This is a close up of a watercolor of Phoebe, the Allens Hummingbird from phoebeallens.com. This was painted from a web-shot I took of her on her April 2011 clutch. She had just kicked her February brood out and laid the eggs she is sitting on here. Sadly, after the chicks hatched around the end of April one of the babies fell out of the nest 4/30, was taken to rehab but died 5/2. One is still on the nest and doing well. Phoebe is a Channel Island Allen's Hummingbird subspecies. This is a non-migratory subspecies of Allen's Hummingbird indigenous to The Channel Islands off Southern California.  

 

 

I love birds so when a link showed up through an email I went there and found this lovely little Anna's Hummingbird named Phoebe busy defending her nest from a lizard. I was hooked and have been keeping up with her ever since. She is such a beautiful color and when the roses are blooming they make a great back drop. This is one ferocious little defender. Her trials are an inspiration for me to keep trying and never give up.

    

 

As a gallery manager you are asked to do many different jobs. Then when you label yourself an artist people think you can fix or create any type of image... on any surface(but that is an even longer blog!). I have repaired some very old original lithographs along with original Card Mounted, Cabinet Cards, Carte-De-Visite photographs. It is very rewarding work. We at our gallery decided that digital repair would be a good fit to our business. So I set out to learn as much about it as I could. I have been pretty successful at it for about 3 years now and I love it as much as I do creating a piece of artwork. I use my knowledge of color and blending, having gotten pretty inventive, as I build my confidence in using Adobe Photoshop. It is a special feeling to bring an image back from the brink of vanishing and giving it new life as well as a gift to future generations.

 

This is my first digital restoration of some type of intaglio printing. It came to me in very bad condition. The young woman who brought it in said the print had been in her family for four generations. She tried finding a copy over the internet but was not successful. My first thought was uh oh, not sure if I should. In this day and age of sue happy people you really have to think about what you do. I then began an extensive search myself of the print but after a week I gave up. Maybe someone will see this and know exactly where it came from, a date and who did it. The only thing readable at the bottom of the print is "Holy Family" in several languages and a number 11 at the bottom right corner. I then began the digital restoration. I took a photograph of the original with a Canon Power Shot we have mounted on the ceiling at Corners Art Gallery for our imaging design software. I began the digital repair, filling in the missing pieces and recoloring to the customers specifications along with cropping it to fit the frame it was originally in. I printed the reproduction on Epson Watercolor bright white paper using our Epson Stylus photo r1900. I like the watercolor paper as it gives the image more of the antique feel and softness of the original. The finished size is 11"x15.5". The customer is pleased and I would like to think the artist would be also. Their message and image will be around for a little while longer.

 

Happy painting all, Kathleen

     I have many  people talk to me while I paint on location. Most are amazed that I will paint out in the elements.  Artists, that have never tried it on the other hand, ask me with a curl in their lip and a ewe in  their voice “Don’t the fire ants, flies, bees, wind, rain, heat, and cold drive you crazy?” And I reply “the only problem I ever had was with some run-away horses and one loud barking dog!”

    This story begins on a cool, very blue, early fall morning. I said good-bye to my daughter as she boarded the bus for school and, like a sprinter running for the finish line, I threw my Julian Easel in the back of my car and down the road I went. I had the perfect spot in mind, a little road not far away, with hardly any traffic.

     As I drove up I noticed the field was scattered with large rolls of hay. With fall colors beginning to show, I hoped I’d have the makings of a nice painting. I found a place to park which, I might add, was somewhat difficult because the road was so narrow. The only level spot for me to set up was about five feet from my car and a foot away from a barbed wire fence. I thought, this is great, the car works as a wind break and the fence will keep the horses from eating my paint.

    Generally horses are curious but don’t bother me. I only have to watch for the one in the group that will either try to nibble on my shirt or eat my paint. On this day they just gave me a who-are-you-look and turned again to their munching. As I paint time becomes meaningless. Minutes flow into an hour and the sun grows warmer when I slowly become aware that I have been hearing a dog barking in the distance. I think it has been doing so for quite some time. It is at this time I also hear “ #x@&!  BOO, GET BACK HERE....NO! CLOSE THAT GATE!."

