Pastel Dust is moving...

With 2010 coming to a close, I am ending the year with one of the images from the series of 100 small works that is visual of what the northwest can and does look like this time of year.  A few days before Christmas we had several inches of snow, only to be washed away with the rains.  This is part of the world where the saying "Like our weather? Wait a minute and it will change..." must have come from.

Now, I am also closing this blog site and entering my blogs on the bonniegriffith.wordpress.com  site.  I have transferred all the old blogs from this one, but what I don't seem to be able to do is to transfer "followers" to the new site.  Please take a moment to sign into the new site to follow the journeys painting through the 50 off the 90 series and more.  I have some plans for painting in a couple of different areas this year and I am sure there will be some tales of interesting bits along the way!  This landscape artist is always looking for something of interest- whether it is in the back yard, by the river, in the mountains, etc.

We traveled the 82 to the 90 to the 5 over Christmas to visit family and friends in the Seattle area and what we saw was something akin to the painting above,  as well as sunshine on the west side of the pass in the Cascades to rain to fog and more sunshine.  Mid mornings the clouds lifted and the sun shined on Rainier for one of those spectacular views.  Driving through the Tricities and onward to Yakima was a little tense as the temperature dropped to about 27 and the rains came down.  A few cars were in the ditches, but as we got further west, the temperatures increased and the rains stopped.  Sometimes driving you see things that are just bizarre.  We witnessed such with the adventures of a little BMW of vintage age with a less than well kept convertible top and its lone driver drive sort of oddly through the hills and valleys from Yakima to Ellensburg.  He was zooming around semis and cars and then slowing up, passing again, etc.  Now, as you crest the last big ridges and look over the valley where Ellensburg lies, it is a beautiful site any time of year.  Snow covered on the 22nd of December, roads are clear except for some snow along the edges.  As you come down the long hill into the valley, the semis are gearing down for the distance and at the bottom is where you get to make the decision to get on to I-90 east or west.  82 ends there.  So this little car and his driver have now sped past everyone and we are watching as he opts for the I-90 east exit.  WRONG!  He really wanted west!  He slams on his brakes, skids around and is just about to make it back onto the lane that takes him to I-90 West when he skids into one of the interstate sign poles.  It seemed like all is good until the sign starts to sway and then falls over on the car and then bounces onto the ground creating a cloud of snow as it hits.  The driver seemed unscathed however, sitting in his seat, both hands on the wheel with that look of bewilderment on his face.  It was probably one of those things you had to see for yourself, but it was quite the site to see this sign give way and attack!

So it is back to getting some painting done.  First thing is finish the poster for the Snow White production and work on some backdrop designs...so remember to go to the new blog site and follow from there.  If you have difficulties...contact me: bzgriff@charter.net .  In meantime...happy painting and HAPPY NEW YEAR!!!

pastel dust

After returning from Montana and since my last post, I have been busy with a variety of "stuff" besides painting which can make me a little itchy.  Finally this week I was able to get things in order and get out and do some painting.  Our weather is still beautiful and it lends to getting out and doing some plein air work as well as going on photo expeditions for those reference photos that are so important when the fog sets in and the dampness is bone chilling.
Bambi and I went out this afternoon with the good intention of doing some plein air work, however, the colors were so incredible we agreed that it might be in our best interest to make it a "photo: day and shoot images.  And that is what we did.  We trekked down along some creeks and drove up remote roads in the Blues.  We stayed out late enough to record some of the fabulous light that happens around 4 o'clock this time of year.  We will appreciate this day come mid January and fog!
I am contemplating a new series...it will be different from the small works series where I  used one composition and recreated it differently 100 times.  I have decided this will be small works, but in the 8x10 or 9x12 size...what I haven't decided on is the number and if the pieces will have a relationship to each other.  I am leaning toward something like "Back roads" or "Roads and Streams" or maybe "Montana On My Mind" or "The Path of Lewis and Clark".  Maybe it will be "50 off the 90"...50 images of areas of interest off of Interstate 90...since I-90 begins or ends in Seattle and goes across the panhandle of ID and through MT and continuing on east to Boston.  Outside of Billings you get the option of getting on I-94 which takes a northerly route through North Dakota and continuing eastward, joining I-90 at Lacrosse, WI and then veering off again toward Madison, WI, crossing 90 in the Chicago land area and ending in the Detroit area.
So with that little bit of highway geography, about any area that I wander around is near I-90 and it is diversely different between Seattle and Billings, MT.
A small bit of trivia....up until a few years ago there was one stoplight on I-90...at Wallace, ID...that went away when a new section of interstate was built that circumvented the downtown area of Wallace.
So with that rambling...I think this next body of work will be spots of interest between Seattle and Miles City, MT.  They might be near I-90 (or 94 as one closes in on MC) or a hundred miles off of it.  I promise them to be interesting spots, remote, probably.

