Retrospect: Two Weeks Gone By

I do intend to write in my blog more often, but before you know it a week has passed and then another. Tonight I am heading to Bountiful, Utah for the BDAC Statewide Show and Grand Opening of their new facility. I was fortunate to have a painting selected to be in the show. Unfortunately I forgot to take a picture of if before I took it in. I will get one tonight.

Mother's Day Gift by Catherine Darling Hostetter

Recently I finished a portrait for a girl in Canada. It is to be a gift for Mother's Day for her mom. Due to longer shipping times from the US to Canada, it will get there late. She ordered it a week and a couple of days before Mother's day and I shipped it the Wednesday before MD.

As I mentioned in my last blog entry, I am reading and studying a book called 'Success Principles'. My goal was to read a chapter a day and really try to change all my habits into positive ones. I am on Chapter 6 (obviously not a chapter a day), and I have come to realize if you really want to do something life changing, you can't restrict it to a chapter a day. So I decided I need to focus on a chapter until I feel like I really get it.

I am currently working on a painting titled "Walk With Me" it is about half way done and is acrylic on cradled panel. I plan on finishing it tomorrow, and making at least one print of it to frame and donate to a fundraiser. I should have a picture of it to post in the next few days.

In June our Gallery, Local Colors of Utah is having a group show of our artists and we are doing a 'Green' Theme. The art has to be made of recycled or re-purposed items to be in the show. After I finish the "Walk With Me" piece, I will start on my upcyled piece. Busy times ahead!

Dreaming

This is a more whimsical painting titled "Dreaming". It is number 3 in a series of women paintings I am doing.

 My purpose in doing a series is to explore the topic and paint wherever the inspiration leads me.
There are many virtues that are embodied in women and often they begin with a dream.

This painting is 10" x 8" on gallery wrapped canvas. $250 plus $5 shipping in the US and is available for purchase. Contact me!

I Have a Show at Local Colors!

My art is featured this month at Local Colors of Utah Gallery. The theme for the show is "I Can Fly".
I recently moved and it took me a little bit to get in gear to paint for this show. I hadn't painted for a couple of months and when I finally got around to painting, I just couldn't get inspired.

*sigh*

 No matter what, I just couldn't think of anything I wanted to paint. The theme was really wide open for all kinds of ideas, but alas, none came my way. Finally some very good advice came to me...Stop thinking and start painting!

So I did and even though I wasn't thrilled with my first idea, I just kept painting. Pretty soon the ideas started coming. Unfortunately by that point, I only had a short amount of time to paint before the hanging of the show. The show is now up from October 18th thru November 13th.

This is one of my paintings in the show:

 "Flying a Hare Too Low"

  Come see what else I ended up with when I had to fly by the seat of my pants, or should I say 'paint' by the seat of my pants?

Life is Just Beachy

A couple of days ago, I came across a fabulous watercolor artist by the name of Charles Rennie Mackintosh. He was an artist/architect from Scotland around the early part of the last century. His lovely work made me want to get my watercolors out and paint! I have been painting in acrylic for the past year, but there it is nothing like the delicacy of watercolor and it beckoned to me.

I am a bit rusty, but I did a little 7" x 5" painting titled "Life is Just Beachy". With summer coming on, and peaches not quite in season, I was imagining bare toes in warm sand and a feeling of how great life is. I really love painting in watercolor.

Art is in the Eye of the Beholder

Bird Dog 12" x12"

Art is in the eye of the beholder. In the case of visual art, it has to be. In your eye, I mean. So you can see it. Right? Now whether you like the art or not becomes the duty of the brain, interpreting what you are seeing and making a judgement call.

My show at Local Colors is this week, with the opening this coming Friday night. I am working hard to get my paintings ready. I am one of those artists that move a bit quicker when I have a deadline. The problem with that (can you say procrastination?) is you run out of time to do all that you really would like to do for the show. *sigh*.

Since I still have a few days yet, I am optimistic and plan on getting a lot done. I am excited about the drawing for the $600 painting to be given away that night. There's more details on my blog about it. If you haven't entered, you can right here:

 The drawing has ended. Congratulations to Susan Daniels.

16" x 20" painting valued at $600

Maybe this flying dog painting doesn't jingle your chimes, but think about it...it could be just the ticket for a kids room or a gift for someone who loves dogs. I am sure someone would like to give this painting a good home. After all, whatever your reason for entering may be, we all know that art is in the eye of the beholder.

Sorry, that is kind of a corny ending to my blog entry today.

Gardening a Painting

It's late, but I thought I would hurry and write here a bit about my day. I have been painting alot and it feels great! So I guess you could say I had a good day.

