Latest Portrait & Happy Halloween!

As promised, I'm going to start documenting some of my portraits here on the blog. At this time of year, a lot of them are Christmas presents, so I can't put those on line for fear of the recipient finding out - a slim chance, I know, but I don't want to chance it. But it nearly happened once: I almost spoiled a surprise one year during an Art Studios Tour. It was a number of years ago when I didn't have the number of commissions that I do now, so I didn't have as many portraits to display. This one in particular was a gift from one of my clients to her sister. I'd secretly met my client at her sister's house to take photos of her 2 dogs and had started on the portrait. The sister's husband knew about it the gift. Well, both the sister and her husband came to visit me during the Tour but I'd never met them, so as I'm talking to the husband I realize who he is/they are and simultaneously realize (*GASP*) that the in-progress portrait is on display. It wasn't very far along, so it wasn't too obvious, but if she'd looked right at it she would've know that it was her dogs! I was able to calmly sidle over to the portrait and flip it over. The husband realized what I was doing, but I found out later (much to my relief) that the sister hadn't a clue. Boy, was my heart racing! Sure learned a good lesson though. And the sister was very surprised and pleased with the portrait.

So with that said - I CAN release this image of a portrait I just completed. This is one of my "Paintings with Petzazz" - done in watercolor on Yupo (a synthetic paper - more info about it at the "Petzazz" link) of Mac the Gordon Setter. Sadly, I never had the chance to meet this handsome guy, as he'd passed away before I received the commission. The curator of Roseville Arts! asked me to do the painting as a gift for one of her staff members who was leaving. The dog's owner had a pretty good photo of Mac and that's what I used as reference for the portrait. The photo and finished portrait are below. The portrait measures 4"x6".















And now I'd like to wish you a happy Halloween with one of my all-time favorite pumpkin carvings: "Barfy", not a very original name, but it fits! I carved Barfy many years ago, but he still holds a special place in my heart! Yes, I have a strange sense of humor. . .

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Current eBay Listings and Originals Sold

Now that I'm getting better about updating this Blog, I'm going to start including any current eBay offerings, which are usually 8x10 matted prints at a great price. You never know what or when I'll list (it's pretty random, depending on when I find some time to put up a couple of listings and what extra prints I have on hand), but if you subscribe to this blog, you'll be notified. Eventually I want to start listing some ACEOs which are small 2.5" x 3.5" originals. Maybe in January I'll find a little time to create a couple.

Among the current offerings are this rabbit and mini horse:

View my listing(s)

And on another note: I'm happy to report I sold 3 original paintings this month! Lavender Doxie (sold to a customer who found it on my web site and contacted me); Magpie's Gold and Midnight Mini (the blue mini horse above) both sold at the Auburn Old Town Gallery.

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Horse Show Photos

Follow up on the Loomis Basin Horsemen's Association (LBHA) Western Horse Show:
Sold some merchandise at my booth, but not as much as I'd hoped; still, it was nice to spend the day around horses & horse people. The young riders are the cutest - they're so serious about the whole thing! Most of them are quite accomplished too.

I managed to sneak away from my booth a few times during the day to take some photos. I have quite a few and am in the process of uploading them to my photo album.

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LBHA Horse Show

One last "road show" for the year - tomorrow (October 15) I'll be at the Loomis Basin Horsemen's Assn (LBHA) annual western horse show. They have 2 shows each year to raise funds for their arena, riding trails in the area, etc. The english show is today; I was going to try to get over there to take some photos as I have in past years, but ended up doing stuff around the house & garden that needed to get done: vacuuming - ugggh, helping my husband plant onion starts - yay, packing stuff into the truck for the show, updating my squidoo lens and other assorted odds & ends.

