1) Yesterday I received an e/mail from Pop Revolution gallery saying that my painting had not been accepted into their RED themed show in February. Boohoo for me…..Then today I received an e/mail saying that their rejection notice was incorrect and that I HAD been accepted into their show. Yeah for me…… Weird, huh? I tell ya – this art business can drive you crazy.

2) Amy Bryce (what’s your title?) of the Sharonville Fine Arts Center sent out an e/mail announcement of my March solo show….and in it she said I have a WICKED sense of humor. Okay, that made me laugh……however, I know a few people who would say a few more derogatory things about my sense of humor! Fortunately, my husband loves me for it. Calls me the Queen of Satire…and I guess it shows up in my artwork, too. Just can’t seem to help it.

That Smiley Face looks wicked…doesn’t it?

Click here to return to www.dawnaboehmer.com homepage.

Okay, none of us like to face rejection…..and in this case I wish I’d gotten an explanation. The painting wasn’t good enough? Didn’t fit the theme of RED well enough?  I’m a lousy painter…WHAT WAS THE REASON???? What’s funny is that I almost never enter competitions like this…..I want to paint what I want to paint and not something that fits into someone’s idea of a good theme for an art show….but my goal this year is to get into more shows and art galleries. And my first attempt was rejected…..

Personally I find this painting to be rather exciting….what could I have done to make it better? I could have put more expression on her face….maybe splattered some paint all over her legs…but I think the over-all painting has a lot of movement in it.I think it reflects excitement and a passion for painting.

So…how am I dealing with this rejection? I went online….typed in how to deal with rejection as an artist and found an article on Joanne Mattera’s art blog. Click here to read the article. Reading it helped a little.……..she has written several other articles regarding rejection, maybe if I read all of them it will help a little more. And you know what’s really sad? I’m an adult, I’m a big girl….but I asked my husband if he’d go with me to pick up my rejected painting. I feel a little embarrassed about being rejected……

Click here to return to www.dawnaboehmer.com home page.

Lightened the over-all floor color by glazing Naples Yellow over it. Worked on the two paintings hanging on the museum walls.

Decided that the tee shirt was too plain without any design on it….so painted on a Superman logo and added yellow piping into the seams. Worked on the skin tone using Naples Yellow+Cadmium Red Light for lips, cheeks, and ears, added Permanent Blue Violet to it for shadow areas. The Basic skin color was Burnt Sienna+White.

This is starting to look a bit more like Caroline…need to let the skin tones dry and glaze some more color on. Realized that I’d made her shoes too small (ouch!), so corrected the fit problem.

Did ya notice the weird painting in the upper right hand corner? Made a feeble attempt at painting an out-of-focus face in the frame…..can’t decide if it’s distracting…maybe I should just make it an abstract.

Thought about putting this lady in the frame….This painting is titled Daily News by Yasuo Kuniyoshl (1893-1953), born in Okayama, Japan, migrated to the U.s. in 1906, and became a painter, print-maker, and photographer.

Thank God for Photoshop….I cropped the woman in The Daily News painting….Photoshopped it in…and yes, think I’ll paint that woman tomorrow. Wonder if an Cincinnati Art Museum experts will notice that I cropped their painting?

Click here to return to www.dawnaboehmer.com homepage.

Today I worked on getting those damn values correct again…..lightened the closest walls by painting on Greenish Umber+White. Darkened the baseboards. Spent  lots of time on the statue and plinth. Notice that the NUDE statue is a bronze-ish color and the plinth is more greenish.

Painting this statue would have been the perfect time to just do an under-painting using values of Burnt Umber + White…and then glazing over it with Yellow Ocher or Stil de Grain Yellow. Why didn’t I think of that sooner?It would have saved time.

This is my 2nd attempt at painting plaid…still don’t have it all figured out. First I painted all the black lies…and let it dry. Today I thinly glazed white over the entire dress…..adding a blue-purple mixture to the portions which I wanted in shadow. Then I re-painted the black lines into the white paint. Since I was painting wet-into-wet the black lines picked up the white paint and they became grey lines. Next I went in and painted solid black lines where the grey lines crossed over each other. Also went in and painted the white squares whiter where I wanted the dress to come forward.

Does any of that make sense? Is anyone aware of an online tutorial about painting plaid material? I sure would like to find a better way to do it….but maybe there is no easy way.

Click here to return to www.dawnaboehmer.com homepage.

Yesterday I worked on adjusting the values of the walls and floor….trying to make sure that they have some variance in value…you never want everything to turn out too medium.

Caroline…this doesn’t quite look like you yet…but I’ll keep working on it. Caroline is now the most erudite kindergarten student that I’ve ever met.…and she’s still cute as a button.

I’m thinking about painting a SpiderMan or SuperMan logo on Josh’s shirt. I’m finding it a little difficult to capture the right expressions on the children’s faces…..have to use really tiny brushes to create the different lines and planes….this would be easier to do if I were painting them life size.

