A Bunch of Animal Paintings, an Excellent Project

Flight

oil on canvas, 20x20

sold

Earlier in the year, my former Patch boss Elissa Bass invited me to have a show at the Denison Pequotsepos Nature Center. I thought it was a great idea, and made a series of small paintings - and one big one - to be shown and sold at the center. The center would get 40 percent of the purchase price of all these pieces. 

The show was a grand success! During June and July, and during the Mystic Outdoor Art Festival, at which I sold remaining paintings and donated the same 40 percent, I raised a few hundred dollars for the nature center. 

Since then, I've been dedicating a portion of sales to causes in the places where I have shows. This is another of Coach Joe's ideas, and I think it's a great one. It spurs me to sell with more vigor and less guilt, and it helps - even if it's just in a small way.  

I've never posted these paintings to the blog, so I thought I'd show them to you all today. If you want me to repaint any of them, I'm happy to do so - and will give the same 40 percent to the nature center. 

Running Deer, 6x12, $75

Egret, 5x5

Chipmunk, 6x6, sold

Deer, 6x6, sold

Chickadee, 4x6, sold

Chickadee, 4x6 sold

Mr. Bill, 6x12, sold

Duck Butt, 6x6, sold

Bunny, 6x6, sold (I think) 

Mr. Bill again. Sold again. 

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Dog of the Day

I met this beautiful dog out in Arizona. She was in training to be 

some sort of service dog, and was sweet and friendly - and very elegant. 

Want your pet to be the Dog of the Day? Send me a jpg at carrieBjacobson@gmail.com

Zinnias - and a Mean Town

Zinnias

Oil on canvas, 30x30

Please contact Lori at Center Framing & Art for price and delivery/shipping/pickup info! 

These zinnias are my newest experiment in florals. The paint is thick and deep and rich, and the colors just sing. I had a great time painting them, and I'm honored to have them displayed so prominently at Center Framing and Art in West Hartford Center, CT! 

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ON MY WAY to Indiana, I drove along the so-called National Freeway, Interstate 68 from Maryland into West Virginia. It was a scary drive, because the highway climbs way up into the mountains, and the clouds were so low that, until I crossed the summit, it was like driving in the thickest fog I'd ever seen. 

Just before I got onto I-68, I left the highway to get gas. I found myself in the town of Hancock, MD. This little town really got me thinking. 

Like so many of the towns in that area, it's built on a series of hillsides. And it was probably built when mining was big. That would be my guess, at any rate. 

I couldn't get back onto the highway near the exit where I got off, so I had to drive through the town to return to the highway. The more I drove, the worse I felt for the people who lived there. 

It's not that it was a terrible, dilapidated town. It wasn't a ghetto, or a testament to poverty. I've seen those towns, and they are sad. But this, this was sadder, in a way. It was a town with no future. The thought that this was a mean town came to me - not that the people are mean, though they might be. But the town itself is mean, in what I'd guess is the Victorian sense of the word. 

I compared Hancock to other small towns I've known and lived in, including Wachapreague, and found myself returning again and again to the idea that the town was so mean that it would be next to impossible for anyone to dream of much more than leaving - and even that would be a stretch. 

The experience, though brief, hit me hard. And it left me feeling grateful that I didn't grow up in a place like that, and never had the misfortune to live in a place like that. 

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Shows, shows and more shows! 

The zinnia painting (I love it!) along with a whole bunch of my best paintings, are on display right now, and for sale, at Center Framing & Art in West Hartford, CT. That's the window, below. 

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Also this week, I brought work to the Denison Pequotsepos Nature Center, in Mystic, CT. Elissa Bass and I had a fun time hanging my teeny paintings and some larger ones, too. The photos below show how it came out. The show will be up through July! 

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And I have two new pieces at Art Gallery H in Tubac, AZ. Here's Audrey Hoffmann, one of the owners, sitting in the midst of my paintings. The new paintings  are on the wall 

closest to  the sunflower painting. 

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I WILL BE in Annapolis, MD, this weekend for the Annapolis Arts, Crafts and Wine Festival, which takes place at the Navy-Marine Corps Stadium. 

Don't know my booth number yet, but I'll post it here when I do. 

