12th month sale!

12% off everything to celebrate the 12th month. Ask for the discount by using the Contact button in the sidebar of my store. I do free gift shipping on request, with the item nicely wrapped and a small card with your message enclosed.

Planning and progress.

I've started a new piece; I think I'll call it "Across the Bay". I'm experimenting with blue skies and this one looked just like the misty skies we get when the marine layer is hovering. Ultramarine and titanium white make almost a lavender gray blue. The mist thickens near the horizon, but I will add touches from the hills across the bay, and closer, there will be sailboats. We saw a regatta in strong fog once, and it was somewhat eerie seeing the boats appear and disappear in the mist.

I want to work a butterfly painting, but I want to be sure what to do with the sky first. It will probably be lake blue + titanium, but I want to experiment with phthalo blue and white, too. I may add a bit of white/yellow while the blue is drying to make it seem especially sunny. The thing I want to capture is how when the sun shines through their wings, the underside of the monarch butterfly is as bright as the top side. I noticed this on a visit to the monarch sanctuary at Natural Bridges state park with my parents. I'm also hoping for the sense of joy and wonder the sight brings.

Looking over my works, I paint a LOT of sky. I love bird-watching, star gazing, and watching sunsets. Kate Bush's song, "The Big Sky", rather spoke to me.

November Sale: Red

November Sale. The theme color is RED: autumn leaves, roaring fires, and red ornaments going up. 20% off any item with "red" in the title or tags. For all discounts, use the contact button in the sidebar and I will edit the discount in for you.

October Sale for my Etsy Store

October Sale. The theme color is black: 13% off any item with "black" in the title or tags. For all discounts, use the contact button in the sidebar and I will edit the discount in for you.

News of my art

With summer over and the weather still very fair, but the beaches uncrowded, it's a wonderful time for me to go out and find inspirations for pieces. I painted a watercolor just a couple of days ago of a wave crashing against a cliff. I also made a little acrylic space scene I'm calling Crowded Space. No photos of either for me to share yet, unfortunately, but soon.

We took down the shows from Cafe Bene and Cafe Pergolesi here in Santa Cruz, but we have art up at Chill Out Cafe and will add a few pieces to it. I also might add some items soon to the Lodi Community Art Center.

One project I need to work on is finding a free photo editor that will do color adjustments and watermarking, but will work on an Apple OSX.03 -- suggestions are welcome. If I can correct for lens distortion or the photo being slightly off angle, that would be great.

I need to plan a new sale for my Etsy store.

Sorry for the long delay between posts.

I've had to rethink what I'm doing with my blog a little. Trying to get a relevant poem in every post wasn't really working out; my plan had been to push myself to write more, but instead, I was blogging less.

I'm pleased to say Allan and I have 3 shows running right now: Cafe Bene, Cafe Pergolesi, and the Chill Out Cafe all have our art on their walls. All of these are Santa Cruz locations. Cafe Bene and Pergolesi's shows will be running out at the end of the month. Chill Out Cafe will carry our art until further notice, with items being rotated in.

I'm working more these days with gallery wrap canvases, where I can paint on the sides and hang them without frames. The look is easy to go with most decors, and while the canvases cost a bit more, it's cheaper than framing them.

You'll find more posts here more often; I intend to share information on projects in the works, thoughts behind some of my palette choices, and maybe more bits of writing.

1000 hearts giveaway

I've been hearted over 975 times! And I just have to celebrate my 1000th when it comes. So here's the deal:

Favorite items in my shop that interest you. After the 1000th heart, I will pick out at least 5 items and randomly pick one of the people who hearted it to receive it, absolutely free. If they are anonymous or refuse it, I will offer it to another person who hearted it.
Of course, the sooner I reach 1000, the sooner the giveaway happens.

http://krummenacker.etsy.com