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ART SHOW THIS WEEKEND THURSDAY-SUNDAY 9:30-5:30 free admission  You are invited to this fantastic art sale showcasing the beautiful colors of East Nashville's Shelby Park this weekend. Every painting sold is a contribution to the ongoing projects that make this beautiful park an oasis in the middle of the city. So many gorgeous paintings! Here are my contributions:  Marsh Wren 6x6 Oil  Bright & Cheery 8x16 Oil  Autumn Afternoon 8x16 Oil  Bridge Over Cumberland 9x12 Oil I hope to see you there!!
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It finally happened!! We made it to Tuscany! For a month...just Tuscany...to live and explore and enjoy and all the other things. It's been a dream that became a dream trip with every day bringing new and wonderful experiences. Our main stays were Florence, Lucca, Buonconvento, and Farnetella. I feel sure those last two aren't as familiar sounding; they were in the country, where the olive groves and vineyards live. But, since this isn't a travelblog, let's move on to the painting thing. I wanted so much to paint in Tuscany and hoped for the beautiful architecture and vistas and vineyards, "Under the Tuscan Sun"-style. And it all happened! Maybe not exactly as imagined because much of the time was spent eating pasta and drinking wine, but I did produce several decent small paintings (and a few other 'meh' ones that I won't display 🤪)  a wooden garage door hidden behind so much foliage in the middle of old Florence □  a tiny florist with the sweetest neon signage and flowers pouring out the doorway We did SO much walking in Florence, mesmerized by every single thing, including garage doors and flower shops. Yes, we saw museums, statues, the Arno, but it's the secret places I love the best so that's what ends up on my easel.  an iron gate, old bricks with lumpy mortar, and stairs leading to ? We stayed two weeks in Lucca where we walked MORE, averaging about 8000 steps a day. Lucca is a walled city south of Florence, a little larger than Pisa. It is not an especially touristy place and felt very lovely, with a walkable wall encircling the old city. We lived within the wall in an apartment above Piazza Cittadella and walked out the door to see the statue of Puccini. (Let's not talk about the steep and deep concrete stairs we went down to get to that door.) Lucky for me, doors and stairs and blocky architecture is inspiring. I started the first paintings inside our charming apartment, using the photos I had taken in Florence.  the view from our Podere Cunina window! cypress and olive trees galore!  beauty and inspiration in all directions!  and little gardens! in all the little villages! with gardeners!  for a few days we lived in a lovely olive grove In the quieter and more private environment outside the bustling city, I found cozy places to paint outside, en Plein Aire, where all the senses come alive: the sound of birds and bees, the smell of garden herbs, feel of the warmth and breeze. Looking at these paintings transports me right back to those hours and feels.  it's hard to resist an outdoor still life (can you spot the tiny saint?) Oh, what an awesome and precious time we had on our month in Tuscany and now feel so blessed and grateful reflecting on the memories. Thank you for letting me share my art and thoughts with you ❤️
The annual Tomato Art Fest in East Nashville is typically on the hottest Saturday of the summer and this year it's still true. Hot, sweaty, and fun. I'm happy to have three paintings in the Art Show this year and they are a whimsical departure from my usual style; still representational but kinda goofy. Happy Summer!!
 Market Matters 8x10 Oil SOLD *on hold until after the show.
I'm not blogging so frequently now, as you can see. Writing is HARD...it's so much more fun to paint and share the results than to find words that express the process, my feelings, whatever. All I can say is: painting = my happy place and I have a lot of fun with it! So much so that my art gear comes with me pretty much wherever I go. I've got packing down to two small boxes: one holding the paint tubes and a detailed letter to luggage inspectors to "please please do not throw these away! They are nontoxic, water soluble artist colors...and also expensive" and the other box is my bespoke pochade box that I created out of a real cigar box) Here are some paintings I did while in Mexico a few weeks ago:     The Hibiscus speaks for itself, but the other three paintings are of a historic hilltop building that holds a museum of sorts, a menagerie of parrots and flamingos, and a wonderful tapas bar with the best view in town! Yes, I painted a wall with a shelf of amber bottles and books. I loved the texture and composition...that's how I am these days: painting what makes me happy!  These two paintings are ones I started a couple years ago and was inspired to finish them up lately. The yellow-roofed Kauai plantation building was so rickety and authentic. The little gazing girl in the last painting was from one of our Mazatlan trips and we were so lucky to be in that moment when she came dancing up to look at the ocean and beach.  You can find these and other available paintings on my website (wendyervin.com) One more thing: these next two paintings are currently in a fun local show "Sunshine & Shadows" at GallerieTangerine in Nashville!
Thank you for reading, my friends!!
