A month without blogging. How did that happen? For the first half of November, Sterling and I were away at a workshop. Since coming back, Sterling has been working on two seascape commissions in Carmel and another one in Dillon Beach. Here are the Carmel commissions before Sterling puts the final touches on them in the studio:
  

While in Carmel, Sterling revisited Carmel Fine Art Gallery at 6th and Dolores. They are in the process of expanding and accepted two of his paintings, Majestic Cypress and Cypress Quartet. We are very excited to be in a Carmel gallery!

  

Stepping back in time, at ARtrails in mid-October, we sold a second painting from Sterling's January Carmel seascape series.. The first one was Variety of Rock. This one was Asilomar Rocks. Cypress Quartet was also from that trip. Three other paintings have sold since ARTrails: Moss Landing, On the River and Barbe's Back Barn. Barbe's Back Barn was one of the last acrylic paintings Sterling created before switching to oils about five years ago. The barn belongs to John Barbe, a neighbor of Sterling's dad. After considering it all this time, John Barbe decided to buy it.

Our last planned show this year is the FrogSong Holiday Arts & Crafts Fair this weekend at our studio, 8280 Old Redwood Highway. This will be a small show featuring artists from the cohousing community that we live in.

The last month has been good to us. We sold four paintings, At Petaluma Art in the Park we sold the seascape Morning Bliss and a new redwood painting, Redwood Nymphs. The woman who bought Morning Bliss felt it matched beautifully with the colors she likes. We have plenty of seascapes and another redwood painting at ARTrails this weekend and next. Come find the painting that fits for you!

At the end of the month we sold Mustard Path through Sebastopol Gallery and the seascape Variety of Rock to our neighbor.  

Well I’ve just been notified that my painting, “Legible Cascade” has won the best of Show award for the Estes Park Plein Air paintout. The painting is a 16” x12” Oil and painted on canvas panel. During this event, I was painting mostly in the Colorado Rocky Mountain National Park. It is a beautiful place and I can’t help but let the paintings paint themselves. Here are the other paintings I painted. Several of them are now on sale at the Cultural Arts Center in Estes Park.


"Back to Pool" 12"x16" Oil


"Bierstadt Lake" 16x12" Oil


"Dream Lake" 16"x12" Oil


"Enchanted" 16"x12" Oil


"To Dream Lake" 12"x16"  Oil


"Historic Friend"  12"x16  Oil


"Ouzel Falls"  16"x12"  Oil


"St. Malo" 12"x9"  Oil

Last night I got back from a week of plein air painting in Door County Wisconsin. This competition was hosted by the Peninsula School of Art in Fish Creek. 40 % of the sales went to the school, they certainly earned it from all the hard work.

Forty artists participated from around the country as I new friends and reunited with old ones. I hope to return next year, as the Door County Peninsula is an incredible place.

Here are some of the paintings I did last week.

We sold two seascapes over the last month! Bodega Head at the Marin Art Festival and Blinding Surf at the Los Altos Art & Wine Festival. Your next main opportunity to see Sterling's paintings will be at the Bodega Art & Wine Festival at the end of August. In between, we'll be in Estes Park Colorado for their plein air paintout and Wednesdays at the Waterfall. Sterling is currently painting tractors and barns in the plein air paintout in Door County, Wisconsin. He returns on Sunday.

The last month got away from me for blogging, but it was a wonderful month. Because we’re doing an art show every weekend this month, we’re keeping the van loaded up between shows which makes this week a relaxing week for catching up.

After returning from Carmel, Sterling went down to Los Gatos to paint in their Plein Air Festival and sold three paintings. In between, he sold two paintings at Sebastopol Gallery (Long Barn Revisited and Tin Soldiers). Long Barn Revisited, pictured here, is a newly completed painting of a barn that Sterling painted a few years ago. The first Long Barn also sold quickly. Tin Soldiers is one of his tractor paintings. Also, at the gallery, Sterling sold a 12” x 16” giclee, our first in a long time, and many other smaller prints and cards. All of this was a relief since April was slow.
 
On the other hand, the art festivals have not been doing so well.  Sales have been down for all the artists we have talked to and that was true for us in Walnut Creek, our only repeat show so far. Last weekend at the Valley of the Moon Art & Artisan Show in Sonoma, we did sell another 12” x 16” giclee and a few smaller items. We've only sold small items at the other two shows (Walnut Creek and West Portal). Several artists said .that Sterling had the best art there and many people asked him if he was in the Sonoma Plein Air Festival. We have sometimes been asked this in the past, but last weekend it happened a lot because they both shows take place in Sonoma Plaza. Perhaps some day we will get in, but it is particularly difficult. This year Sterling just missed the cut for the San Luis Obispo Plein Air, but he is on the waiting list so may still have the chance to return.

This weekend and next we will be trying out another new show: the Novato Festival of Art, Wine & Music. After these two shows, we return to our second year at the Marin Art Festival and third year at the Montclair Art Festival. If you would like a free pass to the Marin Art Festival, please contact us with your new address. 

We got our both our e-mail and our postcard mailing list in the last week. The postcard features To Whaler’s Cove. We have submittted this painting and Variety of Rock, which was on the last postcard, to the Oil Painter’s of America Western Regional Show. We’ll cross our fingers that one of them gets in.  

These two paintings are featured in our ad in the latest issue of  Artist Advocate, Fine Art Connoisseur's new publication for connecting artists with galleries. Sterling is the featured cover artist with his painting Bodega Head.

We have lots of new paintings. Stop by and see us at one of our shows. We’ll have them updated on the website soon.

The last month has been filled with show updates. We finally received confirmation that Sterling will be in the Carmel Art Festival again. This means that we had to drop out of the Los Altos Rotary Club Show again. We hadn’t planned to apply, but were invited. Since Sterling had already been accepted into the Los Gatos Plein Air Paintout, he will have two paintouts in May. If he had been accepted into the Sonoma Plein Air Paintout, it would have been three.

We received word today that he has been accepted into the Sonoma Art and Artisan Show on Sonoma Plaza, June 6-7. Since we are now in ARTrails Open Studios, we decided to do this show instead of Art at the Source Open Studios. Art at the Source has been a lot of work since it is also two weekends and we have to set up at another artist’s studio (since it is only West County). Also in June, we will be returning to the Marin Art Festival and the Montclair Art Festival.

In July, we return to the Los Altos Art & Wine Festival, which will be our only South Bay Art Festival since we were waitlisted for the Palo Alto Arts Festival. We would probably have gotten in if we had accepted an 8” x 10” booth, but that seemed too small last year. We were also rejected from the Napa Valley Art Festival at the end of August. We recently received an invitation to the Estes Park Plein Air Paintout. We participated in this in 2006 and 2007. Last year we tried out the Palo Alto Show instead. Because we had planned to do one or both of the other two August art shows, we had not planned to participate this year and also signed up to do Wednesdays at the Waterfall at the CazSonoma in Cazadero at the same time. We could still go to Estes Park, but would miss the end of show activities. We are waiting to hear back if that will work. If not, we will consider applying to two other August shows: the Gualala Arts Festival and the Bodega Bay Art and Wine Festival.

We were rejected from the Sausalito Arts Festival again. The remaining shows for the year are still being juried.

We were accepted into the Napa Valley Museum Biennial Plein Air Show. This year, the show was limited to Sonoma and Napa Artists. It includes many artists that Sterling has studied or painted with including Camille Przewodek, Alfredo Tofanelli, Carole Gray-Weihman, Larry Cannon, and Wendy Brayton. Sterling has two paintings accepted: Chicken Run and Bodega Head. The show runs through June 7.


Bodega Head