Merry Christmas

Wishing all of you a wonderful Christmas and a new year filled with color, discovery and lots of joy!!

Please sign up to continue reading my revised blog starting Jan 1. You can do this by going to http://www.suechurchgrant.com
(Link here) and clicking on a sign up button.

ANOTHER REMINDER: Make the SWITCH

Three days until Christmas and 9 days til the start of 2017 and my new blog. Thank you to many of you who have taken the time to sign up for the switch. Here is the info for any of you who have missed this.

I have been working on copy for my blog (aka newsletter) that will be completely redone and ready with the arrival of 2017.

Depending on your interest, I  know you won't want to miss the tips, the step-by-step process descriptions or other surprises.

To make sure you receive this in your e mail inbox, you are going to have to re sign up because I will be switching to mail chimp as my platform. To sign up, you will have to click on this link which will take you to my web page. On most of the pages you will find a subscribe link or button. After you fill in your e mail, you will be prompted to activate your signup by a follow up e mail. I hope you will take a few minutes and sign up. I will re post this, in case you forget. Thank you, again!!

REMINDER ABOUT ENDING OF THIS BLOG

This is a commission that was gifted ahead of Christmas. I loved painting it. Horses are so regal and the shine on their coats is amazing.

Thank you to the many of you who have already signed up for my new blog starting 2017. You can stop reading here.

For anyone who missed my previous post, here is the scoop:
I have been working on copy for my blog (aka newsletter) that will be completely redone and ready with the arrival of 2017.

Depending on your interest, I  know you won't want to miss the tips, the step-by-step process descriptions or other surprises.

To make sure you receive this in your e mail inbox, you are going to have to re sign up because I will be switching to mail chimp as my platform. To sign up, you will have to click on this link which will take you to my web page. On most of the pages you will find a subscribe link or button. After you fill in your e mail, you will be prompted to activate your signup by a follow up e mail. I hope you will take a few minutes and sign up. I will re post this, in case you forget. Thank you, again!!

HOW TO SIGN UP FOR MY NEW NEWSLETTER/BLOG

My eyes feel like this parrot's look. I have spent hours today beginning the update of my webpage and working on copy for my blog (aka newsletter) that will be completely redone and ready with the arrival of 2017.

Depending on your interest, I  know you won't want to miss the tips, the step-by-step process descriptions or other surprises.

To make sure you receive this in your e mail inbox, you are going to have to re sign up because I will be switching to mail chimp as my platform. To sign up, you will have to click on this link which will take you to my web page. On most of the pages you will find a subscribe link or button. After you fill in your e mail, you will be prompted to activate your signup by a follow up e mail. I hope you will take a few minutes and sign up. I will re post this, in case you forget.

Gold Leafed Monarch

Gold Leaf Monarch/ oil and gold leaf  on board/ 5 x 7
Purchase here

When I visited my artist sister Kate Church (link), we talked about gold leafing. (Kate had recently purchased one of my golf-leaf enhanced watercolors. Yes, I did write "purchased". Kate is an amazing artist. She understands the expense of art materials and refused to accept my work as a gift. Instead, she gave ME a wonderful gift. Her ongoing support and confidence are so much and always appreciated).
So here is my first gold leaf-enhanced oil painting. Those of you close to me know that raising monarchs is a passion of mine. This is one of my monarchs that flew this fall. I had such a great time working on this that I purchase silver and copper (and more gold) leaf to try!!

I have also promised a new blog format for 2017. To kick it off, I will be offering a little "give away". If you already subscribe to my blog, you will be entered. If you know someone who might want to subscribe, check it out in Jan and share (tell me with whom) and I will enter you again for your referral (and if your person actually subscribes, they will be entered). Hope your holiday shopping is going well!!

Little Pig (who is glad he is not a Turkey)

Little Pig/ oil on gesso board/ 6 x 6/ SOLD

I have been experimenting with layering thicker paint to achieve more texture. and mingling colors. Animals seem to be good subjects to try this with.

I am also painting over an under color. This one was black flat acrylic paint. If you look closely, you can see small pieces of black peeking out.

I am continuing to work on revising my blog for 2017. ..