THE FOLLOWING WEEKEND, I'm in the New Milford Historical Society Arts Festival, with my friend, the fabulous jeweler Cynthia Battista. It should be a fun show, and I always love seeing Cynthia and Kevin, and their dogs Zack and George. 

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Dog of the Day

Met this guy - a youngster, four months old! - in a parking lot in Pawcatuck, CT. 

He might look fierce, but he was a dear. 

A Good Harvest - and a Good Couple of Shows

                                  

A Good Harvest

Oil on canvas, 20x20

Contact Lori at Center Framing and Art for price and pickup/delivery options

I never, ever paint still lifes... Until now! 

A friend posted this photo on Facebook, and for reasons I still can't quite explain, I fell in love with it. I started to paint a couple days before I was to leave for the Broad Ripple Art Festival in Indianapolis, and between packing for that show, and Paradise City, and the Denison Pequotsepos Nature Center show, and to bring pieces to Center Framing and Art in West Hartford Center, I was hard-pressed to finish it. I was so excited about it that I kept slipping out to the studio whenever I had a spare moment. 

I finished it, finally, just last week, during an unplanned one-day stopover at home, in beautiful Wachapreague, between Broad Ripple and Paradise . 

The painting got lots of comments during the Paradise City show in Northampton, MA, this weekend, though it didn't quite sell. But no matter. It looks great in the window at Center Framing and Art! Check it out at 56 LaSalle Road in West Hartford Center, CT. 

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Happy Buyers

                                       

 

THE FABULOUS CITISCAPE painter Teresa Haag O'Neill (check out her website by clicking here,  and her Facebook page, by clicking here) turned me on to the idea of taking photos of buyers with their paintings. I love seeing their happy faces! They made a good show for me, and I am glad to have met them, and grateful for their purchases! 

I had a good show in Indianapolis, too! Here are buyers from that show, and a cool photo of the show grounds, early one morning. 

 

                                                                 

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Dog of the Day

Here's our daughter, Erika, grandson Ashton and new grandcat Potsie, the Dog of the Day. 

Nice calendar in the background, too! 

Flight - and a Great Dog of the Day

Flight

Oil on canvas, 24x24

sold

Hey, everybody, please send your good thoughts my way this weekend, as I participate in the Broad Ripple Art Fair in Indianapolis, Indiana.  Looks like we might be setting up in the rain on Friday, but I am hoping that the weather people are filled with a little more doom and gloom than is necessary. So maybe we'll be setting up in mud, but not rain, and that's OK. Heck, Woodstock was a success, and I can't think of a muddier festival! 

On a related note, and forgive me if I've related this story already... but... a couple years ago, my dad told me that his father's brother had been a hobo. A real, honest to God, rail-riding hobo. He'd gone all over this country, on trains and on foot, and had traveled to and bummed around Europe, as well. 

When he came home, irregularly and not often, to the family's house in Philadelphia, my great-grandparents wouldn't let him sleep inside. He slept on the porch and, I imagine, ate his meals there. 

He had lots of issues, including alcoholism, and he died young. And no one ever talked about him. I was 56 when I heard about him for the first time. 

But it explained a lot to me. 

Before we were married, Peter lived in the same apartment for 13 years. In the next 20 years, we moved 12 times. Some of these moves were for work - that's the way it is in newspapers, if you want to climb quickly. But some, I admit, were because I was itching to be somewhere else. 

I've promised Peter that I won't instigate a move from Wachapreague, here on the Eastern Shore of Virginia. If he wants to move, we will. But I won't start it. 

And I don't have to. This artist's life involves more driving and more traveling than I'd ever imagined. 

***

Dog of the Day

This is Bella, AKA Tomato, write Lori Rowe, my dear friend and fellow dog-lover and Red Sox fan. Bell is one of 41 Aussies rescued from a breeder in MO. Bell lived her entire 1 1/2 years in a box. Everything in the world was new for her. She was scared to death of grass and the outdoors and would seek a cement corner to hide in at first ( about a week and a half) now I have a hard time keeping her in the house. She still has a long way to go but seems to learn something everyday! I have had Bella for three weeks and three days (longer now!). She is a full blood toy aussie and is 16 pounds. She is underweight but healthy. 

