Babies having Babies

So, seems this year is the year of the baby. 

Ted's baby dishes

A group of the nieces and nephews (well, their significant others) are starting or extending their families. It seemed appropriate to come up with an artsy baby gift for the brood.  They are a few years away from  enjoying a painting and luckily I'm married to a potter.  And luckily my husband has his own studio and a great imagination.

Ted embraced the baby challenge (pottery wise) and came up with sets of baby dishes for the little ones. Bright colors and different shapes.

Some of the primary color ones we mixed up. They turned out pretty cool. You can check his work out on Anna Norris Fine Art

I ended up going to Texas to paint a mural for one of the babies. My niece asked for an African Savanna.

Her husband is from Ghana and I had a great time researching terrain, animals and villages for the mural. She wanted something that was more cartoon based and neutral colors. Baby friendly but able to grow with the child.

My niece lives in Livingston Texas and part of the challenge was figuring out what resources for purchasing the paints were there. I found out there was a Lowes and that was perfect. I ended up figuring out colors and amounts of paint here and then picking them up there.

I'm not much of a sketcher. I have the picture in my head and I just start.  Can be a little unsettling for clients that can't read my mind. This piece actually evolved on the wall. At first it was just going to be between two windows. Well you know how that goes. I ended up with two full walls.

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So I realized as I started that I had no idea how to gracefully end the top and bottom of the mural. I didn't want it to feel too formal. The tree/cloud band on the top was informal enough. The bottom was more of a head scratcher. I though a band of Ashanti would be cool and M and D came up with a child's blessing that D translated into Ashanti.  I will attempt to attach the video that pans the room and has D reading the blessing in Ashanti.

Can't wait for the new generation to make their appearances. I know there will be a few painters/potters among them.

Under painting! I don't need no stinking under painting

Well maybe I do. Under painting, the painting underneath the painting. The underpinning that holds the scene together and plays off the colors on the top layer. Changes the way light bounces through the painting. I like to start with vivid colors. I may end up covering them completely but I like to work with them. They inspire me and sometimes take the painting in a whole different direction.

My inspiration was some bikes in Bend Oregon. Ted and I have found that bikes are very popular subjects. I try to photograph them where ever we go.

 When in doubt under paint a rainbow. I had a weird sized board to work on and wanted to try something random on the under painting.  Force my brain to look at things differently.

 When I started working in the shapes I was forced to rethink color combos against the background.

Bend Bikes some weird dimensions, oil on board

There were a number of changes as I realized the balance wasn't there and I needed to rethink the composition. It played much nicer when the foreground was changed. Can't deny a good diagonal line can save a painting. The addition made the bikes more important and gave movement to the piece.

A problem I used to have when I started painting was giving the same importance to everything in the piece. I've had to take time to decide what I want the focus to be. Change the values, color palette, soften the background to boost the importance of the focus of the piece. It's like golf, you will never master it but sometimes you're more successful than other times.   We all have paintings, projects, golf clubs that sit facing the wall until we gain enough experience/knowledge/courage to pick them up again.


The Neighborhood Watch
9 by 12 oil on board

This is a painting I did for a couple of their guard animals. Wrigley and Jasper are ever vigilant.

I started this with a bright orange under painting. The bright red of Wrigley's coat was there to show through the dark of the top coat, play off the blues to add a richness. I pushed the intensity of the cars on the street knowing that I would be doing a glaze and sgraffito to reveal the underpainting. In doing that I muted the street scene and stopped the eye at the doorway. Putting the importance on the animals. My wise mentor and friend Gabbie Hirsch told me that as soon as you put a live thing in a painting your attention is drawn there. True words.

Was pretty pleased with the results. Never had done screen before.

If you haven't tried underpainting your canvases/panels/cupboard doors try it.   A

So I've found out I have no Social Media Savvy

Mount Hood 12 by 24 oil on canvas

Greetings from the beautiful northwest. Camas Washington to be exact. In our quest for an unending source of fresh water we found Las Vegas was not our best bet. I now have a view of the Columbia River, through the trees, and a "vintage" house.  We even have two galleries here in Camas and a First Friday.

Fallen Leaf Lake 8 by 10 on canvas
Google maps calls it Dead Lake but that's not right.

The painting around here is great. Obviously different than Vegas. I mean there's water. Pretty much everywhere. It snows and there's ice, sometimes. And I have to say I've become a little obsessed with the water in its many forms.

Upside, the art scene in the Northwest is pretty good.  I've met some very supportive business people here  and have art in 2 locations. Wendee at Nico Bella Salon, nicobellasalon.com,  has been a great help. I have a number of pieces for sale there and they move quite nicely. I just got into The Hungry's Bakery, www.thehungrysbakery.com , thank you Jenny Easley. If you're in the Camas area both places are great. You can get beautified, cultured and have a cupcake or two.

In face Wendee is so supportive she had a Marketing class "How to Gain the Professional Edge" by Twila Kaye of WomanUp Global, www.WomanUPGlobal.com , at the salon and invited me to it.  I was kind of excited. I figure you're never too old to learn something new. I was the oldest one there and the only one who had no idea of how a hashtag # is to be used. I did not know that 11 #'s is the "sweet spot" for instagram. Not only that I did not have a twitter, nor have I ever tweeted-twitted-twittered????, I had not posted a picture to my instagram, I had no clue of the use of Linkedin, my website was pretty lonely, and we can see I haven't blogged in 2 years. Obviously I was due for a makeover. You know you're special when the entire class is suggesting things for you to do and the order of importance.

Georgia Pacific Mill Camas WA 12 by 24

This blog is my last step in my Marketing make over. OK, I haven't got a twitter yet but I just am not feeling my inner Kanye. So now you can go to www.annanorrisfineart.com  and view my  up to date website. Hopefully while there you will be given the opportunity to join my Anna Norris Fine Art Facebook page, link to this Anna Norris Fine Art blog, become chummy with me Anna Norris Fine Art on Linkedin, we can figure out the benefits of that together, and finally you can follow me on Instagram at Anna Norris Fine Art. Notice the theme here.

So here's to my new Pacific Northwest adventure. Please check back to see if I can keep this up more that once every 2 years. Hopefully by the next time I will have an "Artist's Statement" which I also don't have.  Let me know if you can find me on the web.   A