We had a 'show & sell' at the Como restaurant on Thursday, and the food was spectacular, the guests were friendly & the displays were terrific. This is Dick Brzyski checking out prints with Sharon Fundalinski to his left. I shared a table with her so we could confuse everyone about our work, but they figured us out, our work is different enough & they were paying attention!
One's pastel, the other is oil, both were painted on location with the Fairweather Paletteers at Thursday paint outs. They were donated to the first juried art show & auction to benefit the Family Justice Center of Erie County. The benefit was held at Asbury Hall [Ani DeFranco's The Church] last Tuesday & I am pleased to say that my two paintings were among the sold ones at the end of the night. It was a lovely affair, wine & food, live music & a lot of excellent artwork on display. Burchfield's Future Trees, although purchased, will remain at the FJC offices until May 2009.
A juried exhibition involves submitting artworks by slide or CD to a judge, who chooses the artwork for the walls, declining some & keeping others, depending on the space. After the selected art is delivered, the judge looks over the exhibit to see that the work reflects what was submitted initially. At this time, prizes are awarded, often 1, 2 & 3 & Best of Show. Sometimes additional prizes are given for different categories as well.
Doesn't 'Pots at the Pool' look like a lovely plein air? It is a close up from the right side of 'Summer on the River', below. The section was developed more in the fence area, shadows & flowers as well as the background, but it was my favorite expressive section while it lasted.
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| Kath Schifano oil painting, 36x48 Grand Island NY |
This Saturday---I'll be there with my artwork. Bringing prints & cards & a few originals for the walls, but mostly I am looking forward to a chance to paint outdoors at another festival.-find me with the artists on the Lincoln Parkway side-11am until the music stops.
Standing on the overlook between the American Falls & the Rainbow bridge to paint this, large groups of tourists would occasionally pass by-walking in cadence. The bridge would vibrate with the impact of their footsteps, & remind me of my precarious perch, easel leg wedged into a hole in the deck, my back to the crowds. However, it is an awfully nice vantage point.
1. Developing the perspective and selecting the light for this Summer Street painting turned out to be the easy part.
It took until after 1 am to arrive in Buffalo, but Sandi & Bobbie were here for the weekend. They left the bad weather in NYC to enjoy blue skies & barbecue here. We took Bobbie to the airport today, but Sandi will be staying through the week. Tomorrow she will paint plein air after a morning visit at Riverwood.
NFPAP artists visited the cottage district again this year for one of our summer paintouts, with GVPAP.
A house is just a building, but when does it actually become a home? Capturing the shadows on the porch, rear dormer, power lines and the side entrance fence are reminders of independent features. The size of the trees, seasonal colors & light on the windows invoke memories. Painting a house captures it at that particular time, as a home it is subject to constant change.
Lewiston Council on the Arts sponsors an annual juried fine art show. Nothing is to be mass produced, commercial or less than best quality art. 
Lifted from the Perry, NY website-with permission, of course, this is the rose bursting out of it's borders at the Perry Chalk Festival July 12.
Click here--
It was called the 55th East Aurora Art Association Show, but I would call it a rainy weekend. Friday, June 27 Carl & I set up the tent and on Saturday morning after the rain it was still dry inside. We had about two hours of dark clouds and a deluge on Saturday the 29th, then on Sunday the threatening clouds really acted up from about 3:00-a noisy rain event that filled the street to the curbs continued until we were packed & gone. It was lovely the rest of the time & sunblock was needed, too. 
There was a chance of showers, but the sun was out, so I headed to the State Park to challenge the rapids. The 2006 'Islands in the Curve' was purchased by staff at the State Parks, I especially liked the painting-it is July on the calendar, so I decided to try the composition again. The islands have grown, and the weather was sometimes overcast-in addition there was a misty breeze swirling that kept me, the painting & palette slightly damp. The photo was taken by a California tourist. I gave their daughter a business card to look up the painting when it was complete. Dad took the picture & used my address to send it. A few plein air painters don't enjoy interruptions, but not me. It is a chance to look away from the subject and the paint & look back with a 'fresh eye'. Most people are cautious & wary, they just want to see real art, murmur 'lovely' or 'so talented' & walk on. Kids pay attention to the palette, the brushes & process. So many say they paint at home & school. Life is good, so I stayed to paint a close-up of a dent in the Falls further to the right side-a rock & it's splash. While working on the second painting, the first blew over-the dark spots in the cataracts are not fish, that is plein air painter's dirt, stuck to the oils.
Sometimes a painting chooses itself. A few fresh cut carnations sat in the studio for several weeks. After removing some spent stems & replacing the vase I realized there was a composition in front of me, similar to the April calendar picture [a few posts below]. The next day's plan to paint plein air was rained out so I was able to spend the day sketching & structuring the canvas; the foreground was nearly complete in a full day's studio work. Waiting until night to capture the reflections & complete the layout, I was able to mull over the differences in the two pictures, besides the obvious ones of shape & surface. The Primula was painted when the sun was down by 6, I had to wait for dark until after 9 to work on this one. Both flowers sat on my work table for a long time before they 'spoke' to me. It all goes back to 'paint what you know'.
The yellow building is now known as The Chocolate House, while the larger one is the Frontier House, a classic 'Lincoln slept here' location. This was painted from the Keybank corner last week with the NFPAPainters. We started at Piper's Village Inn, and returned there for a wonderful lunch.... Jill Paolone & Brad Smith came to visit me painting twice-about 3 hours apart. We all thought it was almost finished during their first visit! 
My final indoor Thursday painting at Buffalo Botanical Gardens was right before Easter. We stop painting there during holidays because the crowds come for the seasonal shows. Then we work outside instead. Their new Florida installation room features a lot of water, including waterfalls, ponds & fish. This lovely hosta-like plant was thriving in the stream at the entrance to the tunnel under the footbridge. It reached out of the dark with brilliant yellow darts.
