Home Sweet Home!

We arrived home last night and today I'm finally back at my studio! I'm so inspired by our trip that I can hardly wait to get back to painting. Seems there is always something to delay that. All in all we had a wonderful trip, check out a few photos below. I am going thru all the photos a little at a time. I took over 300 pics! These first few are from the Petrified forest and Grand Canyon, both in Arizona. Tomorrow I will get some more up. It's hard to pick which ones to post!

I hate to even mention it because I don't like to dwell on the negative, but the only bad thing that happened on the trip was having our van broken into while we were staying in the city! We ended up spending one of our days finding a place and waiting to have the window replaced! They only got Aaron's book bag and our hiking backpack because we took everything of value with us to the hotel room.(not that Aaron's music theory books aren't valuable, you just wouldn't figure anyone would steal them!) We're from Albuquerque, NM, we know better than to leave valuables in the car!

On the way home we stopped in Gallup at the House of Lyndon Gallery where I show my work. We dropped off new work on the way out and picked up the old work on the way home. I will be showing more new work at a show there in December. Lyndon now has the painted guitar, Universe and several other pieces. If you live in the area, please drop in and take a look at the new work and say hi to Lyndon while you are there! They have recently expanded the gallery to another room and it looks amazing!

OH AND DON'T FORGET this Friday is First Friday at the Factory on 5th. I will be showing the paintings that just came back from the gallery which will be new to the Factory since they've been at the gallery since before I moved in! :)

The first three were taken in the Petrified Forest National Park.

The rest were taken at the Grand Canyon. First and second are your typical tourist shots, the last three were taken on our grueling 4-5 hour hike! It was so awesome!!!

My birthday in San Francisco!

Today we rolled in to San Francisco! What a crazy, cool place! The trip so far has been way awesome! So far we've hiked the Grand Canyon(not the whole thing just a couple miles down) and Sequoia National Park, Oh and we stopped off at the Petrified forest on the first day out!

Today, my birthday, we had lunch in Santa Cruz and a great dinner in Chinatown! Tomorrow, we will go to Fisherman's wharf and around San Fran in general. Thanks to everyone for all the birthday wishes, here on the blog and by phone today. So happy to know that so many people care! I'm feeling kinda old as my knee and back are in pain from all the camping, hiking and walking! But, I'm having fun, so I don't care!

I have taken around 200 photos that I still haven't gotten downloaded to the laptop! I will try to get that done tonight so I can post some. I'm not sure that will actually happen until I get home though, but I promise to eventually share!

Hope everyone is having a wonderful day, week, month and life! :)

Taking a Trip

Been busy the past week or so getting everything wrapped up before we take a trip to San Francisco. Getting everything packed up and ready to go today. We will be gone for 9 days and will start at the Grand Canyon for a couple days, then on to Sequoia Natl Park before getting to San Francisco the day before my birthday! I can hardly wait, should be lots of fun.

In reality though, this is meant to be mainly a business trip! We will be scouting out the area for galleries and shops to sell my work to, as well as looking for venues for Aaron to play guitar. Hope to also see a long lost friend that we haven't seen in ages! Also, this will be Aaron's first time to California and the Pacific coast!

Anyway, hopefully my camera batteries will cooperate on the trip so I can post lots of pictures when I get back!

Any Etsy orders that come in while I'm gone will be shipped out the week after Halloween when we get back.

More older new work

What I mean by the title is that this painting is an older new piece that I haven't yet posted here or on etsy. Today is the day! I'm working on getting everything posted that was skipped during the State Fair when I was too busy to post regularly. I hope to also have my two painted instruments up in the Etsy shop today. I finally put the beaded strings onto the guitar but still have to take some good photos.

This painting is called "Universe" and it's 20 x 20" oil on canvas.

UUGGHH!

Working on my portfolio today. Updating my bio, resume, and writing my artist statement. Writing is one my least favorite things to do. At least this type of writing. I journal and blog all the time, but this is professional writing! I have to sound educated and interesting. English was one of my better subjects in school, I always got As, but it is so difficult to write about myself. Anyone else out there have this problem? I almost wish I had one of those fill in the blank forms I could use and just input my information. I've been browsing the Art Biz blog for help. How fitting that she has been covering this subject recently! Alyson sure is a huge help!

Other than forcing myself to work on the business side of things, I'm getting ready for our trip to San Francisco. I can hardly wait! It has been over 20 years since I've been to California. One of the things I've been doing to get ready is searching galleries online in the San Fran. area. WOW! There sure are a lot to see. I'm trying to narrow it down online so when I get there it won't be so overwhelming. We will only be there for 4-5 days so I want to see as much as possible without wasting time on galleries where my art wouldn't fit in.

Here are the photos of my new studio that I've been promising for months! The photos are taken from the door looking in and going left to right respectively.

Office area with the portraits I've painted of my sweet hubby

Storage/Work area, I also have a nice tall window although it's east facing

The back wall with some of my older work

My painting area with comfy chair for reading/writing, large painting in progress

Finally! New work!

Dancing Sun Rise and Shine (SOLD!)
Sunshine (SOLD!)
Centering (SOLD!)

Actually, these are paintings I did while I was at the Fair. Just now finally getting them posted on Etsy and here. Currently, I'm working on a new large canvas. I will take a photo soon, I promise. Actually, this painting has been started for over a month, but the finish took a while to come to me. Still not finished, but at least I know where it's going.

I had to buy a new easel to accommodate the larger size I'm working on. I've realized that the small canvases are restricting my inspiration. So, it's time to go big!

We have made plans for a trip to San Francisco at the end of October! I can hardly wait. It's meant to be a business trip, but my birthday is the 25th, so it's going to be fun too! The plan is to scout out galleries in the Bay area. I have had many people tell me my work would do well there. We shall see!

First Friday, October

Tomorrow is First Friday(Arts Crawl) at the Factory on 5th. Come on down from 6 to 11 pm to see my studio, new work and the work of over 14 other artists. Free Parking, refreshments and guitar music played by my husband, Aaron Lewis.

Factory on 5th
1715 5th Street
Albuquerque, NM

Hope to see you there!

In the Studio

After a well needed break, I'm back in the studio today. Spent most of the day working on a large painting I started a couple months ago. I had been stuck on it but finally had that moment of AHA when I knew exactly where it would go next. I love it when that happens! I will try to take a progress photo tomorrow. I have been itching to get back to painting! I did some painting out at the Fair, but nothing big. I plan on doing more big paintings in the near future.

This week is First Friday at the Factory on 5th! I only have three more days to get my studio cleaned up and art hung! Yikes!! I'm working on getting all my art hung, old and new, in my studio. Brought in several older works that I had at the house. A few landscapes, a few portraits. Thought it would be interesting for people to see where I came from before painting my spiral abstracts. I don't think I've posted a photo of my studio since I moved in, so I'll try to get that done too, once I have everything hung.

Hope everyone is having as wonderful a day as I am! Smile, it will make you happy!! :)