Day 117: Tuesday, July 26 - The Conversation

The Conversation for the Sketchbook Project that I'm working on with Nancie Johnson of New Jersey continues.  I received Nan's latest addition to our project: The Angry Bird!!

Why is he so angry? He's heard that he's the star of an addictive game called Angry Birds and he just realized he's not getting any royalties!!

This is attached to my painting of last week:

Yielding:

So now I connect something to the sleeping brown cat, the blue z's from the cat's mouth and the floating orange balls.  Suggestions? Ideas? Email me!!

Day 111: Tuesday, July 12

Painted off and on all weekend. Twas fun to have "projects" that needed doing. Needed to finish a Conversation that I'm working on with my teacher Peggy Reid, needed to finish the Conversation with Nancie Johnson for the Sketchbook Project........and then in the middle of it all, I decided I wanted to start a new portrait.

I'd had a photograph of a darling baby, Dylan, whose mother is my daughter's best friend since they were three.....darling little girls.

And then Allison, the blonde, got married and had Dylan, who's almost two:

 I had cropped the original photograph to this version - wish I still had the original photo.  But I started up with a painting and was so excited about how it was looking, that I put my brushes away for fear I'd "wreck it".  I'll take up the brushes again tomorrow and see what I can add to it.  But I sure love how I started out and that's a rare sensation!!

Day 110: Monday, July 11 - The Conversation with Nancie Johnson continues

The Sketchbook Project
Nancie Johnson of  New Jersey
her blog:
Our "Conversation" continues

Nancie and I have now completed our third page/conversation in this ongoing Sketchbook Project we are working on.  If you remember:  We both painted "something"......colors and shapes on a page.  We then sent that first page to each other, me in California, she in New Jersey.  We attached a second painting to that first page by continuing any lines, colors, shapes from that first painting's edge onto the second page.  And this weekend we both completed our third page and put it into the mail.

Here's my first painting. Nancie ended up turning it on its side:

 Here's Nancie's response which continued the line of the banana:

Here's the 3rd - my response:

 And here's all three pages together - A Conversation

Tomorrow I'll post the other Conversation that's taking place, the one that starts with Nancie's first painting.

Day 109: Friday, July 8 - Virtual Paintout

A wonderful man, Bill Guffey, runs a monthly challenge which uses the Google Maps of the world.  It's called the Virtual Paintout.  Each month he chooses somewhere in the world - this month, July, it's the Isle of Jersey. You go to the Virtual Paintout, you click on the Google Map, you then cruise around Jersey, using the little yellow man feature on the Google Maps (he shows what that little spot on the map where you're hovering actually looks like.  You spend hours cruising around hoping to find something picturesque enough that you'd like to paint it.  I've done this every month, spending hours and hours and have never found anything that I wanted to paint. Grump, grump. I look at the paintings other people have done and wonder how in the world they found that!! on the google map.  I wish that Bill Guffey would post the location on the map that was used to paint from.  He says that we're supposed to put the link on our blogs/websites but I haven't found anyone who's done that yet.  I think it would be a fantasic learning situation: what you see and what you paint.

I finally found something I thought I could paint so I submitted it this month. It should be on the website by tomorrow or the next day.

Here's the link I used on the Google Map:

and here's what I painted from that link:

My friend Nancie Johnson also submitted a painting this month. Here's her link and then look what she did with it!!

There's another wonderful painter out there, Nancy Goldman, whose work I found because of her comment re my blog.  She has already painted two versions of her search of the Isle of Jersey for Bill Guffey's challenge.

Day 89: Monday, June 6 - Sketchbook Project

Painted all weekend on the starting page for the Sketchbook Project that I'm going to be working on with Nancie Johnson of New Jersey. (Love that the initials match her state)....and then there's Polsby of Pasadena? Doesn't quite have the same ring to it. 

I painted four possible starting pages for our "conversation" which is going to take place across the United States over the next several months.  Nancie's going to have to choose one or two to work from and she's doing the same thing on her end (painting a couple of choices for me).  We agreed to get our paperwork into the mail no later than Saturday night at midnight, picturing ourselves driving frantically to the post office in our jammies and slippers.....She got it done, I was calling post offices to see if anyone was still open (fedex? ups?) at 6:30 p.m.............Obviously I fell through on my end of the deal but the package will go out on Monday morning.  Sorry Nancy.

The final project has to be postmarked January 31, 2012 so we've agreed to try to swap paintings every two weeks which should be enough time to create about a 10-page conversation two times over.

Here are my four opening choices for her:

I've persuaded my friend Elle Gould of Arizona/Colorado to enter the Sketchbook Project as well.  It takes $25 and your application and by return mail you receive a special Moleskine Sketchbook to be filled using a generalized theme that you choose from the Sketchbook's long list of themes.


Nancie chose the theme "Time Traveler" since that's what our pages will be doing as they travel across the United States.  I met Nancie via the original Sketchbook Project. I had commented on this blog about my project and she commented on my work. She also submitted a Sketchbook in 2010. We started internet conversing and decided to do a joint project having never met! I just think life is fantastically wonderful sometimes because of the really special things that happen.

Day 77: Wednesday, May 4

I keep talking about Suzanne McDermott and her fabulous self-named blog. Carol Marine has mounted a self portrait challenge on the Daily Paintworks site...........Suzanne has a fabulous picture of herself, posing gracefully with some of the jewelry she has taken to making as she recovers from her horrible fall and horrible fractured leg, ankle, knee, shin...........I'm not sure what all she broke but it's a long, long recovery.  I saw this gorgeous photo of her

on her website and thought wouldn't it be fun if many people painted Suzanne this way and submitted their version of her to the Daily Paintworks Challenge.  She is feeling mentally and physically challenged at this moment and this could be just what she needs to perk right up. I wrote her about using this as her self portrait and her answer was so depressed that I think we should do it many tmes over.......remember Karin Jurick's self portrait that all of us painted?   I'd love it if Nancie Johnson? AnnMarie Thomas, April Foster, Michelene.....would take this photo, draw it up, paint it up and submit it to the Challenge.  Suzanne would be thrilled.  And then in your spare time you can all paint a portrait of yourself and submit that as well.  Paint, Paint, Paint................it's almost June and what do you have to show for yourself so far!!!!!!!!!!!  Get to painting.

Day 55: Tuesday, April 5 - the Nancie Johnson Challenge

Hey Nancie Johnson, fellow Sketchbook Project Participant and AnnMarie Thomas, fellow Sketchbook Project Participant:  I just got another email from the Brooklyn Art Library Librarian......My diatribe against smoking has been viewed two!! count 'em, two!! times.

Hello!
We just wanted to let you know that Carissa P. just viewed your sketchbook (#35593) at SPACE Gallery in Portland, ME!
Your book has been viewed 2 times so far.
Sincerely,
The Brooklyn Art Library Librarian



This is now a "throw down" event.  I saw AnnMarie this morning in class and she said her sketchbook had been seen once.  I think the three of us need to find paid participants to view our Sketchbooks in order to make this a true duel!