Spring Has Sprung, Fall Will Fall

Leaves 1

5X5

Kelli Money Huff

Hey All,

I am feeling good with the slight hint of crispness in the air here in Florida. Believe me, it is very slight. Today was predicted to be 94 degrees and I feel every degree. But I digress, this is all about art. I am missing the autumn leaves this time of year that I loved in Michigan where I grew up. I only miss snow on two days a year, Christmas Eve and Christmas Day. However, I really miss the colors of fall throughout this entire season. I devour magazine photos of wilderness roads with their golds, oranges and wine colors. Recently an online photo of the Upper Peninsula nearly brought me to tears. And that is why I created some small pieces with brightly colored autumn leaves. Check out our new section on Etsy called Autumn.

I wish you Peace, Love and Color
Kelli

2 more

Pumpkin 4

5x5

Pumpkin 3
5x5

Okay, I couldn't help myself. I was just having too much fun painting these little guys. I'm up to 4 of them now, don't know how many I'll do. I'll look for some other image ideas for fall to continue the theme. If you have any ideas, throw them out there, comment and let me know if there's something you'd like to see. All 4 of these are on Etsy now in the Autumn section. Eventually there'll be a Winter section, etc.......

keep on keepin' on,

Carlynne

Pumpkin time

Pumpkins 1 and 2

each 5x5 on canvas panel

I took my supplies with me to work today in hopes that I would have time to do a little painting. The creativity gods were on my side and gave me a couple of uninterrupted hours to play with my paints and brushes. These little pumpkins are done on canvas panels and have gold leaf backgrounds, the rest is acrylic. For the other painters out there I used the Golden Open acrylic - love the stuff! It's a joy to work with. I did these in hopes that the weather gods would be paying attention, realize that autumn is upon us and take the temperature down just a smidge. Look for some new seasonal stuff to come in our Etsy shop.

Hope you're enjoying your week,

Peace and love,

Carlynne

Hi folks. This is the Artist Within project. I'm working with Julie Shealy on a painting project that's part of a program started by the Marion Cultural Alliance in Ocala. This is a great program that puts artists and business people together to produce a work of art that's to be auctioned off for charity. Thankfully Julie remembered her camera so she could record our progress. I asked her to email the photos to me so I could post them here. Julie has been so much fun to work with and so brave too. It's not often that we get to work with someone new to painting who wants to work large and bold! Kudos to you Julie! The first thing we did was tone the canvases with red paint, then added a lot of gold leaf - 3 packages worth!

At the end of the second session we had blocked in the greens. Hopefully you can tell by now that this is going to end up a landscape. The reference photo that Julie is working from is a pic I took at Paynes Prairie when the water lilies were blooming. Can you see the little bits of red peeking through? I love complimentary colors.

Today we worked on the background trees. We did some layering with cooler greens to set that area back in the picture plane. We also sealed the gold leaf so we don't get any tarnishing. Next weekend we'll get into more detail work on the background and maybe start putting some flowers in.

Hope ya'll have a good week,

Carlynne

It's Large

Desert Down Under

48x48

Mixed media

Ok, we've been slackers once again, but.... only where this blog is concerned! I've been staying very busy finishing this painting for one thing. For another, I've been painting the house - more on that later, maybe with pictures. This painting is the largest I've done to date and it was a blast. I love painting larger but my house doesn't appreciate it so much, storage is getting to be a real issue. And, maneuvering around this thing on the easel was quite the trick when I was trying to get to my drawing board to work on little 5x5's for Etsy. Then add the mixed media aspect. I wanted some texture on the surface so I added some glass bead gel, not a problem until I wanted to do a layer of watery paint on top and had to lay the painting down flat. That created a domino affect when every other surface in the studio had to be cleared off to make room. Back on the easel. Work a while. Time to add gold and copper leaf. Have to work flat again. And so it went - easel to table and back again. Then try to shoot a photo, ha! No way I could shoot it in the studio like I do the smaller stuff. I took it outside, set it up, got the camera and tripod set up and the yellow jackets took offense. Thankfully me and the gear made it back inside before the stingers found bare skin. Still no picture though. I ended up in the dining room with the painting at one end and me squeezing myself between the tripod and the windowsill. Got the shot but I probably won't be doing another 48x48 any time soon.

Photo phobia

Beach Series #49

5X5 acrylic textures

Hi All,

I know I seem to have it all together to everyone else, but shocking as it may be, there are some things I am not good at, and some things I am downright afraid of. (I am pausing here to give you a chance to absorb this stunning news.)

