New paintings - Lemon Shadow, Claire Lise, Pear and "When One Door Opens"

Here is my daily painting for today:
#6 Lemon Shadow
oil on Masonite
3" x 4"
SOLD

The green "hot spot" is not quite that prominent on the painting, but I can't seem to fix it digitally.

And then there is "When One Door Opens" - 4' x 5' - Acrylic on canvas - which is now in Rick's office and still in need of a few tweaks. It was harder than heck to get a decent photo of this thing. I couldn't find a place with enough space and decent lighting - so I guess this will just have to do for now. It looks uneven and washed out - but it gives you an idea of it. Rick renamed it, and I liked it better before I "fixed" it. Oh well. I am very tired of it now but I think I will do another similar painting.

And then there is this Pear
8" x 10"
mixed media on watercolor paper
NFS

Visit me here:
NathalieSDavis.blogspot.com
www.NSDavisArt.com

#5- Brown Egg on Blue - New Daily Oil Painting a Day

#5 Brown Egg on Blue
Oil
Linen on Masonite
6" x 8"

SOLD

I haven't painted with my knife for a while so I figured it was about time. This was done mostly with my knife, but there is some brush work in there too. I am very pleased with how it turned out - I hope you enjoy it too. Yep I really like it, I do. So what did I do? I listed it to start bidding at $5. Yep, $5. This is KILLING me!!! I already listed my other paintings at practically give away prices - and one for $1.00 Yes - one little dollar. Know which one has an actual bid? Yep - the $1 painting. But I guess I need to do what it takes to get "found" and develop a following. The whole idea is to let the market set the price. I mean a painting is only worth what people will pay for it - right? I know - there are so many theories on this - hold your normal selling price and just hold out for your price - or set a low price to attract buyers and hope for the best - give up on eBay and go back to galleries - UGH! I hope I am doing the right thing. At any rate I can take joy in know that my painting are going out into the world and blessing someone somewhere. I mean I am going to paint them whether I get a dollar or not! But seriously - $1 won't get my car to the post office to mail it! ( Hopefully it'll get bid up a bit )
This is a heck of a lot of fun anyway.

Rick is doing better, but still hurting quite a bit. He did go into work today. I am spending so much time on the computer that I am not getting much else done - today I forgot to eat and I am starving right now. I feel like I am getting a bit of a hang of it and a system is beginning to form - then it should be pretty quick. - Off to get some dinner before I start gnawing on my brushes -


Visit me here:
NathalieSDavis.blogspot.com
www.NSDavisArt.com

New Daily Oil Painting of Red Apple on Yellow & Blue background also Large Figurative Abstract

#4 Red Apple 6" x 6" oil on canvas board
SOLD

Click on the ebay logo

Passage
48" x 60"
Acrylic on Canvas

Here is Rick's office painting. I am not 100% certain of that title yet so I reserve the right to change it - just as soon as I have a flash of cleverness...a rare occurrence. I am open for suggestion - got any ideas? I was pretty darn happy with it, and I just don't know when to quit - darn it! I am not sure if I will try to fix it or just do another one - or both! I am pretty pleased that I managed to get my "painting a day" in, as well as work on this a bit today. Rick is doing OK - hurts a bit and the pain meds make him pretty slow and draggy, but all seems to be going OK. Tomorrow is Memorial Day - hope I get to paint!

Visit me here:
NathalieSDavis.blogspot.com
www.NSDavisArt.com

New Daily Oil Painting of Red Cherry on Yellow Background -Miniature or ACEO

#3 Cherry ACEO

This Daily Painting a Day of a luscious, but lonely red cherry on a vibrant yellow background wants to come to your house and be with you! It's very small and won't take up much room in your house - however it would look awesome framed in a really nice 5 or 6 inch wide frame.

Oil on Masonite (1/8" thick)
2.5" x 3.5"
Available for purchase on




Click on the ebay logo

How about this little gem? I like it pretty much - tiny, but nice thick paint, with some texture to it. Gosh I feel like a lot of stuff Vanessa has been drumming into my head (and I mean that in the nicest way) just seemed to gel and come together in Santa Fe in Carol's workshop. Now I hope I can just hang on to it and continue, and transfer that learning over to my portrait work.

OK - about the long fancy title: New Daily Oil Painting of Red Cherry on Yellow Background - Miniature or ACEO. That's a lot of words, but I am trying to learn about SEO - which is Search Engine Optimization, or in plain words, how to better be found on the Internet by total strangers that might like my art and/or me. Apparently one of the ways to accomplish this is to have descriptive titles with words that people might be searching for, and to also repeat them in the body of the text. That way when some on searches for - let's say "daily painting" or "ACEO" or "red Cherry" the search engines will crawl all over the Internet and hopefully find my blog entry here and then show it on their search list, most preferably at the top of their search list. Whew! Now the key is to find the right words that people search for, have them in the right balance because if the search engine thinks you are trying to fake them out or pull something fancy - then they ignore you. There are services that do this for you and I am seriously thinking about hiring one. I'll give it the old DIY effort for a month or so and if I don't feel like I am getting results - the daily painting a day red cherry on yellow background-miniature or ACEO and I will go hire some help!

