This is the second painting in a series of boys fishing.  It is 11 x 14 and is mixed media (mostly watercolor).  It is one that I have had going for  a long time, but have just finally finished!  This is such a common sight in Minnesota each summer as so many of the "boys" spend all of their free time fishing!  My family is no different!  One boy would rather fish and the other would rather swim.  Minnesota is a great place for both to live!

I also wanted to say that I am the new president of Artists of Minnesota and if anyone is interested in joining, they can sure email me at honstead@paulbunyan.net

Fractured

I have been working hard trying to get some paintings framed.  I have a show starting in Sept. at Bigfork, MN.  I also need to get a few more prints and  cards ready to go!  But I want to be painting!  I had one that didn't turn out so I will not be posting it, but I finished this one last night and I think I like it.  I feel like there is nothing else that I want to do so it must be done, right?  ;-)  I really had a hard time naming it, but think that "Fractured" fits better than anything else!  Hopefully that will work.  I wonder why it is so hard for me to come up with names of paintings?  It is harder than doing the painting itself!

Veil Dancer

I finished the second one using several materials to direct your eye around the painting.  Veil Dancer is supposed to be very abstract and yet you feel the movement in it.  It is done in a cruciform design and even though I wanted it to be a horizontal painting, It just didn't work, so eventually I had to leave it in the vertical position and go from there.  This painting was a lot of fun to do because I got to use a lot of different techniques in the process and I let the painting show me what to do.  I did not know what I was going to paint until I was actually working on it.  It is a lot of fun to do paintings in this manner!

Abstract.

I did post a picture of this one when I first finished it but thought I would post it here as well.  I did an abstract with a lot of different textures and then added to it to make more dark values.  I also added water soluble crayons on top of the watercolor.  They were so vibrant that it really made the rest of the work pop.  I have started another one and will show you what it looks like after the first step of texture making is complete.  I am working on this orange one now and hope to finish it tomorrow.  I will post it again when I do.

Looks like I'm Back!

I have just joined several other blogs so, since they are on blogspot as well, I will be adding to this site more often again, along with my wordpress site and my new ones.  Quite a job.  I think I will have to do one per day and at least once each week on each individual site or I will never know where I am at!  I just hope I can figure out how to do this since it has been so long since I have blogged on this site, and I am used to the other one now....... Oh well, I will learn!  I have been doing quite a lot of painting in the last few days and I have a new one that I have not yet posted on anything else yet.  I think later tonight I will try my luck at posting on Daily Painters of MN to see how that goes!  Wish me luck!!  Just thought I would post a picture of one of my recent paintings while I am here.  This is a tribute to my new Granddaughter since she and her mother had so many problems before and after birth!  I hope you like it.  It is a 12 x 16 watercolor  entitled In The Beginning.

Wordpress

I started another blog on wordpress so that is why I haven't been using this one.  Maybe I should do both, who knows.  The other one has links to all of my sites though so I think this is going to be my last post on this site............ ...maybe.  Or maybe I can come up with another idea as how to use this one.  I will give it some thought!

New Studio

For the last two days I have been organizing my studio to get ready for it to be open to the public.  It is looking so wonderful!  I only have a little more to do in my actual work area.  I also now have room to give painting classes to several people at the same time.  One step closer!  Now I need to go get some paperwork done!  Then I will get to paint again!