Well, let's see... I last left you talking about landscapes and my pursuit of improving my skill with them. It's going pretty good. I've done about 8 landscape paintings so far, and they're looking pretty good. Here's a shot of some of them together:
Not too bad. I'm still well within this project, and still looking forward to more advancement and eventually doing some plein air work. All of these were from photo references.
So the month of August ended with a pretty unexpected and pleasantly surprising bang with the Raytown Artists' Association Invitational, where I was graciously awarded Best of Show for my self portrait!
So today is September 5, which means we are only a month away from the Summit Art Festival. There you will see this self portrait, the landscapes, and many more of my best works from this year. I'm getting pretty excited for it! So this month is going to be pretty busy getting all those paintings ready, plus maybe a few brand new ones... Maybe. I've been working hard just about every day getting new work done, and continuing with my effort to pull off my best work yet.
Overall, with the exception of my recent win at Raytown, it's been a disappointing year show-wise. I was really expecting a lot more out of myself, and out of the shows that I entered. I've recently submitted an application for the 2014 Gamber Center exhibitions in Lee's Summit, and I'm still not feeling too confident about it. I should be getting notification of my acceptance or rejection later this month. I was not accepted last year, but who knows. Maybe this will be my year.
So last night I went to the monthly Summit Art meeting, and I have to admit I don't usually like going to those, but every once in a while it's a good idea to go and get in the loop with everything. Particularly with the Summit Art Festival, which was my main reason for going last night. The format of the meeting is typically business oriented, followed by a presentation of some sort by a local artist or art-related organization or something. I usually duck out after the business part and skip the presentation. But last night I was actually glad I stuck around, because the presenter was from an organization called Best of Missouri Hands. It's an art organization that, in a nutshell, promotes artists and helps them take the next steps toward success in matters of publicity, exhibitions, education, etc. The presentation went by pretty fast, but was quite interesting and informative, and I am thinking of joining this organization pretty soon. So for all you Missouri-resident artists out there that might be interested, I would recommend checking them out at http://www.bestofmissourihands.org. The thing that attracted me the most about this was the idea of branching out and expanding my reputation as an artist outside of my little Kansas City bubble (which I still haven't fully conquered), and showing my work in other places, and getting help with promotion.
That's all for now.. Stay tuned for more. And in the meantime, here's a glimpse of something new that I'm currently working on:
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