New School Year, Second Chance

I don't know about you but I always feel like the beginning of the school year is my chance to revisit and re-energize all those New Year's resolutions I made last January and have slowly let go of. I did not totally drop the ball but it is hard to focus on your to-do list when you have kids on summer vacation, wonderful family visitors and all the good beer and weather of a German summer.

Summer play time also brings good ideas. I visited a lot of beautiful places this summer, some famous and some not. All those images in my brain have to go somewhere - hopefully they will show up on a canvas this winter. 

My obsession with painting chickens is slowing down as I prepare for the next series I have in mind. It is going to be a lot more complicated than what I currently paint so I am summoning the courage to actually do it and not keep putting it off (it combines portraits and birds).

This year I also need to focus on actually selling artwork!
I imagine a lot of artists have this goal. I plan to research online marketing, ramp up social media and basically market myself which is really scary to an introvert like me. This month I am showing all my chicken paintings in the local library on Vogelweh Base here in Germany - which is a start in the right direction.

Next up - paint, paint, paint!

As I ease back into regular blog posts, here are a few art related posts from the summer.

Please leave a comment and let me know: How was your summer? What are you hoping to get done this fall?

Until next time,
Beth :-)

The beginning of yet another chicken... 

This little watercolor sketch was from the pool. Can you see the man that was in front of me? 

Giant tile mosaic in the Paris metro. 

A Glossary of Chickens

A Glossary of Chickens
There should be a word for the way
they look with just one eye, neck bent,
for beetle or worm or strewn grain.
"Gleaning," maybe, between "gizzard"
and "grit." And for the way they run
toward someone they trust, their skirts
hiked, their plump bodies wobbling:
"bobbling," let's call it, inserted
after "blowout" and before "brood."
There should be terms, too, for things
they do not do –like urinate or chew– 
but perhaps there already are. 
I'd want a word for the way they drink, 
head thrown back, throat wriggling,
like an old woman swallowing
a pill; a word beginning with S,
coming after 'sex feather" and before "shank."
And one for the sweetness of hens
but not roosters. We think
that by naming we can understand,
as if the tongue were more than a muscle.
- Gary J. Whitehead

I found this poem in a book of the same name. The book was in a box full of free stuff outside of a neighbors house. When I saw the title I knew I had found a treasure. I love chickens as I do all animals and like to believe they have personalities and thoughts just like people do. That may sound crazy, and yes, I do like to dress my pets up on occasion. (But that's pretty common, right?)

I like the last two lines of the poem. Perhaps by naming we are trying to understand, by painting we are trying to understand as well. I am not sure if we really do though. Maybe our brain like our tongue is really a muscle and not as capable as we think.

I recently went on a tear painting chickens. I thought of the series more like chicken portraits. I imagined grand lives and personality traits for each one I painted. Most of them are proud, one of them is gentle, one is really pissed off and one is inquisitive but really scared. Can you guess which is which? Here they are collected below. I hope you like them. There are definitely more to come...

Plymouth Rock Rooster, 9.5" x 7", oil on canvas PURCHASE HERE

Blissed Out Chick, 9.5" x 7", oil on canvas  PURCHASE HERE 

Sacred Heart Rooster, 9.5" x 7", oil on canvas,   PURCHASE HERE

Black Rooster, 9.5" x 7", oil on canvas  PURCHASE HERE

El Jefe, 16" x16", oil on canvas  PURCHASE HERE

El Jefe's Family Portrait Series, Part 1 of 3 "El Jefe", 12" x 8"   PURCHASE HERE

El Jefe's Family Portrait Series, 27" x 12"   PURCHASE HERE

Cheeky, 8" x 8", oil on canvas  PURCHASE HERE

Tan Rooster, 9.5" x 7", oil on canvas  PURCHASE HERE

Plymouth Rock Rooster, 9.5" x 7", oil on canvas  PURCHASE HERE

If you liked these chickens leave a comment or buy a painting!

Talk to you later!

Beth