Workshop Groupie!

Since moving to the lower 48, I vowed to take more workshops. They are fun, informative and a way to get away from the studio for a couple of days to do something other than production. A place I really enjoy going is Cole Gallery in Edmonds. It's an hour and a half away, including the ferry trip across the strait, with a nice Best Western within walking distance of  the gallery and everything else downtown, including quirky shops and great food. Besides, Denise Cole manages to get some great instructors to come to her little place, and if you forgot anything in the way of supplies, the Art Spot is close enough to dash over on a break and pick up something.

This time, I attended a portrait painting class taught by Michael Maczuga. His work is vibrant, loosely impressionistic, colorful and exciting. All stuff I can use. We started Friday's session with a (gulp) color wheel. I know about color wheels. I taught art in Alaska for 18 years, right? Well, this was a color wheel like I'd never done before, not to mention that we were using REAL oil paint- not the water soluble oils that I've been enamored with for the past ten or so years. How, I wondered, would we be cleaning these brushes if we didn't use soap and water? You don't wanna know.  

From there we moved to painting real models. We started with a black and white study of values, and I was introduced to a really cool tool in the form of a plaster head which Mike placed alongside the nice young lady who was posing. From the plaster head we could refer to the planes and determine that wherever there is a plane change, there is also a value and temperature change. Well, who'd a thought?

Our next exercise became a psychedelic challenge in that colored lights were place around our model's head to help us think not in terms of flesh tones, but in values. Well known aviation artist R. G. Smith used to say that it doesn't matter what color it is as long as the value is right. So when Mike said it, it was not exactly new. Still, no matter how many times we hear these things, they need to be internalized so that they become automatic. My friend and mentor Charles Thompson always tells me that you don't paint a red airplane with red paint. Particularly a shiny one. There will be reflective colors from what is surrounding, and, well, it doesn't matter what color it is as long as the VALUE is right.

So we continued on this journey toward a final painting on Sunday afternoon. The model was delightful and we enjoyed painting her. Much of the information will take time to settle in, even though a good deal of it was not exactly new. It often takes hearing the same thing in different ways to make it happen. Now I can't wait to put these new-found old tactics into practices. As Mike says, better to have 100 starts and learn something every time than to spend all your time on one thing trying to fix it. Or something like that.

A New Show!

"Observations from Air, Land, Sea and the Local Coffee Shop" is up for viewing at the Sequim Museum & Arts Center. Twenty two framed paintings, plus some unframed originals, prints and a calendar are available for purchase through the end of August. As museum volunteers were hanging the show and we were attaching price and title cards. I looked around and wondered, "Where did all this come from?" I'd been busy for sure, but the realization was dawning that there has been a prodigious amount of work produced during the six years we have lived in the Pacific Northwest. A lot of the effort has been to re-establish myself in a new location, something that we all face when we move. Leaving a place where we have friends, and perhaps family is always difficult. As a business owner, leaving an established clientele creates a different kind of void that is difficult to describe. Will I ever get work again? How will people find me? Will they forget me? Is what I worked for over 23 years in Alaska all for naught? Technology has given us blogs, Facebook, and easy to navigate websites, which help tremendously. Anyone who works from home will tell you that keeping your name out there is a full time job. I see it all the time on Facebook with the posts made by fellow artists who share the new work they are creating, encouraging people, as I do, to visit their pages, websites and blogs.

While watching the Olympics the other night, the commentator quipped, "Confidence is that little voice inside your head that tells you you belong." It went by so fast that I almost missed it. What? Who said that? I googled the quote this morning and found it shared and analyzed on amymoritz.com's blog entitled "Byline to Finish Line." The US Olympic beach volleyball team of Misty May-Treanor and Kerri Walsh-Jennings had found a way to improve by working with a sports psychologist. Rather than playing from fear, it is important to play as though you belong- and with confidence. Thus, Misty and Kerri play like winners, like they belong.

So where do I go from here? I will keep producing the art that I love, continue to connect and share my work with others, and know that the sense of belonging will allow me to move forward toward a personal best that is mine alone.

New Beginnings!

This month and last are seeing new beginnings everywhere! First, our Grand Olympics Chorus of Sweet Adelines has a new director! Mike Menefee is making the trip from Silverdale each week to work with us, and we are loving the new challenges. Mike's daughter, Alena, as been joining us as well to coach and encourage. She has an amazing voice and we are happy to have her! She also writes a really cool blog...Check it out at http://alenapm24-7.com/ .

Three Coast Guard Change of Commands have granted me the honor of having artwork present. The first, this month in San Francisco, saw our friends the Langenbachers Who me knew in Kodiak) leaving Air Station San Francisco and moving to new responsibilities in Alameda, just across the bay. Their unit requested an original painting as a departing gift of the H65 helicopter over the Bay Bridge, and we had prints made as well. More on the following Command changes to come.