You know how artists hate to market their work, well that is not a fear to me as much as it is an annoyance. and a dislike. My greatest fear, well, maybe not my greatest, I mean there is the fear of having the next painting turn out to be crap and then the fear of putting your work out there, and then the fear of sounding stupid in an interview and don't get me started on the pictures they take of you and publish in magazines, books and newspapers. OK, sure, there are a lot of things I am afraid of in this career I have chosen, but I digress. The one I am talking about today is my PHOTO PHOBIA. Technically I think that means fear of the sun or light or something, but for me it is fear of taking photos of my artwork. This is really hard!!!!

All my life I have had a problem understanding the whole f-stop thing, even when I was young and my memory was good and I could still learn new things. You know, the aperture gets smaller as the number gets bigger and the light must be compensated by the yada-yada-yada-yada.... Whatever. I have tried, I really have. I've taken classes, I've practised, I even have a very supportive husband, Greg, who once drew a really good diagram to explain it to me and help me remember it (I am a visual learner). It really helped, but I didn't retain it.

Anyway, fast forward to today. My creative partner (in books, teaching, blog, Etsy, blah, blah, blah) Carlynne Hershberger had to learn to photograph our artwork for our first book(Creative Colored Pencil Workshop). I say "she had to" because if we had depended on me to do it, our publisher would still be waiting and I would be under my bed in the fetal position sobbing and mumbling to myself. You remember how in the old days, artists used slides to enter competitions and also to publish work in magazines and books. Well, ours was chosen for publication just about the time that digital photography was getting really big. Our publisher, F & W Media, gave us the opportunity to be their first authors to do all of our photos digitally. Carlynne was magnificent (we do tell each other periodically that we are brilliant or genius, but magnificent is a new word that we have not used before.) She acquired a new camera (Canon 20D) and learned to use it with very little help from me, although I did read the manual aloud to her, but the translation from Chinese was not very helpful.

Carlynne became wonderful at it and we both benefited from her expertise. Well, eventually I had to learn to do my own. So when we started our Etsy shop, she did the beginning photography to get us started and then she gave me a lesson in doing my own. I had nightmares before we got together to do this. I thought about checking myself into a hospital and having a triple by-pass instead. I needed a root canal, but didn't have the money to pay for it. My other alternative was to change my name and leave town with no forwarding address. But, being the responsible person that I am, I did show up. She was so kind to me (I get teary just thinking about it now) and she gently lead me through the steps and then I realized it wasn't nearly as bad or as hard as I had thought. In fact, I knew right then, that I had nothing to fear but fear itself! (At this point, there are angels singing and a ray of strong sunlight beating down on my head.) I would like to take a moment here to thank, not only Carlynne, but the person who invented digital photography.

So, what have I learned from this experience? That I am not stupid, or old or have a bad memory? No, that is not what I learned, in fact I may be all those things. But I did learn that fear is of the unknown, once it becomes known, the fear can disappear quickly. It was my mind telling me I could not do this, in short I was not good enough. We are all good enough, we just have to tackle our fears head on. And if you are an artist, you need to learn this fast, because unfortunately, our art lives are filled with possible phobias (this post, paragraph 2, lines 3-7). I wish I could give the author credit, but cannot remember where I read one of my favorite quotes: If you are not frightened and depressed, you are not growing as an artist.

Love and peace to all,
Kelli

The midnight hour

It's almost midnight and I'm still up. My dear hubby is not feeling well and he's on a deadline. He has a photo shoot to finish and has to have it done by tomorrow. I've done all I can to help so now I'm just staying up out of sympathy I guess. Not sure what that'll accomplish other than being tired at work tomorrow but here I am - posting. So, since I'm here I thought I'd show you a few of the pics I took of my daughter's puppy Maddie. Maddie spent the day with us on Sunday and between the Frisbee and the hose we wore her right out.

Love her smile!

No, that's not a cast on her leg, she just has really cool markings.

Isn't she cute? I went a little nuts with the camera, this is only 4 shots out of about 230. No, I'm not going to post them all. There are some really fun ones of her trying to bite the water from the hose though so I'll post those later. These were the easiest to do right now - after all it's now AFTER midnight! Not sure how much more sympathy I can muster.

I hope you all had a good Independence day weekend.

Peace and love,
Carlynne