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Visiting the Walnut House

The Walnut House is a fabulously amazing event venue in Murfreesboro dedicated to the arts. For those of you who have been around Murfreesboro for a while, it has taken up the pledge of being a place for the Murfreesboro Little Theatre to continue performances. It has a couple of different event spaces that are perfect for private parties, performances and many other types of events. It has a state of the art sound and A/V system that offers unbelievable environments during the events they host.

Their commitment to the arts continues on November 19th and 20th as they host their first Virtual Art Show and Auction showcasing visual arts that have been created by artists in Middle Tennessee. I am excited to be a part of this and hope you will tune in. I have submitted three of my favorite pieces to be included in the auction. From what I have seen so far, the artists span an amazing variety of mediums and subjects. I am truly honored to be a part of this very interesting group.

Here are the pieces that I submitted for the auction:

A SMALL SQUALL
SHADOW BROOK
LOW TIDE

I hope you enjoy the auction!

Here are the details:

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Going Downtown

Murfreesboro’s downtown area is just beautiful. Craftsman style homes line the road as I make my way downtown. On Saturdays during the warmer weather, there is a farmers market packed with fresh produce, some stylish boutiques to get your favorite outfit, some great restaurants and an overall cool vibe. Our latest addition is Church Street Gallery and that is so exciting to me — adding to the artistic value of our downtown area.

We also have the Center for the Arts, a nonprofit organization offering a place where people can enjoy theatrical productions, visual art exhibitions, music concerts, dance performances and educational classes. And there is an abundance of talent. It is a wonderful place. The building that it is housed in is the old Murfreesboro Library, a stately building that The Center for the Arts has called home since 1995.

While looking around on Facebook one evening, I saw where they were promoting an exhibit planned to showcase works of art produced during the pandemic. When I saw the post, I thought this is the perfect opportunity for me. If you read my earlier post, you know I have been working on my skills during the pandemic and have become much more serious about my artwork. I entered a couple of my paintings and was selected as one of the featured artists. WOW! What an honor it is to be among those who are so amazing and creative. There is so much talent and I have been selected to be a part of this wonderful group of artists. The exhibit is a virtual exhibit so everyone can take a look and enjoy what The Boro has to offer. Here is the link to the exhibit: https://www.boroarts.org/online-exhibit

I hope you enjoy looking at the exhibit and while you are here, take a look at my gallery, I have added a couple of paintings and am so excited to share them with you.

Thanks for taking a look.

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Cruising the Stones River

As I begin my journey, this painting seemed appropriate for many reasons. Of course, it is taking a journey and that may be a metaphorical expression for where I am in developing my skills. I have always loved illustration, painting, crafting, and many other artistic expressions and have decided now is a great time to get serious about my next steps. Perhaps, it becomes a side hustle at some point.

As I dive in, there are so many things for me to become more aware of in my paintings — value, color relationships, placement, perspective, and then, there is drawing. Cruising the Stones River is an exercise with particular attention to value and color relationships.

First, a plan of what to draw. I had a picture that served as the inspiration and loaded it on to my iPad. The original photo was by a friend of mine, Cindy Martin Frank. Then, a rough sketch, and underpainting with watercolor as you can see in the image. When, thinking about the composition, it is good to think of your paper divided into thirds and to also think of the relationship your objects in the painting have to each other. The underpainting with watercolor was an experiment and helped with my composition without filling in the teeth of the paper. I think I will do more in the future.

I knew the kayak was going to be red and the sky would have some blue – the other colors in the painting were selected because of their relationship to each other. On the color wheel, I chose to follow the triad selecting blues, reds and yellows to guide me. I think it worked wonderfully and as a part of that — tints, tones and shades. Notice, the green trees in the sketch, they are not a part of the color relationship I selected. And that was a problem. The green totally clashed with the other colors. So I chose a dark blue and dark gray for the trees when I began with pastels.

In the first picture of the pastels, you can see what I thought I would use, and in the second picture, you can see what I actually used. These colors represent a good value range and followed my selection on the color wheel.

Along with selecting colors that worked well together, I also kept in mind the value range. The value range above shows two thirds of the painting in a light to medium range and one third in a dark value. Again, the thirds play a part in value.

I also made some adjustments to the composition from the sketch and underpainting photo. The kayak needed to be a much more dominant object. Enlarging it to take about two thirds of the bottom section of the painting made all the difference. Again, the thirds come into play.

Here is the finished piece. It is a 10″ X 10″ pastel painting on 600 grit sanded paper.

I am on my journey!

Cruising the Stones River

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