Website is updated

If you are reading my blog, take a moment and check out my new website....
http://www.trudybentleyrech.com

I have learned a lot. Most artists post their bio in the third person. This is the web. I want to be more informal. My Bio and formal resume will go with a package to folks who want this kind of documentation or if I am in an gallery exhibition or museum type show, but for online...I am staying casual...at least for now. What do you think of this painting? I am donating it to a charity event for Step by Step Early Childhood Development Center. They help children with developmental delays catch up. It is a great center. They use art to reach out to the young children. It is one of my favorite pieces, but theirs is a great cause. Hope it brings them much needed funding.

One more thing

New artist statement part one...more candid
Why do I make variety of art I make?
I am an intensely visual person with a huge curiosity about life science and the arts.
My artwork is about connecting both.
For example, when my subject is a person, I like to look beyond the physical shell to connect with the personality of my subject.
Capturing the physical image of the subject is fun. I see mass and form, flesh and structure with a spark of the person inside.
Painting becomes my dance inspired by vision, being actualized by my own muscles and bones.

Working on new site

Put up the site and now am revising it in a major way. Took down all the pictures. Building the site with only Contribute 3 and limited templates is frustrating, but I have learned to go around a lot of obstacles. Helps to play with software. I could envision getting Dreamweaver someday, but have some other items on my wish list, like an Epson 4800 printer. Great way to make digital prints AKA giclees with such archival qualities as to probably outlast most actual paintings.

My official website

I just published it tonight after finding a host and registering the domain name. I will have it looking better by tomorrow. Will be adding a counter to gauge traffic.

The Visit

This painting got me started back painting my favorite subject: People.

It is an acrylic painting done Alla Prima style on a 24 x 36 inch canvas. I don't ever really intend on selling this piece. "She" is what brought me back to painting representationally again.

Some artists and collectors only feel oil paintings are the most desireable. I like to use a lot of different mediums to express myself. I do love working in oil, but acrylic paint has wonderful qualities as well.

Growth

The sketch group was better than ever last night. One of the artists who was there is another American Academy of Art graduate. Her name is Karol Kintz. She will be teaching a limited sized class on painting flowers "Alla Prima". The style Richard Schmid http://www.richardschmid.com/book.html uses. I started at this school a few years after Richard Schmid went there. He was already quite well known. Mr. Mosby was his teacher and mentor. Although Mosby was still there when I went to classes there during the summers while still in high school, I was enrolled in life and fundamentals classes and didn't have the honor of studying with this wonderful painter. Fortunately Mosby's influence prevailed when I attended full time. Mosby's friend and fellow artist Joseph Vanden Broucke was my teacher. Mr. Van was a wonderful teacher. I hold the distinction of winning the Mosby scholarship. The year I won, my friend David Hettinger also won. They split the scholarship between us. My growth was stunted in some ways because of life choices, circumstances and perhaps even fear of failure/fear of success. Now, I am focused and enjoying growth. What will be will be. I have to paint. I have to draw. I am eating, dreaming and living my work again. The fellowship of fellow artists really helps. It is all about growth.

Conte crayon still life

This is a fully developed Conte crayon drawing. It is in the collection of a colleague. I really enjoy working in the medium. The subject? The seed pods of the mahogany tree. This species of mahogany is native to south Florida.

Conte crayon drawing

This is a nude from one of the drawing sessions. I will post more drawings, however, I am self censoring until I have my own website. Some people find nudes offensive. I don't. I started drawing nudes while still in high school. I did medical and biological illustrations while in college and later worked as a nurse. I find the undraped human figure to be beautiful.

My Friend David Hettinger

If you look close, David has a Salon de Garage postcard in his shirt pocket. Our visit was just wonderful. His success is inspirational to me. Not only is he very talented, but he is a very good person and loyal friend. I have a picture of the two of us taken with the camera's timer, but...I like being behind the camera and not the focus of it.
More links and pictures to come. Check back daily or at least every other day. I am looking over some drawings made at the Atelier Lizio's sketch group to post. After I resize them for the web, I will select a sample to add to the blog.

Good News with Plums and Green Apples

May have an opportunity to show in a gallery not too far away from Naples. Developments will be posted once confirmed. Not a good time to sit back and relax. I don't mind being busy this way one bit.

