MINI MURAL PANEL IS DELIVERED

     Where do you paint a 32"x48" heavy wooden panel?  In the garage of course,  with my MacGyver like skills I created an easel by using two ladders, a fold up table, a card table, two pieces of scrap lumber and Gorilla duct tape.

We will find out if it works when the panel arrives. This is fun.

     Yesterday the heavy wooden panel arrived but it was in rough shape. My dear husband sanded and filled in the low spots on the wood, sanded again and even went to the hardware store to buy matte primer and a roller. I put on a layer of Gesso and hopefully it will be OK to paint on. 

          My first step was to tape off the boarder painting on a warm transparent color as the underpainting. Step two I will trace the butterfly to the board making corrections as I go along.

         More later as I paint the image...still fun.

 Does it look like the 3D street art where the butterfly is crawling out of the border ?

Next blog you get to see the finished product. 

A NEW CREATIVE CHALLENGE

CALL TO ARTISTS

     You may remember my post about the Arts Village  project in Vero Beach. Now we are down to things that are tangible like mini murals being displayed through out the Arts Village area. Once the  community  sees changes in the neighborhood I think more people will want to be part of the rejuvenation of  Edgewood. The Mural Committee will supply numerous 32"x48" primed wooden mini mural panels for local artists to paint in a transformative butterfly theme.

     I have been invited to paint one of the murals which is an honor for me. First of all I researched Monarch butterflies printing off a picture of all the visual stages in it's life cycle. Should I make my mural a teaching moment?  No, I decided against the teaching moment, too predictable.

      No grand ideas the first day. A day or two later when I was tucked in for a good night's sleep it came to me.  I will paint a huge butterfly trying to crawl out of the mini mural! Sort of like  the chalk street art artists do with their 3D perspective art but.... I don't know how to do that :(

     I do have U Tube and a great imagination. After watching a few video blogs on forced perspective art or anamorphosis drawing I set out to go where I have never gone before. I must admit I am enjoying the new challenge. Think I will paint over the changes that I made when I went from the horizontal designing to the vertical observation so I can more easily trace my butterfly onto the wooden panel when I receive it. 

More later as I work on my mini mural.

Cut my sewing pattern board to 32"X48"

Add tracing paper to board

       

Mark off boarders

Using a proportional divider to sketch in the design

     

Design on horizontal plane

         

Corrections made on a vertical plane

WHAT IS LOST IS FOUND

     I have a friend that move from Vero Beach, Florida to Weaverville, North Carolina all by herself. She bought a beautiful piece of property in the country outside of Asheville then  proceeded to have a manufactured house towed to Weaverville!! Who does that? Sharon is one of those rare breed of independent woman who has the will and will find a way to make it happen. I flew up to visit her the first two summers and I had a blast.

     We worked in her yard putting in wildflowers that I found on a vacant lot, went to art studios in the area and even danced with her is a free form dance class. I was in my 1960's free spirit mode and it felt wonderful. Nothing like a feathered boa around your neck to say happy hippie.  Hey, I will never see these people again. Of course we painted together at her house and I left  several offerings for her to use in her new home decor.

     She recently sent a painting that I had done for her back to me via another artist friend who snowbirds from Asheville to Vero Beach. Sharon loves the color purple so I painted
The Lady on the Chaise Lounge. That painting goes back 6 or 7 years but did you notice the stylized figure that I painted? Definitely expressive but I did not see my genre calling at the time.

     My question is; should I update the painting or do I leave it as is as a record of progress in my style and skill level?

CHECK ME OUT ON DAILYPAINTWORKS.COM

     The name of the web site is Daily Paint Works but I can not seem to keep up with the daily part. I do paint 3 times a week with different groups and on my own but no where near completing a painting every single day. Sometimes it takes a day or two to finalize a painting or even put it away for months before I see the solution. These are my latest additions to www.dailypaintworks.com/artist/mary-ellen-koser-5892/artwork. The landscape I put in as an auction so we will see what happens.

Here comes the good news; I sold the bottom two paintings which makes me feel like a million bucks.  My goal is not to become a famous artist but rather to reach my fullest artistic potential and maybe cover costs of materials.

Here's to one, maybe not daily, painting at a time.

HAPPY NEW YEAR TO ALL

     Here is how you set up for Christmas dinner in Florida. Clean up the lanai, put up an extra table and we are ready for 9 people at our house. We were lucky to have our sister-in-law, our daughter and her family plus our daughter's in laws with us. We truly enjoy the company of all these people in our lives.  Also it was  our son-in-law's birthday on December 25th which explains the birthday balloons and streamers in our table set up. Poor fellow gets swallowed up by all the Christmas festivities each year. 

     Our ham was great and all the dishes brought by company was superb with a cake and ice cream to polish off the dinner. After dinner we went out on the front lawn to shoot off string in a can for each of the kids. That was the end of the grandma surprises.

                             
     As everyone picked up their presents and food dishes we said good bye and thank you for another good memory. OK, I did have some really burnt on pans to deal with the next day but soaking helped and I pulled out the old white vinegar on a slow simmer to get the petrified chards off of the cookware.

Hoping your holiday was a joy for you.

     HAPPY HOLIDAYS TO ALL.

      The festive part of Christmas season is truly for children. In the past I have decorated and undecorated trees until the thrill was gone from holiday embellishment. Later when we moved to Florida we bought a nice artificial tree but the effort of retrieving and putting it back in the attic became more of a chore. We ended up giving the tree to our son and his family to brighten their holidays.

     So this is what I have resorted to; decorating the chandelier! String a few beads, hang a few ornaments and magically we are ready for Christmas.   Nothing says Christmas like beads and bulbs over the honey ham. This year the whole family living in Florida are coming to our house, that should be fun.

#1 call the cleaning ladies
#2 shop for the food
#3 keep it simple and ask others to help
#4 cook, serve and enjoy
#5 everyone goes home, we are tired (in a good way) so feet go up and the TV & PJ's go on:)

I may not be setting the art world on fire but I have a good life full of family, activities and friends.
I am blessed.

Invitation to look at my web site.

     It has been  six months since I had my web site designed and put on line. My friends love it but that is like your mom saying; " good job!", so I wanted to ask your opinion of the web site design and which painting  you like best and hopefully why.

     Please vote for the painting you like best.

I will send a small daily painting as a thank you for taking the time to share your thoughts to the first person who responds.
A contest where you have nothing to lose. :)

If you don't care to share your name/ address etc., just send your opinion so I can keep on making progress on my artistic adventure.

www.koseroriginalart.com