A good day for frogs.

 

Frogs-in-progress caught during last summer's Bioblitz.

There's gold in them thar hills

 

Here's my latest study for my new series. The setting is an old gold mine I found in the Sangre de Cristo mountains during my artist residency in the Great Sand Dunes in Colorado.  Didn't see any raccoons out there, but they'd no doubt like to explore if they could.

I'm in the process of gathering info to apply for another national park artist residency for this summer or fall. There are some good ones out there, but they are not especially well publicized. That helps my chances I guess so I don't mind doing some digging.

The gold mine study was done on a piece of flocked black paper and pastels that I inherited from the studio of Louise Marianetti. I hadn't worked on flocked paper before and am not sure the softness suits my work. It might be nice for portraits though, which is probably why she liked it.

A seascape, hold the peanut sauce.

Recently I went to the opening of the Alumni Show at UMass Dartmouth in which I'm exhibiting a piece.  I have to say, Swain and UMass graduated some great painters. It's just so nice to see a show with work that speaks for itself, without the need for headphones on the wall next to it. Afterwards some congenial friends and I repaired to a Thai restaurant where one of my friends pulled out a painting she won on ebay that, as good as the other ones were, was even better.  It was the painting featured in The Art of Painting 4 - The Seascape, Spicy.  What made it even more special was that we knew that the underpainting was The Art of Painting 3 -Nude Sleeping Angel Thomas Kinkade.  As we were admiring it the food arrived and I watched in horror, as if in slow motion, as the plate of Thai Pork with Peanut Sauce tilted in the waitress's hand, and the aforementioned Peanut Sauce poured onto the painting! But somehow I think Lily would have just rolled with it. A few quick wipes with a napkin and it was as good as new, maybe a little more spicy.

The next night I went an opening at the Newport Art Museum which was so packed with the Newport art crowd so it was hard to see the work. Eventually everyone crowded into one room to hear the announcement of the prizes, some which get you awarded show at the museum. As the prizes in painting dwindled away my remaining long-shot hope was Best of Show. Finally they announced it...."The best of show award goes to Kat—" That was it, just Kat. Oh well, you can't win them all!

Here are some of the studies I've been working on for my next series, then I'm off to draw another angle of the raccoon in all his taxidermied splendor.

A quick brown fox

 

I'm so lucky to be able to walk to the RISD Nature Lab at lunch for a walk on the wild side. The hard part is tearing myself away to report back to my cubicle.

Lunch with the coyote

 

I was going to draw the raccoon today, but the coyote was still where I left him, and I just couldn't resist.

Group therapy

I'm showing paintings in two group shows opening this week, so I'm going to strap on my snowshoes and head out to the hinterlands for the openings.

The first....

 

The alumni show, which includes Swain alumnus as well, is being held at UMass Dartmouth from February 3rd to March 4, with an opening this Thursday, Feb. 3 from 4:30 to 7. There should be lots of fine paintings in the show judging from the list of participants.
(Here are directions to campus - you can use parking lots 7-8, see campus map)

• • • 

The other show is the Newport Art Museum Annual Members' Juried Exhibition and runs from February 5 to May 22 ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ sigh ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ oh sorry, I was just thinking about May. A glance out my window with new snow falling on 5 foot piles of dirty ice brought me back to reality—anyway, the reception is on Friday, Feb. 4 from 5-7.

I might be late for both openings, unless I can get out of work early. Such is the life of the working artist....