...

as I then painted each square individually with 4 different colors. First I used an off white mixed with burnt umber and yellow ochre. It looked kind of dirty when it dried...so I then did a layer of white and light blue which gave it a cleaner look but also more three dimensional quality with all the layers of different whites in each square.

I then glued a "Health Check" card and painted a shadow around it. When it was dry I poured Enviro Tex lite, pour on high gloss finish...one coat is equal to 50 coats of varnish. I moved it to a warmer part of the house and let it dry 48 hours before...

 I started laying things on it. Now to back track a minute, the only items I purchased exclusively for this project were the scale and fork which I bought at a thrift store for a total of $5. My original plan was to have just the scale, dumbell and wieghts all attached to each other and it would be a hanging piece. I had them set out at the BOSCO art studio tour and one coment was I should get a piece of tile floor to hang it on. So that was how the tile floor came about. Then I wanted to hang this whole thing on the wall but the dumbells and scale weigh quite a bit and I think might just pull off the wall or frame.

Plan B on the display:  now it could either be displayed as shown above by sitting on a pedestal or...

Plan C:  attach the frame to this table and make it a functional piece as well as a statement.

The scale, dumbbell and fork and vegetables become part of the base. The drawer would be used to hold women's stories. Read below to see what I have in mind and then please leave me a comment.

The comment can either be something to go in the drawer or your thoughts on how you think this piece should be shown or both. If the base with drawer is not used then the notes of paper will be slipped around the sides of the scale on top.

This is an art piece about women and their experiences and feelings related to food, weight loss, dieting etc. Please send me a paragraph, sentence or even just a word on your feelings related to this topic... I will hand copy them and fold them up and put them in the installation. 

 Hopefully after all this, it will be accepted into the show. :) I'll keep you updated and thanks for your help!