Reggie

Reggie
Acrylic On 2" Gallery-Wrapped Canvas

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I found a photo of my old dog, Reggie, while I was going through some photo boxes. He passed a long while back but you never forget your pets. They become like family. He was such a good boy. I miss him. He had such a sweet personality and I think I captured that here. I love the Pop Art style and the bright colors. This would look great anywhere but I think it would look the best in a kids room or play area. Maybe a doctor's office or vet? hmm.. :)

Sunflower Fields Forever

"Sunflower Fields Forever"

Oil on 1" Gallery Wrapped Canvas - 16x20 in

Click to bid on the painting starting at only $85! Buy It Now purchases include a 3" solid wood gold frame and hanging hardware, all included for free! 

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http://www.dailypaintworks.com/fineart/katherine-hambley/sunflower-fields-forever/502552

What a fun day! Made the trip to Middleton, WI at Pope Farm to paint the spectacular sunflower farm. What a sight! I felt like I was IN a Van Gogh painting! If you are near the Madison area you must make the trip. Apparently, they peak for one week only and then droop and die very quickly so need to make the trip soon.I can check that off my bucket list, now I need to find a field of poppies and see if it can top this! I'm always entertained by the passerbys and their interesting comments, at least the ones I hear anyway, over my headphones. I had a woman practically harass me with her phone so she could make a video of me for her 13 year old granddaughter and budding artist. Trust me, I heard all about it, ugh! All part of the job, I'll take that any day over the corporate B.S. that was my life before. :) Poor me, I get to paint all day in the sunshine!

Fun with New Sennelier Oil Paints!

I purchased a Sennelier Plein Air Oil paint set with 8 - 40ML paint colors: titanium white, cad yellow light, yellow ochre, cad red light, alizarin crimson, chinese orange, azure blue,  and french ultramarine blue plus a #6 Isabey bristle brush, filbert.

I decided to create a color chart and compare their pigments next to Lukas and Utrecht, already in my collection. I mainly wanted to compare the Lukas Cad Yellow Lemon to the Sennelier Cad Yellow Light and see how it mixed greens. I also got a tube of phtalo (pronounced "thalo") turquoise since it already leans toward green ("greeny blue", my technical term), both yellows mix some pretty intense greens with the phtalo turq. 

I also mixed both yellows with french ultramarine blue which leans toward red so it makes the mixture more dull, as seen on the chart. I typically gravitate toward the intense mixtures but the dulls seem more soothing to me, and more like nature?

I kept experimenting towards the bottom of the chart and mixed some really nice grays/browns with cad yellow light, cad red light, and fr. ultramarine blue as well as azure blue. I never really liked using grays in my paintings but these are so rich and beautiful, I'm going to find a way to use them.

In the bottom row, I mixed yellow ochre + azure blue. I didn't like so much but then I added a bit of titanium white and wow! I love that "minty" cool green. I'm going to remember that mixture, just beautiful. 

In the second to the last row, I put chinese orange out on the canvas straight out of the tube and then I added white. I've never seen or heard of this color before. I guess Gustave Sennelier invented two paints, Chinese Orange and Cinnabar Green, at the request of Cezanne and Monet. Picasso and Modigliani used Chinese Orange in creating rich and creamy flesh tones. 

I had a lot of fun playing with my new paints, now it's time to put this to good use and create some paintings! 

Cedarburg Plein Air Event 2016

Had a wonderful day painting in Plein Air Event, Cedarburg, Wisconsin. Met one of my favorite artists, Susan Hale. What a sweetie she is! Love her work. She came by while I was painting at Covered Bridge Park and took some photos of me painting. I love Van Gogh and the Fauvists style, really going for an Expressionist look and feel. Not quite done yet, just need to fix a couple things and add some finishing touches. Will post the final here soon. Going back up on Friday, can't wait!

