End of August Check-in
It’s already the end of the month, and my two months of travel are quickly approaching. I’ve been trying to wrap up a couple of paintings in the studio before I leave for my residency and then Olympic National Park shortly after. Then I’ll hopefully have things in order for when I return at the end of September for SF Open Studios. I’ll be showing my work at Miro Studios on September 28th and 29th. And then right after that, I’ll be traveling to Sedona with my family and then visiting the East Coast during the first half of October. So I’m about to kick off two months of travel very soon!
What I’m working on:
I finished my commissioned Swarthmore Calendar painting and it’s currently with my photographer. I’ll be sending over a digital copy of the painting soon!
I’m rotating between three of the seashell paintings in the ‘Ocean Arrangements’ series. I feel like I’m almost done with the collection. I put all the paintings next to each other and I’m touching up a few of the paintings while I finish the sixth painting to make sure they all fit with each other. I feel like I’ve fully explored this subject for now and I’m ready to work on a different kind of painting or series. I’m not sure when I’ll officially release the collection of paintings, but I’m working to make that happen this year!
I finished the fourth abstract watercolor painting last week. I haven’t started another one because I wanted to focus on my oil paintings, so I probably will only have the four paintings ready for SF Open Studios. I spent some time researching how to finish and seal the watercolor paintings, because the process is a bit different with a water-based medium compared to oil paintings. I tested a couple of things I found researching how to varnish watercolor paintings on a couple of watercolor paintings on paper I did for The 100 Day Project that worked well. I’m just waiting for a couple of cooler weather days because the process does require me to spray some UV varnish, which I do outdoors and the temperature does affect the drying process.
I’m also preparing some thrifted frames for a few plein air paintings I did this month. I’ve been testing out different types of framing for some panels I painted during plein air sessions. I’ve had to sand down the thrifted frames because they’re in different states of repair and have tested out finishing them with oil or staining. I’m hoping to have a few of these framed paintings ready for SF Open Studios. I also am bringing both panels and oil painting paper with me to my artist residency, and it’s nice to know that I have the possibility of framing my paintings from my residency when I come back.
I think that’s all that I’ve been working on for now. I haven’t prioritized creating videos for my YouTube channel, even though I have a lot of videos that I want to create and share. I’m scheduling some time this week to focus on that, so hopefully I’ll have more videos up on my channel coming soon. I’ve also procrastinated a bit on a couple of applications for other artist opportunities, so I’ve set aside some time for that this week as well, since many of the deadlines are while I’m at my residency. I want to finish that work before I leave, so I can focus all my time and energy being present at the residency.
That’s all for now! Thanks for following along. If you have any recommendations for Olympic National Park or Sedona, please let me know!
