Happy Holidays!

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mountains watercolor on yupo Whatever winter holidays you celebrate, I wish you happy and merry ones! It has been a good year for me, both personally and professionally. Thank you for your interest, support, and encouragement! They mean a lot to me. As a small gift, please treat yourself to a desktop wallpaper with the image above. It's the new version of an older painting of San Bernardino mountains. To download the wallpaper, click on the image, then right-click and choose "Save Image as" or "Set as desktop background" (or something along those lines, according to your operating system). Enjoy!

Small Works Show at Eclipse Gallery

paintings on a gallery wall Last Saturday was the opening reception for "20x20", a small works show at the Eclipse Art Gallery. The show features several High Desert artists, each with 20 works no larger than 8x8". As you can see from the photo, my 20 pieces represent several attempts to work in a series. The big idea was to have all 20 with an ocean/sea/water/beach theme but it didn't quite happen (insert a rant about how impossible it is to find the time to paint with two small kids). I ended up recycling some older paintings and adding some of my Virtual Paintout pieces.

To keep the format the same, I used 6x6" Aquabords, either painting directly on them (the Virtual Paintout street scenes) or mounting completed paintings on watercolor paper or Yupo onto the boards. The mounting part is new to me, though I have been wanting to try it for a while. It was easy, I like it, and I will definitely do more!

Two of the paintings ("Fishing at the Pier" and "Roskilde") sold at the reception. The show will run through the end of the month so I'm hoping for a few more sales. I kept the price a bit lower than usual to fit in with the whole gift-shopping idea of the show. After the show closes, these little beauties will be available through DailyPaintworks and, of course, my website.

fishermen watercolor painting

ocean beach watercolor paintings series

On a slightly different note, my Grand Gratitude Giveaway Week was fun. I got to try a few things in terms of marketing (mostly through Facebook, as it was a Facebook-focused event). Participation was great, especially towards the end of the week. People won cards, prints, a calendar with my art, an ACEO (tiny original painting), a portrait study, and an original painting. Did I have a ton of sales? No, but 1) I wasn't counting on them, and 2) It was just nice to give stuff away to people with genuine interest in my work. Many of the winners have supported, motivated, and inspired me for years, and I was happy to give something back. I will most definitely do something like that next year :)

desk calendar with watercolor paintings

DPW Hurricane Sandy Fundraiser

Did you know that I am participating in the Daily Paintworks Hurricane Sandy Fundraiser? Out of the two paintings I donated, one is still available (with the auction ending in several hours): architecture canadian city scene painting

- and the other one sold to a new collector in Massachusetts:

bleecker street new york manhattan art painting

This is an awesome way to buy artwork and contribute to a good cause (all proceeds are donated to Hurricane Sandy relief efforts, in my case I donated to American Red Cross). Sometimes, I even get fancy and gift-wrap paintings that I ship to their new homes:

gift wrapped painting

Also, if you are an artist, consider participating in the fundraiser yourself! There is no cost to enter and shipping is paid by the buyer.

Welcome to Gratitude Giveaway!

Thanksgiving is just a week away (yep, I know it might be a surprise for some of you..it was for me)! I love this holiday, and not even for the food. I love the idea that at the very least once a year, you get to pause and take inventory of all the things you are, or should be, thankful for. It doesn't even matter who you are thanking, it's more in the experience of gratitude itself. gratitude giveaway artist blog

This year, I am celebrating the whole week before Thanksgiving and I would love for you to join me! I am grateful for your interest, support, and encouragement without which it would be a whole lot harder for me to keep painting. With Thanks, I will be Giving something away every day - from greeting cards to an original painting. Daily giveaways will be happening on my Facebook page with a final drawing for an original painting on November 21. Daily giveaway rules will be announced on Facebook. To be eligible to win the original painting, you can do one or more of these things (each counts as one entry):

  • "Like" my Facebook page
  • Sign up for my newsletter
  • Sign up for blog updates (see box on the top right)
  • Comment on any of my blog posts...as long as it's relevant
  • Comment on this blog post telling me about a thing or two you are thankful for this year
  • Share my website with your friend on any social network (just make sure you let me know about it)
  • Tweet about me (giveaway, website, art) and mention @YevgeniaWatts
  • Mention me on Google+
  • Participate in one or more Facebook daily giveaways

Like I said, all of these are ways to enter more than once, so if you, say, sign up for the newsletter and the blog updates, you entered your name twice!

