Getting Ready for the CPSA International Show 2014

Great news! One of the pieces from my book, The Zoo's Annual Piggyback Race, has been accepted into the CPSA's 2014 International Show! It is always such an amazing honor to get into this show… especially with "less-than-traditional" fine art.

a framing work-in-progess

I'm super excited to be framing my first piece from the book. I used to work in a frame shop, so I've done most of my own framing for years. I try to use local shops when I can (strictly for the frame and glass, I cut my own mats and fit it all together myself), but my favorite local shop recently closed and I haven't been able to find another great local source yet.

But getting into this show presents another problem: shipping. There all kinds of requirements for framing the pieces that are accepted and you have prepare a re-usable box so the pieces can be shipped back (if they aren't sold during the show, of course). I used to have a heavy duty Air-Float box for shipping pieces to and from the CPSA Shows… but after 6 shows, that box had to be "retired".

I decided to try an online framing supply, figuring I could knock out two issues: frame & acrylic supply (pieces cannot be framed w/glass) PLUS a shipping solution — since the prepared frame would be shipping to me, I'd have a ready-made box to use!

The plan worked, with complications. The box I received my frame in is not the best, but with some modifications, I should be able to make it work. Also, the piece of acrylic I received has a flaw, a black speck INSIDE the plastic. Fortunately, American Frame's Customer Service was very accommodating and has rush shipped a replacement at no extra cost. AF has an average selection of frames, but the prices are among the best I've seen online. They also had a good selection of small framing supply odds and ends for very reasonable prices.

New Work: Masterworks Miniatures 2013

Once again, a new batch of miniatures are complete and submitted! Keeping my fingers crossed they are all accepted into the MasterWorks show.

After taking a year off to participate in the show as a miniatues juror last yea, I can only hope I do as well as I have in past years (2009, 2010, 2011). While I’m still inspired by my travels throughout the state of New Mexico, this year I’m focusing on it’s beautiful skies and sunsets. Like a couple years ago, I raided my own photo archives for inspiration on these pieces, but I started planning these piece for last year’s show… but I never was able to work on the finals. As usual, I left most of the work to the last minute—all pieces were completed last week, and submitted on Saturday.

Driveby Sunset

4.85" x 3" On Arches, 140lb. Hotpress

(6.75" x 5" framed)

This piece is based on yet another snapshot I took while driving home from Santa Fe one evening. I just loved the light of the sunset, outside the frame of the image and unseen directly, but reflecting it’s warmth into the image—while the blues and purples of twilight hide in the shadows of the clouds. It was a surreal moment I was lucky to catch.

Ember Sky

4.75" x 4" On Arches, 140lb. Hotpress

(5.5" x 5" framed)

Once again, I was inspired my the many layers and colors of the sky for this piece… the small yet intense colors of the sunset, so focused in one spot, while the sky above is still hanging onto late afternoon and dancing with frolicking wisps of clouds.

Sunset Aflame

3.65" x 2.65" On Arches, 140lb. Hotpress

(4.75" x 3.75" framed)

This one is a bit more traditional, a real flaming sunset—although maybe a bit more wildly colorful than reality. More desert silhouettes play beneath what looks like a writhing storm of fire, but I was there and I know just how peaceful it was.

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PROJECT NOTES: This year it was a little harder for me to get back into the minis. Maybe taking last year off to be a juror wasn’t such a good idea. I’m hoping I can find a new spark of inspiration to really get my head back in it next year.

Audiobooks/stories listened to while working on these pieces:

Neverware, by Neil Gaiman (BBC theatrical radio production)

The Map of the Sky, by Felix J Palma

New Work & Show Opening Tonight!

Hello!… 3.75"x3.75" - a brand new mixed media experiment.

It's time for our local New Mexico CPSA District Chapter Annual Show again, generously hosted by the Old School House Gallery! I submitted three pieces this year, including my Sleep Bears piece and these two new pieces. I hope to see a great crowd there tonight!