Skunk, Heron, and Coach Joe

Skunk
Oil on canvas, 6x12

Great Blue Heron
Oil on canvas, 6x12

I had another excellent session this week with Joe Skelly, my prosperity coach.

With his typical, blinding insight, he righted me. The ground had been feeling bumpy under my feet, but when Joe helped me rebalance, it seemed welcoming and springy.

I've been stressing about the number of paintings I need to produce - three galleries want sunflower and flower paintings, one gallery wants a cow painting, and I need sunflower and cow paintings for the shows, too.

The sunflower and cow paintings are fun, fun, fun to make - but it takes a while to paint them, several days, usually - and because they're big, and have lots of paint on them, it takes forever for them to dry. So it seems I never have enough.

Joe suggested that I take three days a month, religiously, to paint sunflowers and cows. Every month. That means all the galleries will have as many as they want, and I will, too - and I can stop worrying every day about them.

A related problem that he solved rather easily is that I simply lose track of things. Pretty much, if I can't see it, it tends to not exist. I can write a list in a notebook - and I've gotten very good at this - but more than half the time, when I close the book, the list simply vanishes from my consciousness.

Sometimes, I feel that I am a little damaged in this regard. I have to use clear containers. I am better off with shelves instead of cabinets. I can sort and see and make sense of an immense amount of clutter, but if the stuff is in a box or in a closet or under the bed, and I need it, chances are I will go out and buy it again.

So Joe suggested a big white board. DUH. I can list shows, commissions, sunflower-painting days, etc. Simple. Elegant. Effective.

I'd encourage you to reach out to Coach Joe if you think he could help you. His number is 757-675-6569. He'll do a first consultation for free, and you can see whether it would benefit you to work with him. Meantime, click here to check out his blog, The Parched Iguana.

Here's my drying wall, a couple weeks ago. 

***

I HAVE SOME EXCITING shows coming up! A week from today, I'll be in Indianapolis, at the Broad Ripple Art Fair . This is one of the top shows in the country, and it's a feather in my cap to have gotten in. You can never tell about how your work will sell in a show, though, and it is a loooong drive. But I'm going to do it, and see how it goes. 

The following weekend, I'll be in Northampton, MA, at the Paradise City Art Festival. This is a fabulous show, another one with great art and excellent fine craft. There is a gate fee, but if you click here, you can get a coupon for a discount. 

After that show, I deliver my animal and landscape paintings to the Denison Pequotsepos Nature Center in Mystic, CT. The center is a a real treasure, a quiet wonder of a place, with lots of programs, lots of trails, and lots of ways for kids and adults to develop or deepen their relationships with nature. 

It's run by Margaret Jones, a high school classmate of mine, and its current communications director is Elissa Bass, my former boss at Patch.com. It was Elissa who invited me to do the show, and I'm particularly grateful to her, because it got me painting birds - and I'd had no idea how much I would enjoy painting birds! 

The Nature Center is a great place to go, to take the fam, to enjoy a lovely day with family and with nature. 

***

Dog of the Day

I ENCOUNTERED THIS dog at the show in Rockville. And yes, that is a rock in her mouth. This is what she does, her humans told me. They take her for a walk, she selects a rock, carries it along with her on the walk, and deposits it in a little pile back at her home. 

Years ago, we had a Dalmatian named Sam, who used to chew rocks. He'd pick one up, gnaw on it, and drop it, covered with dirt and dog saliva, at your feet, so that you'd pick it up and toss it for him. 

One day, we were in a park in Hartford, and Sam showed up with a little paper bag in his mouth. He dropped it at my mother's feet. She opened it - and it was full of rocks. We never, ever figured it out. 

***

     

Pretty, yes? These banks of azaleas are at a hotel down the shore from us. The whole shady front yard is full of them. I think I'm going to go down there today and paint, before they all pass. 

Mama Cardinal - and Thoughts on Painting with a Palette Knife

Mama Cardinal

Oil on canvas, 6x6

Available in June at the Denison Pequotsepos Nature Center, Mystic, CT

Painting with a palette knife, I am realizing, involves an entirely different mindset and approach than painting with a brush. This has become more clear to me recently, as I've done workshops with a number of painters who use brushes and want to learn the knife. 

