Unified body of work...you be the judge.

I didn't take into consideration the spacing, each piece is formatted in a 1920 square, so the spacing might change the way the images are seen. I'm now leaning towards A with the B booth shot as shown above.

care to comment further?
I need your help, I have lots of art fair deadlines coming up this week - I'm on the fence with my slide selections. As a jury member you will be reviewing up to 1200 sets of slides. In the first round each set is projected for 5-10 seconds, the set is either rejected or goes on to the next round, more time is given in the next rounds, booth slides can be tie breakers.

My question for you: which of these 3 groups (A,B,C) makes the best initial first impression as a unified body of work? (click on the image to enlarge)

Cardboard...

i love to paint on it. no risk.

Damen's portrait

I finally got Damen's pet portrait painted today...turned out pretty good! He was found near and named for Damen Avenue here in Chicago so we went with a Chicago street sign green name banner and the road running around his head. He is an adorable looking little guy, I have not met him yet.

Painting...first brush strokes of the year.

One of my goals for 09 is to paint for some amount of time each week day. First day, goal achieved. I'm excited to see what images emerge. Clay class also started tonight so I painted and sculpted today...and did my daily sketchbook page. It's amazing how good that feels. I'll share more about the writing workshop later this week...I smile every time I think of it!

Bob the Dog with a Blog

Bob lives in Virginia, he has a blog and it appears a very talented photographer named Bev Hollis...Did I mention Bob has a crush on Alice? He is quite a handsome boy, pretty fancy with that brindle coat...Alice is a lucky girl!

Hello 2009...learning to write the unthinkable

Picture 18

Happy New Year! I had grand plans for a wrap up post of 2008 and my hopes for '09 but was struck by a nasty cold that Airborne couldn't stave off. So I spent the last few days in bed..in hopes I could still attend "Writing the Unthinkable" with Lynda Barry, (yes Lynda Barry the comic!) this weekend. Armed with a 5" stack of kleenex, liquids, cough drops and required materials (fun pens & pencils and a 3 ring binder with 150 sheets of ruled paper) I made it...(thanks to Rich, he's taken such good care of me!) It was a very entertaining day, as I knew it would be. Lynda is just so present and remarkable and hilarious and inspiring. She had us writing and reading our writing to a class full of people we did not know within the first 2 hours. This was only possible because she has really good rules. I can't share any of my writing with you or look at it myself until 5:01pm on Sunday, and honestly I don't know if I'll still be feeling gutsy so we'll see. In the meantime this is one of my scribble sheets from today, I have several. These are part of the rules. If you are still reading I apologize for going on there is no great reward at the end here except to confess that I'm afraid you'll all expect me to be a better blogger after this class but it's really not about that...so I should probably stick to pretty pictures...and books, picture books that's what I'm hoping for. Also want to use these techniques in my 2d work. She said the method is based on that of her college painting professor Marilyn Frasca so now I'm even more psyched. Going to bed now, I'm exhausted and still a little sick but smiling!

Unexpected Gift #2

I guess I should say Unexpected Gift #3 if I include that great Kong Care Package we received last week...So this one came from the east coast...from Art Licensing Artist & Maven Carol Eldridge...she recently blogged about creating all these fun holiday decorations complete with very well thought out merchandising package. So it was also the gift of a little lesson in product development, licensing design, and packaging! Thanks so much Carol..I love my happy little Blue Bird and fun pins! As always you are a wealth of knowledge.

Unexpected Gifts...

I received 2 lovely and very unexpected packages in the mail today! Michelle Allen, an incredible artist and blog-o-sphere pal sent me this wonderful handmade snow man ornament complete with vintage bingo card (he is sporting a bingo chip) and other fanciful details, and a greeting card with magnet art attached. I can't believe it because when I read her blog and post about making these I immediately wanted one (and secretly wished I was there helping to make them)...she posted a few in her etsy store but of course they were gone by the time I checked it out. Suddenly I have one, thank you so much Michelle! ...and the whole presentation with vintage bingo card...so cool...and all so thoughtful.

I'll tell you about the second gift that arrived in my next post...