Guest Artist Spot

Well, a lot has happened since my last posting, one of which is that I have left the artists Guild Gallery to slow my life down a bit and give more time to my family.  It was a great run--almost 8 years--and due to a cancellation for November they invited me to put together a show in their Guest Artist Gallery.  And so my encore at the Artists Guild is entitled, "An Artist's Journey," which I hope to showcase my better pieces, or whatever is available by November.  I've developed a wonderful way to keep track of where my artwork temporarily resides, which I will expound upon later in this blog for all you artists.  It's 1:00 a.m. now and I'll probably start this and continue tomorrow, in between running around after my 2-year-old granddaughter while mom and dad works.

First of all, here is the card, and consider it your personal invitation to my show:

Their new website is www.artsitsguildgalleryofverobeach.com - however my show has not been posted as of this date, but they have a wonderful guest artist, Dr. Johnson Hagood, who is a very well-respected local dentist.

There will be everything from soup to nuts in "An Artist's Journey," including portraiture.  Sample all the action at http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=FcLf7ACVaJk 

I am working on several new pieces for this show, and if all goes well and the creek don't rise I'll have them finished in time.  If not I'll add them later in the month.  One of the pieces is shown below, entitled "The Artist," it's an oil, and I had a fabulous time painting it.  Just love doing portraits, and always free-hand as usual.  There are usually "tweaks" to be done when doing freehand, but it is such a liberating thing to be able to capture an image on canvas with no special tools or technology, just these old eyes and a steady hand.  Eyes, I might add, one of which has been redone by cataract surgery ... which has really changed the way I see my world a lot.  Can see better, but different, and there are many side affects that plague me still after almost 3 months.  It's exasperating, especially as an artist, and I've been assured it will go away soon. Painting on canvas also has a new learning curve that I have to work around.  Should I have the other one done like advised, and see my world weirdly through both eyes?  I think not, for now anyways.

"The Artist," oil on canvas

When I completed this painting, I realized he looked like Santa with a red beret.  After my show I may change that to another color to avoid confusion, and to make it more marketable.

Here's a sampling of some that I may put in the show, but this venue does not do them justice and they must be viewed in person ~

So let's see, what artistic things have I been up to since July ... Will post more tomorrow!

Well, there wasn't much art-wise that I worked on except for a couple of things.  One is I finished this cute little kitty bank for the Humane Society's sale ~

"Kitty Bank" for Humane Society Fundraiser.  Acrylic

Also over the past few weeks, Club members are invited to paint a small canvas as an ornament, the proceeds of which will be given to the Ecumenical Food Bank to help feed the needy for the holidays.  We're proud of this effort, and hope to be able to hand them a big fat check.  Below is a sampling of our "Little treasures:"

Today I managed to finish 2 paintings, both oil, one a still life with a vase and some apples which I started in my Oak Harbor, Vero Beach class on Wednesday, and the other a small one I started as a demo at the Sebastian River Art Club - a beutiful white heron in flight with a dark tropical background, which I just now finished inbetween blogging.  Have the perfect frame for it too--can't wait to see it all put together.

 Judy Burgrella
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