Taking a Big Bite

Once upon a time (very recently) I made the statement, "Sometimes you bite off more than you can chew, but it sure beats starving". I meant it when I said it. I still believe it, but I took one hell of a bite this week. Lately I've been getting approached to book showings for future dates; many of them in 2010. I don't have much in the way of formal bookings for this year, but next year's filling up quickly. Seems odd, huh? I took a BIG bite this week, however, by booking a show at the Iowa State University Memorial Union Art Gallery. Very cool. Turns out they'll be needing about 25 pieces for the show! Whoa... 25 paintings. That's huge for me. Thankfully the show's not until December 2010. It'll be a challenge, I'm always up for a challenge. I wonder if I could convince some of my clients to loan me a few, select pieces. That might help.
Just "thinking" out loud there.
digress digress digress...

On a couple of other fronts I managed to get that painting of the late Steb's Amusements in Cedar Falls scanned. A little color correction and I'll be ready to make the announcement that prints are available. I'll post a link here and my other points of contact (FaceBook, Twitter, etc) when that time comes. Won't be long.

Also I've finished my latest painting. I think this is a land-speed record for me. At least for a piece this size (36"x48"). I'm very happy with the way it came out. The piece overall is very loose and energetic. I've been using it as practice for the Des Moines Art Festival Mural project. I needed to loosen up. To make sure that every inch of the image had something going on. Not a necessity for all of my work, but for that project I've got instructions to make sure that there's a lot of visual activity. When the piece is enlarged the little things will become very visible: the funky, little edges of brush strokes, slight variations of color, etc. I think this latest piece has been a good exercise in working towards that, AND in working with more immediacy. It's going to a good temporary home at ArtDive so hopefully you can go see it and pieces by many other great Iowa artists in person.

Gotta run. A beautiful Saturday awaits.


Cheers,

R