Thursday!

This past week I joined CAG Canine Art Guild and as I have mentioned in my tweets, I'm already seeing benefits from this. It is a wonderful group of artists who are sharing their experiences with galleries, contests, making DVDs and all sorts of things. They also have their own contests, and this month was about cats! Little do they know that I'm truly a cat person (who really likes dogs) and have as many cat paintings as I do dog paintings, so this was just right for me :) More information about the CAG can be found here: http://www.canineartguild.com/ They don't have an avatar up for me yet, but I've been told that it's going up today. Hopefully this will bring more and more recognition to my work. yay!

" French Bully"

5x7" watercolor

"Allston Roof Tops"
8x10" watercolor (done PleinAir)

Last night I hosted the Wednesday night creativity and it was HOT here in Allston-town. I live in a 3 floor walk up, and we're on the top floor. Of course, J & I call it the penthouse :) But since heat rises it felt like an attic in there yesterday. So instead of doing a still life, I decided to paint off the porch. If you look straight out, there's the Boston Skyline. However, it's much more pretty at night, so I decided to look to my left to paint the Allston rooftops. My porch is also a current home to 2 house sparrow families and they were making such a freakin' racket.

This weekend T, A & I are heading up to Vermont for the Vermont Open Studios. This is the first year that I've done it, but T has gone up there for the past 3 years to do it and says it's wonderful. It's a 3 + hour drive so we're leaving Friday night when the Boston traffic dies down in order to get at least 2 full days in. And we'll be visiting the wonderful @a12eggs (twitter handle) for some lovely baked items. I'm secretly hoping for congo bars! YUM :) Here's their site.. http://adozeneggs.com/ HA! I just went to the site to get the correct URL and they have peanut butter cupcakes.... OH I can't wait to taste these!!!

and here he is again

I guess the real question here is: Does it look like the baby in the picture? My personal take is that the eye on the right side is a little to big so he looks more surprised that he actually is. And the mouth doesn't have the goofy smile as it does in the photo. Practice, practice, practice. I'm finding that for whatever reason I'm not spending as much time painting and creating as I ought to be. I have got to become more disciplined.

Oh Baby

Here he is again! Now I got to do something about those eyes so he doesn't look so cross-eyed haha. This is really a time consumer, but good practice for me.

I've also started contacting animal organizations out there to see who is holding fundraisers. DO YOU HAVE A FUNDRAISER ? Would you like one of my gift certificates? I'm told that it always brings in much more than they are worth. Contact me at christinewinship@yahoo.com

Wednesday Night Creativity

Seriously, Do you realize how HARD it is to paint baby faces???!@?!?!?!


This is a portrait of Kai, my nephew (who is now 7! BTW). Of course this is only a beginning but it's really really difficult to make that baby face really look like a baby face. I'm working from a photo of Kai when he was like lil' over a year. Anyway, the skin color is always a challenge and the mouth is a drool factory .. tough to convey in a portrait. But his eyes are that huge and blue, so that part is easy. I'm thinking lots of pink and burnt sienna for the skin color. I'll keep you in the loop of how this turns out.

And yes, that's my license and keys in the corner. Went out last night for dinner to the Common Ground in Allston to watch the Bruins loose (BOOO!). My constant GoTo bar/restaurant really disappointed me last night. They have changed the menu and have taken off practically every vegetable and all of my favorite dishes. And what we did have certainly wasn't worth the price we paid. Oh CG, Why have you forsaken me!?!?

What am I going to do this summer???

So, this past week I found that my artwork was not accepted into the Somerville ArtBeat. At first I was like, WTF??!?! because I've done it for the past 2 years and had great responses to my stuff and I was broad casted on the Somerville Cable TV!! This letter, which included my check with VOID written across the front, really set my week off on the wrong foot. But then I'm thinking (and as I read my previous posts) I really don't mind NOT sitting out in the hot sun all day. And that it frees my weekend up in the middle of summer to do .... another show?? I don't know. I'm finding that these festivals are a lot of the same. Now, there's is nothing wrong with wanting to be creative and selling your wares, but these shows are filled to the brim with women who make their own handbags, hats and headbands. Not to mention the handmade soaps. Or the over saturation of Jewelry makers. I've heard some interesting comments over the last few years about these shows. Some are saying that they are "boring" and there's "nothing new to look at". Others are saying that there's no artwork and they're just filled with "crafters" and that even aren't that great or original.
Then the past weekend I went to the Somerville Open Studios. Each town or district of MA will have it's own open studios (Allston is in November, JP is in September, Vermont has it's own during Memorial Day Weekend). Open Studios is a time where artists open up their studios and/houses to guests to view and purchase their artwork. What's great is that you see first hand where all the art is created. Some reek of turpentine (I do love that smell!). Some provide snacks. It's all up to the artist of how much he wants to share with the viewer. AND the best artwork is found here. So I think that's going to be my plan is to get in on Open Studios. I was told during the November one that there's only one building that does it and that other artists can set up in the building but no one has opened their Allston home to visitors. Hmmmmmmmmm.

And this is Woody, my brother's Jack Russell. He's a little insane (the dog, not my brother) but my brother adores him. This will be a painting for him for sure :)