Open Studios

After several years of opting out, I decided to try and participate in San Francisco Open Studios. Oftentimes, at my old studio, the Open Studios weekend was just too stressful, and since I was working a day job, trying to maintain enough work to support a gallery and solo show plus put in time for Open Studios was too much.

However, I think now that I have more time to devote to painting, I can handle the extra workload.

Above are 3 of the BDSM skeleton paintings that I finished. Today, I started background layers on two more panels. So for the series, I have three paintings done, two panels that are about 75% complete, and two rather incomplete panels with just backgrounds blocked in.

SFMOMA Sketch Friday

SF Museum of Modern Art invited artists (or anyone who loves to draw) to attend Sketch Friday. They even provided sketchbooks which are returned at the end of the session. These books end up being a record of all these sessions, with different artists' works. We all went in to draw what we wanted to from the Avedon exhibit (a wonderful and fun exhibit, by the way!)

Here are the drawings I completed in around 2-1/2 hours. Fortunately, was able to find a bench in front of the Warhol Factory photo with the grouped nude human figures.

It was a lot of fun. And sketching makes you slow down and really see the artwork instead of just glancing at it and walking away. I'll probably do this again in a couple of weeks.

After the event, I went back to the studio to work late, until 10 p.m. I just installed some new lights. The studio is a wonderful place to work after dark.