Shows to look forward to include The Northwest Pastel Society International Open Show  that opens the 13th at American Art Company in Tacoma, WA.  This should prove to be a good show with quality work.  I am anxious to see the show hanging in this beautiful gallery space.  The next NPS event is the members show which will be at the Kirsten Gallery in the university district of Seattle in a wonderful multilevel gallery.  that show opens in April, 2011.

I am considering going to the International Association of Pastel Societies annual convention/workshops in Albuquerque next June.  That would be a prime time to take some time and spend painting in NM which is something of a  desire of mine.  The thought of being able to combine a trip to paint and a trip to a pastel convention which should be like a huge candy store for pastelists seems almost too good to be true.  For me this could be a whole new series.  The potential for a landscape artist traveling the route I would take would take me through some splendid sites like Zion, Bryce, etc. and on into CO and northern NM.

"Fall Kaleidoscope" was given an honorable mention in Jerry's Artarama's Summer Pastel Challenge using the Mungyo pastels.  I had not tried them before, but like these semi-hard square sticks.  They are touted to be light fast and the colors are very nice.  Prices are great.  I did a trial run with a box of 1/2 sticks (64) and continue to use them for burnishing and some under painting.  I like these!  this little piece was actually done entirely with the Mungyo's on Art Spectrum paper.  I also used some on the painting at the top which was done on black Art Spectrum and is a scene along Patit Creek.   I am also a big fan of Jerry's plein air frames....very good value especially when you can take advantage of a case lot and when they are on sale!

Finally, I would like to post an image and invite anyone who wants to paint it and then submit it to me to post.  I think a few of these with people's different style and palette would be fun to see.  You can send them to my email bzgriff@charter.net and I can post them or you can try to post them with your comments to the blog!  Here is the first image:

good luck and happy painting!

more dust

I just got back from the quarterly Northwest Pastel Society meeting in Gig Harbor, WA.  That's across the Narrows from Tacoma in the south Puget Sound.  It is a beautiful setting and typically would be a great place to some plein air painting down by the harbor, however it was mid 90's and that's a little warm to be outside painting for long!
I just am finishing the night scene of Joseph, OR above.  It is sort of fun to play with "night" colors and the lack of!  It was wet and lots of stormy clouds and most everything was peaceful; much different from the bustling of the daytime Main Street activities.
The vineyard is an older painting that I did some copies of and will be given to some of the guests tomorrow night at the vineyard dining and plein air experience that Lori, M'Lisse, LeaAnn and I put together for a Hospice auction item this year.  I met LeaAnn one evening at her vineyard to check out where I would be painting and maybe what I might paint.  She took me around through the vines and showed me the difference between Cabernet and syrah grapes and others and she was trying to be helpful in where I might set up to paint.  She starts talking about me standing and working on top of a table or in a "lift" on her tractor.  Man, WHOA!  I don't do heights!  I am good being 5'5" from the ground up.  She thought that was pretty funny.  But she doesn't really know me all that well.  I am not extremely coordinated.  I knock things over.  I could envision falling off the table; spilling pastels all over the ground, crashing the easel to the dirt and more.  Much better I stay grounded.  Then I said I loved her grape fields!  GRAPE FIELDS????  IT"S A VINEYARD!! just a technicality...I am looking forward to spending part of the evening with the diners and the rest of the crew.  It will be fun and I will come up with something appropriate to paint, I am certain! without the tractor or standing on a picnic table.
Back the NPS meeting...the entries are all in for the Int'l Show and entry has now closed for that event.  The entries are all done digitally and on line.  This is one of the greatest things, in my book, because it simplifies the entry process so much.  You don't have to take, develop and send in slides or even make a CD, it's all electronic on the computer.
Some folks were talking about preparing their images for transmittal.  That's the crucial element!  Every art show prospectus that comes out describes in detail what dimensions, etc is required for the entry.  Some shows, if the entry isn't done correctly, merely discard the entry and the artist doesn't know any difference other than they were denied for entry by the juror.  So a couple of things to make note of:
        Be sure the image you are sending has nothing but the image of the painting in it...no tape showing on the edges of the painting, no frame, no mat, no light sneaking around the side of the painting, etc.  The prospectus will tell you the image size should be...such as: 
Images should be hi resolution (300dpi), 1200x1800 pixels -approximately 4”x 6”.
Save each of your jpg images using this convention:
“yourlastname.titleofpainting.jpg”
Use no spaces or symbols in name.
So to change your image that you have stored in our computer, you need to have access to PhotoShop or some image software.  Once you go to the "resize image" you can accomplish most of this pretty easily.  You want to maintain the appropriate shape of your painting, so if it happens to be a long narrow piece, you want the juror to see it as it is and not just a portion of that.  So be sure the box is checked to keep proportions consistent. Then you change the longest side of your image to the longest allowed in the prospectus (in the case above - 1800 pi)   Then the shorter side will proportionately change automatically.  Always be sure to check and make certain the resolution is set at the required (300 dpi on this one).  A note...be sure you are using a high resolution when you take your image as well.  Your camera has a setting for this.  If  you shoot an image at 72 dpi and then try to make it be 3000 dpi when you change it, you will not be very happy because your image will not be clear and crisp...And then label the image as requested; "save as" in your documents and then upload this newly sized image in the entry.  Photoshop isn't the only software that allows you to make changes of an image.  I have a Canon ARCsoft program that allows and is very simplistic and easy.  It is a program that is part of my scanning system and works very well.  So that's some tips for preparing an entry for a juried show with digital entries.  Also what I do is print out the prospectus so I have that in hand to refer to, to make certain the entry is done correctly.
Wishing all you painters great success and keep painting...

