Back to my life

I drove home yesterday afternoon after another full day of painting and listening to Koo's amazing lectures on Renaissance painters. Her concise lectures made me feel like I had completed one semester of art history in only a few days. It reminded me how much I don't know, or have forgotten. Not to mention the tips and techniques that she uses to create her stunning paintings, as well as a demonstration of how she photographs still life subjects and portraits to achieve that one source light that is key to Renaissance painting. We all crammed into the small office to watch her demonstration, using an ordinary point and shoot camera, and a spiral bulb, giving those rich darks and patterned lights. Some students used her still life photographs for their paintings and they really looked like an old master painting!

I have decided not to work on my painting. The energy and focus is gone. My life is now back to its humdrum routine. I like what I have done here. Sure, it could use many more layers, but it seems pointless to keep reworking it.

Celebration of the Egg          8 x 10           Egg Tempera

Koo Schadler

I am taking a 5 day workshop with the Egg Tempera artist extraordinaire, Koo Schadler. It is organized by The Amelia Island Artist Workshop, run by two ladies who bring renowned artists to this part of the state of Florida, and what a tight ship they run! Koo defies description, as she is a fountain of knowledge about art, Egg Tempera techniques, Renaissance artists, and she shares her vast knowledge in a totally unpretentious, humorous and loving way, and her lectures on various aspects of the craft of creating a painting are amazingly organized and presented so all levels of ability and knowledge can be informed.

Koo's process of creating Egg Tempera paintings cuts through hours of tedious layering, and it is a thrill to me to learn how to hasten my work through using masks, stencils, tracings, sponging and applying scumbles and glazes.

 

Prior to the workshop we each received extensive lists of materials, directions, directives and choices to make about gesso panel sizes and were advised to plan to work on a still life that we photographed at home, brought to work from life, or used one of Koo's photos. This sent me into a couple of weeks of angst about what I was going to paint, eventually deciding on the "Celebration of Egg Tempera" theme, rather than the Easter Bunny droppings that was a possible substitute still life consisting of candy in various forms, wrappers and containers, which I would have probably titled "Candyfest" (which may still make it into a painting at a later time.)

Here is Day 2 with my photograph on the right and the beginning of my Egg Tempera painting on the left

The masks and cutouts are made from photo copies of my scaled to size photo and here they are shown on the right after being applied to the panel by the use of cosmetic sponges....in one day I have achieved about a week's work using my old way!

At the end of Day three I have layered over my base more precise work using various masks as well as applying "fussy brush work" (as Koo calls it), and the form is built up by sponging veils of color glazes, alternating with a scumble of thin white paint. To look at one of Koo's paintings, one could not imagine that it was created with a cosmetic sponge, but here is the proof! 

Thanks Koo, for a wonderful workshop. I have been to a few of them...even given them myself, but none come close to this super organized, well presented, and beautifully taught 5 glorious days of no TV, no cellphone, no hassles, and hours of blessed painting time in a beautiful setting with nine enthusiastic and happy people painting and learning together. What a way to celebrate Easter!

My New Job

Last week I was named Art Curator of the Gallery at Carrollwood Cultural Center. It will be very difficult to follow in the footsteps of my friend, Mary Ellen Bitner, but I will muddle through, I'm sure. Mary Ellen was the driving force behind the whole visual arts program at the Center and her ideas and energy will be missed. I have a few ideas that I will be trying to implement as soon as possible. I'll be working on trying to make a connection between the art viewer and their pocketbooks.

I am so excited to have this opportunity to work in the art world for a change. It could not have come at a better time! It compliments my other work at the Center, teaching classes in painting, digital photography and computers, so I expect to be in Tampa nearly every day.

to view the Center's website: http://www.carrollwoodcenter.org/

Two New Egg Tempera Paintings

Genesis: Pear     6 x 8      Egg Tempera on Gesso Panel

Genesis: Apricot        6 x 8      Egg Tempera on Gesso Panel 

Both of these paintings are available for sale (PayPal) on my website

FIVE TO TRY

Freelance writer, Chris Kuhn, decided to try out 5 new things each  month and then blog about her experiences. One of her "Five to Try" is my Sampling the Media class at Carrollwood Cultural Center, on Wednesday nights from 7:00 to 9:00.