    Now the barn, that I assume this commotion is coming from, is a long way from me and down a fairly steep hill. There is one small rise in the hill so that all I see of this barn is the roof. I think, wow wonder what is going on down there? So I return to my painting and soon after the first few strokes I faintly hear hoof beats galloping on the pavement. I then notice the barking has gotten louder and the shrieking men sound frantic. I am vaguely beginning to realize that this may not be a good thing for me. The road is narrow but surely if horses are headed my way then they would take the widest path, the road…Right? WRONG! As the horses top the rise and dip below the hill before me I consider how fast I might be able to gather my easel and jump in the car. Well…. If you have ever tried to fold up a Julian Easel fast you would know how silly that thaught  was. So I think, I can just wave the horses away…. Ha, as they topped the hill, with a barking dog at their hooves, three crazy men in an old red pickup, the passenger door flying open, a four-wheeler at their side, and one deranged sole in the back of the pick-up screaming “ #x@&!  BOOOO ” the horses decided that the most appealing path was between me and my car. I believe the horses were as surprised as I was when all seven of them came galloping past me, in single file, one even turned around and looked at me and my painting; its always nice to be noticed. To this day I don’t know how I didn’t get stomped into the ground. The men, dog, horses, and four-wheeler disappeared over the next rise; I wonder what happened when they came to the tee in the road at the top of the hill. I never heard another sound from them, birds began to sing again, the flies made themselves known, and I, taking a deep breath, had the finishing touches to put on my painting.

This is a 11x14 Oil painting of my dad. It is #37 in my daily painting exercise 50 paintings in 50 days. I know as some artist think this 50 in 50 is no big deal; my hats off to them. For me however it has been hard. Only, the best HARD I have ever done. I would not trade this time for anything. I have gotten my “artists eye” back. I work full time in a gallery and frame shop so I see art all the time. You tend to shut yourself down after a while. Waiting on customers, designing and building frames, digital photo restoration work, ordering, dealing with the inferior moulding that seems to be today’s standard, yada, yada, yada, and juggling the many different aspects of running a shop is daunting. Sometimes when I get home, what energy I have left is zapped after the evening meal is cleaned up. This is nothing new to women everywhere. I turned 50 this year and for 35 of those years I have been painting, teaching and doing some type of art. I’m not getting younger, so it is now or never to poor myself into the field full time. I am putting it out there, into the universe, I want to be working full time on painting instead of running a gallery in one year. That said, I am over halfway finished with my “50 in 50” and I am so glad I did this. It has gotten me back into painting for the love of painting instead of for commissions or a gallery.  I see a painting around every corner, and I cannot wait to get to my studio in the evenings.

So, go ahead, challenge yourself and see what you can accomplish!

March 8, 2009
Just a few thoughts on day 32 of my 50 day painting "spree". I guess it was around the #22 entry, Bosque County Bluebonnets, that I started realizing that I was running out of reference material. Well...not really but the "easy" ones that I already had in my mind to paint. I dug up this old...old....20 year old photo I took near Clifton Texas, I think. It is yellowed and scratched but it really inspired me. Let me back up, what really inspired me has been the work itself. I work all day in a gallery and frame shop so I am around art all day. However I am also around customers (always have to be "on") and dealing with shipments and deadlines yada, yada, yada so that by the end of the day my brain is sometimes fried, my feet hurt, my back aches and there is not much daylight left. I go home, cook supper, wash clothes and try to catch up on paper work from my husbands side business. Painting is usually the last thing I think of. However, it is always one of the activities I think and dream about the most. I turned 50 this year, hard for me to admit! So I decided that I would dedicate a chunk of time, 50 days, and paint a small painting every day. This has been the most wonderful, creative, insightful, demanding things I have ever undertaken. I would do it again in a heart beat. Even as tough as it is to haul myself out to my studio and deal with the fading light (thank goodness for the time change) as soon as I smell those wonderful fumes, put the first blob of paint on my brush and make that first stoke I am lost and not much else penetrates my brain for 2-3 hours. I am tired when I go to bed but oh so satisfied that I have spent time doing what I love most in this world to do.