New Art Studio!

After a month long renovation, my new studio at Orange Ave Studios, downtown Fort Pierce, is finally complete.  I moved all my painting gear from home and got it all organized and started work on a new painting last Saturday.  It was so great to have it finished and all my finished paintings hung!!!  I still need to paint the door as you can see, but that will be a quick process.  That cute chair in the corner will also get a coat of paint at some point.

There is even space to teach a small class at the long table!  Tonight for Art Walk, I will be teaching people how to paint a 3"x5" pear in acrylic paint on paper that they can paint in just a few minutes and take home with them.  A "Make and Take".  Perhaps it will inspire people to come back for a class.  ;-)

Oil and Cold Wax Class

Goodness, it's been way too long since I've posted!!  I was just in the most wonderful oil and cold wax class this weekend with all the same artists I learned it with initially last year.  We all had such a great time this time! Much more relaxed and less frenzied since we all knew what to expect and have been creating oil and cold wax over the past year.

Here are my 12 completed pieces.  The first four are 8"x8", the second four are 10"x10" and the last four are 12"x12".  Once they have dried, I will buff them out with a clear coat of wax, photograph them and put them for sale on my website.  It was great fun, and I worked all the pieces in a complimentary palette.  I've been working on a 100 artworks challenge for the past few months in watercolor using the three complimentary palettes of red/green, yellow/purple and orange/blue, so that whole idea just spilled over into my oil and cold wax pieces this weekend.  I plan to keep working more oil and cold wax as it's just a different and fun medium to work in.  These are all done on wood panels with 2" deep sides painted black.  They are ready to hang without any hardware.  There is LOTS of texture in each piece, which you may not be able to really see in the photos - but it's there. ;-)

It's quite the messy process!  Here's my work area at the end of two days of class:

I have some beautiful "mono-prints" on newsprint from the subtractive process of the oil and cold wax.  I plan to mount the best ones on card stock, coat with resin and add matting to sell these pieces too.  They will be on either my website or etsy when I finish them.

Evening Glow - Abstract Expressionist Acrylic Painting by Marcy Brennan

Evening Glow - Abstract Expressionist Acrylic Painting - 40"x30" - $1200

I painted this painting twice!  It's an abstracted impression of my sister's backyard.  She and her family live about 10 miles west of the turnpike off Okeechobee Road in the "country" where cattle graze in idyllic pastures and our famous Indian River citrus grows.  Several months ago, we were out there for dinner, and the sun was setting and casting a beautiful light across their backyard.  I snapped a few photos.  Later, I decided to paint the scene you see in the photo below below.  The first painting was a really bad attempt at a more realistic expression of the scene and not at all what I had in mind.  But there were some beautiful green mixes, so I incorporated those in the more abstract expressionist scene you see above.  It turned out exactly how I had envisioned it.  Sometimes, it takes two paintings to get where we want one painting to end up!

My reference photo of the scene:

Buy original and prints here.

New Abstract Watercolors in 100 Paintings Challenge

These are number 5-8 of my abstract watercolor paintings for the 100 Paintings Challenge

I'm actually through 52 paintings, but it takes time to scan them all.  So I'll just post 4 every day or so to get caught up.

I'm using 3 different watercolor palettes of complimentary colors.  One is red and green colors, one is blue and orange colors and one is yellow and purple colors.  Complimentary colors painted together give some interesting subtle grays, so this has been a fun and enlightening exercise.

March's Drawing Winner

The winner of the drawing for a free set of six 5"x5" notecards/envelopes of my painting, Close to Your heart is:

Sandra Maillet - Sandra, please email me at marcybrennan@comcast.net and let me know where you would like me to send your free gift.

If I don't hear from Sandra within 30 days, I will draw another winner.

Round Island Cove Plein Air Oil Painting by Marcy Brennan

Round Island Cove Plein Air Oil on 8"x10" canvas panel - $150

This was painted en plein air at at a beautiful state park on North Hutchinson Island called Round Island. Lots of people go there to kayak. The bay is surrounded by little islands, so the water is warm there and manatee spottings are frequent. In fact, there were two in the bay when I got there.

Buy original and prints here.

Peaceful Morning Plein Air Oil Painting by Marcy Brennan

Peaceful Morning Plein Air Oil Painting - oil on 10" x 8" canvas panel - $150

This was painted en plein air at a lady's house in west Fort Pierce. She was so gracious to invite our plein air group out, and we had gorgeous weather and a lovely morning of painting.

Purchase original and prints here.