Happy Thanksgiving!!!

Gold Leaf Watercolors

Gold Duck/ watercolor and gold leaf/ 7 x 6
Purchase here

This morning, I reworked some little gold leaf watercolors that needed just a little more value. Here they are: just in time for the holidays!

They look great as a collection. Which is your favorite?

Gold Egret/ watercolor and gold leaf/ 6 x 8.5
Purchase here

Gold Rabbit/ watercolor and gold leaf/ 6.25 x 6.5
Purchase here

Christmas Angels

Christmas Angel Blues/ oil on panel, 7 x 5/ SOLD

The second (the first was not a "keeper") in a series of "mud faced" angels. Camille Przewodek describes simplifying her beautiful painted faces as "mud faces". When I went recently to buy birthday cards at Hallmark, I found these beautiful simple "mud-faced" figurines. Their wings are a wire ribbon arrangement. However, they gave me the idea of posing them, re dressing them and adding holiday poinsettia or holly while playing with color.

Christmas Angel Reds/ oil on panel/ 7 x 5/ SOLD

This is the third one.

Special Holiday Priced Studies

Apple Study #1/ 4 x 4/ oil on gessobord/
will be shipped in a Priority Flat rate envelope

I have a class this weekend of relatively new painters. To help with the expense of supplies, we are working with a limited number of paints. To be as familiar as possible (this week) with these paints, I did a series of small paintings. I also worked on limiting the number of brushstrokes. I used on each study. The galleries where I sell most of my work, prefers larger paintings. Therefore, I painted  4 x 4 boards that I have currently. I am offering these little paintings at what might be an attractive price for a holiday gift.  This is only an online or pickup sale and will be available only until Thanksgiving.

Apple Study #2/ 4 x 4/ see above

Grapefruit Study/ 4 x 4/ see above

Update on 2017 Calendars

2017 calendars have been proofed and are currently in production

$24.95 plus NC tax if applicable
 plus $6.45 Priority Mail shipping, if desired

Pay Pal button available on the right margin or you can bring a check and pick up your calendar in person (Your NC total including tax will be $26.63)

I added quotes this year. Let me know what you think.

Calendars 2017 and please send me your baby images

It is that time of year where I go  through the year's paintings and select what I think are the best for the calendar. Interesting to me, is my favorites seem to be yours also. Almost all of the images I have picked are sold and in your collections.

The largest expense for calendars is always the shipping from the company, so I like to have an idea of how many I might need to order to avoid a second order (shipping cost). If you know that you will want a calendar this year, please let me know. The cost will be $24.95 and I may try first class mail instead of priority shipping for people who can't pick them up.

While I am updating this blog, I'll let you know what I am up to. First, I am working on a series of "newborn" images. If you have one of those hospital images of a little one swaddled in a hospital blanket and are willing to share to with me, I will continue to work to make these look like the correct babies. If  yours is one that I achieve a likeness while I am learning, I will gift you your baby painting, if you allow me to post it so that I can advertise to do this (ALL IF because this is definitely a work in progress)

In addition, I am working on an outline to make this blog more useful, especially to my students and I hope to launch that early in 2017
My big watercolor show deadlines start to pile up at the end of the year and into January.  I have some new experimental work that I hope to enter (and eventually share). These pieces are strong compositionally so that will add to the goal of the blog relaunch of useful information in this forum.


Thanks for reading. Have a great weekend.

Revised Completely

So far, this is just an i phone image of this painting on my easel.
 Yesterday, while I was warming up, I took from my stack of "something isn't quite right after I have lived with these paintings" and repainted the vase.  I wanted it less tight. Next, I repainted the sunflowers to be a sunny yellow. Better with the yellow, I changed to more purple hydrangeas. The white on the coneflower petals cooled and dulled them. These changes meant that I wanted to brighten the background ....

One change in your painting usually means that something else needs to change...

Totally different
I will look again later and see if I am happy now!!