Started mixing Sap Green+ Cadmium Red Light with a little Naples Yellow to make a more neutral green for the Museum Walls. I’m trying to introduce more Red into the painting so that Josh’s shirt isn’t the only Red item.

Click here to return to www.dawnaboehmer.com homepage.

As long as the tip of the nose is lighter in value and the philtrum is darker in value….then you’ll recognize the shape as a nose. FYI….the philtrum is the medical term for the cleft between the nose and upper lip. Today’s painting session was all about painting in the background behind the figures.

At this point probably none of the values are correct…everything looks a little too medium in value. However, now that I have some paint behind the figures…I can start lightening and darkening the values of the paint as needed.

Probably need to paint some type of design on the front of Josh’s shirt. It said Oshkosh Raiders…..but unless you’re into airplanes you probably wouldn’t know what that refers to. Could put a sports team on it…but that would link it too much to a specific city. Maybe a T-ball sports name…..

Poor Carolina…..she was the last thing I painted on today… I was pretty tired by the time I got to her…so didn’t spent much time painting her. I was happy with today’s efforts…..painted thick, got lots of paint on the canvas, and made some composition decisions. I think that adding some walls at different angles, and having some paintings hanging on the walls will help to establish the Art Museum location….as well as add some visual interest, and balance out the composition. Could have just painted a blank wall behind the statue…but hopefully this will add to the story line.

Click here to return to www.dawnaboehmer.com homepage.

Painted the plinth…then repainted the statue more of a bronze-ish color. And now I’m totally stumped on what color to paint the floor and walls. Think I’ll sleep on it.

Click here to return to www.dawnaboehmer.com homepage.

The canvas is 24×30″ and this is the result of two painting sessions….I’m really liking it so far. This size canvas seems to be perfect for me to work on…it’s small enough that I should be able to finish in a week or two…yet it’s large enough that I can actually paint in all the detail that I like. Working on those 16×20″ pieces was difficult for me…I think they actually took me longer to finish because of their small size.

I’m been tending to paint the skin tone too light……so I mixed up 5 values of Burnt Sienna+Naples Yellow+ White and used the middle value for the main skin tone. Also used mixtures of Naples Yellow+Cadmium Red Light+White and added Permanent Blue Violet+Raw Umber to that mixture for the darker tones. For some reason lately I’ve been starting out painting the skin tones. This time I started with the eyes….if you can nail the eyes then the rest of the painting just flows.

Painted in the black portion of the plaid dress first. I wanted to get the flow of lines established first….when it dries then I can paint over it with values of White+Cerulean Blue+Permanent Blue Violet to define the shadow areas. Once I have the depth established….I’ll paint over it again for the black portions of the plaid. This is my second attempt at painting a plaid dress…..I gave up on the first effort and just made it a striped dress. This time I think I have a better understanding of how to do it….I fervently hope.

Click here to return to www.dawnaboehmer.com homepage.

Apparently this statue was just sitting in someone’s back yard (I’m sure it was a very wealthy someone) and they decided to donate it to the Cincinnati Art Museum. Since the Art Museum wanted to display it indoors…they sent in to Jensen Conservation for cleaning. Pressure washing didn’t clean it enough…so they bead blasted it. That means they blasted it with tiny glass beads which clean it, brighten it up, and give it a satin finish without any dimensional change.

I’m finding it very interesting working on my Art Museum series of paintings…soon I’ll know enough about the Cincinnati Art Museum collection that I could be a docent! Yeah, volunteer work….another way for me to spend time not to make any money…..

This is the idea for my next painting. I’ve had the photos of these two kids hanging on a bulletin board in my studio for several years. The little girl is my niece, Caroline Boehmer. and the boy is the son of an airplane friend of ours…his name is Josh. I’m glad that I waited to paint them…I really like this composition and storyline. The looks on their faces are priceless.

Click here to return to www.dawnaboehmer.com homepage.

Thought I  might have to start holding the paint brush with my left hand….and that reminded me of Frank Frazetta.

Frank Frazetta (1928-2010) was an American Fantasy and Sci-Fi artist. He painted buxom babes and heroic men on steroids. Funny story…he never realized that he gave his heroines large hips and breasts…..until a fellow artist pointed it out to him! Maybe he just thought that’s what all women really looked like….at least in his mind.

Anyway, to tie this into the story about my injured thumb…..Frank Frazetta suffered a stroke and lost the use of his right hand. So what did he do? He taught himself to paint just as well with his left hand. How many of us would have that kind of motivation…self-discipline…love of their art? Hell, I’m making so many typing errors today…just because I have a band-aid on my thumb…that I’m ready to give up typing. It would take lot of self motivation to teach myself to paint using my left hand….I have enough trouble painting with my right one!

So today…my hat is off to Frank Frazetta.

Click here to return to www.dawnaboehmer.com homepage.