Painting on the Train...in Vain!

We took the train to LA and back last week, and I brought some small art supplies, and tried doing a few tiny paintings on the train.

Nothing much great happened, painting-wise. Ostensibly, one could say I painted 5 little paintings on the lurching train, but I wasn't happy with anything I did there.

So, I am reworking them, one by one.

Here's the first one:



"Painting on the Train...in Vain 001"
Acrylic on Canvas Paper
6" x 6"

E.A.S.T. 2008

Another great East Austin Studio Tour this year. I worked my *** off getting the house ready, and Terry stayed up all night with me hanging my paintings, and helping in whatever other ways he could. We got about 2 hours sleep before opening on Saturday morning.

Unfortunately, I was so beat, I barely remember the blur of this weekend! I had less guests than last year, but sold more paintings (thank you to my newest collectors!!!).

Here are a few pics taken when no one else was around:



















Some encaustics and one new acrylic (the large one on the left - "Primordial Landscape").




















The Succession piece and another of the new small encaustic paintings.

























Some snacks for the guests.



















New acrylic paintings.



















"Soaring," acrylic on canvas. I think it looks great on this wall color!



















Some more new acrylic paintings, plus some giclee prints.

"Fused Expressions" Opening and Show

What a great opening! So many people showed up, and once again, Sharon had some of my work very prominently displayed, for which I feel deeply honored! The yellow poppy paintings on the front wall are mine.

Here are some pics of the event:
































Snarko and Joe, "the accordian player," dressed for Día de los Muertos.




















Sharon Kyle-Kuhn's fabulous new pieces.

























I love Daphne Holland's work, such as this one.




















Some more of Sharon's work.




















Some more of Sharon's work.

A Few More Acrylic Paintings

This has been a very busy month -- the month began with transporting our paintings up to Fort Worth to prepare for hanging in the "Real and Imagined" show at the Fort Worth Community Arts Center, which took two trucks to transport all the work for all five of us in the show.

Two days later, we had to drive up there again for the opening, which due to the 777 point drop in the stock market that day, turned out to be a little less well-attended than we had hoped for. We had been told to expect somewhere between 300 and 1000 attendees by a friend who had worked there; I'd say it was more like 100.

I'm also getting some paintings ready for the "Fused Expressions" show next month at Bay6 Gallery & Studios, and getting my house ready for the East Austin Studio Tour next month as well. I need to do some wall and ceiling patching and painting in the dining room/kitchen, and I hope to finally hang chair rail, crown molding and new baseboards.

In the meantime, I repainted one of the paintings I wasn't 100% thrilled with from August's flurry of painting activity, and painted a couple more.

Here they are:
























"Dimming of the Day" (used to be "Storybook" -- and this professionally shot photo does not capture the colors correctly! It is in reality less blue, more cyan-green)
Acrylic on Canvas
36" x 36"
























"Primordial Landscape"
Acrylic on Canvas
36" x 36"
























"Soaring"
Acrylic on Canvas
36" x 36"

"Real and Imagined" Opening at Fort Worth Community Art Center

Painting in Acrylic now!

Now that I've finished my 7-month Succession Series project, I felt the need to paint fast and large, and with more control and precision than I can achieve using encaustics, so I thought I'd give acrylics another go. I headed out to Jerry's Artarama for some supplies, and they had jars of Atelier's Interactive acrylic paint on a close-out sale, so I picked up a few colors.

Wow! What a different medium. It's very physical to paint this large and necessarily quickly, and still attempt to achieve some of the effects I enjoy. Yet, this has freed me up in another way, and I see my work evolving even more.

I have painted nine 3-foot square paintings this month already! I'm not entirely happy with three of them, but here they are anyway, in order of completion:























"Asia"
Acrylic on Canvas
36" x 36"























"Heading Out"
Acrylic on Canvas
36" x 36"























"Storybook"
Acrylic on Canvas
36" x 36"
























"Frilly"
Acrylic on Canvas
36" x 36"























"Peeping Out from This Crazy Cave"
Acrylic on Canvas
36" x 36"























"John McCain's Houses"
Acrylic on Canvas
36" x 36"























"Arterial"
Acrylic on Canvas
36" x 36"























"Loop"
Acrylic on Canvas
36" x 36"























"Knot"
Acrylic on Canvas
36" x 36"

Succession Series Complete!

