Under Contract!

We have a winning offer!

A young family viewed the house on Tuesday...they came back on Wednesday to look again, and submitted an offer on Friday. We negotiated over the weekend with a final agreement reached on Sunday morning. Its contingent on the inspection and appraisal, as normal, which should be complete in a couple weeks. Then I will view condos and make a quick decision.

Its an interesting plan and I hope it works out. Being first time homebuyers, this couple was looking to qualify for the $8000 tax incentive. They are in a lease until August and didn't want to break a lease, but have to close by the end of June for the rebate, so they will only have to pay a month or so of extra rent.

As it turns out, the timing should make it possible for ME to qualify for the tax incentive for my next purchase getting the repeat buyer's credit of $6500. I will have been in this house 5 years on June 8th, so we have set the closing for June 11(to qualify for the 5 yr mark on the incentive) and give them possession on June 14th.

This also means that I need to sign a contract on a condo before April 30th and close by June 30th. We will request closing on June 11 on the same day, with immediate possession, so that I can move everything over that weekend.

The couple sounds perfect for my house. They have one daughter about 7 yrs old. On the cul-de-sac, there are several girls/boys that age. Funny story - when they were visiting on Tuesday, the neighbor next door saw them outside with the girl, so she sent out her two girls to play and wave at the visitors. Then when they viewed the house on Wednesday, the neighbors across the street came out with their baby and 8 yr old boy to play and wave, to show how friendly the neighborhood is..... Of course, I am sure the neighbors are happy to be able to see the buyers and help influence their decision.

Hopefully everything else will go smoothly. I'm excited to move on.

Pastel - John In Pastel

"John in Pastel", 8 x 10, soft pastels on velour paper

Today our painting group had a 'micro' workshop on portrait painting led by one of the group, Mary Newman. We were to paint one of the other artists across the room. I chose to work in pastels today and chose John as my subject. He was across the room about 20 feet away! 

This is our last painting date inside and we are all looking forward to getting out of doors for the rest of the season.

Oil Painting - Geen Apples and Cabbage Roses

"Green Apples and Cabbage Roses", 8 x 10, oil on canvas wrapped panel

I wanted to do more to this, but everyone said, "don't touch a thing!". Well, I did fine tune it a tiny bit after I got home, but not much.

Oil Painting - Tomatoes

"Tomatoes" - oil on shellac'd museum board, 5 x 7

This was last week's painting, that I forgot to post. It was painted as an 8 x 10, but the left side of the board held little of interest, so as soon as this is dry, I will cut it down to 5 x 7 (as shown). That is one advantage to working on museum board, as it is much easier to cut down.

Blue Cross Tree

This is a tree at a little park where I walk. I love this tree. Unfortunately, its dead and has been for some time. Its huge. I noticed the other day that it had the 'blue cross of death' marked on it and wanted a picture before they cut it down. Not that interesting of a photo, but wanted to document it (taken with the cellphone camera).

I painted with the group on Saturday, but forgot to take a picture of the painting. And I think it might need some more work. I'll finish it up this week and post it. We plan on painting indoors only two more Saturdays, and then we will brave the weather until fall! I'm looking forward to it.

Update about the house sale...

I've been silent about the progress with the house sale, because there hasn't been much progress. I've had a good number of showings considering the nasty weather in the last couple months. The feedback has been positive in general, but the negatives are they don't like the galley kitchen nor the corner lot (on a cul-de-sac, but corner of a busy main road) - those two things I can't change. I've had 2 or 3 families really like it, and have visited twice, but they all have a place to sell before they can buy mine.... So no offers yet.

We are still trying to lure in the first time homebuyers who are trying to get the tax incentive. They have to sign a contract by Apr 30th to qualify. So with only about 6 wks left for that, we will probably lower the price this week to get more interest. Sigh....... I'm ready for this to be over....

My realtor and I took two days this weekend to view the condos I am interested in and we have the list narrowed down to 4-5.... which I am already decorating in my mind.... how my studio will be setup, etc... That's the most important room, right?

Pastel - Two Pears and Apple

Today with the painting group, I got my pastels out and did this small painting. It's been awhile since I used my pastels and I still enjoy them. So much easier than oils!

 

 Two Pears and Apple, 5 x 7, soft pastels on suede mat board

Oil Paintings - Mushrooms and Bananas

I did these two little 5 x 7 oils on canvas boards yesterday at the group painting session. I tried using a palette knife for the first time with the first painting. It was difficult at first, but finally I figured it out. I like this one quite a bit.

