The End

As you might have guessed, blogging is not an important activity for me.  So I will be ending this blog today.  No more post.  If you are interested in my art, please visit my web site at www.backcreekgallery.com.   Thank you for your support over the past few years.   Best of luck to you in the future.

Jan

I can see that I'm keeping to my blog posting schedule about one per quarter.  I just don't want to put stuff here that isn't interesting.  How many blogs do you read that are a rehash of everyday happenings? 

I am back to working on documenting my daylily garden.  This variety is called Sabine Bauer.  It's about 6 inches across with a dark eye and ruffled edges.  It has one of the largest eyes that I've seen in daylilies.  I did this one on dark green Daler-Rowney Canford paper. (It photographed so dark that it looks black)  Not sure I like the Canford paper.  It's difficult to get an even layer of color on it.  It would be nice for graphite, chalk or charcoal sketching.  This piece is 8 1/2 by 11 inches.

My work titled "Looking to the Past" was juried into the CPSA 20th International Exhibition.  It will be on exhibit  at The Carnegie, Visual and Performing Arts Center, Covington, KY (near Cincinnati) from July 9 - August  3 (about six weeks).  Awards will be announced July 9 -12.  I am very pleased to have been selected. 

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I've joined imagekind.com.  You can see my gallery at http://janpope.imagekind.com.   You can now purchase prints of my work on paper or canvas, framed or unframed at reasonable prices.

Thanks to Nicole Caulfield and her recommendation of imagekind.com as a site for prints and to sell your artwork.

Down to the picky parts...

No, I haven't fallen off the end of the earth.  Just been busy with other things.   Sometimes, life yanks you back down to reality.

This is my latest work.  Last summer, I attended the NC powwow at the museum of history.  The native Americans of NC were well represented.  There was a Chief's walk which was a kind of dance and prayer asking for wisdom.  This is the Cherokee chief (maybe?).    I loved his ceremonial dress - so much color.  You can't tell it from my work, but all that white area was actually beaded.  I'll bet this weighed a good thirty pounds when worn.

This is a larger piece.  It's going to work out to about 18 inches tall and maybe 15 or 16 inches wide.

I'm still working on the picky parts.  I fixed the studs on his belt after I took this shot.  I noticed that the middle ones were out of line.  I've added a bit more highlights to some areas. It's just those final touches.
I plan on entering this in the CPSA International Competition.

Digital Eraser

I'm working on a new piece and having some problems with composition.  After several hours of sketching in an element and then erasing it, the thought hit me that I could be drawing on my computer and erasing by "un-do"ing. Much easier than constantly erasing.    Here is what I came up with:

 

I used Paint.net which is an excellent free drawing and graphics program from the University of Washington.   You can see where I've put in limbs and leaves.  (It's kind hard to draw those leaves with a mouse!)  However, this method was much quicker than drawing by hand.

Now I'm adding in the limbs and leaves on my drawing.  I will need to do gray-scale of the main images to work out the lights and darks.  Everything but the background will be done this way.  

I like to think of this technique as the digital equivalent of doing thumbnail sketches. 

More Lilies

This is  a Munson seedling.  Another one without a proper name.  It definitely should have one as it is quite unusual with it's pink eye and red petals.  It definitely stands out in a crowd.   I had some troubles with this getting the shading right under the front petal.  The bottom of the petal has some green on it and it almost fades into the stem.

Daylily Project

I'm working on documenting my lily garden.  I have around 25 different varieties of day lilies.  That's what happens when you live 3 miles from a day lily farm!  The one on the left is a red spider lily, somewhat different in appearance than the usual day lily form.  It always reminds me of a sunset. 

This is Alabama Jubilee.  It's one of a new breed of day lily that has exceptional strong stems.  It stands up through wind and rain.

I'm also experimenting with the new SoHo colored pencils sold by Jerry's Artarama.  They are somewhat harder than Prismacolors.  They have a nice range of colors, especially in the blues and greens.  These pieces were done completely in the SoHo's. 

This doesn't work well on the gray paper, so it will probably get drawn again on a lighter shade of paper.

And these are seedlings that don't have a name.  I got them at the day lily farm.  The owner told me that they were seedlings from some crosses he had made and as such, didn't have a name.  But I like them, especially with the white edges.  They are quick to multiple.  After about 4 years, I have an entire section of them in my lily bed.  I think that they might have to be some dividing going on in the fall.

Here are a few other day lily drawings that I did last year when I started this project.

