Updates from Terri on Her Art Journey
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On Mother’s Day weekend (May 7 and 8), I plan to participate in my first art festival. It’s the annual Henderson Art Festival held in the Water Street District just outside Las Vegas off Boulder Highway. I will be exhibiting in front of City Lights Art Gallery, located at 3 E. Army Street, right off Water Street.
Many, many good artists will be displaying up and down Water Street. So, I need to be a bit selective in the pieces I want to sell. Most of my paintings are landscapes and seascapes, but I also have plenty of flowers. I also have some photography I could display, or even some abstracts. But I feel I need to narrow it to one type of artwork. Since the occasion of this particular festival is MOTHER’S DAY, I’ve decided to bring only my FLORAL ART. Why buy Mom a bouquet of flowers that will be dead in a week, when you can give her a nice piece of original art that will remind her how much you love her for many years?!? So, for the next couple of weeks, I will prepare the paintings of flowers I already have in my inventory, and perhaps I’ll paint a couple more. My plan is to keep my prices low, ranging from $5 for a few 5” x 7” watercolors to no more than $60 for larger pieces in 16” x 16” frames. If you happen to be in or near Las Vegas on May 7 or 8 between 10 a.m. and 4 p.m., I hope you’ll stop by City Lights Art Gallery and pick up one of my paintings. I’d love to see my flowers go to a good home!
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My art journey took a bit of a detour last week when I took a course in portraiture from artist, Jane Armstrong. She uses mixed media, including ink, watercolor and pastel pencils, to create adorable portraits of humans with their fur babies. She calls her course “Best Friends Forever.”
It was quite a departure for me in both subject matter and materials. Never before have I painted a human face or used pastel pencils. It was fun! Because I enjoyed Jane’s technique so much, I decided to paint my first portrait . . . and this is it. It’s my sister with her best friend, Tucker. If you like this style and would like me to paint you with your fur baby, send me your favorite photograph and I’ll see what I can do. Now that we’re well into the second quarter of 2022, it’s time to review the goals I set for myself for the first three months of the year and set some new ones for the next quarter. Let’s see, what were my goals for the first quarter and did I meet any of them? Well, at the beginning of the year I’d vowed to put 50 pieces of art into my inventory on Fine Art America at www.fineartamerica.com/profiles/7-terri-thompson Unfortunately, I managed to only upload 30 new pieces. If I was grading myself, that would be a miserable D-. So, do I lower my ambitious goals or find more time to paint? One of the reasons I painted less than I’d planned, of course, is because I had some significant distractions. Life does seem to get into the way of best-laid plans. But, of course, many of these distractions are quite worthwhile. For example, in addition to the LTPA “Kick Start Your Art Challenge” in January, I participated in an online course sponsored by Laguna Plein Air Painters Association, a workshop at City Lights Art Gallery, and an LTPA acrylic painting challenge. I also attended virtual meetings of Nevada Watercolor Society, City Lights Art Gallery and Las Vegas Artists Guild. Oh yeah, and in March I entered a juried competition at City Lights; didn’t win, of course, but it was a big step for me on my art journey. Another of my goals was to exhibit at the Valentine’s Day Art Fair. Even though my sales were less than stellar, I had a lot of fun and made some good friends. My biggest accomplishment of the first quarter was to complete most of the requirements to be certified by Rod Moore’s Learn To Paint Academy as an MCI (Moore Certified Instructor). In January, I completed all of the ten required painting assignments. In February, I finished the course modules and took the written exam. And in March, I taught my first of two trial painting classes. My plan is to be certified to teach by the end of May, but it looks like I’m going to be done even sooner than that! So, what are my goals for the second quarter? Among the things I MUST do is to build my inventory. Toward that end, I plan to produce and upload at least 30 pieces. That’s just ten each month. I should be able to handle that, right? Another MUST DO is to update my website. I also need to start SELLING some of my work; my little studio is filling up fast. On top of selling some of the paintings I’ve done already, I’d like to sell three commissioned pieces over the next three months. I will continue to stay involved with the local art community by doing volunteer training at Las Vegas Artists Guild, exhibiting at the Henderson Art Festival on Mother’s Day, and entering the juried photo competition at City Lights. That’s a start. Thanks for keeping me accountable! This past weekend I had the pleasure of teaching my second painting class to this lovely family of four. And when I say family, I mean MY family . . . my niece, Nikki, her husband, Scott, and their teenagers, Ava and John.
We painted a project from the Learn To Paint Academy called “Cottage on the Hill.” It was my second trial class as part of the requirements to be an instructor of the Moore Method of Painting. If my mentor, Rod Moore, accepts my submission, I will become an MCI (Moore Certified Instructor) and can begin teaching beginners how to paint. One of the things I’ve learned over the past six months as I’ve trained to be an MCI is that I LOVE to share the joy of painting. One of my students said my teaching was “fun and calming.” What an antidote to the trials and tribulations of this troubled world! Every day I thank God for leading me in this direction. Just before I retired from a nearly 40 year career in journalism, I started calling myself a “visual artist, and began dabbling in watercolors. That was nearly four years ago, and I’ve learned a thing or two since then.
For one thing: painting with watercolors in a dry climate (like Nevada) can be tricky. And for me, nearly impossible. So, about a year ago, I switched almost exclusively to acrylics. But even acrylics dry pretty fast in hot desert temperatures. Recently, I heard about INTERACTIVE acrylics that stay wet longer. The two brands I’ve found to work well (even here in Las Vegas) are Atelier Interactive and Golden Open. These are a higher quality than typical student grade acrylics, so they’re a bit pricier . . . but so worth it. For one thing, they last longer, so you don’t waste paint. Last week, my Australia-based painting instructor, Rod Moore, initiated “The Great Acrylic Painting Challenge” for his students in the Learn To Paint Academy. It’s basically a two-week introduction to acrylics. (Btw, Rod is how I learned about the benefits of professional grade interactive acrylics.) Using a very limited palette, we started with a couple of still life value studies. We moved on to mixing colors and created a color values chart using just five colors (ultramarine blue, alizarine crimson, yellow ochre, cadmium yellow, and phthalo green). Our penultimate assignment was to put together everything we learned last week and paint these luscious red peppers. Oh, that’s another thing I learned: in Australia, peppers are called “capsicums.” |
AuthorTerri Thompson is a journalist-turned-visual artist, who is on an "art journey" and exploring how to tell her stories through her watercolor and acrylic paintings and photographs. Categories |