As a note:  The show is hanging at Discovery Pond in Miles City and the Custer County Heritage Auction Show is ready for public view this weekend for the month before the actual auction.

pastel dust

I have been doing the "other stuff" related to painting for the past couple of weeks...getting pieces into frames, taking work to galleries, picking up other work, etc.  It's all the busy work that takes big chunks of time.  I did go out and do some photography in a vineyard where I am going to be painting plein air during an evening dinner in this vineyard as part of an auction sale to benefit our local Hospice.  Three friends - M'Lisse and Lorie are cooking and presenting some wonderful fare to the high bidders of this auction lot; LeaAnn owns the vineyard and is providing al fresco dining in the shade of beautiful old trees at the edge of the vineyard and I am painting a 9x12" piece while the party eats.  The painting is part of the package as well and will be given to the diners.  All in the spirit of giving back to a superb organization that provides so much for so many people.

So, I have included a couple of images of works that are part of my collection - not my work - but from family.  The watercolor is a field painting done by my great uncle who, along with my Mom was probably my most inspirational person to keep me painting.  This piece was probably painted in the 40's - maybe late 30's.  He lived in Chicago and was an artist working the the ad business.  He traveled a lot, painting and spent years roaming Europe before WWII painting.  Every Christmas, his signature was to paint Christmas cards for the family.  I have 7 of them that my mom saved and framed and gave me.  The cards are all of somewhere that was meaningful to his family - the front stoop of the house in Chicago, the home he lived in out in northern IL, the street he lived on in Paris, etc.
The other image is a wood carving done in a wooden bowl by a young man from Chicago who my Grandmother was a nurse for.  My grandmother was a nurse by training and a pioneer.   She journeyed to Montana in the teens of the century and homesteaded with her brother and his best friend.  She married the friend and after he died untimely, she returned to Chicago with my mom (age 13) in tow and re-upped her necessary continuing education and started nursing again.  Private duty nursing was a good paying line of work and she like that.  The boy that did the carving was recovering from some malaise and he and my grandmother became friends.  Once he recovered he finished the wood carving and gave it to her.
Just another couple of interesting art items with a bunch of sentimental value!

I did spend 5 days in the Puget Sound doing a variety of art things.  The state fair entries were due and this year their focus in the fine art department was Pastels, so I decided to take a piece there for that show.  Other duties were meeting with a gallery in Seattle to host our Northwest Pastel Society show in 2011.  Kirsten Gallery in the University district.  Lovely gallery and look forward to working with them. And then a day with the NPS for a board meeting and general membership meeting.  Finally a trip up to Bellingham to retrieve some pieces that had been shown and back to the east side of the state last night.  The Puget Sound is beautiful; but I certainly appreciate the less traffic and busy that I live in daily in Walla Walla!
So...for now...keep painting...I am going to do that this week!

Color Fields

Color fields was the name of a group show that I did one time; but certainly is appropriate for the Series of 100. One hundred little fields; thirty are finished, two of which have not yet been posted. I digitally manipulated the icy one in another view and may post it for fun...amazing what can be done with digital engineering! With the snowy one, I have seen that heavy frost that is so beautiful and dense on the trees - probably causing significant distress to the plant, but so pleasing to the eye. I achieved that by putting a dark purplish-brown down first, then giving it a mist of workable fix, on top of which the lighter colors were added. The beauty of Wallis paper with it's tooth and the fix allows you to get that 3 dimensional effect that just pops!

The blue one...what can I say...just working monochromatically...gives a sense of twilight on snow.

My great uncle who was an accomplished watercolorist, did a winter scene of his home in the woods of Northern IL in the evening. It is all shades of blue with the \yellow glow emanating from the windows. It was done when I was a kid; was his Christmas card image and I have been in awe of that painting ever since I first saw it! I became the caretaker of his artwork after my mother passed away and it hangs in my home prominently in it's original little frame and along with several other of his works. His work has served as an inspiration to me from early on.

happy painting...

