Summer Is Around the Corner

It's the most wonderful time of the year! I have one more project to finish up before I start my annual summer cityscape series!  What should I paint this year?

Who's Ready For The Long Weekend?!

This girl! I have very important plans every evening involving sunshine, a grill and delicious adult beverages. Happy Memorial Day, Friends! P.S. - Check out Fleurir Chocolates before and after shots including a few pictures of my sculpture instillation! This was one of the most fun artistic experiences I've ever had, and this cute couple makes the most mouth-watering chocolates around. Definitely worth a visit to Georgetown!

Texture

I am a chunky peanut butter/pulpy orange juice kind of person. What does that have to do with anything, you ask? Valid question. The answer  is texture.

I use medium-grade cotton or linen canvas for most painting commissions, but lately I've been itching to try some different painting surfaces. As beautiful as the glossy ground of glass or board can be, I am personally pulled toward super nubby surfaces with a high tooth. When used well, these surfaces add depth and evoke the artist who once worked on them.  

Diego Velázquez is a prime example of a painter who preferred a highly textured work surface. He used incredible economy in his paint placement because of the difficultly of blending paint on this type of canvas. (Think rolling a ball across a pebbled beach vs. across an ice rink.) Pieces of paint float one on top of the other, rather than forming seamless transitions in his work. The resulting paintings have a rich texture which draw the viewer's attention back to the painting surface, and in so doing, reminds her of the artist who brushed his paint across it so many years before.

Have you ever been in a museum or gallery and had the overwhelming desire to reach out and touch a painting (scary-looking security guard be damned)? If so, then you know what I mean. We want to (literally) feel the connection between ourselves and art, and texture is one of the tools an artist can use to get us there.

If you care to know a little about my recent work and why portraits make me tick, you can check out this article from the Chevy Chase Patch. Thank you to Natalia Pelayo for the lovely interview!

image by N. Pelayo

Um...

So apparently tomorrow is The Rapture.

Maybe not the best time to be en route to New York. 

Well, you know what they say, Carpe Diem!

Tiny

Friends, there is something you should know about me. I am mildly obsessed with microcosms. I have a hard time putting into words how happy tiny little worlds make me. Let's just say that I remember every detail of the shoe box"habitat" that I built for a second grade science project, and spent an embarrassing number of childhood years creating things for my doll house. So you can understand how excited I am for the show "Otherworldly: Optical Delusions and Small Realities" on view at New York's Museum of Arts and Design!

Alan Wolfson
"Canal St. Cross-Section"

Here's a description of the show from the museum's website:
"Today, innovations in digital technology have completely transformed film, video, and television: extraordinary special effects and three-dimensional imaging created using computer-based software are commonplace. However, while the digital world continues to expand into more and more areas of our lives, a profound human need to re-experience the actual and tangible has also arisen.Otherworldly: Optical Delusions and Small Realities illuminates the phenomenal renaissance of interest among artists worldwide in constructing small-scale hand built depictions of artificial environments and alternative realities, either as sculpture or as subjects for photography and video."

The Big Idea

Good ideas are hard to come by. As lovely as it sounds, most of us are not paid just to think. No matter how much we love what we do, a typical day usually consists of tackling so many small hurdles that spending time with a particularly stubborn problem at the end of it all is just about the last thing we care to do. Here though are two great reasons to engage despite the exhaustion:

1. "Chance favors the connected mind." Steven Johnson argues that great ideas come from hunches, incubated over a period of time and combined with other peoples' ideas. (If you haven't seen it yet, this clip is well worth the minute it takes to watch it!)

2. Intelligence is nothing without perseverance. Albert Einstein once stated "I am not smarter. I just stay with a problem longer."

Monday Match

Every week I choose an interior that reminds me of a work of art, either because of its palette, composition or mood.

Sometimes a room just looks like it was designed for a certain person.

 

If her brother's work was a clear reflection of her spirit, the room above would have been perfect for Violet Sargent at any point in her life.

Don't you agree?

{room from Château de Moissac, image via missmoss, paintings of Violent (Sargent) Ormond by John Singer Sargent}

Happy Weekend!

via The Selby

 The weekend is here! I've been traveling a ton, and am so looking forward to a few relaxing spring evenings. Doesn't this look like the perfect place to have friends over for a few mojitos? Enjoy!

My Date With Nate

O.K. Friends, I can officially check one off the "Amazing Things I'd Like To Do Before I Die" list. Care for a visual or two?

If you're looking for me tomorrow, you can find me in New York taping an episode of The Nate Berkus Show! I can't even tell you how shocked I was when one of his sweet production assistants e-mailed me. So my AMAZING sister -- you know, the one who just gave birth a few days ago -- scrambled to take and edit the zillion photos I needed for the show, and I proceeded to dump the remaining contents of three Easter baskets into my mouth. Can someone pinch me now?

Permasmile

I'm wearing one! Big news coming soon, Friends!

image via the artist's website

Friends, I'm home from Atlanta and buzzing with all the new information I picked up at the Art of the Portrait Conference! Some highlights include practical exercises for judging spacial relationships by the talented Thomas Nash, and a bang-up business advice and portrait demonstration session by the amazing Michael Shane Neal.

image via the artist's website

(In slightly less artistically relevant, but equally appreciated news, I learned that should you be in your twenties with long brown hair and a supposed mild resemblance to Kate Middleton, her wedding weekend is a very good time to travel. Hello, free everything, and cheers to the Duchess of Cambridge!)

Monday Match

Winslow Homer

via the ever-missed Domino