Yesterday was so lovely. Many of my dearest old friends came and supported me. One artist friend Evelyn Snyder colored pencil artist, came from Palatka. Find her work online. I was very touched. I saw a friend I hadn’t seen in a couple of years.  Friends arrived at 11AM and there was a steady group coming and going until after 5PM. The weather couldn’t have been nicer. I had a couple of trail walkers too. 

One of my old artist friends from my paint out days came. She honored me with a lovely framed painting of flowers. I will treasure it. She paints with oils on copper, So pretty. She also dropped off small frames for me that she no longer needed. Super kind. She showed me her new paint box, which was wonderful! She is Susan Renee Lammars. Find her work online. 

All of my guests enjoyed hot dogs, and my homemade brownies. Several brought me little treasured gifts. We shared laughter and lots of funny stories together. It was a fun filled day. It sped by. As always, I thank my studio assistant Carolyn for handling so much of the party, and my sister who cleans up the mess behind the scenes. I couldn’t do it without them. 
Stay tuned for this country painter’s next party in February, my annual Chili Party…….

As most of you know I’m a bit of a design nut.  I like to preplan a lot of my painting projects with value studies, Notan study, color mixing and composition studies.  I did a lot of design work with my private students when I was teaching, and a decent design kit is a great thing to have.

My kit has:

 a small pair of scissors

2 fine tip drawing pens

2 sharpie markers

1 set of gray scale markers

1 basic set of colored pencils

1  set 12-24 drawing pencils

1 Pink Pearl eraser

1 kneaded eraser

1 small sketchbook

20 sheets of index paper at a time (replace when you need to)

1  3 ring binder

1  3 hole punch

1  6 inch see through ruler

1  12 inch see through ruler

1  see through triangle

1 basic watercolor set/brushm

With this kit, I can do all!!

With this comes a list of design studies and questions. I can go through this process with any painting I might want to do, any cartoon, or other visual design project I might want to explore.

Using a design kit to do your paintings first, will save you lots of time and help you improve your compositions greatly. It is great for illustrative work too. The thing I like best about using my design table is the freedom and lack of care about whether the art is good. It is not for anyone else to see. Design is my roadmap to art.

Design is wonderful for country painters....

Artists, please yourself. It is not possible to know which paintings will be loved or sold. If you follow trends, you will constantly be in, then suddenly out of fashion. 

Don’t try to copy styles of other artists. You are doomed to failure and ridicule with that plan. You can copy, but your work will not quite be as good as the artist you copy. They thought of it first. If you have to copy, you are not developing your own work that you can be proud of. You don’t find your style. It finds you, after many days, months and years of work in front of your easel. 

Don’t jump on bandwagons. If you are a great still life painter, stick with your skill set. It’s ok to go on tangents. I certainly do, but don’t try to throw away your respected, known skill because another genre is the latest popular craze. Believe in your self and your spirit. You will find your collectors when your work is mature enough for merit.

Country painters think about art a lot……..

I saw a fascinating movie yesterday about time being the only currency in life. When you run out of time, you die instantly. The citizens had built in time clocks in each person. I realized that time is our only valuable commodity.

I never thought much about its value until I began to age. During our youth we think nothing about the value of time. When we are in our work, child rearing ages, we don’t have the energy or “time” to think about its value.

Suddenly, our parents, aunts, uncles have passed and now we are the old folk. We begin to realize that time is infinitely more valuable than any of our possessions we thought were so important, just a moment ago. We begin to wonder how to use the precious gift of time in the best way possible? Some of us have run out of the good health we took for granted a short time ago. Now a good afternoon nap is a great way to use part of our day. 

Surprisingly, I no longer worry about how I use my time. I use it with joy every day. So many of the things I felt were terribly important just a few years ago have no interest to me now. I no longer have to be one of the important artists, just a happy one who loves the pleasure of picking up the brush every morning. 

 
Country painters have a great “time”……