Clematis Blooms

I am growing a clematis vine in a very large pot.  It's just covered with blooms.  At last count, there were over 45 blooms, each about 6 inches wide.  It's just beautiful.  I just had to try my hand at a few blooms:

These are done in a Canson MultiMedia sketchbook with Derwent inktense watercolor pencils.   I experimented with colored pencil over the top.  The center blossom has the flower center done in graphite.

Hedychium with Sphinx Moth

This piece is for a colored pencil botanical show at the NC Botanical Gardens in Chapel Hill.

It's a ginger lily (hedychium) with a hummingbird or sphinx month.  Last summer I had several sphinx moths show up and they were really attracted to my ginger lilies.  I'd never had any of these moths in my garden before.  So I "googled" them and came to find out that they are the moth of the common horned tomato worm.

Now I know why I've not seen them around my garden before.  I have (or maybe had might be more appropriate) a colony of parastic wasps.  These are very beneficial insects if you are trying to garden organically.  They lay their eggs on caterpillars, especially tomato worms.  Their larvae then use the tomato worm as an incubator and food source until hatching as wasp.  So I'm not sure how any tomato worms escaped the wasps.  It could have possibly came from someone else's vegetable garden.

This piece is on Magnani pastel paper that's a light blue in color.  This paper is great to work on.  It holds many layers of color.  It has a slight texture, but it was easy to cover.  It's tough too - I used a Vanish eraser to completely remove the leaf on the left.  (Still not happy with it!)   After finishing the piece, I sprayed it with the new Krylon spray for pencil, pastels, and acrylics.  It's clearly labeled that way on the can.  It left a white residue on the piece.  I was able to use my fingers to remove most of it.  It doesn't show on the background.  The spray caused some areas in the piece to separate.  I don't think it dissolved.  It just looked like it moved aside from it, much like oil moves from soap.  I have fixed those areas.  The whole piece is rather flat looking now.

Needless to say, I won't be using the Krylon anymore.  I've never had any problems with the Blair spray for digital photos that I normally use.  It's archival and dries completely clear.  And as it usually the case, I don't have time to redo it.  So it will have to go as is.

Downy Woodpecker

My chapter of the CPSA, DC114 has been asked to provide an art show for the NC Aquariums.  This is our third year and we're pleased that this venture has gone so well.  The Aquarium provides the theme and for this year's show, they have chosen "The Maritime Forest". 

This is a downy woodpecker.  These birds are fairly small, about 7 or 8 inches long.  I took the photo of this bird last winter and he was hanging upside down.

This is a small piece, only 7 by 5 inches.

On a side note, I can't believe that I haven't posted anything since November of last year.  Where does the time go!  Sometimes, I just don't think folks are really interested in the everyday mundane stuff.

 

More Ducks

These ducks are hanging in the Wilmington Art Association Gallery as part of the CPSA DC114 Explorations in Colored Pencil show.  Both are for sale and are $100.00 each.  The show runs through December 31.

Ducky

It just can't be 2 months since my last post.  Time doesn't fly anymore - it's supersonic! 

I have been dealing with tendinitis in my Achilles tendon.  Sometimes I've had to be completely off my feet and at other times limping around with a cane.  So you'd think that being forced to sit would inspire me to do lots of art.  Not so.

Here is my latest.  Part of a series of 4 water birds, this is the canvasback duck.  These are small pieces, about 7 inches by 5 inches and will be available for sale at the Wilmington Art Gallery in December.

Daylily Project

I'm documenting my daylilies.  I have about 30 different varieties planted in several large flower beds.  I've wanted to do this for a while and finally started on it. 

 This is Yazoo Wild Violet. 

Unfortunately, I've don't remember the name of this one.
I will have to look it up.

July! Already!

How it can be July already.  It seems like it was just April last week.

Tomatoes are coming in by the bucket full.  We're eating fresh salsa by the quart.  Or course, that's not so bad.  Green beans will be ready by the end of the week.  My husband's row of purple hull pink eyed peas will be ready by the end of the month.  This is the best part of summer - fresh vegetables from the garden.

My sweet dog, Ozzie has Lyme Disease.  We hope that we've caught it in the early stages.  He's on antibiotics for 30 days or as long as it takes to get it in him.  He's very smart and you can't give him the pills in the same way more than once.   Poor boy has also snapped a tendon in his leg.  He can't have surgery until his Lyme Disease is under control.  Lyme Disease affects how his blood clots and causes joint pain.  I did not know that dogs could contract Lyme Disease, but they can and so can cats.  There is a vaccine available, so have your buddies vaccinated.

Ripples moving out

When you drop a stone in water, it makes ripples and they move out across the body of water. On the other side of the water, they may be so small that you can't see them, but they are there and have made an impact, no matter how small.

