Sally's Blog

Telephone Doodles

sallytrace — Fri, 12 Sep 2008 16:35:00 +0000

My friend Blenda recently asked “…what do artists doodle? When I’m mindlessly doodling I draw flowers. Do your doodles end up in your artwork?”

So I got to thinking about it. When I’m on the phone I doodle, and when I doodle I make these obsessive expressive patterns that consume the whole paper, with big looping shapes and little circles and squares that multiply like bio-organisms. I get OED, Obsessive Expressive Disorder, LOL. If the conversation isn’t going well, you can tell by the angry doodles.

So I’m wondering what other artists do when they get a phone call while painting. For me it’s great if I’m at a point where I’m really into the painting, and the non-prefrontal lobe inner doodler gets set free. But if I’m preparing to paint, a phone call slows me down. Sometimes I’ll call a friend or my Mom when I’m deep into the painting because it gets my head out of the over-analytical mode and lets me go into the play place.

I still remember that during this painting, “Desert Drive”, a phone conversation with a friend led me to get loose and paint the dark green vertical wavy line in the bottom right area. It was a very controlled painting and that was a big leap, to see that potential line and just freehand it on top of the other layers of paint.

The picture shown is my photo of the original painting. I’ve worked on that image in Photoshop to create a new digital pigment inkjet print.

Fine Art Reproductions

sallytrace — Sat, 26 Jul 2008 03:18:00 +0000

Daydreams

I’ve begun preparing many of paintings for reproduction.

I purchased an ink system for my Epson 1280 that will allow me to produce archival reproductions using pigmented inks. It’s gonna take some gettin used to!! Parts were missing when it arrivesd, so I’m waiting for the replacement parts. Next, I’ll be wrestling with color profiles in Photoshop and the printer. It’s a very mysterious realm that I’ve gotten lost in before….wish me luck!!

Here are a couple that I’ve gotten ready

Seated Nude

The Willow Grove Boogie

sallytrace — Thu, 10 Jul 2008 20:41:00 +0000

Last year I painted this painting called “The Willow Grove Boogie” Willow Grove is where we live, and it was a nice night with my Hubby home playing some rockin’ blues. I was painting upstairs and the music made me get really playful with the paint, in a wild boogie kind of way. He came up to see it when it was done, and we both just said “wow”. This was something different.

Well this past week I was commissioned to paint a new version of the Willow Grove Boogie, and also asked to make a print from the original. They shipped out on the same day. It was a funny coincidence.

I liked the new one so much, I would have kept it were it not a commission LOL. One of the nicest collectors I’ve had the pleasure of working with, so it was all good

Art Limbo

sallytrace — Thu, 10 Jul 2008 19:04:00 +0000

Today is a Limbo day for sure. I’m just not sure what to do today. I’ve got lots of projects in the works, maybe too many, hence the limbo. I’m free today to work on whichever project that I deem to be most important, and yet here I sit in limbo.

Well, I got here and that’s good. And it wasn’t even on the list! This is a new blog for me, I’ve tried wordpress and myspace and didn’t stick with them, but I like it here. My friend Blenda Tyvoll made a blog about a print that she bought, one thing led to another and well here I am Here is a picture of the print I bought from Blenda: “Hood River Landscape”. Isn’t it beautiful?

Blenda and I are both in the process of setting up our Etsy shops: Blenda’s Etsy Shop and My Etsy Shop. Doing so has revived my interest in making fine art quality inkjet giclee reproductions of my work, cause, well, they sell like hotcakes over there LOL. Being a 100% self employed artist, I like the idea of selling something like hotcakes.

So I’ve literally dusted off my Epson 1280 and started cranking out the prints. They are just lucious, it’s so much fun. Well, it became fun after an entire day or 2 troubleshooting all the techie kind of problems, and finally solving the one malingering problem of ink streaks, which cleared up when my canned air blew out a giant dust bunny.

My Video

sallytrace — Tue, 04 Dec 2007 03:21:17 +0000

Universal Signs

sallytrace — Tue, 04 Dec 2007 03:16:20 +0000

We just had a cast and crew screening for the movie Universal Signs here in Philadelphia. Wow! It is a beautiful film. Because the movie is in American Sign Language and close captioned for the hearing, those of us who can hear get a feeling for how it might be for a Deaf person to follow a story line on the big screen. It’s mesmerizing, I will say no more till it gets released.

It was very exciting to see my paintings on the big silver screen, and to see scenes and locations where I had witnessed some of the filming. My little cameo scene got cut, Boo Hoo! Oh well.

Here are some of the paintings:

My First Video

sallytrace — Tue, 27 Nov 2007 00:50:36 +0000

I haven’t quite figured out how to embed this file yet, so here is the URL:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=OMA1vQ4KoEA

First Attempt at YouTube

sallytrace — Sun, 25 Nov 2007 19:01:46 +0000

http://www.youtube.com/sallytrace

I spent darn near the whole day yesterday learning to make a movie and upload it. It’s a start!

Black Friday

sallytrace — Sat, 24 Nov 2007 02:55:01 +0000

Wow, I upoaded a lot of paintings today to Boundless

I forget what else!

Then I painted this painting called “When Will Meets Way”
You can see it’s still wet enough to run if I tilted it. I was so exhausted when it decided to be finished. I’d forgotten to eat lunch and it was about 3pm. I thought it was a complete failure, and would be good for nothing but repainting. After resting and eating, I was delighted to discover this amazing, dramatic piece of art on my table. All finished except for painting the sides.

It was a good day.

Thanksgiving

sallytrace — Thu, 22 Nov 2007 17:29:55 +0000

I give thanks for the amazing abundance that is so miraculously provided every day. Today we’re staying home and having a relatively small turkey dinner. It’s so warm, you can sit out on the porch. I get to paint and post my paintings online. We have a little fire in the fireplace, it’s very cozy.

I shipped these 2 paintings yesterday

Lots to be thankful for!!