Home! Come see me on First Thursday!

Ah, home again and settling back into my life. I was in Denver for 12 days--almost half of July! It was fun, but I am so glad to be back. Now it's time to get ready for both of my shows this week!

Today I am hanging all of my new drawings & paintings at the Show & Tell Gallery downtown. If you are in Portland, be sure to stop by and see me on First Thursday! Check the flier above for info. PLUS there will be poetry & music! For those of you on a budget, much of my work is affordably priced from $20-$60, and I am always willing to take payments for the larger pieces. Even if you are not in the market for artwork, I would still love to see your smiling faces :) This is my first solo show in quite some time, so I am very exited!

Then, on Saturday, is the final Summer Arts & Craft fair in the Portland State University park blocks just North of the Farmer's Market from 8-6. All of my art will still be at the gallery, but I will have giclee prints of my work, plus all of my pocket mirrors, magnets, pendants and a lot of cool craft supplies. Not to mention the other 40 or so vendors with awesome handmade goodies!

Letting Go

"Difficult Departure," by Lea Keohane, 2008. All Rights Reserved.

Sometimes letting go can be hard, especially when whatever it was that you once had was so good you thought it would last forever, you never even questioned the possibility of losing it. I usually do not plan my drawings before I sit down to do them, but this one was a little different. I was walking through the park, taking in the trees and whatever music was playing on my iPod at the time, trying to feel connected to the world, when this image came to me, or something like it. My original idea included both of the figures having wings, but I thought that had a different connotation than what I intended, so I dropped the wings and got on with the drawing. "Difficult Departure" is approximately 9.5" x 9", drawn with Pantone Tria markers and a Sharpie on paper.

Nostalgia

"Surely She's a Mermaid," 2008 by Lea Keohane. All Rights Reserved.

My little brother, Dylan (yes, named after Bob), is 30 years old. Ever since the clock turned on his February birthday, we two Aquarians have both been in our 30's and let me tell you, that is just weird to think about. As I write this, Dylan and his daughter, my niece, are on an airplane on their way to come for a week-long visit. It is making me a bit nostalgic this morning.

When we were kids, at almost exactly 2 years apart, we were really close. A lot of my childhood memories are at my dad's house, which is weird because we only spent every other weekend there. Like a lot of divorced families, though, one parent has to deal with the day to day discipline, errands, homework, chores while the other parent gets to try to make up for missing out on it all by having a mini-vacation with few rules every other weekend.

Every other weekend. We would eat at Wendy's, rent a ton of videos and video games, and spend the weekend at our dad's playing in between watching all of those videos. We would spend whole days in the 3-foot-tall above-ground swimming pool until our sides were cramped and Dylan's shoulders were covered in painful burns and water blisters, until I had a deep tan and my stepmom would call me her little island girl, until we decided to cover the yard with a plastic drop-cloth and call it a slip-and-slide (not quite the same, let me tell you).

Then my dad and stepmom (now ex-step) bought a house in Colorado's foothills, and while the schedule stayed the same, our stomping ground grew. We would ride our bikes around long curvy roads to the store to buy candy, play with the goats and feed the chickens, run around on the giant hill that was nested up against the back of my dad's property. On that hill was a cave that we would dare each other to walk through. At the other end of the cave was an opening through which we could see the 2-lane-highway far below.

These are some of the best memories that I have of my childhood. There were times when I was in high school and was much moodier, that I didn't want him around as as much, and as we became adults and life got in the way we often didn't stay in very close touch. But we have always been close. I can't wait to spend this week with my brother.

Her Spirit Lifts

"Her Spirit Lifts," 2008. All Rights Reserved.

You never know when something will happen, when your life, your perspective will change suddenly. Something that forces you to step back and re-assess what you have, what your goals are, what will make you happy. How to really achieve whatever it is that you want in life. Something that will make you break apart your preconceptions, set aside your baggage, and try to start anew.

This is just one of those weeks.

Planet Earth Sketches

Indigo and I recently finished watching the BBC series, "Planet Earth" on DVD. A truly stunning series, with footage that beats the pants off of any nature special you have ever seen before. It was aired on the Discovery Channel, but if you have not seen it already I would highly recommend picking it up. I would also recommend the original BBC version narrated by David Attenborough as the American version has Sigourney Weaver narrating, and while I love her acting, her voice is not nearly as interesting to listen to as Attenborough's.

While I was watching, I couldn't help but pick up my sketchbook and start drawing, especially during some of the episodes I had already seen. Most of my work is figurative, and while I have a lot of experience drawing people, I have much less drawing animals. It was fun to catch some of their movements on paper, and I came up with some really fun sketches, like the baby elephant pictured above.

Coming this week!

The past few weeks, I have been hard at work. Art work, that is. I am drawing every day, painting at least one whole day every week, and whatever else I can squeeze in to my schedule.
Which means I have several new pieces--at least 10 ACEO's, 4 new paintings, and possibly more to add to my etsy shop this week!

I will begin listing them around 10 am (Pacific Time) on Wednesday morning. I hope to see you then!

Depth of Change

I don't know if it's the depth of change brought on by the art business class that I am taking, or the fact that I am not 100% sure of where my income is coming from right now, or the exhaustion I am experiencing from sleeping on a broken bed and dreaming about killing zombies (seriously), or the intense email that I just got from my dad, but I AM DRAINED.

For the past week and a half I am supposed to be working on de-cluttering my space, and organizing my time and money. But I feel like for every step I take I add three more steps to the list. I guess that is just what deep cleaning does, but today I am frustrated.

On a more positive note, I have been waking up every single morning, brewing a cup of coffee, choosing a song on my iPod that affects me strongly, and playing that song over several times while I draw in my sketchbook. This morning my drawing went quickly, so I also made a little ACEO, pictured above, entitled, "Squid Love #1."

HAPPY VALENTINES DAY!

In celebrations of this lovely holiday, I am offering all of the pendants in my shop at 50% off! Stop by the sale section of my shop and check it out!

Autumn

"Autumn," 2008, by Lea Keohane. Acrylic and oil on masonite. 18" x 24".

I finished this painting last week, in time to bring it along to Crafty Wonderland. I built my painting surface as always, by putting a support frame on the back of a sheet of masonite, then gessoing the whole things, edges and all. Someone asked me las week if I hated putting the gesso on the canvas, but I actually love it. Building my painting surface is kind of meditative for me, and it feels good to end up with this gorgeous white surface to paint on. I do need an electric miter saw, though--the only part I hate is trying to cut the frame pieces with a miter box and a hand saw!

"Autumn" is the first in a new series, painting the seasons. Not very deep, perhaps, but fun and lovely. Each season gives me such a different feeling, I would like to express it. I am also working on developing some aspects of my visual language, and this series will give me the means to do so. This particular piece has a hint of an Art Nouveau-inspired border. I did an acrylic underpainting, made stencils of the leaves in the background, and used oil for the figure, the border, and the border leaves. Now all I need is a better picture! I was having some glare issues :)