Well, I've been home from Sana Fe for 6 days now, and I've been so very busy! I've been working on Rick's office painting, which will be finished very soon and I'll be posting a pic of that before long. Mostly I have been working on getting my new "paintings-only" blog up and running as well as eBay , and trying to get everything all working together. I feel like I am making progress - and in the meantime, still managing to get some painting in. I think the key will be figuring out some routines and systems, automating as much as I can so I'll have more time to paint. I'll probably be taking a few days off now. Rick had some oral surgery today that turned into a much bigger deal than either of us were prepared for, so I will be playing nurse for a couple of days. I am also eager to get the portrait of Andrea and Gina underway too.

So my next project is to be writing my "artist statement" - I have been putting that off for a long time. I could hunt down all of my old stuff and rehash it - but really I just would like to leave the past in the past and just deal with the present. I suppose a compromise of some sort is probably what will actually happen, we will see.

Visit me here:
NathalieSDavis.blogspot.com
www.NSDavisArt.com

CHANGES and WHAT'S NEW

Please note the following changes!

I am reorganizing, integrating and updating my blog and web site over the next few days/weeks.

This BLOG - (the one you are reading now - NSDavisArt) will remain relatively the same, but will focus on chit-chat, personal stuff, and general journal type thoughts, ramblings and probably the occasional rant.

I have started a NEW BLOG that will be ONLY postings of my daily painting practice and art for on sale on eBay. Go HERE to check it out. No chit-chat - just pictures and links to ebay.

Later I will be updating my web site, once I get these 2 blogs all up and running smoothly.
PLEASE PLEASE PLEASE leave comments and feedback. I want to make these as good as I possibly can - so by all means, let me know what you think.


OK - so here it is:

NSDavisArt.blogspot.com is the journal type site with text and stuff to read.

NathalieSDavis.blogspot.com is photos of paintings only.

NSDavisArt.com is my web site and will be a "portfolio" site

I will probably continue to post a lot of my paintings here as well as on the new NathalieSDavis.blogspot.com site - at least for a while. Also, there will be links to each other on each site, so if you end up in the wrong site just look for the link and hop over to a different one.

In the meantime here is today's painting. Pear 1 - oil on canvas/masonite - 6" x 6"

Day Three

Quick post tonight. Once again I am exhausted - but happy. It was stormy and rainy last night so I didn't sleep very well, and today was a bit rainy at times too.

I have met the most fascinating and talented people here. I think the people I meet is probably the best thing about workshops. Not only do I learn things from the instructor, but from each person I meet.



We started out the day doing value studies. The first one we had 40 minutes, the second 20 and the last one was 10 minutes


We then had a critique and broke for lunch. One of the points of the assignment was to end up with a study that was mostly one value , a little bit of the second and a smidge of the third value. I went for pizza with Amy, Pam and Lieza. then back to work. Carol talked a bit and did a little demo and examples and then we painted. I did the green pear on an orange plate..


We had 20 minutes left and I tried to whip out this cup and lemon. The cup is round on the top and square on the bottom - that was really tough to try to make it look like it makes sense and I don't think I was very successful - but look at the reflection of the lemon in the side of the cup - not bad, eh? I ended up taking about 30 minutes with this one and I am darn happy with it for that amount of time!

OK _ I am off to dreamland, I have pictures of people I want to put up - but that will have to wait for tomorrow, as will the pics of the adorable little place we went to for dinner tonight. Morning will be here before I am ready for it!

Day Two in Santa Fe

This is my painting from yesterday, a fruit tart and a shiny black teapot. It was hard to get going, the first day at a workshop is always uncomfortable and awkward for me. I am having a particularly hard time with my work space this time. I just can't seem to get it organized and working for me. In addition to the fact that all of the panels I made and brought with me are just absolutely awful! I used clear gesso on them and they just suck up the paint and it's just awful. I went to the art store and bought all new panels for the rest of the workshop.



...and here is Carol diligently working away, studying her set up through her view finder.








Jeanne Bauer and Lieza Ziontz watch the demo, along with Amy Stewert who has gotten comfy on the floor. Amy, by the way is the author of three books.












My painting for today is this orange pepper on a blue plate.
Then Matt Moffett, Lieza Ziontz, Pam Hoffmeister and I went to this little restaurant - and I mean little - Pasquales. Great atmosphere and wonderful food. I had Mango gazpacho and carne asada skewers with guacamole - yummy!







I had to take a pic in the ladies room - if I didn't know better, I would have thought that the counter tops were real turquoise stone instead of tile. Luscious, gorgeous, rich color. If you look closely you can see in the mirror some tin shapes which border the room and appear to be embedded in the walls. there was also some really neat art in this teeny tiny WC - but the pics didn't turn out. What a great day - plus I am starting to feel better. Yay!

