Desk by Jim McCarthy

A few months back Jim offered to do a desk as a gift for his two son's Kickstarter campaign to raise funds for their writing app called WEWRITE. (click to check it out) He donated a writing desk. Turns out the person who donated to get the desk was Jim's step sister Emma and her new husband Jim (Jim#2). It was a nice surprise for everyone and as a special little addition I decided to add a painting as a sort of wedding gift for them both. It came out great. Thanks to everyone.

New Collaboration on View This Saturday

As a past workshop student at the Beatrice Wood Center For the Arts I was invited to participate in a group show with the theme of Transformation. Having just done a couple small collaborative pieces with Jim I decided to use it as an opportunity to do another. Jim was eager to something together again so we came up with this triptych type piece. It is an oil and gold leaf painting with the woodwork done in mahogany, koa and small areas of gold leaf.
The show is this Saturday (so no I can't be there as I have a solo show to be at in Idaho!)

 Jim was mostly done with the frame before we left for our trip, but I had only just started painting the panels. When we returned I had one week to ship 15 paintings to Boise for the solo show and complete the three panels for this painting. It was a slight crunch but luckily the paint didn't have to be dry, I just needed to have a photo of it.

Thank you Kevin Wallace at The Beatrice Wood Center for the opportunity to show there (at one of the most beautiful places in the valley- always make the trip if you need to be inspired by both nature, and art all in one place) For more info visit their website at: http://www.beatricewood.com/index.html

Some Jim McCarthy Beauty

I hadn't done any collaborations with Jim in a while and some sweet customers who purchased one in the past were saying we should do some more. We are working on a small tryptich for a show in June but in the mean time we did a couple of small landscapes for my upcoming shows. They came out pretty nice I think. The paintings are 8"x8".

New Paintings Part Two

Just the last two paintings I don't think I put up here. The top one is from a very quick sketch I did with my Art and Thought Lab teacher Maria Lucia Philips. I liked it and decided to spend time making it into a painting. A few people asked if it was a self portrait I said yes, but then again they are mostly all self portraits in a way. ( duh the profound deep thinking of an artist) 

This is a very long landscape that was problematic as it didn't fit on the easel. I kept having to move it from left to right to work on it. I have done a couple with this format. I like the shape for a landscape in particular.

And the Winner Is.........

Well yesterday marked the last day of July. I'm always half loving summer and yet somehow sad that it will be over soon. And I now live were it is almost virtually always summer climate-wise. I think I have a residual thing from when I was a kid and couldn't wait for school to be over so I could be FREE! -Then of course before you know it school and winter would be looming. As an adult I have one of the free-est jobs there is- No freezing cold winter, and somehow the brain (or heart) still hangs onto those patterns.
  Anyhow I remembered it was time to pick a winner for my little give away and after throwing the names in a hat the winner is Jan Polacco. Congratulations Jan!

 Jan's new friend......And thank you for all you who entered and added your kind comments and encouraging words. I will continue to do a couple of these a year, so stay tuned.

 I have been working on some tiny paintings for the upcoming Enormous Tiny Art Show in Portsmouth New Hampshire. Here are are a couple of them below.

And of course my faithful companion.