Summer Bouquet

Summer Bouquet/ oil on canvas board/ 7 x 5/

My garden is filled with clean, intense beautiful flowers including torch tithonia and zinnias. Usually daily, I paint some of them. Most days, I also wipe these little paintings. As soon as I add white to the colors, they lose their intensity. Consequently,  the painting is not at all what I want.
Today, I started again.  I painted with transparent colors as long as possible and then tried to keep from "snuffing out the life" of the painting with the opaques (including white).

Designer Grapefruits

Designer Grapefruits/ oil in stretched canvas/ 8 x 10/

Another painting using thick paint. This time, I also imagined I as painting for a "designer kitchen".

Perhaps also interesting is that this painting was painted over some failed zinnias.

Little Puppy

Puppy/ oil on stretched canvas/ 7 x 5/

This is a little painting where I was working on getting the oil paint applied more thickly. I decided to try adding different mediums to do this. This painting used  Liquid Impasto. The description states This is a semi-gloss, quick-drying, non-yellowing impasto medium that retains crisp textures and brush strokes without any visible leveling. It also extends tube color, provides bulk, and allows more blending time. When dry, it forms a flexible, tough film that can be varnished in the normal way. Use it for heavier brush work or palette knives. It is not recommended for use as a varnish or final coat.

I have also been working through the lessons that Nancy Medina recently provided. I hope that you will se some of her color influences in upcoming paintings. 

Sunflower and Zinnia Study

Sunflower and Zinnia Study/ oil on canvas board/ 5 x 7/

Often, when there are long absences on this blog, there is a trail of ripped paper or wiped canvases at my house as I struggle to work on some new thing that I desperately want to master.

I think this painting may be a breakthrough for me. The recent goals (in oil) are CLEAN color and flowers that don't look "pasted on".
Okay, so "clean color"'
You have to put clean fresh color, mixed to exactly the right color pieces from your palette onto the right place on a clean canvas. That means, when the color is not correct (and you tell this by looking, then looking, then looking), you have to wipe back to the white of the canvas and reapply the correct color. If you try to "mix it" on the canvas to the correct color, it will grow dull (faster if you are using opaques and really greyed out if there are whites in your mixtures).
To be able to wipe back to white, I like the canvas surface I posted last time. I also begin my painting by applying a thin (and wiped) layer of gambol or medium.
The"unpasted part" is harder (for me) and I will write about that next time.

Cross your fingers that this is integrated and that I am truly on a path forward...

Susans and Daisies

Susans and Daisies/ oil on stretched canvas/ 10 x 8

Recently, I have been mostly painting on oil primed canvas. I especially like "Centurion" brand sold by Jerry's Artarama.

 Usually I paint on their canvas boards but today's paintings was painted on a gallery-wrapped canvas. The Centurion surface allows me to paint a thin underpainting layer (see the grey purple at the bottom) and wipe back to white areas that I want to eventually paint intense clean color (the bright yellow Susan's petals). (It also wipes failed paintings back to white). This surface has a nice texture and "grabs" the paint better than the slick surface of gesso board. It also makes painting looser edges easier.

I began this painting sitting on the ground outside in my garden. I added thicker additional layers of color inside in my studio.

"Hot Colors" and Gold Duck

"Hot, Hot, Hot"/ oil on board/ 8 x 10/

This is an experiment with color. My objective was to make the painting feel "hot". To do this, I used clean intense colors. I especially liked the cad red shadows and the hint of pink in the sand.

I also have been working on my gold leaf watercolors. In this image, I chose to leave it un cropped to show the irregular edges.

Hidden Goldfinches

I just returned from a visit with my talented sister Kate Church. I attended her 20 year exhibition as an artist. Kate, her artsy house, Nova Scotia and her 100 fairies and wonderful paintings were all inspirational. I hope that upcoming work will reflect some of it.
Today, while I sort laundry, catch up sales and details, I touched up a painting I started before my trip.

I adore goldfinches. I have a family in my yard presently. I love how well they "blend into" the brown-eyed Susans that have gone crazy and are growing (probably from the seeds that last year's goldfinch family sowed) everywhere. Artistically, I am continuing to work on edges. I find "regular" petals on flowers like Susan's and daisies to be challenging. First, I make them too uniform. Then I adjust them and struggle with too loose..