So it is Kelly Light's Ripple blog.  Started as a one-person effort to help the Gulf Coast animals, she has raised over $5000.00.  She has done this ten dollars at a time.  Artists are contributing trading card size works. Each is priced at $10.00.  Children are doing works as well as some known artists.

I'm working on my piece and hope to have it ready next week.

Garden Veggies

Tomatoes are growing in my  garden.  I have quite a few plants this year - about 15.  My husband got carried away at Lowes.  We are experimenting with container gardening this year.  This tomato and about 25 others are growing in large flower pots or 5 gallon buckets.  All are doing very well.  I have a few plants that may have tomato wilt and if they do, that means that they came that way from the plant nursery.  This big boy might be ripe by the 4th of July.

I found this fellow wondering through the squash plants. She can bring her crew over anytime.  We have to deal with squash bugs and squash borers.  These squash are actually growing in 5 gallon buckets on my deck.  That got them out of the regular garden when the squash borers have had a feast in past years.  But the squash bugs have found them.  Luckily, praying mantis like to eat squash bug eggs.  She is a small mantis  - only about 2 inches.  But with her help, we've managed to get a couple of squash.

On to the next thing...

  My neighbor has a beautiful blue hydrangea bush and she has graciously allowed me to cut the blooms. 

This is a small study of one of the blooms.  It's only 6 x 6 inches.  It's done in Derwent inktense watercolors.

Also, lighter subject matter.  Not so realistic, but more artistic.

This is probably the first of several studies in preparation for a still life piece that I have in mind.

Red, White and Blue

This is my piece for the Red, White and Blue show that is being hosted by the town of Cary, NC.

This is also the reason that there have not been many blog postings.  This piece took a while and with gardening season too, there just wasn't much time left.  Plus, I didn't think my followers would be too interested in cucumber seeds and chive plants or the woes of tomato diseases.

This is titled "Native Colors" and is about 14 x 18 or so. It is on blue  Tiziano paper.   It'll be framed up in an 18 x 21" frame with a mat opening of 11 x 14.  After the show is over, I plan on framing it in in a larger frame so that more of the background blue paper shows.  It's a "big" image and it needs a lot of background around it.

Garden Tour

I took my camera with me this morning as I checked out the plants in the various flower and vegetable gardens around my house.  Come along with me.

First, the container plants.

 This is a clematis.  It must have 30 blooms on it.  It is growing in a large container with a study trellis.  It's been in this pot for about 4 years and appears to be doing just fine.  It really is lovely and so nice to have flowers on the deck already.

Next to the clematis are the chives.  These are the regular onion chives and they have nice pinky-purple blooms on them.  These are edible as long as you haven't put chemicals on them.  Flowers in your salad!

 The blueberries are coming along nicely.  This is a dwarf bush, bred to grow in a container.  It's starting its 4th year.  Last year I got about 2 quarts of fruit from this small bush - a handful at a time.  It's just wonderful to go pick fresh blueberries for breakfast.  I got this blueberry variety at Park Seeds.  They will start ripening in late June.

Just to prove that my peach trees do bear, here's a tiny new little peach.  I will never get to pick it, because the squirrels will get it when it's about the size of a ping-pong ball.  It's a battle every year with those rascals and they seem to win most of the  time. Plus I'm fighting a wild grape vine that like grows in the peaches. 

Look what I found in the daylillies.  It's my cat, Poppie.  He like to sleep between the plants.  You can't even see him until you're right on top of him.  It's a good place to snooze.

Finally, I found an Iris blooming.  This variety is called Swazi Princess.  Some years it's much darker - nearly black and some years, it's more on the burgundy side.  I think iris are so beautiful, orchid-like sometimes and such great colors.  I saw more buds on my other colors, so more blooms are on their way.

I'm so glad to see color in the garden and green on the trees and in the yard.  Winter was cold this year and very gray and brown.

Spring Blooms

Spring has sprung in my yard.   We've had temperature in the 90's and the pine pollen is everywhere and covering everything.  We call it the "yellow haze".   The good thing is that with the warm temperatures, all of the trees have "let go" all at one time.  So it'll all be over with soon.

My cherry tree is covered in the most beautiful pale pink flowers.  This is a double weeping cherry tree.  I often see my neighbors riding down to my end of the street to take a look in the spring.









Daffodils are blooming.  This is an open corona type.

Grape Hyacinths.  Such great color.

Yes, this is a daffodil.  It's kinda' hard to find these bulbs, but just look at that bloom.