April 14, 2010

I am excited about signing up for the 4 day watercolor workshop in August with Lian Zhen. See his website at lianspaintings.com. I think he is brilliant. I especially like his animal and fish paintings. I am excited to be excited about something!
So my happiness at doing this workshop has got my mind rolling and I have decided to do a series of small oils about the commuter train stations we have in the Salt Lake Valley. They are usually in interesting neighborhoods near iconic buildings in the areas. I ride for free since the Hubby works for the Utah Transit Authority and keeps the trains on the rails!
In the meantime I am trying to come up with large watercolors of animals, very colorful for the Barnes and Nobles show in June. I had better get cracking!
I am posting a watercolor and ink painting I did for a drawing class a few years ago. It is called "Dark Night of the Chickens". I did a series of ink drawings, and some watercolors, acrylic paintings all of chickens and other wild birds. I got an A so that was great but I was definitely not edgy!!!! My instructor wanted me to darken it all up with images of the horrible commercial chicken farming. ala Sue Coe. And while I have great respect and admiration for Sue Coe and her causes and the resulting art. It is very hard for me to go there.
Sue Coe was an invited artist guest in my final semester last year and she is engaging, talented and driven by her passionate causes for the humane treatment of animals. But her slides and books of her paintings are difficult for me to see.
Especially the stories of the mistreatment of circus elephants and the factory ships from Austrailia with thousands of sheep. My young artist friends surrounded me and told me to not look! How sweet..they all knew of my tender feelings for animals..but I looked and I donated to the cause by buying a Sue Coe print of Topper the famous Circus elephant.