art poster - Thru The Arts I.... From Art Therapy Without Borders

Great poster from the Art Therapy Without Borders page on Facebook. Gives a few good things art helps us with.

New painting - Babs Covered Bridge - Maine

This is a picture I got off the Maine Office of Tourism Facebook page. Its the Babs Covered Bridge in South Windham Maine. 11 x 14 oil on canvas board. Not up there with my best work, but still pretty good.

Sort of an art thing - a week of Palidrome dates

I realize this may not be an art issue , but its a cool thing anyway. This week 4/12/14 thru 4/19/14 the dates are all palidromes (if you you have the year as the last two numbers) . The numbers are the same backwards and forwards. Cool!

Be Brave - Make Art Guest post by Donna Zagotta on Fine Art Tips

One of the blogging artists I admire  and read all the time is Lori McNee on her Fine Art Tips FB and Twitter pages. She will many times pass along other artists posts and I have passed those along before.. This is another good. Its a post by Donna Zagotta called Be Brave Make Art
some passages from that posting

"This world can be a scary place. There are plenty of people making very good money stirring up fear and hatred and calling it entertainment. Or even news. But there’s at least one way out of fear. Be brave, make art!

Why? Because art teaches us not to be afraid. Because every time we make art, we have to face our fears and overcome them. Do that enough, and you just might realize you’re capable not only in art, but other areas as well."

First, there’s that scary white surface. Paper, canvas, wood, it doesn’t matter. It’s blank and you have to fill it
Whew, you’re done. You kind of like this one. Now what? Don’t hide it up in your attic…dust-bunnies don’t appreciate your hard work. Shine your light
You may not make a lot of money (or maybe you will). Your friends may not like it (or maybe they will). You may not sell it (or maybe you will). But you will be one step closer to being unafraid.

fun posters that encourage artists from Artify It

There are a number of artist oriented sites on Facebook, one being artifyit. They will publish posters are intended to give us artistic types a boost and celebrate our "uniqueness"  and a mashup or two. I some times use them as a profile pic for my Facebook art page Check these out. Will put up more in the future

My niece's wedding present - my Paper Mill Covered Bridge painting

When my paintings started to become something I thought was presentable, my main intention was to give them as wedding gifts and the occasional 50th anniversary gift. I painted occasionally when the mood struck and an upcoming wedding  was the usual motivation.  I have given over 20+ paintings as gifts and I did not keep track of who I gave what to. Only in the past 2 or 3 years has painting become a move active activity in my life, trying to display and sell them and items based on them, but I still give them as wedding gifts.

My niece Christine got married to Frank Portera on March 28th and a month or so before a I asked her what she would like in a painting - one of my current stock or if there was a photo she would like painted. The question never got a definite answer, so I chose one of my current paintings  -  Paper Mill Village Covered Bridge - Bennington VT. Hope they like it