Nice Surprise, from a month ago...

I mentioned that I had a nice surprise at the Patriot News Artsfest show on Saturday morning. Here it is!!

My "Passionflowers" painting made the cover of The Patriot News' Go! section of May 27's paper (before the show).

You can click the image to see it full size.

A lady came up to my booth first thing Saturday morning and congratulated me... I had no clue what she meant. She pointed to the "Passionflowers" painting and said, "Your painting there was in the newspaper last week. On the cover!!" I laughed a little and said, "Oh... uh... no... I don't think that was me. They are using a picture of pottery to promote this year's show."

(Besides, why would they pick my random passionflowers picture to use on anything? Especially after my "Spring Lilies" had just been used in September to promote Kipona!)

No. Of course not!

She shrugged and said "Well....... maybe it was someone's photograph? But I'm pretty sure it was THAT picture. On the cover of Go!." I thanked her because it was still a compliment, and she left.

As the day went on, more and more people kept mentioning it... so of course my curiosity was getting the better of me. I hadn't looked at any papers all week since I was busy getting ready for the show. Finally one of my artist friends, Brownyn, showed up at my booth and confirmed that it was definitely, DEFINITELY my painting on the cover.

However, no one had a copy with them to show me, of course. It was driving me a little crazy that everyone had seen it but ME! Eventually a super, super, super nice friend of mine who I met at a show last year told me that her son would be at Artsfest the following day and she'd send her copy of it with him. And sure enough on Sunday he came in with it... lo and behold, there it was! (The pottery picture they used this year was inside, right on the official Artsfest Guide that people can take out of the Go! section and bring with them.)

I still found it pretty random that this bright colorful picture of a totally non-native plant was used to promote an art show all the way up here in PA... but I can't complain! :) I wonder who saw it and picked it?

I haz the warm fuzzies....

New- Featured Item!

NEW!
Featured Item:

"Passiflora" Colored Pencil Drawing
8"x10" double matted & framed in an 11"x14" frame.
$130 and FREE SHIPPING!
Buy it HERE!

I tend to showcase my original drawings and paintings at art shows, or the few pieces I've got over at Gallerie 13 in Mechanicsburg PA. Otherwise, the original work is kept packed away so it doesn't get damaged, or I hang it up so that I know exactly where each piece is and I can find it when I need it. I realized recently that those pieces aren't doing anyone any good just sitting around like that, now are they? So I've decided to start promoting my originals a little more with.... Featured Items. I'll list the item in my Etsy shop and offer free shipping on it... until I decide to feature a different item.

If you'd like to buy one of my featured items but you don't have an Etsy account, it's free and simple to set one up!

Passion Flowers Painting Complete!

"Passion Flowers"
36"x24"
Acrylic on Canvas

Just finished this painting a few minutes ago!... what a load off! It's been on my easel way too long. (I say that far too often.) And unfortunately it's a very dark, cloudy day (the weather is giving me a little preview of winter I guess, ugh!), so I just couldn't get the lighting to work for this picture without using the flash... hence a little bit of a glare on this. But I am impatient and wanted to get a picture of the painting and didn't have time to look for my tripod.

Now the dilemma... I bought a frame for this a while back, and it's a silvery-champagne color. I think this painting looks nice without a frame though- I could just paint the sides a dark green. But I hate to waste the frame that I bought! So later today, I'll bring the frame upstairs from the storage area and see how it looks. I can't attach it yet anyway, since I need to take the painting to get the image capture from my usual wonderful experts at American Art in Annapolis.

I've already started my next painting, which is much smaller than this one, at just 11"x14". A few nights ago I dreamed of this spider painting and woke up feeling like I MUST create it. I know I just recently completed a spider drawing, but the idea behind that one was to be gross and scary and creepy on purpose since I created it specifically for the Halloween show at Gallerie 13. I guess I had the spiders on my mind, but the new spider painting is a more cheerful one- a spring time atmosphere with pastel yellows and greens in the background and a big mostly black spider in the foreground. I think I'll paint a wasp spider... they're pretty cool looking!

Passion Flowers Progress...

Back in May, I was finishing my grapes paintings and trying to decide what to paint next. Passion Flowers were high up on the list, but I was afraid that after painting grapes- consisting mostly of greens and purples- I would be tired of that color combination.

I went ahead with this painting anyway, and as of now I'm almost done with all of the leaves! And not tired of it at all, since painting these leaves is a completely different process than the grape leaves, and the flowers will be a completely different way of painting, too.
I used this photo (I took the original photo at Nature's Paradise B&B on St. Lucia) as a basis for the composition, but changed a few things to make it a little more aesthetically pleasing. I also adjusted the composition with the idea that this painting can be hung either vertically or horizontally.


Here are pictures of the progress so far:

Background blocked in.

Background shading done (can't see it very well in this pic),
base coats of leaves started.

Detail added to some of the leaves and vines. woody vines finished.

More detail added to leaves,
some of the darker background leaves have been finished.

