Sheila M. Evans

Things are starting to happen in the new studio! After spending a weekend moving in (enough to start painting, anyway) I got to work on my first oil painting in my new digs. It went surprisingly fast, which I have decided to attribute to the good energy in the room. Pretty impressive for a 100+-year-old basement. I would have expected something, well… spooky. But it is just the opposite—cozy and inviting.

Shiva (above) practically painted itself. It is not completed in the photo, but it was finished maybe an hour after that. One more piece ready for the Kress Gallery show in May! By the way, I do plan to start posting my more professional-looking “official” art photos again soon. One side effect of my ongoing move has been to separate my art and workspace from my usual photography spot, but I’ll get that worked out shortly.

Oh, by the way, I seem to have  a correction due… last summer I mentioned that I won an award and thus a re-invite to the Edmonds Arts Festival this June. Turns out the award does not include a re-invite after all! Ooops. Anyway, I went ahead and applied so we’ll see what happens. It would be pretty sad if I didn’t get in after all that, but I guess I’ll just have to wait for it! (LOL!)

So this has been an incredibly busy week. For the five of you who actually read this, I apologize for my recent lack of posts. Between the holidays, my upcoming shows, and my sudden realization that my in-home studio wasn’t cutting it, I’ve been a bit overwhelmed.

My plan since early December had been to start painting my three-panel luna moth oil this coming week. I recognized that studio hours would be spotty at best until after the new year and had been thinking about finding a new work space, as I mentioned. But as I started prepping the canvases, it became clear that the three panels literally would not fit in my current space. Not without wrapping around a corner, anyway, which posed a big logistical problem. So I got it into my head that I would find a studio that I could work in by Monday (tomorrow).

Last weekend I started, with the help of family and friends, looking around town for some possibilities, and on Monday I started calling. The first few spaces sounded promising, in funky old buildings with great locations. But there were downsides. The first space I actually got to see was in a building I’ve always loved for its great windows and light, but the spaces available inside were windowless, depressing offices… not at all what I had pictured. The next few places seemed promising but ended up being loud, tiny, or otherwise not as advertised. Read more

Today is Solstice, and it feels like time for new beginnings. Of course there are a few holidays ahead, but shortly, hopefully, I can get back into the groove and do some serious painting.

The past few months have been like those dreams where I run and get nowhere… with so many shows and so much to do, there was always something standing between me and the studio.  Right after the Sausalito show, the flu took me out until the Little Spokane studio tour. October was spent planning and sketching for upcoming shows, and starting to build up some creative momentum–just in time for jury duty in November, Thanksgiving week and the regular interruptions that are part of the holiday season.

So once again, I’m looking forward to January. My first big project will be Las Lunas, the large three-panel oil mentioned in the previous post (the pastel study is shown above). Some major rearranging of my tiny back-room studio was required to even fit the three 3′ x 3′ canvases, but it will have to work for now.

Something hopefully good has come of this sometimes frustrating few months: between the challenges of maintaining my schedule working at an in-home studio, and my desire to begin painting more large format pieces, I’ve decided it’s time to start looking for an off-site studio. More about that in the next few months, I hope. In the meantime, happy Solstice!

Now that the small works shows are all on, it’s time to get serious about making some big pieces. I’ve got two more gallery shows and a lot of wall space to fill and basically less than two months to paint. Today I finished Blue Suspension No.5 (left) which I started last week. Now I am working on a pastel study for what I hope will be a major triptych in oil—three 3′x3′ panels—if the pastel turns out as planned.

The idea for the triptych is to be leaves arranged to resemble a group of luna moths in flight. I’m hoping it works out well, especially since a collection of coincidences are making me think I have some strange connection to these moths. It started when I did a similar small work last week or so. As I finished and was trying to name it, I decided it might look like a luna moth. I liked the name “luna,” anyway.  But I actually didn’t have any idea what a luna moth looked like. Hoping the name would work out, I Googled luna moths and found that, luckily, they looked very much like what I had painted.