Ready...Set...GO!

Silver Lakes Arts and Crafts Fair this Saturday!

greeting cards for sale Come see me! This will be the only A&C fair I am doing this year (decided to take it easy for a while, with the baby and all). I will have some new original works and prints, a huge selection of cards, and a sale section. If it's not too busy, I usually do demos at my booth as well.

 

15th Annual Silver Lakes Arts & Crafts Fair

27801 Mountain Springs Rd, (Club House)

Helendale, CA

Saturday October 20th

9 am - 3 pm

 

artist booth setup

Just saw myself in a newspaper!

newspaper article about yevgenia watts A very tiny local newspaper, mind you ("High Desert Community News"), and a very tiny article - but I absolutely did not expect it! If you are wondering what I am holding in my left hand, why, it's not a palette. It's a styrofoam plate which did at some point hold snacks. Not sure why I'm just standing there and holding an empty plate...

I also received three checks in the mail today and a huge #8  Da Vinci Russian Blue Squirrel Quill brush! A nice day, I think :)

A couple of words and a video about my portrait show

http://youtu.be/nvFVAv4H-Ro The show opened on September 8 and, while nobody got stampeded, it was a good evening with new and familiar faces. The best thing, all those who showed up seemed to have a genuine interest and appreciation for my art. I set up an easel to paint but didn't have a chance to do very much painting - my time was occupied with friendly conversations :). My husband (who, by the way, made most of the frames from scratch) was with me and we brought our 5-month old daughter Katia (you will see her in the video, flying by). Elijah, who is now 3 years old, stayed with a friend. He talks a lot now and gets bored easily, so he could be quite a distraction.

I tend to keep myself from getting excited about things, for the fear of being disappointed. Well, in this case, I got more and more excited as the show opened and continued. I spent a several days getting ready for the "Artist Speaks" gallery talk, which was essentially a presentation about my A Portrait A Day project (I will probably make it into another video with voice-over. Or at least a pdf). It is a great feeling to see a body of work that you have spent some time working on hanging on the gallery walls, all nice and presentable. It gave me something very close to a sense of accomplishment, and also, fascination, that people would take the time and come see my paintings and even buy them. Completely different from a group show or an art fair. Here would be a good place to thank the Eclipse Gallery and Joan Sowinski for making this show happen. Thank you!

Solo show opening this Saturday!

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artist exhibition flyer  

Remember "A Portrait A Day"? No? Well, it's been a while. It was a project I did in 2010-2011. I decided that I would paint a small portrait (most of them are 9x12") every day and limit myself to 30-60 minutes per painting. This upcoming show highlights the best of the 60+ paintings that I completed. It is my first solo show at a gallery, and definitely the first one of such a large scale. I would love to see you at the reception!

 

 

Pears wet-into-wet

pears watercolor painting for sale wet-into-wet wet on wet Wet-into-wet watercolor painting is relaxing (at least, that's what I think :), I'm sure there are many people who find it just as frustrating). You get to watch the paint move, colors shrink and expand, bleed into each other, so juicy and vibrant. You get to experience the different levels and stages of wet watercolor paper - from the shiny pool of water through saturated but only shimmering to satin magic state where the blossoms happen, to matte but cool to touch, which is the danger zone , to bone dry. Wet-into-wet watercolor is poetry.

 

closeup detail of a wet-into-wet watercolor painting

 

detail of a wet-into-wet watercolor painting of pears