Selling Handmade books

OCAF has a small but active group of handmade book makers who planned on having a booth at the OCAF Holiday Market, and they asked me to participate!  I have helped my husband Steve sell his glass art at shows and craft fairs, but this is the first time I was selling my own work.  One of the reasons I  haven't had the time to write a blog post recently was because I was busy making books for this event.

To start with I needed an inventory of books.  I made 2 versions of accordion books, three sizes of leather bound books and miniature book earrings.  Thirty books in about 45 days!  The next three blog posts will have more details on each type of book.

Leather books

Accordion seed books

To identify our books we tied unique bookmarks around the back covers of the books.  Each of my bookmarks included a quote about books and my art stamp with a link to my website.

OCAF Small Works exhibit prep

I've been busy painting a few small watercolors to enter in the OCAF Small Works exhibit.  All entires have to be less then 14" in all directions.  For an 8" x 10" matted painting I mark out a 5" x 6" space on watercolor paper.  This gives me a little extra edge space on the finished painting.  I create several small paintings, then choose two or three to enter.  This year I am submitting two landscapes, and a nature painting for consideration.

The Weidemeyer's Admiral Butterfly Limenitis weidemeyerii, was painted from a photograph I took at Grand Teton National Park, while on a Naturalist led Butterfly walk at the top of Signal Mountain.  The summit provides panoramic views of the Teton Range, Jackson Hole valley and Jackson Lake.  During our walk we saw several butterflies, but none as spectacular as this western species.  This family of butterflies first pair of legs are so small they resemble little brushes, which gives them their common name 'brushfooted'.  Other members of the family Nyphalidae include: the Monarch, Red Admiral, Blue Morpho and Painted Lady.

The first landscape features the amazing Firehole Spring, one of the most colorful pools along Firehole Lake Drive, Yellowstone National Park.  The spring bubbles and steams but is not a geyser.  The clear turquoise blue water is the hottest part of the spring, so hot that even thermophiles can not live in there.  They prefer the run offs where the water is cooler. Yellow or green mats of thermophiles are found closer to the springs in higher temperatures (up to 167º F).  Lower temperature areas have mats of orange, rust and brown.  In addition to temperature, springs and geysers can be acidic, neutral, or alkaline.  The Ph also determines what bacteria can live there.  One part of the painting that is not very visible at this small size are the white siliceous collars where the water touched the nearby standing dead Lodgepole pines.

After the storm, the second landscape, is of a Yellowstone geyser field lit by sun rays bursting through holes in the clouds as the storm is slowly breaking up.  The steam of the geysers are in sharp relief, between the shadowed trees in the foreground and the dark green distant hills.

Grania Uaile, the Pirate Queen

One of my Irish paintings was accepted in the OCAF 2015 Small Works exhibit.  Because the painting was so small I mounted it floating above a black back background in a deep square black frame.  This was the first time I had done a float frame and was very happy with the results.  The other painting that was accepted was the Sunflower and bee, which I framed the regular way.

The painting featured Grace, a half Old Irish goat kid that was staying at the Essence of Mulrany (pre-cropped painting at right).  Old Irish goats were once numerous in Ireland and now are endangered due to cross breeding and habitat loss.  The herd in Mulrany is one of the best remaining groups in Ireland and Grace was a delightful ambassador.

I named the painting "Grace the Pirate Queen" after Grace O'Malley (Grania Uaile) a local celebrity.  Grace lived in the 16th century, and like her father, was a notorious pirate.  She was known as the Pirate Queen.  During her rein she built, captured and maintained several small tower castles around the area.  We visited Rockfleet castle (Carrigahowleythat ) on the shore, about three miles west of Newport.  We also saw Kildavnet castle on Achill Island, near the passage between Clew and Blacksod Bays.

Lost Ukidama

I framed and submitted the Green glass float watercolor to the Oconee County Arts Foundation 2014 Annual Georgia Small Works Exhibit.  I was excited to find out it has been selected for inclusion in the exhibit.  This is the first watercolor I have had accepted in a juried art exhibit.  

The painting was developed from a sketch done as an exercise I learned in Marilynn Brandenburger's Watercolor class.  Two different colors of construction paper are used for the background and foreground.  The colors are selected to complement the subject of the painting.  You can see the first sketch and development of the final watercolor in the previous blog entry.

Getting ready for the exhibit

I needed to decide which three of the eight 5" x 7" paintings to enter in the exhibit.  To help me determine what the finished paintings would look like I first needed to mat them.