'Cobalt and Chiquita', 5 x 7, oil on canvas board

Then I did another using my brushes.

"Mushrooms", 5 x 7, oil on canvas panel

I prefer to work fairly fast, so these small canvases were perfect. I added only a few more details today.

Oil Painting - Onions

Glad to be back at our Saturday group painting at the art center. We missed last week because of the snow storms.

Here's my work from this morning and pics showing the subject and some of the people in the group. I'm fairly happy with this painting. I was having difficulty with the left front onion - painting it several times. One of the guys helped me get it to this stage.

Oh! I am using a different panel today. On one of the many artist blogs which I read, Marc Hanson said he liked using Museum board with two coats of clear shellac. This is what I used today and I really like the feel of it, Most recently, I have been using mat board coated with several coats of gesso. I like the shellac much better. I used spray shellac and didn't have to sand it. I sure hate the smell though! And with the weather being so cold, its not really the right conditions to be preparing these in the garage. Hopefully before I use up the other three prepared panels, the temperature will warm up a bit more so I can make some more.

Oil Painting - Sedona Stream

Saturday, the group met to paint together. I took along this picture from 2005 taken in Sedona - I think this is near Cathedral Rock? I started this at home with a very warm underpainting. Sometimes I really like the abstractness of my underpaintings more than the final painting!

Below is what I accomplished in 2 hours with the group.

 

And this is with the final touches, added this week:

 'Sedona Stream', 8 x 10, oil

Fruit Basket - oil

The plein air group met again at the arts center to paint inside today. Actually, it was probably warm enough to paint outside today, but we had already planned on painting a still life of fruit. Since we only meet for 2 hours, you have to get right into it and push through and get it done! I felt I was having some difficulty, but looking back at this photo, I like it. It needs some refining, but it will need to dry a bit. That is one thing I notice with oils, I want to get it done all in one sitting, but it won't cooperate!

As you can see, I'm a lefty! Bill was kind enough to take a photo while I worked of my painting and of the subject matter.

Fruit Basket, 8 x 10, oil

Pond Side - oil

Yesterday, the plein air group met at the arts center to paint inside. I took along a photo to paint from, that I took last July at one of our paintouts to Everal Homestead. Below is the original view:

 

I cropped it down to the middle left side of the pond:

Below is my finished painting. It sure is more dull than the original! Perhaps after I varnish it the colors will be more vibrant. Today it is pretty grey and rainy, so taking the photo was hard.

Pond Side,  8 x 10, oil

Corsica France; Virtual Paintout

 This month's challenge location for Bill Guffey's Virtual Paintout is Corsica France. Above is the view that I selected of 2 Route de l'Ancienne Batterie d'Aspretto, Ajaccio, Southern Corsica, France.

Ajaccio, Southern Corsica, France, 8 x 10, oil

I painted this today and had a great time. My plein air group met at the new arts center in Worthington and painted (inside). We plan to paint here each Saturday morning until April, when it should start to be warm enough to paint outside again. (By the way, if you are in central Ohio, please stop by the MAC and view the WAAL exhibit in the main gallery - its spectacular! I am super impressed with the quality of this exhibit. I am very proud to be included in this exhibit. See details: WAAL)

New Action!

Showings have resumed on the house - one is visiting while I type this and another is scheduled for tomorrow evening. Sunday we will be holding another Open House. Hopefully traffic will really get moving this week and someone will decide to make an offer.

My realtor sent me a report showing how many hits her company's website and realtor.com recorded of visitors to view the online listing of my house since it was listed the beginning of December. The number was pretty high! I wonder how many of those hits were me.... checking out my own house?!!? hahaha.

Intermission

Intermission, 8 x 10, pastel on suede matboard

Desperate to find something interesting to paint, here is a pair of old Mother of Pearl opera glasses, I bought on eBay a couple years ago.

The Ugly Duck Painting

Here's my next attempt at a still life. I sure picked some colorful objects to paint, huh? This shows the setup and the first pass at the painting. I kinda like the painting in this stage as it seems pretty simple and to the point. But I struggled on and messed and messed with it.

Below shows the final version of the painting. Its not bad, but to me, its kinda an ugly painting - mainly because of the color palette.

I think I need to paint the inside of my setup box a different color. Perhaps a nice neutral grey?

The Ugly Duckling, 8 x 10, oil

I added some minor highlights to the tiny painting from an earlier post. Here is a better picture.

