Painted Pigs Honoring the Minnesota State Fair

Painted Pigs for the State Fair
Spotted Pig
3D Pig
Salted Pig

With no animal husbandry in my family, my entry into the Swine category in the Minnesota State Fair would have to be painted. You won't find them at the Fair, though, as they were completed much too late (yesterday) to be proper entries in any category.

These and other tiny original painted pigs will be available at the Hopkins Farmers' Market (Saturday August 23 from 7:30-noon), and at the Art Shoppe at Midtown Global Market beginning Monday August 25.

They all different. Each is matted and ready-to-frame in a 5x7 frame, and packaged with an envelope in a Clearbag. $15/each.

The J.V. Bailey House Pig

If you want to see a cousin of these pigs, stop by the J.V. Bailey House, home of the Minnesota State Fair Foundation.  While you're there, become a Friend of the Fair.

Cave Painting Progress: Cat faces

I am an unabashed cat lover, having been managed by cats since 1972. Fitting, then, to honor cats in the Lost Cave Paintings of Saint Paul Installation for the WARM Mentor-Protege Show.

Russian Blue Ancestor

The Cat Panel

August 19 work-in-progress

The Cat Panel documents some of the ancestors of present-day Saint Paul Cats, including the Russian Blue and Striped Cats.

Digging through my shapes-and-templates archive, I found a cat that I had used for a needlepoint piece, and for two of my very earliest cat paintings. What better cat to honor the Ancestors?

Friends of the Cats

Like all of the panels, this one has both hummingbirds and frogs.

First Face

What about the faces?

Rendering the faces is the next challenge, and I can't do too much navel-gazing about it. Unlike the  Great Cave Owl, who sat on my easel for six months while I practiced painting owl faces, this piece is for a show that opens in a few weeks.  (Join us for the Celebration on Saturday October 18 from 6 to 9 at the Grain Belt Bottling House.)

A piggish experiment.

One thought is to make the faces even more 3D than the "cave gesso" provides. This pig is my first experiment. Using Golden Brand Light Molding Paste, is an interesting idea, but I am a 2-D artist who has always thought that sculpture was an inaccessible magical skill.

A molded pig

WARM Cave Painting Update: The Elephant

The WARM (Women's Art Resources of Minnesota) Mentor-Protege Show is coming in October, and, having had two years to conceive and to work on this piece, a progress report is in order.

Materials review  This project consists of five 5x2' primed aluminum panels covered with tinted gesso to create cave texture.The Elephant panel is the last of the five panels to get paint. Last night, I mixed a gray from acrylic colors (black, white, gray, and silver) and some Golden Self-Leveling Clear Gel. Miraculously, I have leftover paint. 

Your eyes do not deceive you. The Elephant's ear is, indeed, purple. To some leftover Elephant Gray, I added a purple acrylic and Golden Granular Gel Medium.

Making the drawing My original plan was to scan my tiny elephant painting into Photoshop, scale it up, and print each segment to make a 5-foot template. Much tape would have been needed to create the template. I am grateful to my friend, the elegant artist Jason Najarak, for showing me how to use a projector to get the image onto the panel.

The Elephant Drawing

The Painted Elephant

The other panels (owls, parrots, cats, and toucans) are in-progress.

Show notes: The show, Beyond the Surface, will run from October 3 to 31 at the Grain Belt  Bottling House, 79 13th Avenue NE, Minneapolis, MN  55413. The opening reception is October 18, and there will be artists' talks on October 9, 11, and 30.  The schedule and more details TBA.