Monthly Archive

I am all done with the paintings and I submitted them to the 20th Street Art Gallery yesterday afternoon. At the gallery I had the opportunity to pick up some postcards for the exhibit- see image below. I was excited to see one of my paintings made it on the postcard (circled in red). As it turns out the exhibit title has been shortened to “50-50″ because they accepted about 75 artists. You can see samples from many of the artists here.

The exhibit will be up April 9th - May 2nd, 2008.

Since I started the blog a little after I started painting, there are several paintings I have not posted yet and there are a couple that I replaced. So, here are the ones you have not seen yet and all 50 together in hanging order (click to enlarge):

I decided to go ahead and replace my least favorite one - the boy tying his shoe laces. I think the idea was good, but the execution was not. Actually I never truly finished it. You haven’t seen this painting yet unless you looked at the photo of the first 28 paintings very carefully - it’s on there. However - it will not make it in the final 50.  Instead, I am working on a painting of a little boy helping in decorating a Christmas tree. It should be a really cute one.

And here are the toys that I’ve been working on all weekend:

I am working on the final 2 paintings simultaneously because they go together (much like the treehouse and tree climbing paintings I did earlier in the series).  These two paintings represent toys - boy vs girl. I will post these two and possibly a photo of all 50 paintings tomorrow.

After those are done and if I feel up to it, I may paint another to replace my least favorite one.  I will also need to do some finishing touches to a couple of the paintings, put a protective coat on each, label them for the show and write up an artist statement.  And then I will deliver the paintings to the gallery on Tuesday.

I actually painted this a few days ago; I painted two that day.  The one I was working on tonight isn’t completely finished yet. But I promise it’s worth the wait - it’s a good one

Guess who this little rascal is? I’ve been thinking with all these trips down memory lane and not a single painting includes me. So here’s little Veronika with Grandpa about to push me on my red wagon.

Now that the painting is done, I have little dilemma: I don’t want this painting to sell. However, my contract with the 20th St Art Gallery for the upcoming 50-50-50 exhibition states that all 50 paintings must be for sale. My solution is, I will just have to buy it myself (or get someone else to buy it for me and I will pay them back). That’s right, as silly as that sounds, I’m going to buy a painting from myself. The gallery keeps 50% of the profits, so essentially I can get it for half off :). The reason I don’t want to risk this painting selling at the gallery is because I want to give it to my grandparents as a gift. I think they would really like it.

I also want to note on the painting I posted yesterday “Training Wheels” is actually my brother, Gabor on that bicycle - his legs anyway . And the two photos I referenced for these two paintings were taken on the same day, same location.

Unfortunately, my scanner cannot get the the red tones right and not even my photoshop magic could correct it perfectly. The reds in the original painting are more rich and crimson rather than the slightly orangy color in this picture.

This theme was requested by Jason. Just like many American boys, baseball was an important part of his childhood. For this painting, I set the glove, balls and shoes in front of me and painted from life. I really like painting from life when it is possible. It tends to be more difficult than working from photographs but the results are more lively which makes it worth the effort.

Here are my paintings for yesterday and today. I hope you like them

Only 8 more to go- yay!

Since I started this series, everyone has been sharing their children photos with me. This painting is based on a photograph provided by Beth of her son. Thank you Beth! It is a great photograph and I’m very happy with the way the painting turned out as well.

I was planning on titling this piece “the sand castle”, but I’m not sure what she’s building, it does not look like a castle.  Once again in this painting I used some texture. I enjoy the process of exploration in creating texture. This time I used an Extra Heavy Gel/ Molding Paste, which I mixed in with my paint to build it up. Then I used a brush to create the texture as it was beginning to dry.

The above is  a scanned image and unfortunately the texture does not look accurate. It’s almost as if the scanner inverted it making it look like indentations instead of the dimensional quality it has in person. I took a quick photo; the lighting is not good, but it will give you an better idea of what the texture actually looks like.

And a close-up:

 I used to love swimming underwater when I was younger. Actually, I still do. It’s so beautiful the way light shines and reflects under water.

Unfortunately, the colors don’t come through quite as vibrant as the original, so imagine the colors brighter.

I started this painting yesterday and I think it is finally finished.  This idea came from a friend - so thank you Roone! This is not a memory from my childhood, but I can definitely relate; I used to capture all types of things such as butterflies.  I really like the idea; fireflies are such fascinating creatures. And it was a nice challenge to create this lighting in a believable way.

I hope you enjoy “Captured Fireflies”

This painting is one of the first ones in this series and it isn’t among my favorites. If I were to paint this subject again, I would do a close up of the feet in the shoes instead of the full figure.

Tonight I was working on a painting I’m excited about, but it’s not quite finished yet. I will probably post it tomorrow. So please check back again.

This post is for yesterday- I was really tired last night.

“Flying a Kite”