Show schedule

Regular visitors to this blog may have noticed that I have added a section of current and upcoming shows at the top of the page. I realized that if I made the info available in a regular post, it might go unnoticed, so I've shamelessly put it in your face. Crass commercialism, I know. But hey, I'm my own agent at the moment.

I actually don't think I've mentioned the Layers of Color show. I entered another one of the acrylic abstracts I started in Steve Griffin's workshop. Thanks Steve! I've gotten a lot of mileage out of the pieces I did in that class. In fact, one of them won the "most popular" vote at the JarrettThor Gallery's exhibit of the workshop participants and I actually sold two! I've signed up to take Steve's workshop again this fall so I hope to continue to expand my abstract knowledge. Or perhaps, my knowledge of abstracts--my knowledge is already pretty abstract.

I'm also going to try my hand at pastels with Lynn Goldstein in October. Like the acrylic abstracts, pastels will be completely new to me. Hope I have as much luck with them. Stay tuned...

Went downtown Sunday with my sketching buddy, Terri. We sipped our coffee at Hyperion Espresso and I sketched the building across the street. The doorway faces the intersection rather than one street or the other so it was an interesting angle to work with. Our project was to sketch directly with pen -- no erasers allowed. This made me really have to look closely at the subject and draw more carefully. It's a little off-kilter but it was a fun exercise. Then it started to rain... I am tempted to add some color now.

An invitation to my show!

Hope you will join us for the opening on Friday, Sept. 14 or get by the show while it's up. Here are the details:

JarrettThor Fine Arts
100 Taylor Street # 101, Colonial Beach, VA 22443
804-224-7200 • jarretthor@aol.com • www.jarretthor.com
JarrettThor Fine Arts Celebrates its 5th Anniversary
Friday, September 14 from 6:00-9:00 pm
Music, art, meet the artists & more
Please join us!
Vicki Marckel, a popular art teacher from Maryland & a
gallery artist exhibits her new artwork portraying
"Vivid Perceptions" of cityscapes & more.
Paula Raudenbush of Fredericksburg, winner of the
“People’s Choice” in an exhibit of workshop participants at
JarrettThor Fine Arts, features botanical art in a solo show
entitled “Stems and Seeds.”
September 14-October 7, 2012
Gallery Hours: Thursday-Sunday, 10:00-6:00 pm
or by appointment.

Retirement possibility...

My friend John just sent me this with the suggestion that I might supplement my retirement in a couple years doing what I already do--just add a hat and a sign!

"Stems and Seeds"

Please save the date of Sept. 14, 6-9 p.m., for the opening of my exhibit of botanicals at JarrettThor Fine Arts gallery in Colonial Beach. These paintings have never been exhibited before (although readers of this blog have had a preview). More details to come...

Japanese Lanterns

I had a huge crop of Japanese Lanterns (Physalis alkekengi) in my garden this year. It's so much fun to use orange paint! Actually, I mixed it because there were several different shades. This watercolor is about 14" tall. I enjoyed working in my cool basement studio this weekend.

Japanese Lanterns are also called: Chinese Lanterns, Ground Cherry, Husk Tomato, Winter Cherry and Jerusalem Cherry. This perennial comes from southeastern Europe and Japan. It gets it's name from the distinctive color and shape of the papery husk, which resembles a Japanese Lantern.

The plant grows up to two feet tall, producing white, 5-petaled flowers in mid summer. The flowers give way to a light green, lantern-shaped husk with a berry inside. Dried, they are wonderful in arrangements. I currently have about a dozen stems in a glass vase and it's stunning. As it matures, the husk turns a bright orange-red color and turns papery. As it decays, it becomes brown and lacey, showing nothing but the veins and the single seed inside. In Virginia, it can be rather invasive in the garden.

IMPORTANT: The unripe berries and the leaves of Japanese Lantern plants are poisonous.

Tomatillos and Japanese Lanterns are both members of the deadly nightshade (Physalis) family, as are tomatoes.

Pastels Workshop with Lynn Goldstein

Lynn G. taught a workshop at Orkney Springs this summer and I was very impressed with her work. I offered to try to find a venue for her to hold a workshop in Fredericksburg and we managed to put one together for October. Here are the details from Lynn if you live in the area and are interested:

From Lynn: For those of you that have wanted a workshop that takes place during the weekend, I have just added a one-day workshop at LibertyTown Arts in Fredericksburg, Virginia. The workshop will take place on Saturday, October 20 from 10:00 a.m. until 4:00 p.m., and the cost for the entire day of painting will be $125.00 per person. This will be a pastel workshop that will cover different ways to approach the pastel medium and also ways to improve upon paintings that students have already begun and feel can't be salvaged. The workshop is appropriate for all skill levels. We will be covering texture, composition, value and color theory in this class. If you have any questions, please contact me at: lynngoldstein89@gmail.com. To register for the class, call LibertyTown Arts Workshop at: 540-371-7255. To look at the LibertyTown Arts website, go to: http://www.libertytownarts.com/site/

You can see Lynn's work here: http://lynngoldstein.com