Open Studios 2008 Fort Mason

Last weekend, I did my annual Open Studios at Fort Mason, San Francisco. In past years, it has been the same weekend as when the October Fest is also being held at Fort Mason, so we also got good foot traffic, even if some had had one too many beers.

This year, however, it was fleet week and many many people come to the bay's edge at the Marina to picnic, party and watch the Blue Angels. The weather was great and there were a ton of boats on the water, leaving a wide swarth in the middle clear for where the Blue Angels swoop down close to the water and zoom around the tops of the boats.

It was a great weekend and one woman told me she comes every year to see what I'm working on and that she's "one of my groupies". That was very sweet to say.

Below are some pics from the weekend. I took a lot of photos of the blue angels, but most of them ended up being tiny little dots within gorgeous scenery but the jets were too small.

My display, showing encaustic paintings on the wall and miniature oil paintings on the table and other goodies:



A little fair being setup right next to our building:



The Blue Angels, doing their upside down flying thing:



Clear blue skies and the Blue Angels, flying close together:

Miniature Landscape Oil Paintings

This summer has been an intense time for some serious health issues of a couple of family members (one relative being diagnosed with a terminal illness in June which had all my attention that month [and more], and July my mother fell ill and almost died from a drug-resistant staph infection).

After all the recent intensity, August has been a quiet time for me to paint and continue making more paintings for my Open Studios, which will be held, for me, October 13-14 at Fort Mason in San Francisco. I'll be showing a smattering of the different types of works I've been doing over the past year - my larger traditional landscape oil paintings, my larger oil abstract paintings, and my encaustic wax paintings (which most of them are 12x12").

I always make some 4x4" miniature oil landscape paintings, which visitors seem to love and I usually make about 25 of them and typically sell around 20. This year I'm goaling myself to make 50 and I'm up to 44 of them so far so I'm close to my goal. I have been finding customers buying these more in sets than previous years so I'm trying to have enough of what they typically ask for (northern california trees/open space, chicken barns [classic to the northern california area], cows, and some coastals). I'm also doing some stylized ones of trees that mix abstract elements and the trees.

I never keep track of which ones sell, so this year I'm going to better document them beforehand and then I can go back and see which ones sold.

Here's just one photo with just a sampling of some I've completed so far.



I've submitted the first fully wax sculpture I've ever attempted to a juried competition. It's a little bizarre looking but I'm hoping different enough that the juror will like it. And it really fits the theme of the show, which is called "Renewal".

I'm heading to Evansville Indiana at the end of August, to spend all of September there. I'll be helping with my youngest brother's family and I have a 3x4 foot commission painting to start and complete in that month. What did the client want? Cows, of course. Can't get away from them! I have a nice scene planned of cows grazing with the Pacific Ocean in the background - sweeping looking. I may also try to kick out some more miniatures while I'm there and ship them back to myself before Open Studios. Maybe. Oils can be funky sometimes in how long it takes them to dry to the touch. I'll have to see how it feels when I get there and get into an Indiana frame of mind.

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