The New Show Booth

Speaking of showing....to do it you need a booth, tent, E-Zup or Canopy...depending on what you want to call it. We, Linda and I, just recently purchased ours from an online art supply company called Jerrys Art-A-Rama. It measures 10'X10" and is white which is the standard for showing. We wanted blue so it would be easier to keep clean but the shows all want white.....naturally, they don't have to wash it when it gets dirty. Ours is a pop up style which has the roof already attached saving time in setup. We also bought the four sidewalls for the additional $79.00, this way you can completely close it up at nights when doing 2 or 3 day shows.

IMPORTANT! These tents are super light and good winds will lift them off the ground in a heartbeat so they need to be anchored. You can use sandbags, weights, waterbottles, cans filled with cement, cinderblocks etc....I bought metal racks called Gridwall from an AcmeDisplay in downtown Los Angeles. These are just heavy enough to keep my tent anchored in place.
I took one of those dollies that convert to a cart and built a wood frame to carry everything from van to spot and so far it has worked pretty well....I will change the smaller tires on the top part of the dolly and install larger pneumatic tires to make the rolling easier when on bumpy ground....but it works great as is if you don't go offroading with it. crossing vacant lots or something in that nature.

I can do all of this by myself but it is a hassle so having a second person is a Godsend and makes it all a breeze. I can't imagine being an older artist and doing it alone. You'd kill yourself.
I'll be posting more pics of behind the scene action at shows as we do more soon.

!!!! Upcoming Shows 9-28-2006

This year and last year I started showing my work in various galleries through the 3 Artist Guilds that I presently belong to. These are shows put on by the Guild and only select pieces of my work are at the galleries. I thought it would be cool to list them on the Blog if only to remind me that they are fast approaching!

Pay attention to the dates...

since these show do end and new ones begin with new artwork. I will post the dates in case you would like to stop by one of the shows to see a lot of great art by various artists along the Central Coast and myself!

The above works will be at.....

Morro Bay Art Association Gallery in the "Autumn Repose" show

through Oct 29, 2006 835 Main Street, Morro Bay, California (805) 772-2504

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The above images are now at....

Town Center Gallery, in the Town Center Mall,

through Nov. 8, 2006 313 West Tunnell Street, Santa Maria, CA. (805) 349-7788

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The above image is at the.....

Santa Maria Airport Art Showcase

through Nov. 8, 2006 Located at the Santa Maria Airport, Santa Maria, California

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I will also be showing many pieces of my work at this festival up in San Luis Obispo next October 28, 2006. This is going to be really fun. If you can make it out please come by my booth and say "hi"....you can get details at www.WineAndStyleFestival.com

Eucalyptus in Evening

Eucalyptus in Evening

9" X 12"

Oil on Gallery Wrap Canvas

These majestic eucalyptus trees are everywhere in California it seems. Farmers use these as wind breaks for the fields....just like these were being used for that very purpose. Doing this one also allowed me to work more on skies which I love to paint. I actually learned to paint skies from an old Walter Foster book which really was a lesson on how to paint water....I just used it for the skies. ...so far so good. I resorted to Walter Foster books for various lessons in painting to keep costs down on my budding painting hobby back in the early 80's and still buy them.

I have one WF book written by William Palluth and had it for years. About 6 months ago I was in a gallery in Los Olivos, CA and there on the wall was one of the paintings he had done in the book I had....it was like seeing an old friend and put a big smile on my face.....which also reminds me of friends I made in various art classes over the years, they are all men and women in their 40's now!

Palms At Stow

"Palms At Stow"

11" X 14" Pen & Ink, Stippling

Doing landscapes in pen & ink is for only the dedicated....which of course could be easily confused with those without a life.....yeah, I've heard them all being a pen & ink artist working with the Stippling technique. This is an image that ranks up there with the hour meter running. The location is the Stow property in Goleta, California. I like this piece because it gave me the chance to draw various palm trees, sun bleached grasses and a very cool sky that doesn't quite show well on a computer but looks really sharp IRL.

I don't watch the clock when doing ink work so I really cannot give you an accurate time it took to complete this piece. I work in sessions of hours....2, 3 ,4 ,5 etc. depending on how well it is going, how much I'm charged up about a particular piece or if someone needs me to do something else besides draw all night.....(Shhhh, that's life getting in the way again.) .

