Joyce Shelton's Blog

Hot-Lanta Summer Market

WOW!  I'm, shocked when I realize my last post was May 26th!  Time is flying much to quickly.  It's going to be a crazy July here so I want to try to catch up before I'm too far gone!  

It's always fun to go to the Atlanta markets.  I found it particularly worthwhile this trip.  Even though it is summer and traditionally slower than the January market, there seemed to be a buzz of hope and a good crowd of retail buyers.  The one's I spoke with were shopping with a little more caution in this economy, yet predicting a much better holiday season than last year.  It was a good feeling, overall.

On a persona level, I made a few new connections and met with three new clients that I would be very excited to work with.  I also got to spend some quality time in the Giftcraft showroom where I am now sharing the spotlight (ha!) with Marie Osmond.  It seems Marie is now making quilted bags and was even present at the showroom for a signing.  This is a very good step in the right direction for Giftcraft and I am happy to be part of such a wonderful, growing company.

Move over, Marie... here are a few shots from my little corner of the showroom!

New "Tea Party". 
This is the third time we have updated this line and it was so much fun creating all these new pieces.  It looks FABULOUS!! (if I do say so myself!)





I guess, due to the great price point in these tough times, these little travel mugs are keeping me in a paycheck.  They really are cute and so functional.  More on the way!



"It's Just A Job!"
Another new group of fun occupational mugs.  Good price point, great display.  They come packaged in cute little matching bags.  Great nifty-gifty item!



Of course, the really fun part was socializing with fellow artist friends.  Nothing like commiserating, gossiping and having a few good laughs with old friends, Carol Eldridge, Barbara Barnett and BJ Lantz after a tiring day.



Last night, dinner with Phyllis Dobbs, Barbara Barnett, Brenda Pinnick, BJ Lantz and Carol Eldridge.  Hard to believe, but the maitre de at Azios actually compared us to the ladies on the View... I mean, like we were all talking at once or something!  Go figure!

For a more complete overview of the show, you need to see Carol's blog.  She's got it much more together in the reporting department!

Plein Air Workshop

Wow!  Finally something really exciting to post about!  Glad to be home, sleeping in my own bed but what a wonderful experience my plein air painting workshop was!  I am so in love with the whole process!  Why didn’t I try this sooner???!  There is way too much information to fit into a blog post, but all in all, a FANTABULOUS experience!  It felt really, really good to get outside of my little 10 X 10 studio, away from commercial illustration and my Mac and to paint (or attempt it, anyway) like a “real” artist! I highly recommend taking any workshop in whatever you are interested in, but if it’s plein air painting, Larry Moore’s the guy for you.

Aside from learning the ins and outs of painting in the great outdoors, I gained so much knowledge about basic oil painting with regard to mixing color from a limited palette of red, blue and yellow as well as the three color key components: hue, value and chroma and how it all relates to quick, impressionistic field studies. Working at becoming an artist is just a continuous series of learning experiences, isn’t it?  I guess we are never done and why would we want to be?

I was fortunate to know Larry personally so I knew ahead of time that I was really gunna learn sum’pin!  Thank you Larry, for all the knowledge and experience you shared - the laughs, and personal, one-on-one attention you gave me, and most of all for teaching me the basics of “Impressionating.”  This is a word I made up at breakfast one morning... it just came out and he liked it so much, he used it all week.  I wouldn’t be surprised to see it show up on his blog or in future hand-outs!

Larry... you are indeed The Impressionator

As the weekend progressed we all came up with a few other “Larry-isms”... “smurteling” (schmering paint around), “grello” (greyish-yellow),  “breen” (a lovely shade of army green),  “flabert” (a flattened down version of a filbert and flat brush), “palm-fronder brush” (self explanitory...we were all wishing someone would invent one of these) and last but surely one of my personal favorites, “scogs” (while painting downtown we witnessed several packs of retired-folk zooming by in hog-like gangs, on their scooters!)  Good one, Jeff!

I’m not posting any of my little practice paintings for obvious reasons.  I will say this, though, I went on this excursion purely to learn the basics, with no expectations of bringing home any masterpieces.... and I was not disappointed!! 

Here are a few highlights from our adventures. 

Our hotel, The Hotel Jacaranda, or as we fondly like to call it, the "Jac"... a relic, to be sure, but clean and comfortable.  Not to mention reasonable.  A mere $62.00 a day for the two of us.  Right within the starving artist's budget!

The lobby.  Not too much has changed here since 1920!  One of the pluses for us was the  $8.99 lunch and dinner buffet.  Including delicious iced tea, great fried chicken, stuffed cabbage, mashed potatoes and gravy... salad bar.. yummm... I knew I was going to miss that!

This elevator had a crank mechanism inside and only the hotel office girl could work it, so you had to ring a bell and wait if you needed it.  She had to carefully stop it so the floor of the elevator would be even with the hallway floor.  Sometimes it took more than one jumpy try!