Snow Buddies… 5"x7" - some of you may recognize this as the
original drawing used for my Christmas card last year.

iFri Afternoon (9/21)

Kind of a whirlwind week here … including fun design projects (super-cute booklets and maps!), quotes and contracts for illustration projects (not as much fun, cough-cough), and diving into the World of WordPress (not unlike some torture devices I've heard of)! AH!
I'm lucky to end each and every week with a scheduled Friday afternoon Illustration Friday session at a local coffee house with my colleagues at Tangerine Café. Although yesterday's #iFri session turned out to be more of a wordpress workshop, I'm not complaining – that stuff will come in handy!
I grabbed a new sketchbook (not moleskin, shocker!) and doodled until I filled a page, testing out some new pen & pencils samples I got last week at a CPSA meeting with Prismacolor Rep, Shelley Minnis. Most of this is stream-of-consciousness / idea generating chicken-scratch – but a solid idea did take root and I hope to keep working on it today at our regularly scheduled monthly CPSA meeting (CPSA-DC219, ABQ).

Sketching for #ifri for a change!!

So, this talking about stuff I'm doing thing, here on the blog – do you like it? Is this stuff even remotely interesting in the least? I've never really used the blog of discussion before, it's always just been a way to share sketches and extras that aren't 'portfolio' work.
After a crazy-busy summer work schedule and ignoring my blog for 3 months, I'm trying to make an effort to post here more often – especially since I discovered I have nearly 40 people subscribed to it!  (thanks folks!) Let me know what you think. ;)

CPSA Meeting: Plein Air Drawing in the East Mountains

Yesterday I took a drive up to my friend Betty's house, were our local CPSA chapter was gathering for our monthly meeting. Usually we meet in town, but this month Betty invited us out to her house to do some Plein air drawing. We were invited to trek around her property, but being a rather warm day (up to 104°F in town -- WHAT, already?! It's not even June 1st yet), most of us opted to stay in the shade and sketch from her porches. Can you believe this is her back yard?

(the view from the front is equally impressive… frankly, her 360° views are impressive).

And then I started drawing the yard/mountains. (… well, I did a little illustration sketching first… more on that in a few days). These were pretty quick little sketches in my moleskine sketchbook, so I didn't really put time/effort into my full-on burnishing technique. This was mostly just fun practice… playing with line and color. It was so nice to just sit with a group of people and draw together, chatting about this and that - including our mutual love of colored pencils.

Life Drawing: In the Southwest

My local CPSA District Chapter had our monthly meeting at the Masterworks Show at the end of April. Among other activities, we had the opportunity to sit and sketch a still life that had been set up by members IN the gallery. It was really quite fun to draw for a bit, get up & walk around the show, and sit back down and chat with other members.

I didn't use my colored pencils, I haven't quite wrapped my head around life-drawing with colored pencils - it's such a graphite or charoal type thing… although I did try it a couple months ago for another life drawing session DC Meeting.

New Work: Masterworks Miniatures 2011

This year's batch of miniatures are complete and submitted! Keeping my fingers crossed they are all accepted into the MasterWorks show.

Judging from last year's success and the fact that two of the three pieces I entered sold (both New Mexico themed), I decided to focus on my own travels throughout the state. I take reference pictures wherever I go, sometimes even while I'm driving (very carefully!!!). Usually these get dropped in a folder on my computer and are rarely seen again. I decided to go back through these collections and find some choice references to inspire and guide me for this year's submissions. And while I still left most of the work to the last minute (all pieces were completed this past week), I was able to plan ahead a bit better and ordered my frames a couple weeks ago, so I could drop the finished pieces into their final homes as soon as they were finished.

Massive Sky, Sandias
6.5" x 1.5" On Arches, 140lb. Hotpress
(7.5" x 2.5" framed)
This piece is based on a snapshot I took while driving home from Santa Fe one evening. I couldn't believe it was a real sky, it was just so… massive and dramatic. Sun, storm, and clouds converging over the Sandias in a magical moment. I wanted to do a piece that was a less traditional shape as well. I love long & narrow verticals and horizontals, and this was one of the rare images I had been carrying around in my head since I snapped the photo -- waiting for the right moment to bring it to my drawing table. In the case of miniatures, they say the more "miniature" the better, so I decided not to mat this piece, placing it directly in the frame as if it was an epic grand-scale landscape in oil. My impression of massiveness carried through to the title in the end - I really loved the idea of naming this tiny piece "massive".