Day One @ Andreeva Portrait Academy

Today was the first day of the workshop with Carol Marine at the Andreeva Portrait Acadamy. Once again - my throat is still on fire and I am exhausted. Thought maybe I was getting a little fever but I'm not sure. So far the weather has been beautiful. I am really enjoying walking to and from class, but it's supposed to rain so I am not so sure I will love that. So I got to class early and claimed my easel. They had name tags made out to put on the easels so the instructor would have an easy way of identifying you. when the top is on it is pretty much airtight and her brushes don't dry out.



I've heard so much about the Andreeva Portait Academy - they have some pretty top notch teachers here and it's usually pretty expensive I thought, but it's nothing really very special. Don't get me wrong - it is nice, but rather smallish. It's on the second floor, a little hard to find. It's nice and bright, so take a look around -












I am not sure how the portrait room works - it is very tiny, seems like anly a couple of people could set in there to paint - but the light is nice. Then here is Carol and her set up, and the painting she did for the demo.
She used a Gorilla box, but check out the brush holder her husband made for her from PVC pipe, pretty handy.









So I am off to bed. There are so many things I wanted to get done while I am here - reading, studying, thinking, drawing - as well as some sight seeing and a bit of shopping. Unfortunately, since I am not feeling so well - I am just exhausted by the end of class, so bedtime for me. Darn.

Mother's Day in Santa Fe & I have the best husband in the world

Today is Mother's Day. I arrived in Albuquerque and picked up a rental car to drive to Santa Fe. The minute I saw the orange HHR I knew it was meant to be!



I doubt that I could lose that in a parking lot or forget what I was driving with that. Actually - I pretty much loved it - the color has a lot to do with it though, but the seat is kind of hard. Anyway, I drove the hour or so to my hotel and checked in. As soon as the clerk saw my name he brought over this big box from Pro Flowers and said they had been there waiting for me and everyone was wondering who they were for. Rick had planned ahead and sent tulips - my favorite flower - with a little box of candy to the hotel to be there for me on Mother's day. He is so sweet and thoughtful. They really help this room feel nicer. The Garrett's Desert Inn was built in the 50's and looks the part. But it is neat and clean and smells pretty good. It's everything I need - a bed and a shower. Tomorrow is the first workshop day, I am exhausted. These pictures are up but not organized and I am going to bed and try to get some sleep. I'll straighten all of these out tomorrow. My throat is still on fire but other than that I am not feeling too awful - already I can tell that I should have planned to stay an extra day or two as there is a lot to see here.

Bonfire Chili and laundry

Here is my newest hair color - a combination of Bonfire and Chili -those were the names of the color that my hairdresser Jessie used - and I love it - love-love-love it! This is in bright sunlight - so it really looks a bit darker than that most of the time - but wow - I love it. There are some blondish steaks and other stuff going on in there too. This special little color combo took a little over 3 hours to get, that is a very very long time for me. I spend practically zero time on my hair, I normally don't even brush, comb or blow dry my hair - I wash it, scrunch it and walk away. This color feels like life to me, and joy, and fun. YAY!

I am not a big fan of plastic surgery, but not a big critic of it either. Inside I am a pretty happy joyful person - even though I have been having a hard time since I moved to CA - it is getting better and deep inside I really am a happy joyful carefree person. But my family is constantly asking me if I am angry or sad or something - when I am not. Not at all. Actually - I have tried to catch glimpses of myself in mirrors and reflections to see what the heck - why are they saying that all the time. And you know what? they are right! My face does not match up with the real me anymore! Who is that unpleasant, dour looking grump I see glancing back at me from that window reflection? Certainly it can't be me - but it is! So I have been studying this phenomena a little bit and have determined that gravity has pulled all of my facial features downward giving me an unhappy, sour, mad and generally unpleasant expression all the time. No bueno. Seriously - this is not good. I decided to do some self portraits and in taking photos of myself, see what I can do about this, short of a face lift.

When I was in high school and working at a grocery store we had a regular customer who I thought was beautiful and very interesting looking. Her face was lined and wrinkled and full of character - or so I thought then. Now I realize - since she was a golfer and sun worshiper - she wasn't nearly as old or wise as she looked - nor was it wisdom and character that gave her all those lines and wrinkles. Seriously - I was particularly fond of her wrinkled brow and at night I would practice wrinkling my brow and sometimes trying to tape the wrinkles in place with band aids so I could be as wise and wonderful looking as she was. In spite of what I now recognize as severe sun damage and premature aging - I never remember her looking mad or unpleasant.

Now I just need to get the rest of my life - and my face - to line up with my hair color. Does that sound dumb? Makes perfect sense to me. Maybe makeup....in the meantime I will go start the laundry and do some housework - and then my face and my life will actually match up - I hate laundry and housework. I have to get busy - but first I think I will go band aid a smile on my face...