Posts Tagged ‘dog painting’

Carrie’s Painting of the Week – 6/19/2013

Wednesday, June 19th, 2013
Jilly!  Oil on canvas, 12x12, commission

Jilly!
Oil on canvas, 12×12, commission

By Carrie Jacobson

The hot afternoon had rolled into dusk, humidity kicking up in its wake. To the east, over the ocean, the solid gray sky had cracked in places, showing blue. But in the field beyond our yard, a line of heavy, tropical rain made its way toward us.
Peter called me, and we stood in the doorway and watched it head across the field. It approached as a grayish line, looking almost like a living thing – a herd of deer, a flock of geese. The torrents slammed and bounced off the ground, and we could hear it coming, and then in an instant, the rain was pounding on the doorstep, soaking us, soaking everything, and passing then just as fast.
Summer starts on Friday, but it felt to me that it rolled in with this downpour, sudden, tropical, refreshing.
***
ON TUESDAY, I had a fantastic opportunity to do a podcast with Connie Mettler, on Art Fair Insiders, a site that would interest any artist – or fair-goer. Connie had read about the “Tubac and Back” trip, and thought it was an interesting idea.
She invited me and a wonderful artist named Scott Coleman to talk about our other-than-art-show projects. Among Scott’s many ideas and achievements, he did a project that involved painting a cupcake a day (well, six a week) for a year.  They are just fantastic!
You can hear the podcast by clicking here. Here’s the actual link, too: http://www.blogtalkradio.com/artfairs/2013/06/18/art-fair-alternatives–part-i-two-painters

Carrie’s Painting of the Week – 3/6/13 (and more)

Wednesday, March 6th, 2013
Roy
Oil on canvas, 18×18
not for sale

Around Christmas, my friend Ronet Noe, who is a fabulous painter and a delightful person, gave me a painting that I gave to our daughter as a Christmas present. Erika, said daughter, had fallen in love with the painting at the Mystic Outdoor Art Festival. Ronet wanted a portrait of her dog, Roy. So we traded, one for one.

Roy was one of the paintings I was determined to finish before leaving on my painting trip to Tubac – and so here he is! I really love this painting, and as so often happens to me while I am painting a dog, I lost my heart a little bit to Roy.

***

SPEAKING OF DOGS, I was accepted again this year into Paws for Charity, the fabulous pet-art-book project by Sara Harley. Sara says that there are 90 participants this year! You can check the project out at PawsforCharity.blogspot.com, and also on Facebook at www.facebook.com/PawsforCharity.

The books are not out yet, but I encourage you to buy one when they do come out. They’re not cheap, but they are beautiful, and all the money raised goes to help a shelter in Canada. The artists get no money, Sara gets no money – but the animals do, and that’s why I do it. (Also, it’s great to see my paintings in a book!)

Here’s a copy of my page:

***
THE PROMISED UPDATE! 
I am well on my way to being prepared to leave on Saturday on my painting trip to Tubac, AZ. I am thrilled and thankful to have 20 sponsors – and quite the painting challenge!
I’ll be driving out along the coasts of North and South Carolina, across Florida and Alabama, then into Louisiana, going through Houma and New Iberia. If any of you are familiar with the books of James Lee Burke, you’ll know that his great character Dave Robicheaux lives in New Iberia, so I am particularly thrilled to be headed there!
Here’s a photo of the van, with the beginning of shelving and internal structures for storing stuff and hanging wet paintings:
and here’s a photo of my happy helper:

 

Carrie’s Painting of the Week – 2/25/2013

Monday, February 25th, 2013

Red. Donation to the shelter in Onley, VA

Where the HECK have I been?

After a daunting trip to Florida, I traveled to Hartford, CT, and participated as a vendor at the King’s Foot Guard Dog Show – and had a great time. I got one big commission – and an abstract one at that (check out Roy and Bert to see what I mean), which makes me so happy.

I love painting these, the abstracts, but making them is terrifying. There can be no mistakes, none. You put a mark on the canvas, and there it stands, naked, without coverup or background. No changing your mind! No second guessing!

So much like the very best moments in life, yes? Those moments when you have the courage to jump, the strength not to look back, the serenity not to question yourself.

