I have a passion for collecting art. In fact it’s part of my “purpose in life”: to help artists in any way that I can. I’m behind on sharing these wonderful artists with you all. Last fall I attended two Studio Tour events. One was a new event put on by The Art Guild of Orange Park and the other was the annual CoRK open house. The Guild had quite a few of their members volunteer to share their time with the public. I decided to be the public, instead of open my studio. CoRK is a warehouse full of multiple fabulous artists studios. I’ve rarely miss their open house. I almost always pick up a few pieces there. This year was no exception. These are:

Cole Collier (2), Kim Guzzone Collier, Lana Shuttleworth, Allison McCauley, Lana Koster, Mary Fowler, and Karen Kurycki (Unfortunately just a print. I prefer originals).

I am very far behind on sharing news about my art collection. I am an avid collector of others art. This photo of my home office says it all. (Though some of the art on these walls is mine.) More about my latest acquisitions in the next post.

And these are the many watercolors that I started and had to set aside for one reason or another. It is often very difficult to pick up a painting after too much time has lapsed. Sometimes a break from it helps enormously. There’s some of each in this pile. I’ll try to make sure I let you know what happens to them.

A friend of mine who started his own business said this to me. He didn’t have to tell me that! I’m a bit of an organization nut. However, I’ve dropped the ball on several things lately. There’s magic in Organization because it can help keep your priorities straight. This is more about mental organization than physical organization. It’s about scheduling. My studio is well organized, but my Calendar doesn’t seem to be working for me. I’ve mixed up my priorities. So I am attempting to tweak this part of my art life.

I am fortunate that there are several local arts organizations that I belong to that afford me many opportunities to show my work. It’s been tricky juggling all of them. which things come first. I’m now putting things into my Reminders as well as my Calendar. I’ve also started labeling my folders differently on my computer. I’ve always made a desktop folder “4” each show, but now it will also have a Number for its priority!

So, I am going gangbusters on my challenge already. I finished one small piece (well almost). I’m debating whether to add chines white or scratch out some whiter whites in the Coots painting. I realized that in addition to the “calls to artists” I’d like to answer, I also need do some work for the Art Guild’s gala “Art Gone Wild”. I started several paintings of animals at the zoo.

I’m about to challenge myself to a painting a day for 30 days again. It is one of my favorite challenges to do. I’ve been very busy in the studio everyday this past month anyway and I’ve been enjoying putting my nose to the grindstone. I will be working on my own stuff, but also to produce pieces for an upcoming show of JAG’s at the library, called “Naturally”. Nature is a constant subject in my art and a show calls for an autumnal feel is right up my alley. Autumn has always been my favorite season. As I went through my photos for subjects I came up with 54! I’ve narrowed it down to 39. Hence, a painting a day for at least a month is warranted. I’m hoping I have another challenge at the end of this one. I’m hoping I create so many wonderful works of art, that it is a challenge to pick which ones to enter. These are some of my possibilities…

I’m pretty sure most of us artists prefer one over the other. I’ve been a busy bee. There are three shows coming up I want to enter. The deadlines are all within 4 days of each other, the last being the 30th. One show is : “Roses, Roses” at Wehner’s School of Music. One is “View from my Window” at the Art Center Cooperative and one is at FSCJ Kent Campus and is a Jacksonville Artist Guild show called “Express Yourself” (I haven’t decided yet what I’m entering in that one). Here are my entries for the other two… You will recognize one of them. I like the fact that my three for the roses show are all very different (a mixed media, a traditional watercolor and a combo mono print and watercolor with pearlescent paints). That one is not really even my style, but I like it.

Sometimes that’s a happy moment, but there are different reasons for it to be a happy time. This time I’m happy because it’s been such a long drawn out process with many difficult moments. I like the results and am glad that I stuck with it.

I thought it wise for me to take a break from Interior Construct II. I’m almost done with it; I don’t want to screw it up.

So today I worked on an organizational project, that’s been on my list for a while. I researched various watercolor brands and which of their pigments are transparent or semi-transparent. I’ve been painting with watercolors for decades, but I’m not one to really pay attention to the technical details. However, I’ve decided I really want to paint with only transparent colors if possible. I also got a new palette in May and needed to fill it! Turns out most of my tubes on hand were transparent. I already know some of my own favorite hues and how they interact with others I use. I want to fine tune things while exploring the different brands versions of the colors I like. Over the next year, I hope to settle on a single palette of limited colors- a warm and cool of the primaries and some earth tones. There were probably 2 or 3 other simply because I’ve fallen in love with them. My new palette will probably be made up of my 3 favorite brands: Danielle Smith, Holbein, and Sennelier.