Winter Open Studios 2011 Dec 3-4

My studio is cleaned up and ready for the weekend of Winter Open Studios at the ICB Building in Sausalito, CA. I've got those special Open Studio only prices up. I'll be open Dec 3-4, 11-5pm, along with over 80 other artists in the building. Lots of art to see. I'm located in studio 237 on the second floor right across from the Manager's Office.

I'd love to have you stop by and say hello!

ICB Building
480 Gate 5 Road, Studio 237
Sausalito, CA 94965

(turn left on Harbor Drive from Bridgeway, building on left at Harbor/Gate 5 Rd)

For those who are unable to visit, most of my artwork can be found on my website at kathleenmcmahon.com.

Sausalito Artists @ Work Labor Day Weekend

We had a great open studio weekend at the ICB Building in Sausalito this weekend. It was the same weekend as the Sausalito Art Festival and the whole town was jammed with people as a result.

Lots of people came through and I did well. I love talking to people about art and showing them my process. This time I had my silk painting frame set up and was showing people how I do silk painting. I was able to finish a bamboo silk scarf on Sunday and a nice blue one with dragonflies on Monday.

Sue Averell, the organizer of the Open Studios weekend, had a great party in her large studio (which is right next to mine) Saturday night with lots of great food and wine and balloons and meeting great people. Some were artists she knows from Arizona who had come up to be in the Sausalito Art Festival. A great time was had by all.

My studio mate, Mary Margaret Stewart, was actually in the Sausalito Art Festival for the first time this year and she was on fire! She sold out everything she had. I love the success of artist friends as well.

Here is a photo of some people wandering through looking at my scarves (sorry about the hanging rope from Mary Margaret's studio space in the photo!) and a better picture of the one wall of scarves, though I had others on racks and... well, all over the place. I was also showing my oil paintings and worked on some small oil still lifes on Saturday and sold them right on the spot, even though they still need time to dry.

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.

Technorati tags: art , miniature paintings , oil landscape paintings , Open Studios , miniature paintings , oil landscape paintings , Fort Mason

Marin Open Studios May 5-6, 2007

My friend Glynis and I took a field trip up to the Marin Open Studios weekend in Novato at the Hamilton Art Center. There were three buildings that had art in it . Although we came on Sunday and arrived there well after the opening time of 11am, we were kind of surprised at how many artists were not actually in their studios. But we still saw a lot of art.

I know some people there from my encaustics painting group and I grabbed two pictures of the two that were around.

Above is Kathy Knebel from the wax painting group speaking with my friend Glynis.

Above is Sandi Miot from the wax painting group, working bright and early in her studio.

It was amazingly warm and bright and sunny, so Glynis and I drove to Sausalito to eat lunch by the water and everyone was out enjoying the great weather:

And here is a good view of San Francisco from the waterfront at Sausalito:
Everything about the day felt great, the weather, visiting with good friends, seeing good art, getting a perfect parking spot in Sausalito (no easy feat!), getting a table right on the water with no reservations (again, no easy feat on a nice Sunday!), and after lunch found a cool spot on the waterfront to sit in the shade (it was actually too hot in the sun) to just soak up the view and the people and the great weather.

I could not have asked for a better Sunday.



Technorati tags: art , encaustic , Marin Open Studios , Hamilton Art Center