Preparing Pinon sap varnish to apply to finished works… VMR

Desert Blood

Hello there,

I just finished the third piece for the show. I have not researched shipping yet, but I am planning to send this one, ‘Desert Blood’, and ‘Blue Desert’ to Bundaberg. My works tend to be heavy for their size, as there are multiple layers of material superimposed on each piece. I will find out what the shipping would be like from Lamy and, if not doable, will have to work on smaller pieces for the overseas part of this project.

Just started the second piece for Las Cruces today. Will post on progress soon.

24 x 18″
Acrylics, Latex and metal leaf on panel

24 x 18 “
Acrylics, latex and metal leaf on panel

Excitement!

Like Marlies, I’m excited to say my flights are booked! I arrive in Las Cruces on 26th August and will hopefully make sense by opening night on the 28th.

For the newer group members, I visited LC in 2013 to see the exhibition at Unsettled, be spoiled rotten by Catherine, Don, Carey, Peg, Nolan and Dave (in absentia), and soak up some of your amazing landscape and culture. I guess I really hoped I could return some day.

My proposal for the residency, and my WBHD artworks, is to explore a visual relationship between our grassy-balls-on-sticks-with-tall-flower-spikes (grass trees – aka yaccas), and the grassy-balls-on-sticks-with-tall-flower-spikes in New Mexico (yuccas). I hope to have some great plein air trips into White Sands, and into the Organ Mountains. And Marlies and I will overlap by 2 weeks in October … we will be a force to be reckoned with! Wanna go sand sliding at White Sands, Marlies? Oh, and sketching too?

Special thanks to the Regional Arts Development Fund and Arts Queensland for the grant that makes this all possible. And the vision and energy of Trudie and Jenny at BRAG.

Stretched, sketched

Pottering away here on preparatory bits. Had a good stretching session on the weekend and now have 6 small canvasses ready to work on. I really do love the process of preparing a surface: good thinking time. Glorious autumn weather here.

Today I took time out to play a bit more. Watercolour, charcoal, graphite. Back on the oils again tomorrow, but I’m going to challenge myself to do a drawing like this every couple of days as a run up to the WBHD work… which may end up as drawings… or oils.

See, no idea 🙂

slacker here

Dang, I was going to spend part of today getting some work onto the Saatchi site. Instead, I designed a postcard for hand outs for a few of my galleries. On these, you can’t put YOUR contact info, but I’ll stamp it on the reverse for the ones I keep, ha.

All those art buyers on the Saatchi site will just have to wait for another day or so. May 8th is the opening for the Santa Fe, Wheelhouse Art show. Fingers crossed. As always.

My flights are booked!

It has been a while since my last blog. What have I been up to? Well, for starters I am a year older :-), I have booked my flights (first off to Germany to see my dad, then to New York for a few days before I touch down in NM) and I have been working on my artworks….and I am still coming up with new ideas (oh nooo)!

Dingo Skull surrounded by used postage stamps

This one is close to being finished, just a few hundred more stamps to go….:-)

Koala Skull made of stamps – will have to see if I can pull this one off

putting the rhinestones on the skulls

Here I am in the process of individually attaching rhinestones to the three skulls. I have no idea how many I might need, but the 5000 Phil just bought are close to being used, so we ordered another 50000! today.

The Big Picture, part I

I am quite happy with the progress on this one. I am definitely planning on doing a counter piece, but I guess these two have to stay in Bundy as they are too big to be shipped to NM 😦

Close up of the Koala

Close up of the Kookaburra

and I had two rubber stamps made from my dingo drawing which I will use somewhere in my artworks – promise!

Stamps made from my drawing

I started a new artwork on water colour paper today…. I only wish the weekend was longer, and my back and neck wouldn’t hurt so much  – but I have far too much fun to stop and take a break…but thankfully I have a hubby who makes me stop for dinner…..

Dingoes – walnut ink and acrylic paint

Work completed for WBHD II… VMR

Copyrighted artwork by Virginia Maria Romero  all rights reserved 

Coexistence

20 x 16 / 2015 / Acrylic on canvas

Ship it! (as Seth Godin would say)

I guess I’m a bit late to the party, but it’s great to be here. I’m marveling at the variety of work and approaches represented. I’m looking forward to getting to know each of you in the next few months.

I’ve been thinking about what I want to paint for this and in the mean time I’ve been trying to figure out what support to use that I can afford to ship.

Polling my studio companions – What to use, the panels or the linen underneath them?

I did an estimate with United Parcel Services (UPS) to find out the cost to ship two lightweight 12×16 inch panels in a flat box. Turns out it’s US$260.62. Now that’s a fair bit more than I have to spend (note the ironic tone you heard and my Texas drawl coming out).

Using a tube for rolled canvas, and cutting the insurance value in half it came to about $164.72. Whoooeeeee. A bargain!

I could do two 6×6 inch paintings, which I can ship in an 8x8x3 inch box at $150.00. So in this case small doesn’t mean much savings.

In the end I gave up on UPS and tried the good old US Post Office. Yay.

Both the 12×16 inch flat panels and the tube come in at under $66.95 and the small priority international box rate at $24.75 (but I’d need two, so $49.50). I just hope my estimates are somewhere near accurate since the price discrepancy seems huge.

Guess which surface won? Now on to gessoing…

Last one!

This work is possibly the last one I need to paint for this exhibition.  I am calling it Big Country 2.  It is an acrylic collage on canvas.   90cm h x 120cm w

It has had multiple layers of paint applied over another old infinity pattern that I found in my back storage shed.   Collage elements include wallpapers, fabrics, but mostly they are thin plastics from old doilies and tablecloths.  C x

Beginnings

Hi to all the WBHD artists and followers, thought I had better get my act together and start the ball rolling on some work for the exhibition. Our lunch this week was a welcome distraction, thanks. great to catch up and find out what you’re all up to and a few deadlines from Trudi made me realise the little time we have left.

Interested in found objects, repurposing, and local individuals/stories for the works. Will base these all around Maryborough

I have been collecting these past few months, always on the lookout for objects that might start a dialogue and a point of reference/conversation.

Anyway nice to finally be active and look forward to being part of the project.