I didn't want the amount of mat to overwhelm these small paintings, so I used 1.5" wide mats.   I spent some time testing different colored mats with the paintings.  The often repeated recommendation is to use neutral off white colors.  I found different colors worked with different paintings.  Some looked best with tan or pale shades of green, others looked best with darker blues and greens.  When the right mat was used the the painting seemed to jump to life.   I tried single mats and double mats, and found that I consistently preferred double mats.  

Matted and sitting side by side it was easy to pick out 4, but eliminating one more from the group was a lot harder.  I ended up with two landscapes and one floral.  Now I needed to work on the framing.

I wanted the frames to complement the painting and fit their style.   After looking at a lot of frames I selected simple dark wood frames for the landscapes and gold frames with a bit of a decoration for the florals.   Now all the pieces needed to be put together.

The glass was cleaned and dried.  The paintings were attached to the back of the mats using two pieces of acid free water soluble gummed tape along the top of the paper.  The matted paintings were placed on top of the glass.  Acid free tissue paper barrier was placed between the paintings and the backing board.  The whole stack was secured in the frame.  A brown paper dust cover was added to the back of the wood frame.  The final step was to add eye hooks and attach twisted wire to them to hang the paintings.

Then off to deliver the paintings I went.  None of them were chosen for the exhibit, but these were the first watercolors I had framed so it was a good learning experience for me.  

Small florals

I had intended on painting three 5 x 7 watercolor florals as possible entries to the Small Works Exhibit, but I only managed to paint two.  Like the small landscapes I am using Strathmore windpower 140 lb watercolor paper.  

The first one I painted is a small version of the apple blossom cluster I painted last spring.  I positioned the flower cluster so that it fills 7/8 of the paper.  Since this left only small bits of background I didn't mask the flowers, I just carefully painted around them.  I used a palette of Cobalt Blue, Chrome Yellow, Aureolin Yellow, Quinacridone Gold and Quinacridone Rose.  

The second is a closeup of a Swamp Sunflower.  I masked the sunflower and used a wet-on-wet glazing technique I learned in Margaret Walsh Best's workshop to paint the background.  I used Cobalt Blue, Chrome Yellow, Aureolin Yellow and Quinacridone Gold to produce the impression of an out of focus field of flowers.  I used the same pigments along with Burnt Siena, Raw Umber to achieve the variety of shades in the close sunflower.  The final touch is a Cadmium Red floret.  A sunflower is a composite flower.  A corolla of 'petal-like' ray flowers circle the dense disk of tightly packed small florets.
    

Small Landscapes

Over the past week I painted six small 5 x 7 landscapes as possible entries to the Small Works Exhibit.  I am using Strathmore windpower 140 lb watercolor paper for these paintings.  The pad I am using is large enough to paint two 5 x 7 paintings on the same page.  This makes it easily to compare the two versions while I am working on them.

Two are smaller versions of the Isle of Sky paintings I had recently done.  Using the same pigments that I used previously:  Phthalocyanine Blue, Ultramarine Blue, Chrome Yellow, Aureolin Yellow, Burnt Siena and the shadow color mix I learned in Margaret Walsh Best's workshop.  At this smaller size the colors are richer and more intense.  Which just points out why I need to create bigger richer puddles of pigment when I do larger paintings.

Two are a smaller version of the dunes on Sapelo Island at sunrise, with a new interpretation of the shadows in the scene and using a new mix of pigments.  I used Ultramarine Blue, Chrome Yellow, Aureolin Yellow, Quinacridone Rose, Quinacridone Gold, Burnt Siena, the shadow mixture and the sky in the second version uses Cerulean Blue.  The second version has fewer creeping dune plants and a lighter shadow in the sand.  

Two are new versions of a watercolor journal entry of the marsh at Little St. Simons Isl.
 I used Phthalocyanine Blue, Ultramarine Blue, Chrome Yellow,  Quinacridone Gold, Burnt Siena and the shadow mixture to deepen the darkest shadows.

 

Exhibiting yikes!

I decided to take the plunge and enter some artwork in an exhibit.  I found a local juried exhibit, Georgia Small Works, that accepts entries up to 14" x14" including the frame.  The catch is most of my recent paintings are bigger then that.  I think I have just enough time to paint three small, 9" x 5" watercolors and frame them for this exhibit.

Since I can't decided if I should do landscapes or florals, I am going to do a few of each and pick the best to enter in the exhibit.


Now I need to get painting!