Eric Wiegardt Workshop

Is there anyone out there "thinking" about taking Eric Wiegardt's painting workshop June 6-8. at HUMMINGBIRD? We just need ONE MORE registration to make the class go.


I'm an oil painter but I have been really looking forward to working with Eric, especially after reading what various people have posted about his workshops. He teaches fundamentals of design/composition as well as water media technique so I figure it will help my paintings no matter what, and I'm done with schlepping oil paints when I travel. I figure if I can handle water media it will be great for painting on the go. And who knows? I/you just might like watercolor and acrylics if we knew how to get the most out of them.
...so I'm hoping that there will be some last minute registrations that will enable us to cover his teaching fee.

Here is the workshop info http://humnew.com/EricWiegardt-09.html
Note the link to payment option.

And for those of you who have been here and wanted to come back, I also remind you that this could be our last year at HUMMINGBIRD before we move back to Portland. A lot has changed here and we would love to share it with you.

Magical Miracle

" Magical Miracle" 12 x12" oil on canvas $150

A couple of months ago I was asked to participate in the Annual Women's Invitational at Rogue Community College. The theme was Abracadabra. Since I was growing lettuce greens indoors for winter salads, I was fascinated and amazed once again by the miracle of a sprouting seed. I think the gallery expected some fantasy from me, but nothing struck me as more magical than this event. "Ta-Da!" says Mother Nature.
I just got the painting back from the show; it fits my life perfectly right now as I spend hours propagating seeds and preparing garden beds so our place will look beautiful for my daughter's wedding in August and for the prospective buyers that will come shortly thereafter.

Ceramic Showase this weekend in Portland

Guess what we are getting ready for? Here's what the Might Quince looks like as a canvas giclee print on a clay "frame".
This is the way I get to continue participating in the ceramic shows that Dennis and I have done together for years: I show my paintings on CLAY! This was truly one of those "necessity is the Mother of Invention"developments that has been quite successful over the past few years since I stopped being a ceramic artist.

The Mighty Quince

The Mighty Quince 24" x 30" oil on canvas panel $1200

(Well, this certainly qualifies as "after Christmas"!)
This painting was part of the exercise of choosing a painter to emulate that I mentioned in my last post. A friend picked this wonderfully provocative quince off her tree to show me and immediately I asked if I could have it to paint ala Georgia O'Keefe. I didn't intend to get too serious about it but as I worked on it the more I liked it, so I let go of Georgia and finished it up ala Leslie. The size is what makes it powerful so the web is not it's best view.
More paintings from the February show coming...

"Moonlight Chairs" a la Hopper

"Moonlight Chairs" 12 x 12" oil on canvas $750

Obviously I've not spent much time with this blog after the big computer blitz in September.

Does that mean I have been painting? Actually, yes, but mostly on canvases I started some time ago and now need to finish. Dennis and I have a show together in January at Clatsop Community College in Astoria so I no longer have the luxury of just thinking about finishing these paintings.
I will post them as they are finished but I'm guessing that won't be until after Christmas. Someone asked me once when I decided a painting was finished and I said "When I run out of time." meaning the show deadline. And then, if I get them back after the show, the answer is "When someone else owns them." This is one of the things I really like about painting as opposed to ceramic sculpture: if I still have the canvas I can keep working on it.

This summer my two faithful students and I postponed the last two scheduled classes and we made them up this fall. To stretch us all a bit I suggested that we each do a painting in the style of an artist of our choosing.

Tana decided to do a copy of a Cezanne and was surprised at how much she liked a looser approach which she applied to her own subject during the next class.

That's my painting in the style of Edward Hopper in the background, far right. The finished piece is at the top of this blog and will be on the announcement card for the January show. With little editing, this is the scene we see when we leave our studio at night and head to the house. If the lights are on it glows like a lantern and the scene inside is something Hopper would have appreciated, I'm sure.

Adrienne chose to emulate van Gogh and got to understand a bit better why using only small, repetitive brush strokes can produce a squirmy can o' worms. Taking a digital black and white photo helped her see how all the values had blended into mid-range. Look at the difference after the second class! She'd want you to know it is not finished...( in case anyone thinks you know her, this IS Adrienne King, scream-queen star of the original Friday the 13th movie which I never saw, and never intend to see.)

On-Line Studio Sale

More Than Memory 30" x 30" oil on canvas $2300

Whoo-eee! Am I sick of my computer screen, or what? We decided to cancel the Studio Sale we usually have in Portland every year and put everything into an on-line sale instead.

330+ images and 21 pages later all my paintings, prints, drawings, & monoprints and all my husband, Dennis Meiners', ceramic sculpture and pottery is available on our web page.
People are reporting back that they have had a really good time browsing through the pages. The painting above is in the sale along with others that have never been on this blog and all my in-stock giclee prints are 20% off. Check it out!

I can't tell you how I am looking forward to being a painter again instead of a marketer, but it's all part of the game.

Painting with Sophie

"Penny on the Porch"

My 9 year old grandniece Sophie, who I painted at Christmas playing her violin, is visiting for a few days and today we spent part of the afternoon painting. Sophie was a great student, working from a sketch she had made earlier of our dog Penny and creating a composition with flowerpots on our back porch. When she started this painting she commented that everything was a dark color and lightened the blue bed to make the black shape of the dog really stand out. Pretty smart, huh?
In the studio together, I looked around and decided that she was by far the most interesting thing I could paint so here's the oil sketch- as far as I got.


Now it's time to go make homemade pasta together and find some ripe tomatoes and basil in the garden to go with it.
Dennis and I are going to a wedding at the coast and will be gone for a few days. More when I return.