Upcoming Exhibitions - Art Museums

June 10 — September 5, 2016American Epics: Thomas Hart Benton and Hollywood
Milwaukee Art Museum - Upcoming Exhibition

http://www.mam.org/uncrated/exhibitions/

American Epics: Thomas Hart Benton and Hollywood includes approximately one hundred works by this quintessential American artist: fifty paintings and murals along with a selection of his drawings, prints, and illustrated books. In addition, the exhibition presents rarely seen archival photographs and related ephemera, as well as film clips and stills.
Thomas Hart Benton (1889–1975) - worked on silent film stages in 1917

Mary Abbott All Green, 1954, Oil on linen, 49 x 45 in.

June 12, 2016 – September 25, 2016
Women of Abstract Expressionism
Denver Art Museum - Upcoming Exhibition

http://denverartmuseum.org/exhibitions/women-abstract-expressionism

More than 50 major paintings will be on view by artists working on the East and West Coasts during the 1940s and '50s: Mary Abbott, Jay DeFeo, Perle Fine, Helen Frankenthaler, Sonia Gechtoff, Judith Godwin, Grace Hartigan, Elaine de Kooning, Lee Krasner, Joan Mitchell, Deborah Remington, and Ethel Schwabacher. This will be the first presentation of works by these female artists together at one time.

Jerry's Artarama Self-Portrait Contest

"My-Selfie" - 16" X 20" Gallery-wrapped canvas

I entered Jerry's Artarama (www.jerrysartarama.com) self-portrait contest today.
The details for the contest are here.

You can vote for my self-portrait here, starting May 2nd!
First Prize: $2000 in art supplies!
Vote for me!

Celebrate Racine Community Art Banners

I entered the 2016 "Celebrate Racine" call for artists where I submitted the two paintings above last month. I received a letter from Racine Downtown Corp. that informed me that both have been accepted! They will both be scanned and reproduced on huge 50 foot banners in downtown Racine. I receive a small stiped for each paintng and they have both been automatically entered into the contest where first prize is $2,000, second prize is $1,000 and third prize is $500 as well as honorable mention prizes. The details for the contest and timeline are here. It will be similar to last year where my "Really Big Fish" painting was selected as a finalist and displayed all summer long in 2015. I love this format, the 1:2 ratio is really fun and dynamic. Thanks Downtown Racine! 

Miss Maggie

Miss Maggie - 20" X 20" Acrylic on Gallery-Wrapped Stretched 1" Canvas

This is my first attempt at the pop art very graphic style like Andy Warhol, Ron Burns, and Alicia VanNoy Call. I really love it! This is my french bulldog/pug mix, Maggie, that passed last Sept. She was a stinker but I loved her. These bright colors really invoke a lot of emotion, it's really fun and why I got into painting. There are no limits to the imagination.

Click to bid or buy this painting now starting at only $100!


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Deemed Unworthy

Yet another day and no sketches or artwork to upload. At least I don't deem any worthy of upload. I worked all evening on a Spoonflower Rock and Roll themed fabric design contest. What a disaster! I had several what I thought were good ideas but I must rusty or just plain too slow now because it did not turn out good at all. I guess I thought I could jump right back into design without a learning curve, boy, was I wrong! So, I'm trying to regroup and go back to the "drawing" board (pun intended)! I bought a course on Craftsy called Expressive Picture Book Characters by Lynne Chapman. I'm going to go through the entire course again and take really good notes and practice. My plan is to come with some characters for a picture book, convert them to vector illustrations and upload them to shutterstock.

The 2016 Daily Sketching Habit

I've decided to make sketching and illustration my focus this year. I believe the only way you truly "get good" at something is by practice, practice, and practice some more. You have to be a "learning addict" (to use Josh Kaufmann's phrase from his book, The First 20 Hours). So, I'm using this blog to compile all my research, sketches, artwork, ideas and inspiration. It's mainly for me to document my education and progress, but if someone else can benefit from it, that's great!