When I was younger and had the eyes of an eagle I'd do marathon sessions and only stop because I got hungry. Too much fun!

Wulff Windmill

"Wulff Windmill"
11" X 14" Pen & Ink, Stippling

This is a windmill used to drive a polishing gizmo that a man named Wulff built here in Solvang, CA. back in 1927 for his lapidary hobby....polishing rocks. It still stands and is right up the street from where I live, a historical landmark sitting in a field along the road at what was once his property. I plan on donating a print of this to the Elverhoy Museum in town. The curator there gave me some background info on the windmills history and she thought it was neat I was interested in the history behind the windmill. I will do this after the show I am entered in there for next month. This being a wood structure made for a fun time drawing it as wood patterns are always random and allow you to get creative as you draw the image. Doing the foliage is challenging and fun to do too....a bit time consuming but worth the effort I think.

My Favorite Painting...(so far)

"First Poppies"

5" x 7" Oil on Canvas

You start each painting all charged up and thinking this will be your best because it is your latest work....not so with me. Each one has it's own challenges and mistakes are made too. Even on smaller canvases most paintings are an effort. First Poppies was the one that broke those rules. It started easy and finished easy in around 3 hours spaced over 2 sessions. Another artist mentioned this was a painting in the vein of Granville Redmond's work. Being the paint historian I am, I quickly looked the name up in Google and saw his work on various sites. Granville was best known for his California landscapes featuring California Poppies and Lupines. He was also one of the founding members of the California Art Club. Although I don't have the quality of a Redmond painting I was honored by the mere mention of his name in a post of my work....totally thrilled !

"CGC Blackfin"

"CGC Blackfin"

16"x20" Pen & Ink

This drawing would be an appropriate beginning. It is one of the latest pen & ink drawings I've done. I love boats and they always work out well with pen & ink. This Coast Guard Cutter, the Blackfin, is seen here tied to the docks at Morro Bay and behind her is the fog shrouded Morro Rock. This drawing was juried into the Central Coast National Juried Art Competition in Morro Bay. That was my first National show and Blackfin was the only pen & ink piece to get juried into the show....it didn't win any awards but getting in was a big deal to me. This will be submitted for a local show here in town at the Elverhoy Museum this monday so I'm hoping it makes it into the show.

NOTE - This piece did get juried into the show at the Elverhoj Museum along with 2 paintings of mine also. Yahoo!

Day 1.....the Blog Days

Well, today marks the beginning of a new way to post my art....and possibly the beginning of the end for my website...guthrieart.com Geeze....I even hate writing that out even though I've been thinking it over in my mind for the last 4 or 5 hours. I love my website and hate the thought of letting it go. Lots of things are changing again for me.....not all bad but none the less, Change! And, life is full of change.

I started my website years ago, the late 90's, to show my art and eventually sell it online. All of that happened for me and eventually my little website was ranked on the first page of Google and I think it still is. This came at the price of promoting the site for the first few years like a madman. Before I forgot to change the code for my hit-counter, per the vendor, I had about 80,000 hits. I let that go for almost 2 years and finally installed the new code last year. I started it out from scratch and since then am now back up to over 28,000 hits.......that is over 100,000 hits! Not bad for a puny little art site started by a guy who knew nothing of computers and was a shipping and receiving clerk in the 80's for Bell & Howell in Pasadena....which at the time made computers! hahaha. So, that is why I hate the thought of losing it. It has become my friend if that makes any sense.

Like I said, I did sell art but only a bit from the website. The majority of sales have come from other sources not located in a computer. Still, it is nice having a place of your own online that is basically, Your Gallery. This Blog will now become an extension of that space or perhaps The Space should I decide to shut my site down.

Typing is like talking to yourself with 2 fingers and I could do that all day but in case someone reads this I will try and keep this intro short.

I will begin to upload my pen & ink pieces and some of the paintings I have finished. I've only started painting in the last 4 or 5 months and completed about 15 so far. I love pen & ink but that takes lots of patience and hours of being "tight" with a Rapidograph. Painting allows me the break in that routine to create a piece of art in a few days and do it without any "tightness" involved......"Tight" meaning concentrating your buns off.

So here starts the blogging.......