Happy New Year from Gerrie: 2014 Wrap-up Newsletter

With art exhibits across the state, wonderful painting trips, and lots of great work created by students and colleagues, 2014 has been a great year!  Here are a few highlights:

During the month of March three of Gerrie's pieces were exhibited as part of She: The Female in Image and Form.

In April, Gerrie's piece, Angela, was honored with a judge's award in the 82nd Annual Juried Exhibition of The Indiana Artists Club, Inc at the Indianapolis Museum of Art.

In May, two of Gerrie's pieces, Enchanted and Touch of Spring, were accepted into Art Barn's 21st Annual Juried Art Exhibition.

In June, this piece by Gerrie was displayed as part of the Indiana Heritage Arts 36th Annual Exhibition at Brown County Art Gallery.

2014 marked the 5th consecutive year that Gerrie's work was accepted into Chesterton Woman’s club Annual Art Show.  This 63rd annual installment of the show took place during the month of June. 

August saw the beginning of the Hoosier Salon's 90th Anniversary Exhibition!  Gerrie's piece, October Table, was on display at the Indiana History Center until August 24th, when the piece joined 100 other gorgeous pieces on the traveling tour.

  
In October, Gerrie's piece, Entwined, received the Marcia Price Memorial Fund First Prize Award in the Heartland Artists' 26th Annual Juried Regional Art Show.  The event's judge, Jamie Ball, who works as an instructor at Culver Academies said, "First, second, and third places all went to artists who chose a botanical theme, but each approached the subject in a completely different media and approach, all masterfully."  

In November, Gerrie donated this beautiful painting of the Indiana Dunes National Lakeshore to Lakeshore Public Media's annual holiday gift auction.  Thanks to a donation from someone known as "Cookiedune," this lovely seascape brought in hundreds of dollars in support of local, arts-focused, public broadcasting!

Wrapping up 2014, Gerrie's piece, Into the Light, was accepted into the latest installment of the Elkhart Juried Regional Art Exhibit on display at the Midwest Museum of Art from October to December.

Gerrie's winter/spring art classes kick off at the South Shore Arts Center on January 13th, 2015 (For more information visit Gerrie's website, or the South Shore Arts website).  Ongoing classes at Hobart Arts League begin January 15th.  With several new solo exhibitions on the horizon, 2015 looks like it will be a great follow up to the magnificent 2014.  Happy New Year!

-Gerrie 

Enlightenment

In this piece I wanted to show the viewer beautiful details they might enjoy.  The strength of composition is the guiding force, carrying the viewer through the sketch.

A touch of bright yellow enhances and strengthens the composition.

 

 Some additional highlights build a mosaic of abstract shapes and forms.  Bright yellow ochres dance through the trees like falling leaves. 

The surroundings outline the river, but it is not yet formed.

I add more trees to build more mystery around the center of interest.  I deepen the golden ochres and raw sienna to add depth.  I also add dark warms and cools to add strength to the foreground.

Bathed in Gold

Fall is a short magical time of the year.  In this piece, sunlight shone from the back of the trees, which gave an intense glow and a full range of values from light to dark.

The first sketch looked like sailing ships bouncing on the water instead of trees on the side of a cliff.   

 

The next is a layering process from the hot intense centers of interest blending out to the subtle middle values.  Then I added some of the cool blues and purples to accent the warm gold. 

In the third part of the building process, I darkened the strong intense accents, and added reds next to the greens to draw the viewer forward toward the center of interest.  I also added some details in the light middle and dark areas.

 

 

A River Runs Through it

 

 

Do you ever feel like you have been somewhere before and would like to capture the vision a second time?  It is early fall, the colors just taking over the forest and bringing a fresh new vision and renewed inspiration.  This piece captures that.  I am very excited about the abstract angles that give strength to the composition, and I wanted to build the lights, pale yellows, greens, ochres and the soft gray in the distance.  Each layer of warm, cool colors that is lovingly developed in each subsequent layer builds depth and space to draw the viewer down the path along the river.  A river meanders along, caressing the shore and off to places unknown, as quickly as the wind blows through the trees, changing the earth in ways we can only dream of.  When I look at the finished work of art, I  will feel the sun in my face and the wind in my hair as though I was there again.

 

 

Pumpkin Spiced Painting

A trip to the farmer’s market makes it clear that fall colors have arrived.  The summer’s bounty is finally ready for harvest, displaying a visual feast for the eye.  Everywhere you turn are fall flowers in every imaginable color, and inspiration for still life paintings abounds.  But orange, the quintessential color of fall, is best represented in the iconic pumpkin on display for Halloween and Thanksgiving.  Much like the leaves that fall from trees in layer after layer on the ground, the strokes in this demonstration piece for Hobart Art League replicate fall’s abstract patterns of beauty.