Good show

Well, I am happy to have sold 10 pieces. I was pleased to meet a number of people interested enough in my art to purchase it. Surprisingly, the small nudes sold the best. I enjoyed the exhibition. The funds from this show will be used to resupply and further establish myself. The biggest compliment anyone can give an artist is to buy a piece of that artist's work. Thank you to my new patrons. I look forward to additional encounters with these nice people and hopefully others who decide to add my original work to their walls in the future. Sona Gallery owner, Deb Angus went above and beyond to be helpful. The gallery business isn't an easy one. It was an honor to hang work in such a nice space. Angus is also an artist. You can visit the Sona gallery site by visiting the site below.
http://www.sonagallery.com/sona.htm


Check back tomorrow for an update

Hanging the show

Tonight, I will be at the Sona Gallery in Naples later today to hang my own work. Although the space is restricted because this event has 12 other artists showing, I have a great hanging plan. All the extras are under control. I have a guest book, business cards, bio and artist's statement as well as some brochures showing past and present work. The show opens tomorrow evening. I will be happy to take some of the day to relax. Today, I am adding a still life to this blog. I am feeling a bit hungry!

Another slice of the sky...

Sky Slices

Entitled Sky Slice: Blue this acrylic painting reflects my interest in clouds. I tried to add more than on file to show the other slices, but wasn't sucessful, so I will make seperate posts.

Plumbago in the Afternoon

This 5x7 inch oil will be part of the Salon de Garage exhibit opening next Friday evening and running through the day Saturday.

Violet at last

I thought "Violet" was not going to make it online. It is a "Naples" nude...in that the painting is pretty modest for an undraped figure. You can enlarge the images and then click the back button to return to the page.

Making a catalog

Today, I am working on a catalog of work currently available. I photographed most of the pieces on Tuesday and am now importing the RAW format images into PhotoshopCS to make certain the color profiles accurately reflect the work and to make smaller, web friendly files.
This is one of the paintings that will be at Salon de Garage at the Sona Gallery in Naples this coming Friday night and all day Saturday. The title, Violet, is not a woman's name, but refers to the primary pigments used in creating this small oil from drawings I made during the Tuesday sketching sessions.

Violet...doesn't seem to want to load so I am going to try "In the Rookery" to see what happens.

Reconnecting

Had a fantastic visit with David Hettinger yesterday. Dave's work is currently showing in one of Florida's premier galleries: Weatherburn Gallery. Their website is www.weatherburn.com
David is a Master in the Oil Painter of America. His work is absolutely beautiful. Have also reconnected with another former American Academy of Art student and now excellent painter Dave Kuczynski. His work can be seen on this site http://www.mowsart.com/ (check the gallery section.) One of our old group includes Ron Barsano. Ron is the first person I found when using Google to search for classmates. His work is just beautiful also. http://www.barsano.com/index.html I have asked for help from a fellow blogger and artist, Martha Marshall. http://marthabrooksmarshall.com/ She has set up links on her blog on a side area and I will be doing this soon as well. She has links to some of our other friends on her blog and website. Martha was very instrumental in my return to painting. The synergy from a group called BRAVA in the Tampa area gave me confidence to paint outside of the closet again and take my work public before we moved to Naples and it was time to get reestablished once again. BRAVA has a blog http://bravaartists.blogspot.com/

Exciting news

Not only will my work be featured in a show in Naples called Salon de Garage January 19th and 20th, but a very good art school buddy is going to be in town for the "season" openning show featuring his wonderful paintings at a very prestigious gallery. Woo hoo. The artist I refer to is named David Hettinger. His work is part of a group show at Weatherburn Gallery. He is a Master in Oil Painters of America. I am thrilled for him and very much look forward to seeing him after many years. We competed for and split the Mosby Scholarship at the American Academy of Art. He has more than paid his dues and I am playing catch up. Our competition was always friendly. Tomorrow I will do a digital photo shoot of all the pieces I will have showing to compile my catalogue for the show. It is my humble hope that someday, I will be a featured artist in a prestigious gallery such as above. I have had too many interests and not enough focus. It is harder now, but I am determined to keep pushing. I am very fortunate to be able to concentrate my efforts now.
I will post at least one of the pictures I will be showing...and hopefully selling! Very soon. Made an Access database for my currently available work yesterday. I looking to build my art as a business without losing contact with my creative side AND find a way to get the daily chores done!

Productivity

I have been painting almost daily. Getting ready for a show in January. I am excited about the opportunity and will post some of the new paintings here. After painting them, I must let them dry long enough to be handled for digital photography. Once I capture the image, I must resize it to a reasonable file size for the web.
This painting is small, only 5x7 inches and done in oil. It is of the American Beautyberry, a woody shrub native to the southeast.