With a palette knife, or at least the way I paint, the art happens one distinct stroke at a time. When I am at my best, and my painting is at its best, I make a mark and I leave it alone. I don't go over it, I don't change it, I don't touch it, once I put it on the canvas.

This is absolutely antithetical to the way most folks paint. When you're using a brush, you can go over and over the paint. You can sort of scrub the paint, softening the edges, blurring and blending and changing by degrees. It is very, very hard for a person who paints with a brush to stop going over the paint, again and again and again. 

For me, most of the work is done before I touch the knife to the canvas. I mix the paint on my palette, I pick up the colors I want, I make the stroke and then I leave it. Wipe off my palette knife and go on to the next stroke. In many paintings, sunflowers most of all,  I find, I mix the paint stroke by stroke - in other words, each petal, each part of each petal, is a different combination of colors, a different bit of paint. The background, I mix in larger batches, but those flowers are bit by bit by bit. 

And believe me, it's really, really hard NOT to go over the strokes! But every time you do, it muddies the painting and dulls the paint. 

***

Egret

Oil on canvas, 6x12

Available in June at the Denison Pequotsepos Nature Center, Mystic, CT

ANOTHER THING I've been thinking, while I've been making these small paintings for the Denison Pequotsepos Nature Center show, that runs in June at the Center in Mystic, CT, is how great it would be to do shows with only - or mostly - teeny paintings. 

There was a guy across the aisle from me in Chattanooga who had mostly tiny paintings, all of strange, cartoon-like characters. He sold these for what I thought was too much money - $145 for a 6-inch-square painting, and up from there. Of course, I haven't done the math, but perhaps that's what you have to charge to make a living selling tiny paintings. 

And clearly, before I fantasize too much about showing up for a show in a Prius or a Mini Cooper, I should sit down and do some multiplication. I can say that it would be such FUN to have a tent with mostly all teeny stuff. And it would be miles easier than lugging 48x60-inch paintings - though I DO love to paint them...

Chubby Cheeks

Oil on canvas, 6x6

Available in June at the Denison Pequotsepos Nature Center, Mystic, CT

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Dog of the Day

Huge Summer Garden & Tiny Animals!

Summer Garden 

Oil on canvas, 48x60

sold

Sometimes, I just have to laugh at myself, and yesterday was one of those times. 

I'd spent the previous three days painting this gigantic sunflower painting - four feet by five feet. Tons of color. Tubes and tubes and tubes of paint. Thousands and thousands and thousands of strokes. It's so big and so heavy, I had to ask Peter to help me lift it so I could raise the easel. 

I worked on it and worked on it and worked on it, and then, finally, it was done. Yay! 

I put it in the van to dry and went back to the studio. 

My next painting? Five inches square. 

Made me laugh. 

Cardinal

Oil on canvas, 5x5

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Cottontail

Oil on canvas, 4x5

THE IMPETUS FOR these small pieces is twofold. First, I want to see if it's worth my while to create a line of smaller, cheaper paintings. If it takes me three hours to make a 10x10, which I sell for $100, but it takes me two hours to make a 5x5, which I sell for $45, well, then it's not worth it. But if I can make the smaller paintings more quickly, and if they sell fast, then maybe it IS worth it. So I am experimenting. 

But before these paintings make it into my booth at this summer's outdoor art shows, they're headed for the Denison Pequotsepos Nature Center in Mystic, CT. My friend and former boss, Elissa Bass, is working for the center, which is run by another friend, and former classmate, Maggie Jones. Elissa invited me to exhibit at the center for the month of June. So that's the first home for these small pieces. 

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THIS YEAR'S PAWS FOR CHARITY book is out, and it is just beautiful! 

This is a project I've had the honor of participating in for a few years now. Sara Harley chooses photographs and paintings from artists who apply. She puts together a beautiful book, and donates the proceeds to a shelter in Nova Scotia, where she lives. This year's recipient is SHAID, Shelter for Animals In Distress. 

You can see a preview of the book by clicking here. 

And if you want to buy a book or two, here's a discount! Put in this code - P4C2014 - when you are checking out, and you'll get 25 percent off. The discount is not good forever, so you should order now! 

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Dog of the Day

I met him at the Wachapreague Post Office yesterday, and he was happy and shiny and 

very friendly. I think his name is Zorro, but I could be wrong.