I liked the small painting, but decided it might have more impact with more “moths,” and planned to use the idea in the big three-panel format I had been wanting to try. With all the panels combined, it will be the largest oil painting I have done to date, so of course I’ve been feeling a little nervous about diving into the project. (My friend Neicy and I were just discussing how with each new painting, we sometimes suddenly feel as if we will have forgotten how to paint!) Anyway, on a holiday shopping trip downtown this weekend, I walked into Atticus, an awesome local gift/coffee shop, and the first thing I saw was this big, sparkly luna moth ornament. Given that a week before I would have had no idea what it was, I thought that was a pretty cool find. So I spent a whopping four dollars and took it home for inspiration.

Here’s hoping my new lucky moth gets me through the next few months with a ton of good work for my next two shows!

I’m on jury duty this week, and thus far it has been the easiest jury duty EVER. After a two-hour orientation Monday morning, the roomful of potential jurors was sent home after all three cases settled. We weren’t called back for Tuesday and yesterday was a holiday. Today, still no jurors needed. One more day and a new set of jurors rotates in, putting me into the backup group for one week and that is it. If the case load stays this low, I can only imagine the two hours on Monday will be the entire extent of it. I have seriously lucked out. Not that I was unwilling to do it—in fact, I found the process fascinating. But with as much as I have on my plate right now, I really needed the time.

So, with my bonus week I got to finish Fall Garden No.3, left, and start work on another big pastel for my show at the Tinman Gallery. I really need to be painting in oils, but they will have to wait another week or so. Being on call makes me really appreciate the fact that I can put down and pick up pastels anytime without worrying about them being too dry, too wet, or too anything. Of course that doesn’t mean they are always so easy. The  big pastel on my easel right now is giving me absolute fits, and taking way too long. But since I might not be here at all right now, save for the county’s light case load, I really can’t complain. Or shouldn’t, anyway.

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(Too bad I live in the city. There could have been a Rural Juror joke in there somewhere. Oh, well.)

“I love deadlines. I like the whooshing sound they make as they fly by.” - Douglas Adams

I have a lot of painting to do. A lot. I mean, I knew I did, but the magnitude of the job ahead of me is really starting to hit home as I count down to four gallery shows coming up in the next few months. It’s a great problem to have, don’t get me wrong. But I probably need to complete ten small works, ten large oils and ten large pastels by February (the oils show is in May, but the oil paintings will need time to dry before varnishing). And with jury duty (*sigh*) next week and the holidays coming up, I will have to reach a previously unheard-of level of efficiency to get it all done. Wish me luck. Please.

(Isis Study, left, will be at the Tinman Gallery’s December small works show. I hope to use it as a study for a large oil to show in my Kress Gallery solo oils exhibit opening in May.)

At last, I’ve painted in oil again. It was a long time coming, between summer shows and testing out some new ideas with small pastel pieces, but I finally walked the two steps over to my oil easel and picked up a brush or two. Loved it, of course. I always do, although I’m still working out the bugs to make my studio lighting better for oils. Maybe a bank of north-facing windows and a skylight? Not likely since I’m working on the first floor of a two-story, 100-year-old house that I’m pretty sure would be seriously insulted by a remodel. As it should be.

Oh, well. Lighting considerations aside, I’m happy to have one more piece ready to help fill the enormous Kress Gallery for my oils show opening in May. The painting, Medusa, is a re-thought version of Medusa Study, the small pastel I posted a few weeks ago. Now that I’ve broken the ice a bit, I’m looking forward to more of what the oil side will bring.

It seems that I am barely back from the last round of shows when the juries start for the next round. My first deadline is in about a month and a half. It seems like I just did this around, oh, yesterday or so. Has it really been a year?

At least my previous show entry mistakes are still fresh in my mind. Last year I started entering shows as soon as they started accepting entries. Never again. After submitting my images, I changed my mind about what I wanted to enter. But once submitted, the entries were basically set in stone. This year I plan to spend the time leading up to those deadlines producing more options rather than kicking myself.

Generally about four art images are needed for an entry. I could easily find four images each of pastels and oils that I think are strong enough to show a jury, but here’s the thing: they need to look great together, not just on their own. And right now, I have three of each that I am happy with. So in the next month and a half, I need to come up with one strong oil and one strong pastel that flow with the other pieces. It’s an oddly difficult thing to do, but I’m enjoying the process. It gets me back into my painting groove, and even if some of the paintings don’t match my jury images, I do have several shows coming up that need new work. Win-win.

(Above, a sketch for a possible pastel jury image, Warm Spring Study.)