September 22, 2015

September 22, 2015

My second piece was another Donovan song, ‘Hurdy Gurdy Man’.  Don’t ask me why Donovan got two pieces.  The ones I mainly remember are ‘Mellow Yellow’ and ‘Sunshine Superman’.  But the idea of a hurdy gurdy player was fascinating.  I googled images of hurdy gurdys and found a wide range of styles.  I also found a wonderful photo of an old man playing a hurdy gurdy in a park with his dachshund at his side.  I loved that photo and wanted to try and paint it.  However someone else had taken the picture.  So I went to the website and e-mailed the owner asking for permission to use the photo in a painting.  He replied in the affirmative, so I was able to use the picture.  The background was unclear so I did have to make up a park and cityscape behind the man.  It is winter and he is playing for money, but he has made sure that his dog is comfortable.  The dog not only has a jacket, but his dog bed and blanket if he gets cold.  This is a large piece and took weeks to finish, but I am happy with it.  The collage elements include the tree behind the man, his vest, the dog’s blanket and the money in his hat. 

September 18, 2015

Sept. 18, 2015

The art shows at the Prairie Art Alliance have been so wonderful in the past year and I have admired the featured artists whose body of work was cohesive. My work has always been all over the place because I want to try it all. So I decided to create a cohesive show and thought that choosing a theme would help. Sixties music has been a big part of my life, so I settled on that as the theme. I hate to say it, but the theme has not helped my work become unified. Even though each picture is a combination of paint and collage, there is very little unity. While I would like to blame it on 60s music being all over the place, I think the fault is mine. I have had a different vision for each piece. And I do mean vision. When I listen to the songs, an image comes into my mind. Sometimes I feel like I have achieved the image, other times what I have produced looks nothing like the image. If you are lucky, the art can take over, and hopefully, turn out better than what you imagined. That happened with my very first piece, Donovan's 'Season of the Witch.'

September 21, 2015

September 21, 2015

When I was driving to the family pig roast last year, Donovan’s ‘Season of the Witch’ came on the radio.  I had a clear image of a beautiful woman in a long cloak standing at the edge of a forest with 3 white birch trees behind her.  I tried to paint this image.  This led to great frustration so I decided to turn to my standby—collage.  I made a collaged face using painted book pages.  All of a sudden the witch was small and very old.  The text looked like wrinkles.  Not my vision.  The trees became a twisted thicket and the day was foggy and overcast, no clear blue skies.  Not my vision.  But the witch is a kindly woman, carrying a woven basket (also collaged book pages woven together) which has a very self-satisfied toad in it.  There are seven ravens in the thicket behind the witch.  The piece has nothing to do with Donovan’s lyrics or with my original vision.  However it became my first completed song for this show.  I have had 2 or 3 people who have seen this piece tell me that they wanted it.  So maybe when the art takes over the process and I put my images aside, I get something that speaks to someone else.  All I know is that when the art talks to me, I need to listen. 

September 20, 2015

September 20, 2015

Choosing the songs was difficult, but some chose me.  I listen to Sirius 60s channel in my studio.  It seemed that every time I turned on the radio, I heard ‘Both Sides Now’ by Judy Collins.  This is a song that I liked, but did not think about illustrating.  But I heard it again and again, like a message that I could not ignore.  So I decided to try.  I put lots of clouds in the painting, with a lot of potential interpretations.  But I fudged on the castle.  I had never seen a castle in the sky, so I did a cloud with some little spiky points sort of like turrets.  And I kept looking at clouds.  Every time I went out I looked at clouds.  We had some spectacular clouds—clouds that, if I had painted them, you would say, “I never saw a cloud like that.”  But I kept asking to see a castle.  I finished the painting, but wasn’t happy with the “ice cream castle in the air.”  One night, on the way to see West Side Story at the Muni, I saw it!  It was a real castle with 3 flat topped turrets just floating in the air.  I quickly sketched it and added it to the painting the next day.  So when you come to the show and see Both Sides Now, you will see the castle that I saw in the clouds that night.  Again, the show opening is October 17 (5:30 – 7:30) at the Prairie Art Alliance Gallery at the Hoogland and it runs until December 3.  Hope to see you there.