Blue Pot, 4 x6, oil

Trying to Remember How to Paint

Well, I painted this afternoon. I felt like its been forever since I painted. 
I made a 'box setup' to be able to light my still life items dramatically. I wanted to paint the inside of the box pretty dark and was looking for my acrylic paints. After hiding everything away when I put the house on the market,  I couldn't find them for awhile. Took a bunch of searching! Then I didn't have the right colors to make black, so the inside turned out a deep rust color. Here's the setup with a couple of 50 cent items from the thrift store and a little blue note pad book.
Then the next pic shows the setup box at the top, and two paintings (oil). The smaller one was just a warmup and turned out better than the second larger one (that I gave up on, its not finished). The larger one needs wiped off and sanded down better. The board was gessoed, but I must not have sanded it enough and there are alot of ridges showing.

Here's a closeup of the little 4 x 6 inch one, although it is a pretty dark painting, and there is a lot of glare.

Happy Holidays to everyone!

A lovely way to start my holiday! 

 There was a beautiful sunrise this morning. The whole sky was pink, orange and purple, with teal blue and yellow at the horizon. I was driving to work, so couldn't take a picture, but the above is the same sky from about 40 miles north of me - one of my friends had taken pics and shared these.

I went to lunch with one of my bosses today. We got a window seat, and while we were eating SANTA stopped at the window and waved! Then as we were leaving he was in the passenger seat of the police car! We asked if he got arrested and he said he had to get out of work somehow...LOL 

 

No Buyer Yet

Wouldn't you love to buy my house?

No offers yet! We had 2 busy Sunday Open Houses. There was a good prospect last Sunday who spent lots of time looking over the house, so I hope they come back and write an offer. I'm not holding my breath, as I really think it will be on the market for a couple months.

I am itching to do some painting, so I think next week over the holiday I will have to get the paints out. I doubt I'll have many showings then as they will be too preoccupied with Christmas. There is an exhibit in January which is very important to me. It needs to be 'new work' for this exhibit, so I better get busy as the hand-in date is January 4th! 

                             

Make me an offer I can't refuse! LOL

Art on Hold

I had hoped to get into the studio over the holiday weekend, but I've made a big decision early last week to put my house on the market. That meant my 5 days off involved getting the house ready. The realtor came yesterday and we got the paperwork taken care of, and she had her photographer come and take some really nice shots for the MLS listing and brochures. The listing is to be 'live' tomorrow and we have Open Houses set for the next three Sundays.

I've decided a nice ranch style condo will make me much happier than taking care of a two story house with a fairly large subdivision lawn to mow. I'd been hoping to sell before now, but with the economy tanking I waited and had planned to put it on the market in March. But now with the 1st Time Homebuyer incentives being extended til April 30th, my realtor felt that if we waited we would miss out on a large part of the market for this price range.

So, long story short..... I need to keep the house spotless which means no artwork. I am afraid if I get out the paints, it might scare off some people thinking I will stain the pristine cream colored carpet! So, I will leave you with this shot that the photographer took of the studio. Looks pretty cool - I'd hate to mess that up right now!

Viewer's Choice Award

Tonight, I was awarded "Viewer's Choice" for the Worthington Art League fall exhibit at Anthem Insurance gallery for my oil painting! COOL! This was the same exhibit where I won an Honorable Mention at the opening reception for one of my pastel paintings.

Motivation

Sorry I haven't posted anything new this week. My painting classes ended last week, so haven't had a goal. I had great expectations to work on stuff for Karin's DSDF challenge and Bill's Google Maps challenge........but now after the time change - its getting colder and darker as I get home from work - well, let's just say I'm not too motivated. The DVR beckons and the recliner feels comfy with my 17 yr old cat on my lap.

Last night, I bought a new lamp fixture for the studio and some 'daylight' bulbs, so hopefully that will help. Generally though, I am much more productive during the daylight hours, so with next week being the holiday, I will be getting 5 days off in a row and I intend to spend several of those days in the studio. There is another juried show in January for my local art group so I need to get cracking! I'd like to setup a 'still life' box with a spotlight and paint more from life instead of my photos.

Oil Painting - Fall in Ohio, final edit

"Fall In Ohio" -  8 x 10  - oil

Here is my final version of this painting. I have changed the direction of the light several times. I have decided to say this is done, as I have lost my drive to work on it further.

Foliage is a hard thing to paint. I feel I couldn't get the vibrancy I wanted to show in the main red tree. But with each painting, I am learning and that is enough for me. Time to move on to another subject!

Oil Painting - Pomegranate

In painting class last on Monday, we painted from life using fruit and a spotlight. I chose a pomegranate. I was happy with this in class, but now I see alot of flaws. It looks like a Christmas tree bulb to me now.... ... sigh....