 On the edge of the North Sea and 18 miles north of Aberdeen, Scotland is the little village of Collieston where we made our home for the month of September, along with four dear friends. Because we love wild Scotland, we wanted to live in it instead of driving through it. So we rented a beautiful house on the edge of the expansive Forvie Nature Reserve, 100 yards from the cliffs above the North Sea, unpacked our bags and settled in. Collieston was a perfect home base for local exploration: walks in the dunes, golf on beautiful links courses, castles and gardens, whiskey and seafood. The village couldn't have been sweeter and the local people were so kind and welcoming of our American invasion to their community. We made new friendships, lots of beautiful memories, and I was able to do several new paintings. The gracious weather made outdoor painting possible and indoor painting logical when the wind was blowing. Some of the "works in progress" while I was in Scotland:  Oof! My hands were so cold! The wind was picking up and soon I was packing my gear to finish the plein air sketch in our warm house. I invite you to watch this slideshow of the paintings from Scotland. On each of the images, I've written a few thoughts on what about that scene made me want to paint it. Size and price varies, but all paintings are 8x10 or smaller, oil on linen panel, unframed. Free shipping. To see these paintings more closely, click here. It was a privilege and joy to spend a whole month in the village of Collieston and explore the beauty of Aberdeenshire. Please do contact me with any questions or post a comment on this blog. Thanks for reading!
"merry and blessed" is my Christmas wish for YOU! This we can be regardless of the storm we may be walking through. I pray that we always seek the Comforter and find rest for our souls.This year I've been painting small and have knocked out more than a dozen 6x6 and 6x8s since June. A couple of them sold in the Radnor Lake show last month and I have 3 currently in the "2023 6" Squared Online Show" Click here to view:  These and all the other little gems in this art show are sold unframed with free shipping. I am grateful to Randy Higbee and his crew for selecting three of my paintings to include in this years show! And still to come is my own personal online show of the paintings I did during our month in Scotland and from photo memories in my studio the past few weeks. Hopefully I will have several ready to share by mid December. Thanks for reading my blog and remember.... You may be wondering, "is she still painting?" and the short answer is: Definitely Yes! I've been quiet about my work lately as I've been leaning in to what painting means to me and how I can respect my own voice in what I create. That sounds a little highfalutin, so I try for language that is simpler and more straightforward. There is an uneasy relationship between creating art and selling art and I have wrestled with that for a while now. I'm not alone as I read the posts and blogs other artists are writing. Maybe it was the pandemic that slowed art sales in galleries, resulting in many of them closing their doors. Add to that the trend of poster art, catalog art, prints, and knock-offs. Artists can watch what's selling like every successful entrepreneur and many do adjust their subject matter and style to what's "in". There's no end to the "marketing resources" offered to creators, too. I've done a lot of soul searching and decided that isn't for me. Life is so short and unpredictable to spend it making a name for myself. Even now as I write this, there are two wars raging and so much suffering around the world. If I want to say anything with what I paint, it's to express peace and beauty, with a little mystery thrown in. So if I'm painting up in my studio or on the road in our travels, it will always be from my heart and for the sake of art. These five paintings will be in the Radnor Lake Art Show and Sale November 3-5 in Nashville. You can read more details on my New Paintings Page.  Walter Criley Visitor Center
November 3-5 Celebrate Radnor Lake in the year of their 50th Golden Anniversary! One by one, our 3 cats crossed the rainbow bridge in 2022. So sad and hard; we miss each one of them so much! Over the months of being cat-less, word has gotten out to the birds. Our birdfeeder has become the "It Place" amongst the feathered friends. Fun to watch and learn and get inspiration from so I set up my tripod with a Canon camera and took a few (hundred). photos to reference for paintings.
 Mourning Doves 6x8 Oil Linen panel Losing edges is another technique that makes a painting loose and painterly. It brings a softness to the subject and lets our marvelous brains fill in the details. It even seems to help tell the story by not giving all the information upfront. This sweet pair of doves pretty much live in our backyard now; coming and going and always coming back. Too big for the feeder, they forage below where our cheerful cardinals toss out seeds they're not as fond of. Do you see where the edges are "lost" and "softened"?
I love our little songbirds of the South, but my favorite of all is the delightful, sassy Carolina wren. Lots of lost edges is this painting. These wrens are spunky, bouncy, flitty wee characters. I'm sure I will be painting them again and again!  Carolina wren Foraging 6x8 Oil unmounted linen canvas Thanks for reading my blog! Comments welcome. These are small, affordable original oil paintings; contact me to purchase. [email protected] Cheers!