Anyone else thinking of "The Shining"... "here comes Johnny!" For some reason, whenever I trudged down this massive hall, The Eagles "Hotel California" kept replaying in my mind.  "You can check in anytime you want, but you can never leave!"

This was the funniest thing. The sink was in the middle of the room!  It had the 2 original knobs- the old fashioned kind spread far apart-that makes warm water impossible to attain! The bathroom had a toilet with no lid and a stand up shower, also with two knobs.  I guess we were lucky, Larry had only a footed tub with a hand held shower attachment.  By the way... yes, the TV had a remote control, so the room does not meet my camping criteria, but darn close, to be sure!

We had two outing days to the nearby Highlands Hammock State Park, a very cool place indeed.  Fortunately we didn't have to stray far from the main area where there were restrooms and a really great restaurant for lunch.  So all that stuff I packed did not have to be schlepped too far.  I still managed to lose my prescription glasses somewhere in the madness.

This was our first day in the park.  By the end of the second day, we were all pretty tired of painting trees and various clusters of green & brown - a difficult subject to make sense of but a great lesson in value and hue.  Here are some progressive shots from Larry's first demo.  The Impressionator managed to make sense of this blur and pull a great painting out of it!

Day two demo of nearby building.

 

Day three... out of the woods and on to Main Street in downtown Avon Park.

Here's a shot of our group, intently watching every stroke. 

Thanks Larry! Can't wait to do it again!

One more thing... while reviewing Larry’s hand out and recommended reading, a title looked awfully familiar.  So I took myself out to my bookshelf and sure enough, I already own this book!  “Fill Your Oil Paintings With Light And Color”, by Kevin D. MacPherson.  I am sure I bought it at least 15 years ago and this morning I reviewed it once again with my morning coffee only to find that now, after the hands-on-experience of painting plein air, it had taken on a wonderful new meaning!  At the very back of the book, in a small yellow box, Kevin states this very true message, “Read art books over and over again.  What doesn’t make sense today may make sense down the road when you have more experience.”   Good advice to remember.

Well, my backpack's packed

...and I'm ready to go! 

(Not leaving on a jet plane, though!)

My pal Loreen and I are heading south to Avon Park... somewhere in the middle of po-dunk Florida, for a plein air painting workshop!  Yep... we're going out to be "real" artists this week and we're pretty darned excited!  Leaving behind the children's book illustrating and the nifty-gifty product designing and heading out to paint nature for 3 straight days! 

Mind you, packing, schlepping and trekking through the brush, is not usually my cup of tea. Looks and sounds a lot like camping to me... and my idea of camping is a hotel room with no remote control for the TV!  But I am willing to make a few sacrifices to learn from my oh-so-accomplished fellow artist and good friend, Larry Moore .  I'm really, really looking forward to the whole experience.  Larry says I will be addicted after just one outing. I suspect he is probably right.  :~)

We are actually staying in the little town of Avon Park at what appears to be a charming inn right on Main St. called The Hotel Jacaranda (I'll let you know if it passes the camping criteria test) We'll be painting at Highlands Hammock State Park.  The weather is turning cool which is okay with me and I'm feeling pretty well prepared for a "delicate flower" who needs many creature comforts - most importantly - a place to plug in her flat iron!  No worries, though... the hat is packed along side the insect repellant.  (I'm nothing if not adaptable). 

So... I'll let you know how it goes.  There will be lots to tell upon our return.  Speaking of posts, this one is pretty lame compared to what Loreen posted on her blog yesterday! While I was hunting, gathering and packing supplies, she was actually doing a dry-run practice session in her studio.  Check it out!  No pressure there!

Happy Easter Everyone!

Lunch with Beej

My friend and fellow artist, BJ Lantz and I, only live a little more than an hour away from each other and yet we only seem to see each other either in NY or Atlanta at one show or another.  We vowed to try to do better at meeting more often so about 3 weeks ago we met for lunch in DeLand, a quaint little town about half way between us.

Check us out!

Although her favorite second hand store is closed, Beej still managed
to land this sexy find... at a bargain price, I might add!

I, on the other hand, managed to land this sexy find.

Just what I need.  Another character around my house!

Leu Gardens with Loreen

This sketching day actually took place two weeks ago.  I'm a little behind, but better late than never, I guess.  We are planning another outing on Monday, so I thought I'd better catch up quick!

Our day began at Loreen's brother's used book store where all of her books are proudly displayed right up front.  If you ever need to find a book contact Robert at Leedy's Book Store.  I never know what kind of treasure I will find there.  Laurel Burch's Fantastic Felines beautifully illustrated and full of inspiration immediately jumped off the shelf and went home with me!

Check out all of Loreen's wonderful books! 

Now on to a date with nature

 

Artist's day out

It was a gorgeous day in Winter Park.  A good reminder of why we live in central Florida.  Armed with our cameras and sketchbooks, my artist pal Loreen and I ventured out for lunch and inspiration.  We got exactly what we were after.  What a perfect way to recharge our batteries!  We must break out of our studios and do this more often.