So where have I been? Well, I took another class from Stuart Parks Forensics, this time on drawing from the surveillance camera. Did some drawings for a program on The Travel Channel. Then the chorus I sing with, Grand Olympics Chorus of Sweet Adelines International, went to Contest in Spokane. Then I had cataract surgery. Then I went to the American Society of Aviation Artists annual Forum, held this year in Kalamazoo, Michigan. Now I'm working on putting my show together which will run through the month of August at the Museum & Art Center in Sequim. In between all this, I finished some artwork for three Coast Guard Change of Commands. Meantime, our chorus has a new director and we are delightedly on a new path  to reinventing ourselves with better vocal production, better showmanship skills and a new look. How cool is that? This sounds like one of those Christmas letters that start out "Where has the time gone?" I don't pretend to wonder anything of the sort, except to say that life is exceedingly busy, and I'm glad for the work! Here is one of the paintings that will be available at the show, along with a diversion of sorts to, um, the fine art of taking a coffee break........More on that later!

Studio sale!

  Spent a good part of yesterday updating the website with sale items. It's time to make room for new inventory. In the meantime, our Sweet Adelines chorus, Grand Olympics, got through our annual fundraiser show, I illustrated a children's book for a friend to give to her family for Christmas, and am working on the pieces I plan to submit to the Coast Guard Art Program. Speaking of military art programs, last month the Air Force asked me to go to Beale Air Force Base north of Sacramento to document some events that were going on with the 9th Reconaissance group. I met some amazing artists and returned with a ton of research material to use for the paintings I will submit to the program next year along with inspiration from the likes of Stephen Gardner, Michael Backus, Scott Gandell, Bob Cooley and a cool fellow named Winston! Meantime, the pieces that are on sale can be found by going to the website www.PriscillaMessnerPatterson.com and clicking on the "Open Gallery" link. When I check it, it comes up fine. Hopefully it will for you, too! 

Demo at the County Fair!

Did a demo at the Clallam County Fair last Friday night. It was fun to have so many people stop by and say hello. This composition came about after a trip to Kiana, Alaska with the Air Force Art Program last spring. We were there to document Operation Arctic Care, a program where our men and women in the reserves spend their duty time providing medical care to people in the villages. The 2010 program, based in Kotzebue (33 miles north of the Arctic Circle) was sponsored by the Air Force and included 12 villages. I was able to visit two- we were flown out via Blackhawk helicopter. While we were in Kiana, the mail/commuter plane came in, and as in all rural Alaska villages, when the plane comes in, everyone turns out for the event. The passengers are going to Kotzebue and beyond- if they are travelling beyond, they have to go through "Kotz," hop on the jet and go to Anchorage via Nome. So this is my interpretation of a busy scene when the mail plane comes to Kiana. I loved getting so much done in one night, but today am working on another piece that has lots of rivets......

Where have I been?????

Well, where have I been? Everywhere, I guess. May brought the annual American Society of Aviation Artists Forum, held this year in Pensacola, Florida. We celebrated 100 Years of Naval Aviation along with the 25 year anniversary of ASAA. It was a great time to reconnect with aviation artist friends from all over the world. Part of my duties as education chair were to organize a Youth Drawing Session. We had nearly as many helpers, for which I am grateful, as we did students. In June, my husband and I drove down to Vancouver, Washington where we met up with two of my sisters and their families. There we enjoyed a visit to the Pearson Air Museum at Fort Vancouver. Those little known places are certainly treasure troves and I hope they have lots of visitors to spread the word about aviation in the Pacific northwest. In July I attended Barbershop Harmony College in Tacoma with my quartet, Loonie Tunes. One of the other quartets in our Chorus also attended and we had a great time taking classes and learning more about our hobby of barbershop singing with a Sweet Adelines chorus. I continue to take voice lessons with a fantastic coach and participated in a student recital. We have plans for another get together closer to Christmas.

As for painting, I have three pieces in the Clallam County Fair next weekend and am scheduled to do a demo on Friday evening, August 19 from 4-7 PM. The idea for this composition came from a trip to Kiana, Alaska with the Air Force Art Program in April of 2010. While we were there the commuter flight came in. As is normal in Alaska villages, when the mail plane shows up, the town turns out to see who arrived from town and to send off travelers. The canvas is 24x36- Let's see how much I can get done in the three hours I am there. My biggest fear is getting a wet oil painting back to the car without having someone run into me with cotton candy or ice cream. Well, we can't be afraid of those things, can we?