Go here http://en.wordpress.com/tag/five-to-try/ to see a list of her "Five to Try" entries on her blog and see her adventures with Oils, Acrylics, and Watercolors. The entries start on January 10 and go through February 17. If you are thinking a new art adventure is something YOU want to try but can't quite get fired up about it, read Chris's blog entries for a week-by-week review. The next class begins on March 2nd and will run for 6 weeks.

Impressionism: The Story of a Grand Revolt

This is a PowerPoint slide lecture I gave last spring at Carrollwood Cultural Center. I have tried to make it into a DVD with very little success. It seems not to want to play on either computers or TVs. So much for my great conversion software. I found AuthorStream and decided to post it to my blog and see what happens. It seems like it works well. I had hoped to sell the DVD but have decided to ask people to donate whatever they like if they watch it. I won't know if you watch it and DON'T donate, so enjoy either way.

See more presentations by gerinzhills | Upload your own PowerPoint presentations

Waiting For the Green Light

Waiting For The Green Light

12 x 24 Oil on Canvas $800

The view out of the 12th floor window of the John Knox Village hi-rise building, overlooks Fletcher Avenue, The Mormon Church, and the entrance to the University of South Florida. The Sun Dome is at the far right of the painting.

Fear is going to Minnesota!

Today I finalized the sale of Fear! It will go to Hazelden Foundation, as a donation to them from a grateful client. I am thrilled to have Fear out of the dark storage unit in Zephyrhills, where it has been for most of the past 9 years, and it will be placed in a collection where many can see it! My buyer said, when asked how he found it online "I searched for "beautiful paintings" and it was at the top"....how is this possible? I couldn't get Google to do that when I tried it.

Today is also my 29th wedding anniversary and I am both elated and sad. I would have loved to share this huge step in my career with George! Well of course, we can have various ideas about that.....

Best In Show!

White Orchids

Oil 36 x 36 $1200

On exhibit at Carrollwood Cultural Center until September 29, 2010.

I was so pleased to be awarded a Best in Show for this painting; one of my favorites, and created for my living room in Florida.

August 8th, 2010

After living with this still life for 6 years in two different studios it was finally removed by me and my friend Kit Tobin, yesterday at my "End of Shame" party. In 2004 I had set up the Shame still life in my studio but I didn't like it. During one of Kit's visits I mentioned that I didn't like it and she made a suggestion that made a huge difference. We tore it all apart and redid it, and yesterday she was on deck to help me dismantle it. This morning my studio looks and feels like a new place....everything is cleaned up, moved out of the way, and I have the feeling of being renewed and refreshed! It always helps to have a party to clean out the cobwebs!

I'm Celebrating the End of Shame

Sunday, August 1, 2010 at 6:37 PM I put the last paint stroke on the Shame Painting. It has been a long battle to get this painting finished. I blogged some of this struggle here, and made a public pledge to my Pen Women meeting in May that it would be finished by the time we met again in September. I am early!

I am throwing myself a party this Sunday, open house in my studio from 2:00 to 5:00. It is coincidently the one year anniversary of George's Memorial Celebration in Connecticut. My friend, Kit Tobin, helped me set up this still life in 2004 during one of her frequent visits, and it is very appropriate that she will be here to help me dismantle the still life on Sunday.

This is all about moving on, and I feel that I have come full circle, as this painting was an incredible challenge to paint, as the subject matter stirred up many uncomfortable episodes in my life. Not to mention that working on it over the past number of years had to be sandwiched in between George's frequent health problems, the need to find jobs and money, and wedged into a very tiny studio that made me feel as if the painting was attacking me. I see the end of Shame as a symbol for the end of a cycle of trouble, and I am excited to look forward to starting the next one. Stay tuned!