I am sharing a slideshow of some of my 2022 paintings...no captions, just art. Put a little music on, relax and enjoy. A few of these are WIP (works in progress) so don't get too critical 🥴 I caught a little "writer's block" lately so my New Year's resolution is to blog once a month. The good news is I don't have "painter's block"! So this post will be a little different but, hopefully, still of interest to most of you. One of the issues that holds me back from painting outside is all the equipment involved. I have streamlined my needed supplies significantly but still require a tripod, pochade box (to hold my palette, brushes, canvas, etc. Typically I have one largish shoulder tote bag and the tripod with a shoulder strap, and a wet painting carrier. In all honesty, setting up my stuff makes me feel moderately conspicuous, especially in public areas. I enjoy painting so much, but not becoming an attraction or nuisance (yes, that happened🙄). So I've been searching out a more low-key approach: a cigar box! With a small, all-inclusive box I could paint almost anywhere with minimal supplies and no tripod.
Step 1 was to locate all the YouTube videos and blog posts on how other artists tackled the upscaling of a cigar box and decide on what I needed my design to be. With the nice depth, I knew I could get at least 2 layers of storage, so the MacGyvering began with removing the flimsy hinges from the back and separating the lid and box.
 Paint tubes and brushes fit nicely in their compartments. Moving on to (step 3) the new torque hinges, which allow for the lid to stay in position while painting. I had to make a trip to Ace Hardware to get short screws that didn't go all the way through the box interior. Yes, I was a little nervous about doing this step, but it worked out fine.   Step 4: Now to the lid...it has a 3/4" depth, perfect for small panels. It took me a couple of days to decide how I wanted to hold the panels in place and came up with two clip ideas: the first clips are metal 1/8" offset clips, attached with the tiniest screws I could find so they didn't perforate the outside of the lid. They're installed with a tiny washer so they swivel to hold a 6x6 panel in place. The second clips are the clear 3M Command clips, trimmed to hold a 4x6 panel but not get in the way when working on a 6x6 panel. I mistakenly put them at the top first, but taking them off would tear up the cool decal, so I left them and put 2 more at the bottom.
This is what the lid looks like with a 6x6 panel in place. The torque hinges allow for moderate brushstroke pressure, as well as being unaffected by wind or gravity. I glued 1/8" craft wood pieces above and below to make it easier to paint the panel edges. Several sizes of small panels will fit inside this box lid: 4x6, 5x5. 5x7, 6x6, etc.
Step 5: To create the shelves, cut 2 rectangles of plexiglass to fit inside the box dimensions. Home Depot and Lowes both carry small sheets of plexiglass and it's relatively easy to cut with a sharp box cutter and ruler. 30 or so strokes with the blade and the sheet will snap apart with pressure. I painted the underside of each shelf with a mid-value gray acrylic paint and got a little fancy by adhering a value guide to one of the shelves. Cutting off a corner makes lifting them out much easier.
The lowest shelf is intended to hold the supplies below it in place during transport and also hold a small, wet painting in place using an extra big rubber band. I glued spacers (these are paint tube caps) in all 4 corners for the top shelf to rest on without touching the wet painting. The top shelf becomes the palette for my paint colors. The smooth surface is great for laying out and mixing the oil paint.  upper shelf Step 6: The box definitely needed a better, stronger latch and a lightweight but sturdy handle. Found these at a hobby store. Not sure which way to attach it ... I think I put the latch on upside down. haha! Again, I needed very short screws to prevent them from going all the way through to the interior. I had to saw off the integral screws that came on the handle and using a nut on the inside of the box to hold them in place, making sure it didn't interfere with the level of shelf supports. A little tricky.
Step 7: Add-ons
I did a trial run in my backyard and quickly learned that I needed some extras to manage the brushes and solvent: so side-wings were created out of some pvc L trim we had in the garage. Holes were drilled, L-brackets attached, a wire hoop to hold a tiny cup for turp was added. The metal L-bracket slides over the box edges and is held loosely in place by gravity and the plexiglass shelf.
Step 8: Knowing there may be times I'll want to use a larger panel than will fit inside the box lid, I worked out an accessory unit from a light-weight wooden lid I had on hand. Measuring 11x7.5", it could hold panels up to 9x12 using a large 7" rubber band fixing it to the cigar box lid and another band (or clips) to hold the panel on. The extra weight with the larger panel does make the box more difficult to manage.
This was a surprisingly fun project to do, requiring lots of mental planning and measuring and problem solving. Having a small pochade means limiting my color palette, cutting off the ends of paint brushes to fit, finding tiny containers for turp and medium, but it also opens up so many more opportunities to do plein air sketches, to paint on vacations, to be spontaneous. With this box, I can carry at least 2 wet paintings, paint at least 8 different size panels. have at least 6 paint tubes, 4 brushes, plus some other stuff. I'm looking forward to some happy painting!
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