Sarasota FLA

These are a few pieces I did last week when I made a trip to Sarasota to spend some time painting the Florida landscape. My work is represented in Sarasota FLA at the M Gallery of fine art, where I'll be having a show June 4th as part of their monthly art walk. It's always interesting to me when I travel to a new place to paint. First of all there are the logistics of it, such as packing and shipping your painting equipment (and in my case luckily Marc packed it up and UPS'ed it all down for us, thanks!) Then there is the arriving there all fiery and hungry to get out and paint but truly needing to absorb and get acclimated to your new surroundings. I envy those painters who can set up anywhere at any moment and pop out a painting. I'm just not one of those painters. Can I technically do it, yes. It's just not how I work best. I like to feel the place I am at so that it becomes personal.

So, with the 5 days total we had there, the first and last being total travel days, that left us with 3 days to paint and have dinner with my Mom who also lives down there. My Saturday painting in the rose gardens got scraped out. It happens! Not that I'm ever very happy about that, but. . . . . I do survive! :) The best part was going to see the Ringling grounds and Museum! I'm going to be writing a post all about that experience in a few days! Very amazing place!

The paintings: The first piece was from the Botanical Gardens, what a peaceful and colorful place. While we were there painting, there was a large group of elementary age kids painting. It was so great to see that! It was good to see how involved the community of Sarasota is in the arts. I learned from a 12 year old girl named Brittany that they have a "special mosquito" down there that when it lands on you and bites you, it can lay up to 200 eggs that can go into your blood stream and make you very sick! THANK you Brittany! :) Needless to say, Marc went in and got some 1000 proof deat! ;)

"Botanical Gardens Sarasota"

10x8 oil on linen panel

"Myakka State Park"

8x10 oil on linen panel

Myakka State Park was awesome! It was a difficult day to paint, the light was a bit high key but we truly enjoyed the wild life there. I could have really spent an entire week just painting this park. That's the plan next time!

"Lido Beach Sarasota"

8x10 oil on linen panel

Lido Beach. Between almost getting attacked by the Mr Raccoon and setting up on a pile of red fire ants, I'd say it was a pretty successful evening of painting! I'm not sure people realize when they go into a gallery and see our paintings hanging there signed, varnished, and lit with a lovely gold frame on them just what the painter may have gone through to get that painting. :) As I'm writing this here on my comfy couch with my hot tea, I'm finding this quite comical!

This was a FUN piece to paint though. The color was amazing! I kept thinking of Camille Przwodek and her color palette. I absolutely can see how living in CA or FLA where your colors would be just that, bold and beautiful! The shadows were PURPLE! I kept trying to gray them down, but nope, they were purple, and I think I went to the conservative side of things here. Painting mostly in Minnesota where it's a pretty subtle palette most of the time, that was the biggest difference, the richness of color. I just love color!

It was a great trip and I can't wait to go back! Hope you enjoy the paintings!