Progress as of midnight last night: Foreground leaves' basecoats complete, and shading added to the foreground leaves on upper left and lower right. Leaf on upper right corner needs just a couple more detail coats.

I also created an artist page on Facebook to offer special deals or promotions to my fans :) I regularly upload pictures of art progress or other fun stuff- like the billboard in town that currently has my art on it. If you'd like to check out the page (or even better, become a fan!) here's the link!
http://www.artist.to/samanthasartstudio
Or you can get to it by clicking the "Become a Fan on Facebook" button above.

Goals, Dreams & Inspirational Rap

Here's the progress of my Passion Flower painting as of this morning!

As I was painting this morning, I had on some Snoop Dogg and while taking in his lyrics, I thought about how his music has been inspiring to me.

It seems that, in general, hip hop music isn't thought of as being a positive influence. However, regarding art and my goals related to it, some of the most positive and inspirational music I listen to comes from Snoop Dogg and Jay-Z.
Of course, I had "Doggystyle" and "The Chronic," on tape back when I was in high school. I defaulted to hip-hop in college (after exhausting my classic rock catalogue) when, for the most part, the new rock scene was downright pukeworthy. If you think about it, it's pretty awesome that these rappers are still around, making new music that I still enjoy after all these years.... which is more than I can say for the majority of rock bands I listened to back then. And that is beyond depressing. :(

So what on earth do I have in common with hip-hop artists? Well there is an inherent similarity of being artists. But for anyone who has personal dreams and goals, no matter what they may be, following your dreams, working hard, and never giving up are common themes throughout a lot of rap music.

If you want to listen to some yourself, check these out:

Jay Z featuring Chris Martin- "Beach Chair"
"Some said HOV, how'd you get so fly?
I said 'from not being afraid to fall out the sky' "
Jay Z- "I made it"
Snoop Dogg- "Beat Up On Your Pads" a song for his football league kids
Eminem- Lose Yourself
Eminem- Til I Collapse
Young Jeezy- "Dreamin' "


What are some songs that you've found to be the most inspiring?

What a productive weekend!

I started my Saturday morning FINALLY making use of some of the packing supplies I've been hoarding since we moved (old sheets, towels, pieces of fabric, bubble wrap, paper wrap, huge plastic bags, the vinyl tablecloth from this post) and making a few Art Bags. I created them for transportation but they can (and will) be used for storage as well. Now that I'm doing 4 (or 5? I forget) art festivals this summer, I know my paintings and frames are going to take a beating in transport. And I hate that. I'm not going to buy a chinsy frame in case it might get damaged in transport, but when you spend a lot of money on a nice frame, you're constantly fretting over the fact that every time you go drive over a bump in the road, it might get hurt! Yikes!

Previously, I would wrap my art in bubble wrap and then some sort of fabric, but when packing up at the end of a show, you just want to hurry up and get everything taken down and loaded up and head home. And when it's raining you're trying to do it even faster. Bubble wrap just gets thrown around, a blanket or towel wrapped sloppily around the painting and then maybe an exposed corner sticking out by the time you've got them all loaded into the car. Not good.

For my transporting bags, I cut a section of vinyl tablecloth that would fit around the whole painting with enough room for a flap to hang down over the top, to protect it from rain and water. On the inside is a pocket of sorts, with padding in the front to protect the painting or glass. I sewed up the sides by hand because I wanted to roll them up and then use a very large stitch around the seams to try and keep it closed. I was able to make 3 small bags from one tablecloth and some shoe laces are currently keeping them shut. In the future I might add velco, but I am currently investigating other more ecofriendly options.

Next to my art bag in the picture above, is one of my small tulip tree studies. I finally got those all framed up, too. (Now they just need to have their bags made!)

I also finished up the green grapes in my 2nd grapes painting and on Sunday I gave the purple ones a 2nd coat. They'll need a few more, and I didn't finish that painting last week like I wanted, but I did get those other things out of the way that aren't a big deal but were definitely time consuming and on my "to do" list.

Since I probably won't continue to offer small prints (5"x7") as standard sizes at art shows (but will create them upon custom request), I printed, matted, and framed some small prints, too. I've got a lot of 5" x 7" frames around that are just sitting there empty, begging to be filled with some art. I framed one small one in a bright blue picture frame and was happy with the result, so I might paint some of the other frames I've got laying around here in bright colors and put a print in them. It will be great to bring them to shows this summer and see people's reactions to them- buying something already framed is obviously one less step for anyone to have to do, so people might like that! (I would!)


Since I'm almost done with my grapes painting, it's time to figure out what's next. And.... I currently have no idea. Or too many ideas? Tropical flowers are my favorite things to paint, but I like to highlight local things too. I've got a canvas that is 24" x 36" and this picture of passion flowers is just the right proportions for it. I'm not sure if this will be what I paint next, as I'm getting a little tired of looking at green and purple.

And lastly, I finally listed a print of the first grapes into my Etsy store.... Took long enough!


Let's hope that my next blog post is a picture of the finished 2nd grapes painting!!