Happy New Year!!

Wow! the snow had all disappeared til early this morning and then it started coming down again and was strikingly familiar the big snow a couple of weeks ago.

New paintings...shown above.
The NW Pastel Society has their prospectus published on their website for the members show...suggestions of "Step out of your box" and do something out of the ordinary for the show. hmmmm...

I am working on a representational piece from a photo of my Mom and her neighbor moving cows to summer pasture. It is an interesting shot as the cows are meandering and eating their way up this hill thru this high posted gate that was a signature of her neighbors fence lines. My mom is sort of in the midst of these cows and calves, gently urging them to greener pastures for the summer. I will put it up on the blog when I am finished with it.

One of the pieces I just finished was of the Walla Walla River near Saviah Cellars. The river has a nice flow to it at the bridge on Pepper Bridge Road, and when I was at the winery for barrel tasting this year, I stopped and shot a few images of the river then. So I finished one based on a shot taken at that time. Then after the snow came and once it was safe enough to travel, I went back to this spot and shot some more images. There is some great potential with a couple of these newer shots with the hint of snow and a late afternoon glow to the brush and trees.

Once again...Happy New Year!

walla walla pastel artist

We have 50 paintings hanging! The smallest is 3x5" and the largest is 3x5'! And...lots in between.

The dogs can't figure out what is going on with all the moving stuff around and hammering. I think they must be thinking we are moving. They are getting daily outings with either Les or I when we run errands and that is a big hit.

I am working on cards today and some tiles for coasters. I am using the "Staz-on" inks and imprinting the tiles with stamp art then a light spray of sealer. They turn out very cool. I put felt "bumpers" on them for feet so they protect the table surface they sit on. There's a specialty shop here that carries these, and they sell for $22/ea! MUCH better prices at the show this weekend!!

I had more art print cards printed; new images. Saw the prototypes last night and they looked good. I will also have a few 5x7 and 8x10 images of some paintings printed. I am looking for things that I can take out to Saviah Cellars for barrel tasting as well...and I think some little prints will be good. The WW Artist's Alliance has very cool post cards for sale (will have some here for my open houses and also at Saviah). There are 15 different images from 15 artists and they sell for $17.95.

I had an email from Betty, my sister, today and she does these awesome wreaths and things; also does these great metal art objects...next year she is going to be part of the show....Hope you read this Bets! In case I forget to tell ya

I'm off to the studio to work...

Our show is coming together; nearly all painting are hanging - at least the large ones. I have been concentrating on painting some small ones in the last couple of days - 4x6" and 5x7". Last night I did a couple with oil pastels. This is a fun medium to work with - I have a much more limited palette, but a good one for landscape.

The dogs and cats are looking at us like we are nuts with all the moving stuff around, hanging paintings all over. Alfi sits on top of the computer monitor watching every move while Spanx is more stealth-like and wanders around carefully looking at everything. The dogs Mac and Morrie sleep mostly; but have this look of "what's up?" when they are awake. here's Spanxand Alfi checking out paintings while I was photographing.

pastels, holiday open house

Les and I are furiously getting ready for the open house next weekend...new track lighting for one of the walls, posters/flyers made and distributed and PAINTING!

There will be a big variety of paintings and other work to select from. I have printed a lot of new note cards of paintings and they will be offered at a great price. I am working on some coasters that will be ready as well. They are tile with art images on them. You see these for around $15-20 each in specialty stores and I guarentee these will be a lot less than that!

The new painting of the day and the new card of the day is here! Check them out!

Back to work...:-)

Next week I will doing one painting a day and probably a new card a day in prep for the holiday open houses. Watch the blog for those items that will be for sale. Anyone in the greater Walla Walla area is welcome to the open house - 10-4 Saturday and Sundays for the weekends before and after Thanksgiving and the first weekend of December which is also winter barrel tasting here for all wine enthusiasts! Also I have work at Whitman Cellars and Saviah Cellars as well as Carnegie Art Center and will be hanging work in December at Luscious By Nature...one of the very best restaurants in Walla Walla, in my opinion. Ceil and Damon and Michael are great to work with and Damon is the BEST margarita maker!

If you are in the Pendleton area, Raphael's Restaurant has a great display of pastel paintings. It's definitely worth stopping by there for a meal - Rob is a fabulous cook and their menu is wonderful...they do a lot with huckleberries - from drinks to sauce for salmon (the best).

new pastels/open house

Here are two new pastel paintings. Both are currently shown at Carnegie Art Center in Walla Walla through Dec 20.
More work will be available at the open house the weekends before and after Thanksgiving and first weekend of December.
Art stamped cards, collages, tile coasters will be available as well.