September 19, 2015

September 19, 2015

I expected to illustrate my favorite 60s songs.  I am not sure that I ever really thought about the words when the songs were current.  I spent much of my freshman year of college playing I Can’t Get No Satisfaction and Get Off of My Cloud—probably the reason that my roommate wasn’t my roommate the next year.  Anyway, think about the lyrics.  How to illustrate songs was an issue.  There are also a huge number of songs that are simply a refrain or phrase.  Think about illustrating Louie, Louie, oh no, sayin’ we gotta go, or You better think (think) think about what you’re trying to do to me.  So choosing songs to illustrate was not as easy as I had thought it would be.  I wanted to try to cover the broad range of music genres of the era.  That includes surf rock, hard rock, psychedelic rock, folk rock, British invasion, Motown, R & B, protest music (love Buffalo Springfield’s For What It’s Worth), acapella, instrumentals, and bubble gum music.  I felt that I had to have images from The Beatles, the Rolling Stones, the Beach Boys, Simon and Garfunkel, Neil Diamond and Bob Dylan as well as a car themed song.  I had a lot of trouble choosing the songs.  Many of the songs that I illustrated were not favorites of mine but had a good image.  I love the Beatles, but despaired of finding a song that I could illustrate.  No worries, I now have 5 Beatles songs—two are 3D. 

September 17, 2015

Sept. 17, 2015

In one month, on October 17, I will be a featured artist (with Linda Post-Lucas) at the Prairie Art Alliance. Our show is titled, "Now, Then, and Again". My art is entirely based on music from the 60s (my high school/college years). I am going to write a little bit about the show every day until the opening. The show will run from Oct. 17 until December 3.

2010--part 1

I have had a busy year and it is not even half way through. In March I was featured at the Prairie Art Alliance gallery at the Hoogland. I was to be the 3D artist, so spent much of the previous 5 months working on creating 3D items. I had everything from altered books to furniture to manikins to altered foods [cakes and veggies]. Since I was also babysitting my granddaughter every day, the sitter hired a sitter. I had a lovely lady come over 3 days a week for about 3 hours a day to watch CeCi while I worked. The show went fairly well and I did sell several items. However having 3D items left to store is different than stacking picture frames. My guest room became the new storage room. Thank Heaven [and Jackie Jackson] that the furniture sold.



Also in March the Prairie Art Alliance opened Gallery II downtown. It is in a great location and gets lots of foot traffic [unlike the gallery at the Hoogland which is only two blocks south]. Art is selling very well at Gallery II and I have mainly sold Family Album cards and ACEOs [Art Cards Editions & Originals]. But I have sold a lot of cards, so that is good.



Then I was asked to show in Jacksonville at the Inner Harmony Spa [via the Imagine Foundation]. So many of my 3D pieces got a place to go in June--luckily because Lisa's family is coming for a visit for her 25th high school reunion. Since I had been concentrating on 3D I didn't have much wall art for Inner Harmony. I had 5 altered game boards done and completed another 5. I also took some of my original collages for the Family Album cards. Hope to sell some of them. I did sell one altered game board on opening night which was great.

After the show leaves Inner Harmony at the end of June, it will go to Dr. Ug's in Virginia. But I don't think they will have room for the 3D items.



On the home front, in the past two months, we have had the front of the garage rebuilt; put in a new driveway and sidewalks; had the back balcony railings replaced; bought a new small sofa for the sun room, a chair for the living room; and I have recovered the antique daybed, made new drapes for the living room, and a table cover for the sofa table. So things are getting spruced up--badly needed.



I almost forgot--I also have a new website to showcase my art [when I have time to take pictures and post listings]. It is katherinepippinpauley.com

Stop by and take a look.