Venice Art Center Floral Show

Just returned from the opening reception at the Venice Art Center in Venice, Florida. It was the opening of the Floral Show. The last juried show of the season. I entered the three paintings shown above and am happy to report that they were all accepted. All in all it was a very nice show. A lot of oils, some photographs and a cross section of watercolors.

They had it hung by predominate flower color and it really worked well. A calliope of color. I will probably go back several times to absorb it all. They also have a great little tea room with the best homemade soups and salads.

Gilpin County Art Association Juried Show

I am so happy to tell everyone that Mountain Poppy has been accepted into the Juried show at the Gilpin Art Association annual show for the western states. I mailed the painting today and my daughter Robbin will deliver it the middle of the month. The show is in Central City, Colorado during the Opera season and will open May 31st.

This gallery is in an historic Jail building that has been converted to a gallery with tons of character. It is only open during the summer months and when the Central City Opera Company is open. This promises to be an exciting season with the Democratic National Convention in Denver, Co.

Their mission statement is to expand the appreciation and understanding of art, to provide Rocky Mountain artists with the opportunity to present and sell their work, and to provide financial assistance to the RE-1 Gilpin County School art program. We certainly support them in their goals and hope that you will visit when you are in the area.

And while you are on the net they can be found at www.gilpinarts.org.

Inside the Heart of a Geranium

This is one of a series of flower paintings I have been working on. It is smaller than I normally paint 12x16, but goes into the depth of the flower. I love geraniums, but find them diffiult to paint. This year I had some wonderful colored ones on my terrace outside my studio, so decided to

focus on the closeup. You want to get into them, to see what they are made of, not just the full heads, which are so beautiful.

Please see the post on Georgia O'keeffe's view of painting flower, May 2.

Here I have tried to do what she suggested, paint it big and look deep inside.

Cathy's Coneflowers, Barker Reservoir Nederland, Co

This painting has just come back from the framers and I am so pleased with the results. I have an excellent framer here in Venice, Fl, The Collectors Gallery,

One of my special loves are cone flowers and last fall I saw this marvelous garden by the side of a dirt road in Nederland, Co down by Barker Reservoir. I took many pictures and got to know the owner as she will be one of my new neighbors when my summer studio is built. (More on that later)

This is another in a series of the textured paintings that I have been experimenting with over the last 10 months or so. The centers of the flowers are made to look like the texture of the cone flowers. I really enjoy this process and will be doing more. This painting is 18X24 so it is very effective. The Georgia O'Keeffe influence still prevails for me.