This painting is called Gardening for Mental Health. At least that is what it is titled until I come up with something better. It has a quote carved into the frame; "You can bury a lot of troubles digging in the dirt". This painting will be available at my upcoming show.

Don't forget to enter in my painting drawing. For more info go to this link;
http://catherinedarling.blogspot.com/2012/03/enter-to-win-this-painting.html

Enter To Win This Painting

“Flying Below Radar” illustrates how people (dogs are people too)  often think they are content to stay just below their full potential because it’s comfortable. What they don’t know is how amazing they are just to be flying!
(how's that for symbolism?)

On Friday, March 16th Local Colors is holding a reception for myself and two other artist; Cheryl Glenn - ceramics and Melody Johnson - collage. The theme of our show is "With a Whimisical View".

Along with the reception I wanted to do a little fund raiser for the gallery. I am donating a painting "Flying Below Radar" for a drawing.  You probably noticed that I said fund raiser. Well, my first thought was to sell raffle tickets for $5.00 each, but then one of our artists pointed out that raffles are a form of gambling and therefore illegal in Utah. Unless you are a non-profit organization. Which we aren't.

So I had to come up with another plan.

 So here it is... Imagine owning your very own personal 4"x6" print of "Flying Below Radar" that comes with the added bonus of  having YOUR NAME entered in the drawing for the original painting! All this for only $5.00!

The drawing is for a 16"x20" acrylic painting on 3/4"gallery wrapped canvas with sides painted, wired and ready to hang. Valued at $600.

There are two ways you can you can participate.

Go into the gallery between March 2nd thru March 16th

 and purchase this little print

of "Flying Below Radar"

1054 E. 2100 So.

Salt Lake City, UT

OR

You can purchase it right here through paypal!

Your print will be mailed to you upon receipt of payment. (I have a history of selling online since 2001 with a 100% positive feedback) No additional charges for shipping.

The drawing will be held on Friday, March 16th at 7:30 PM. If you are not present and you WIN, you will be notified on Saturday, March 17th. Shipping is free anywhere in the U.S.

Either way you choose to buy your print, your name will be entered into the drawing for

the original painting "Flying Below Radar".

DRAWING UPDATE:

Thanks to everyone that entered! Congratulations to Susan Daniels who won the painting.

 Please note that the colors of the original painting may vary from that shown on your monitor.

My Mini Studio

I have a mini studio, and a mini nursery, all in my mini bedroom. Or I should say it's not a very big bedroom but that didn't sound as good. I like mini.

I am becoming quite productive now that I can paint in my bedroom (see previous entry for why I paint in my bedroom instead of the studio).  I have a show opening on March 17th so I have to be productive if I want to have something to hang.

I have attached a couple of images so you can see what my mini studio looks like. Sorry they are not great pictures. On my desk I have two monitors because I am still planning on doing some illustrations in photoshop for an app I am making with my sons. It's a lot easier to work on two monitors when you are doing stuff like that. At least that's what my boys tell me. However, I have found that I quite like it for watching Netflix on one and working on a project on the other. Netflix also keeps me very entertained while I am painting too. But ocassionally I let Lily watch Barney on it while I paint. Sometimes it more important to keep the baby entertained so I CAN paint.

Missing in Action...

If you read my last entry, it was dated back in September. I have been missing in action from my blog and most things internet related! I mentioned previously that we were moving our gallery. It's a co-op gallery and we moved it into storage til our new space was available. Once in, we had to fix up the new gallery. We opened mid-November, ready or not. To make a long story short I have been spending my extra time working on things for the gallery thru January. Thanks to all our members we are now organized with all kinds of committees and we have a lovely gallery.

During February, I turned my attention to some painting and organizing my house. Since I started tending my baby grand-daughter Lily full time, I have not been able to get down to my studio much, even though it is in my basement. It's unfinished and kind of cool (not in an awesome way, just temperature-wise). Not a place for a freshly made baby.

Now I have reorganized my bedroom to accomodate a playpen and make my desk area more functional so that I can paint small paintings there. I have a highchair in there too. I am finally painting again, hooray! It's about time since Lily is now 9 months old. Where did the time go? Tomorrow I will take some pictures, for a small space it's pretty functional.

In March I am one of the featured artists at our gallery Local Colors, so for the next few weeks I will be posting some new pieces for my show. The image here is one from a series of dancing dogs that I am continuing. It's called 'A Dance With Dogs'. It's one of those small paintings I have been talking about. It's actually about 4" square, but it's in a wooden frame which I have painted, so the whole thing is 8" square.