Bandelier, No.2
3.75" x 5" On Arches, 140lb. Hotpress
(7.5" x 6.5" framed)
Since I had so much success with the piece I did based on Bandelier National Monument in last year's show, I wanted to do a follow-up piece this year as well. Honestly, this place is just so breath-takingly amazing, I could occupy many years of art-making with this theme. I'll be quite glad to return to it year after year. I've been to the monument twice in the three years I've lived in New Mexico (and taken hundreds of picture upon each visit), I only wish I had time to go more often. I have to admit, somewhere along the line I messed up in my planning and I actually ended up doing this one a little larger than I originally intended (mis-measured somewhere in my process). I had planned to mimic the final presentation from last year's piece, but since the picture ended up larger (and I'd pre-measured and pre-ordered the frame) I ended up having to skip the double mat -- though I didn't realize it until AFTER I had cut and finished the mats with deckled edges and everything!. I'm not sure where the blue theme came from. I guess I originally didn't just want to render exactly what was there, but honor it, and accentuate the otherworldliness of the place, the mystic. I put a little more color variation in this one though, pulling in stronger purples with the exaggerated blues. I'm particularly proud of the teenie tiny ruins in the distance outside the cave (just above the top rung of the ladder).




Catch a Flying Star, DT
4" x 2.5" On Arches, 140lb. Hotpress
(4.875" x 6.25" framed)
This one is a bit different. This was another one of those special photos I kept in my head once I'd snapped the picture. It was just so crazy, colorful, surreal, and beautiful. Flying Star Cafe was one of my first New Mexico dining experiences. I went for the first time back on 2006, when I visited Albuquerque for the first time. A year and a half later, I moved into an apartment two blocks down the street. It has always been a special, comfortable place for me. And while they are extremely protective of their interiors (I believe they've gone so far as to copyright them in some way), this is actually a picture I took out the window, of the intersection of Silver Ave and 8th St. It just happens to be reflecting back a saucer-shaped ceiling, lights, and various other shapes and colors into the sky above outside. It makes for a magnificent alien encounter effect in mysterious New Mexico. *Side note - I totally forgot to sign this piece! Oops.

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I have to say, with each year, I get more and more into these tiny paintings. They are just so… precious. Not to mention, I can do them pretty quickly - as compared to a lot of the illustration work I do. I get to just immerse myself in the rendering, instead of having to think about story, narrative or objectives needed (or lack there of) for so many illustration & design pieces.

Published!

The new Colored Pencil Society of America's Signature Showcase book is out! I received my copy this past weekend and got to see my very own piece in print… in a book!

SPECIAL ANNOUNCEMENT: Gallery Award

Last night I attended the opening reception for my local Colored Pencil Society of America Chapter's group show at the Wooden Cow Gallery here in Albuquerque.
We had a great turn out. It was a fun evening of admiring our group's lovely work - such variety! There were several awards presented, including "The Cow's Choice" and three "Awards of Excellence" awarded by the Gallery owners. As a board member of our local chapter, I was not eligible for these awards. But there was also voting for a "People's Choice Award" at the opening reception - and my piece, AquaLuna was the winner! Excellent!

You can see pictures of all the award winners over at the CPSA NM Group Blog

Masterworks Update

I got the call yesterday, all three of my colored pencil miniature submissions have been accepted. Yay! While I was not officially notified of having been awarded anything, I was told that I MUST attend the reception on Friday evening.
Meanwhile, I heard through the grapevine that I've been awarded first in the colored pencil category. :)

Illustration Friday: SUBTRACT

Simple Sauce
art 3.375" sq., frame 6" sq
colored pencil
©2009

So, this is a little bit of cheat, but I needed to do a miniature piece for a show (deadline was this morning), so I'm posting my entry for Masterworks as well as submitting it for this week's IF theme. The idea here is there were several other tomatoes on the vine that have been subtracted to make sauce. Am I stretching it a bit? Yeah, I thought so.

There are all kinds of rules for miniature works - the general one being 1/6th scale (if the actual tomato is roughly 3" in diameter, it can't be more than 1/2" in the miniature artwork. But sometimes that's not enough! If the artwork doesn't portray a 'sense of miniature' it can be deemed a small picture, as opposed to a miniature. It's baffling, I know. Anyway, I do have that concern with this piece... but I'll keep you posted if I make it into the show. -m.

Award: CPSA NATIONAL

Not only was this piece accepted into the CPSA 16th Annual International Exhibition (my 4th time accepted), I was also received an Award for Outstanding Recognition. Cool!

Award: CPSA D.C. 219

A couple weeks ago I submitted two pieces to my local CPSA chapter who were putting together a show of colored pencil works. I did not know they would be awarding anything but much to my surprise and delight, one of my pieces "Queen Quagga" was awarded First Prize. I would like to thank the chapter for organizing the event and Around the Corner Art Framing Gallery for hosting. It was lovely meeting so many members and visitors at the reception last week.