I'll take my camera tomorrow and find some time to get some pix. I also design the poster for the show every year, so it's nice to have some fresh photos for the next year's poster. If you visit the page for the poster on my site, you'll see that I haven't updated it with the '05 & '06 poster, but you'll get the idea. . .
I've worked out a deal with LBHA to promote one of my paintings (that's "Unbridled") the image shown here. It's a watercolor on Yupo (a synthetic paper) that I painted for LBHA to use on their annual t-shirt, but I also have merchandise in my CafePress shop with the image. I've offered to donate a portion of the proceeds from the sale of any "Unbridled" merchandise purchased this month to LBHA. That includes anything I sell tomorrow at the show or through the CafePress shop. Click here to visit my shop and check out the "Unbridled" merchandise and my other fun pet art.

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Learning More About Blogs. . .

Spent some time surfing the web trying to find out how to add a "subscribe" option to this blog. I'm amazed by the amount of information out there. I almost always find what I need, but I have to wade through quite a bit to get there. Some of the wading takes me in a direction I hadn't intended, but I usually learn something along the way. Bottom line is that I did figure out how to add the subscribe option and it's now parked in the sidebar.

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Festive Weekend!

Getting back to normal after a busy weekend spent at 2 festivals. Eggplant Festival in Loomis CA on Saturday and the Placer Farm & Barn Festival on Sunday.

Saturday was by far the busier day, LOTS of folks attend the Eggplant Festival. A fun time was had by all and I sold quite a bit of my eggplant art merchandise (tiles, magnets, buttons, cards) and some pet art stuff too. The executive director of the Loomis Basin Chamber of Commerce (promoter of the event) purchased on of my original eggplant paintings (the one in the image above).

That's not to say the the Farm & Barn event wasn't fun - I set up in the mandarin packing shed of Highland Orchard in Penryn, CA - a very new and modern building. Our hosts were very gracious and made it very easy for us to set up. An artist buddy (Arry Murphey-Frank) shared space next to me - so we enjoyed getting to know each other better by spending the day together. Sold some more stuff and talked to lots of nice folks.

This event is a tour of Placer County ranches and farms in the Auburn, Lincoln, Penryn area. Folks buy a ticket and get a map showing the participating locations. Each location had tours of the facility and other things to do and see. For example, at our location, there was a mule demonstration (pulling a cart), young FFA members were there to discuss what they do, a couple of ladies from the local quilter's guild had their work for show and sale (I traded them a couple of note cards for a pretty green scarf), and of course Arry & I were there to discuss our art. We had quite a bit of eggplant art left over (Arry was also at the Eggplant Fest), but no mandarin art, since we were tapped to be at Highland at the last minute. BUT if we end up at Highland next year, we'll be prepared with some mandarin paintings!

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Fun Dog Photos Now On-line; Eggplant Festival

Just finished uploading some fun photos I took at the RDOG (Roseville Dog Owners' Group) Doggie Dip Day. Of course, you're wondering what that is - so I'll explain. There's an aquatic center in Roseville CA and before they shut the place down for the winter, they allow folks to bring their dogs out for a day to swim and have a grand old time. It's quite chaotic with wet dogs running around and jumping in the pool; the dogs are supremely happy! And their humans are pretty happy too - can't help smiling at all the fun-loving pooches.

RDOG coordinates the scheduling and charges a small admission fee to raise money for their mission of promoting responsible dog ownership. I've been a member of RDOG for a few years now and they're a wonderful organization. To see the photos I took during the hour and a half I was there, click here.

Now I'm gearing up for the Loomis (CA) Eggplant Festival this Saturday (Oct 7th). It's a celebration of all things eggplant. I realize that eggplant is one of those "love it or hate it" veggies, but even if you don't like it, there's fun to be had at the Festival. Loomis is a small town and the Festival has a big "block party" feel to it. I'll have a booth featuring my "Paintings with Petzazz" art & merchandise and a few paintings of veggies as well. The neatest thing is that the painting I did to have at last year's booth was chosen to represent the festival this year. I'm very pleased and honored for my work to have been chosen. Oh yeah, and I do happen to like eggplant!!!

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