Oil Painting - Fall in Ohio, edit two

This is what I got done in class last night. I had the shelter house blocked in to the left, as shown in the last post, but I didn't like it. My eye kept being drawn to it and I wanted the trees to be the star. I wiped out all the area below the trees and my teacher came around after I had put the light color patches on the ground. I had planned on working those into a pathway. He thought it looked great as is and said it gave a look of soft mist rising from the ground after a rain, with some puddles on the ground.

It was too wet last night to do much more. In a couple days, I will probably just add a little bit more to the red tree, some bits of orange and yellow to the top, and add just a touch more darks to the grass area.

As always, when I first started working in class last night, it got to the real ugly stage - where you wonder if you have any talent at all and you get real frustrated! I have finally realized that if I just continue on and push ahead, usually it comes around - it might not be a masterpiece, but something that pleases my eye. In the past I would just give up and start something new. Hmmm, makes me realize I need to keep at it with the gouache studies!

Oil Painting - Fall in Ohio: Underpainting

This is just the underpainting for my next oil painting. I am using the photo I posted recently from High Banks Metro Park at the first photo here.

This started with a piece of scarlet colored mat board, coated with clear gesso and sanded. Not sure how much shows through here, but its more evident in person. I wanted to get a good start on my next painting before class tomorrow night.

Gouache Study - Zion

I tried to do more gouache studies and was having a lot of difficulty. Haven't figured out what my problem is yet. They are so small they should be quick and easy, but out of half a dozen, this is the only one that looks like anything. Guess I just wasn't in 'the zone' - isn't that the way it always goes? You have the time to get into the studio, but the creative muse didn't bother to attend!    A friend of mine was recently hiking at Zion National Park and this was painted from her photo. I may do this one and one other view in oils soon.

Vincent Blog

I found this blog that had Vincent Van Gogh's letters to his brother, setup as a blog. Its kinda neat. Haven't looked it over completely yet, but fun idea:    http://www.vangoghsblog.com/

Virtual Paintout

Have you seen Bill Guffey's Virtual Paintout blog? I have always loved to study maps for fun. I love Google Maps and the street view makes you realize that most places around the world don't look that much different than home. I decided to participate in Bill's challenge this month which was Belfast, Ireland.

Here are the coordinates the Street View I picked for my painting : +54 37' 39.56", -5 50' 14.22" or try seeing it with this link.


I found this view on an unmarked side road off Old Holywood Rd near Firmount Crescent. Surprised that the lane had Street View, but no street name was listed on the map. It looks like an entry road to a large cemetery, with a couple walking, and trying to get out of the way of the truck with the camera taking the map photos. What I thought was interesting is that in the Street View, it appears the couple is walking to the cemetery to leave flowers at a grave site.

Here is my painting, which is 8" x 10" and painted in oils. I moved the guy on the right closer to the girl, and made her walk directly at us.

Preview of MAC Demo Artists' Exhibit

Here is a link to the WAAL corridor at the MAC, showing the demo artists' work:

WAAL Demo Artists Exhibit

They still have some final touches to put on the remodel, but I think it will be a great place - I'm excited to be a part of it!

Fall Day In Ohio

High Banks Metro Park:

Play Time - Studies

I've admired Nathan Fowkes' sketchbook studies and wanted to try this myself because I tend to be in a big hurry to get into my painting, without doing some preliminary work ahead of time to insure a better composition. So this weekend I played around with gouache and watercolor on some scrap papers.

On Saturday, I worked on the following three compositions. These were from a picture I took in Sedona about 6 years ago. The paper for these were cut about 5 x 7 and masked off with artist tape.

This was done on pink matboard, probably not the best color, but it was just an experiment. I signed with an opaque white paint marker, but it still wasn't dark enough for me.

This was a similar composition and view. I like the black paper much better.

This was on an oatmeal color cardstock - reminds me of butcher's paper.

I like the pencil for the writing. I like this piece the best.

So, yesterday I got the brilliant idea I needed more colors in gouache. I bought a few colors of grey and a sepia. It didn't work out at all. I think the range was too close on the greys and the sepia too dark for that range.

This is something I want to master - if you can view/create something in grey scale and the composition works, then it will work well in color.

 

 The following abstract piece was just playing. I had started a scene from a picture at Inniswood, but it just looked terrible, so I just started slashing colors on the paper. Just wasn't working out yesterday for some reason. I think I need to simplify the subject matter.