I finally finished my 7-month Succession Series project of 20 interrelated paintings, painted individually, but with connecting edges and related ideas. I painted these in oil, after spending the past 2 years painting primarily in encaustic.

It felt like coming home to paint in oil again, yet I approached this work with a different sensibility, different palette than I normally use, and slighter different techniques.

Here is the result:





















I'm still struggling to get a good shot of the whole painting, alas.

You can see the individual paintings on my website here: http://www.marilynfenn.com/art_succession.html -- click on any thumbnail for the full view of each piece.

10 New Encaustic Paintings in About a Week

I've been working on a complicated 20-panel oil painting for most of the year, which is getting close to completion (for an October show in Ft. Worth). On Friday, July 18th, I had the need to loosen up, so turned back to encaustics, which are just naturally a looser kind of medium.

Here are the 10 new pieces, in top to bottom reverse order of completion:

"The Gathering"
Encaustic on Plywood
12" x 12"

"The Buzz"
Encaustic on Plywood
12" x 12"

"Swarm"
Encaustic on Plywood
12" x 12"

"Crossing Over"
Encaustic on Plywood
12" x 12"

"Candyloaf"
Encaustic on Plywood
12" x 12"

"Shameless Exuberance"
Encaustic on Plywood
12" x 12"

"Twilight Town"
Encaustic on Plywood
12" x 12"

"A Ripple in the Universe"
Encaustic on Plywood
12" x 12"

"Firefly"
Encaustic on Plywood
12" x 12"

"Orange Point"
Encaustic on Plywood
12" x 12"

Paintings in the Netroots Nation/Texas Kaos Show

Framed pictures of most of my pieces in the show.
"What Have We Become?"
9 Digital Prints with Chain Links and Encaustic on Masonite
37" x 34"



"Plumbob Priscilla"
Encaustic on Masonite
10" x 8"
Framed
O.D. 12" x 9.75"



"Operation Bravo"
Encaustic on Plexiglas
12" x 12"
Framed
O.D. 13.25" x 13.25"


























"Castle Romeo"
Encaustic on Plexiglas
9" x 12"
Framed
O.D. 10" x 13.25"



"Romeo"
Encaustic on Plexiglas
12" x 9"
Framed
O.D. 13.25" x 10"

Report from Netroots Nation/Texas Kaos After Party & Art Exhibit

What a great show! My large piece "What Have We Become?" was prominently featured on the main wall and was big hit with the NN folks. One guy even gave me a huge hug when he found I was the artist of that piece.
























I had my 5 paintings of nuclear bombs in this show, along with the piece mentioned above and a image transfer/encaustic piece of "Chernobyl."















There were 6 other artists in this show with great and varied work.





















It seems I always think I took more pictures than I actually did. Turns out, we were enjoying the opening so much, the party lasted well over an hour past closing time.

Netroots Nation Art Exhibit Saturday, July 19th

Netroots Nation After Party and Art Exhibit:

Texas Kaos Presents Netroots Nation After Party and Art Exhibit
Hosted by Bay6 Gallery and Studios

Reception:
Saturday July 19th
7:00PM to 10:00PM
5305 Bolm Rd Bay6 Austin TX.

As the Netroots Nation conference winds to a close Saturday evening, we invite you to join us and Bloggers from across the nation at Bay6 Studios to 'Kick Back and Kick it Up before We Kick 'Em Out!'

Sponsored and hosted by Texas Kaos and Bay6 Gallery and located five minutes from the Austin Convention Center in East Austin, the event will feature music, food, drink and present a group art exhibition "Blogging from the Right Side of the Brain" featuring work by Texas artists Marilyn Fenn, Daphne Holland, Jack Howe, Darvin Jones, Mindy Kober, Sharon Kyle-Kuhn and Brooke Wilton.

For more information and direction see www.texaskaos.com, www.bay6studios.com

One More in the Succession Series

"Succession 01 #2-2 (Sandbars in the Sea)"
Oil on Canvas
12" x 12"

More New Work

"Succession 01 #2-1 (Floating)"
Oil on Canvas
12" x 12"

Another New Succession Painting

"Succession 01 #3-1 (Life Forms)"
Oil on Canvas
12" x 12"

New Succession Painting

"Succession 01 #2-3 (Arabesque)"
Oil on Canvas
12" x 12"