If you are in Tampa, and want to come to my party email me....for directions.

Number 18 in the Genesis Series

Genesis: Orange Egg Tempera on gesso panel 6 x 8

Progress Report on Shame

Many of my friends and acquaintances know of my struggles with this particular painting and the "Feeling Series" in general. To see the series go here When this idea was first delivered to my brain by some unknown force outside myself, there were to be 12 paintings. After number 7 (Fear) my life unraveled in a strange way, presaged by that lightning bolt, and derailed most everything in my life, espeically my art life.

Moving to Florida required me to start over, which I was unprepared for, since I naively thought that moving would simply be a matter of handing over my credentials and the doors would open. It was not that simple, I was to find out, and it took quite a few years to even find the doors (I am not sure that I have found them yet), and when I did, many of them required a good bit of lock picking. I had moved from a series of large and glamorous studios in Connecticut and Rhode Island to a 10 x 12 spare bedroom in our mobile home and it was folly to try to work in there. Between working to earn money to keep us going, and taking care of George, and worrying all the time, there was no energy left for dealing with these paintings....it was just too much effort and not enough time.

But eventually I did manage to get the Shame Painting underway. I had the props and during one of her visits Kit helped me set up the still life in the little bedroom, where it sat for about 2 years waiting for me to get the time and energy to start the painting. Finally it got started and I put in quite a few sessions in that tiny studio backed into the wall feeling as if the painting was attacking me.

I knew before George died that I would convert the living room into my studio and so last summer I began the project but did not realize that the still life would have to be partially dismantled to move it and reassembled in the new room. I am sure you can image that with a still life this complex this maneuver created a new set of problems!

It has been on my easel where I have poked at it on and off since last summer, but my enthusiasm to work turns into dread when I look at this painting and it sits on the easel shaming me on a daily basis for months at a time.

There have been moments when I considered abandoning the whole series, or at least this painting, but something keeps nagging at me, and I am still in the game.

A few weeks ago I went to the Pen Women Luncheon (National League of American Pen Women, of which I am an artist member)....it was the last meeting since we knock off for the summer and start up in September. Members were invited to share about "Inspiration"; where they get it, if any inspirations come from our meetings and associations, and how we manage our inspirations. When my turn came I found myself babbling on about my difficulties with "Shame". When I sat down, Staci Backauskas pushed a paper over to me with the following Haiku Poem on it, which I have now printed out in large letters and attached to my easel. It has helped me get motivated to finish the painting, and I made a commitment outloud to my Pen Women group that it would be done by September, thus somewhat kindling a fire under my butt.

Here is Staci's Haiku

When called to do what
You don't understand, let go.
It's not about you.

Here is a picture of "Shame" not finished yet, but well underway with Staci's poem on the easel tray.

Remembering George

Yesterday was the first anniversary of George's death. I was dreading the month of May and anticipated feeling horrible, but luckily my dear friend Kit Tobin decided to fly to Tampa to spend 5 days with me to get me through this tough time, and it has worked wonderfully well. We had a grand day celebrating George yesterday, May 21st, by starting the day with a chiropractic adjustment for me and a massage for her, after which we went to the Museum of Science and Industry (better known in these parts as MOSI) where there is a fabulous show about Leonardo DaVinci. It was a show that I know George would have loved.

I find that there is some level of acceptance going on for me but there is a permanent hole in my heart that will not be filled by anyone but him.

Life does go on....somehow we all seem to manage without our loved ones, but the memories linger on and the amazing life that we shared with each other and with people scattered around the globe, will insure that this man who was so important to so many people, will never be forgotten.

George was definitely a man who would always stop to smell the flowers!

More of Miss Puss

The Many Moods of Miss Puss

9B Graphite on Black Illustration Board

When you hold this drawing in your hands and move it around the graphite is very reflective and appears to be silvery. It is a very interesting effect, for sure. Can you tell how crazy I am about my new friend? yeah!