***

Followers of my blog, The Accidental Artist, will remember the Art for Shelter Animals Project, which I started years ago with my friend Shiela Tajima. ASAP has languished for well more than a year now, as I got too busy with Patch and with life to give it the attention it deserves.

It’s time to start it up again, and I’d like to invite any and all of you who make art to consider joining me in relaunching the project.

Here’s how it works. You make a portrait of an animal in your local shelter or with a local rescue group, you send me a jpg of the portrait, and then you give it to the shelter or rescue group. They can do whatever they want with it. Anything. Once you give it, the piece is theirs. The more creative the shelter, the more uses they will find.

And more than anything, the shelter will be grateful. They’ll be thrilled to have the painting and happy for the attention.

It was making paintings for ASAP that liberated me in terms of using colors, and using the palette knife, really. The shelters are so happy to have the pieces that there is No Pressure At All. Making these portraits showed me that dogs can be painted in shades of green and purple and still be recognized.

Please join me! Make a portrait of an animal in your local shelter, or with your local rescue group, and donate it. Send me a jpg before you give the piece away, though! You can go to the shelter and take photos, or do what I do and use Petfinder.com.

This is a great way to help your community, to help some dogs and cats and rabbits and whatever else is in your shelter, and to do it without involving money. If you teach art classes, it’s a great topic for an art class, too!

Thank you for considering it!

***
I leave in about 10 days for my Arizona journey, To Tubac and Back. This is going to be such a fun trip, for all sorts of reasons, not the least of which is I get to visit my dad and his wife in their beautiful home in Tubac, an hour or so south of Tucson.

I’m in a show in Tucson, and have found out that an old friend of mine lives there, so that’s an extra added bonus!

Also, I am going to drive out through Mississippi and Alabama, places I’ve never been, and am so excited to see – and paint.

Carrie’s Painting of the Week – 02/14/13

Wednesday, February 13th, 2013

Storm in the Black Dirt

By Carrie Jacobson

I’ve had a couple bad experiences in Florida, and so, for now, for the foreseeable future, I am staying away.

And I had been so hopeful! This most recent show was a fine art show, put on by the Boca Raton Museum of Art. I was honored to get in, and as I walked the show Saturday morning (or in my case, limped the show), I was thrilled by the quality of the art – and how well my stuff measured up.

That moment of happiness feels like it warmed me a lifetime ago.

For me, and everyone near me, the rest of the show was awful. No one in my general vicinity had anything amounting to good sales. And the people who came to the show looked like they were so unhappy to be there! If there is one thing I know, it’s that unhappy people don’t buy art.

So I am writing Florida off – almost. On my way home, I stopped to see a friend from The Record. She has all sorts of ties and memories to the Black Dirt Region, and bought this painting, one of my all-time favorites, and saved Florida from being a total loss for me.

This weekend, I am pushing myself hard to try something new: a dog show! I’m going to unpack my van, gather all my dog paintings, repack the van and head to Connecticut. The show is at the XL Center in Hartford, and is on Saturday and Sunday, if you’re in the area. It should be fun!

Carrie’s Painting of the Week – 12/6/12

Wednesday, December 5th, 2012

Daphne

By Carrie Jacobson

It was warm enough today, and bug-free enough, that we left the back door open so the dogs could go in and out at will, for the first time in their lives.

Clearly, it was liberation for them, and they spent hours running in and out – just because they could. Then Smokey sat in the sun in the open doorway, while Jojo lay in the sun in the yard, and we all soaked it up like the miracle it was.

Earlier in the day, when the door had still been closed, I’d heard the dogs doing something, again and again, making some metal on metal noise. I looked out of the open door of the boat-garage studio where I was painting, and though I couldn’t see what they were doing, I thought it might have something to do with the gates, and a potential escape, so I took them inside.

When I came back out, I heard the noise again, and realized where it was coming from – the rusty 40-foot-tall antenna that the previous owner installed, and which towers frighteningly over our house. It’s footed in a block of cement, and probably is stable, but still, it looks terrible, and if it ever toppled, would cause all sorts of trouble.

The noise, I realized, was caused by a bird, probably a crow, tossing pecans down inside the antenna, probably in an effort to break them.

Or maybe, just maybe, he did it just because he could.