Blog Posts

Inspiring myself

1/5/2022

I am still working on a theme from a painting I did years ago and ran across in my VAST photo library. I looked at the older painting and thought that it would be fun to revisit that style with a few more years of painting under my belt.

Most of these went to Valley Art, a local gallery in Forest Grove, Oregon. There is a opening on Saturday, January 8th at 2pm and these will be available at that time.

I have used a specific app on my iPad for years to create art and it has been big time revamped and I am trying to learn the new tools. These are in progress. Fun to try out new ideas!

Finding my own inspiration

11/27/2021

I was looking through some older digital paintings that I did on the iPad and decided that I really liked some of them and decided to try to paint them on canvas.

Rather fun and challenging too!
Then I just kept going.
This is a painting still in progress.

Used one of my greeting cards for inspiration and off I went.

Waiting to see what is next!

Recycling my own art

5/13/2021

I am still having a blast cutting up old paintings of mine and creating new smaller works that have stories to go with them.

The bird raced the dinosaur towards extinction.

Cats rule! Dogs Drool!

The Cat now understood about fracking and decided it was time to skeedadle

The night was magic and the cat intended to get a bunch of that.

Time to make lemonade from lemons

2/2/2021

I have ordered canvas from 5 different suppliers and it has all been inadequate to my needs. It all buckles when it gets wet, and paint is uh, wet.
So.
I am trying something different.
Again.

This is a smaller stretched canvas that had a painting on it that I did not like, so I panted over the shameful one and then cut up some UNstretched canvas that I had painted on and glued that on the stretched canvas.

When glued, the wonky warped canvas has NO CHOSE but to behave and lay flat. heh

I like the childlike quality to this. So of course, I made more.

I really like making the birds!

The chopping up part...

This one is called, "Summer at the Lake"

By the way, I have over 100 YARDS of unstretched canvas to use.
Guess I will get back at it.

Painting woes.

11/20/2020

I like to paint on unstretched canvas. I have done that for years. The painting can be stretched later or not stretched at all. Easy to store paintings that way too! Easy to ship!
But, alas the canvas I have purchased lately has been, well, crap. When I go to paint on it, the canvas buckles and warps. I tried taping it to my table and that helps, Sort of, but certainly not ideal. I am used to working on many paintings at a time and if my work table has painting taped to it, then I have to clean house, Oh! The horrors!

This is not good.

So, since I have some cardboard here courtesy of Amazon, I thought I would play with the idea of constructing some art out of that. I am still working on the idea, but these pics will give you the idea!

I wrote a plea to a canvas manufacturer in Texas and I hope they have just what I need. Cross your fingers for me!

One foot in front of the other

9/23/2020

This Covid stuff has made time just slow down for me. I had a while there where I was not painting. Then I got back to painting and the new canvas I ordered had issues and they sent me another 50 yards. Yes, Yards.
This canvas is better but will take me extra steps to get it to work. But I will figure it out.

Then my computer died. Had to wait 2 weeks for an appointment to take it in. Had to drive to the middle of Portland to take it to an Apple store. They said it would be 5-6 weeks before they could get to it to repair it. So I have been stumbling by on my ancient macbook pro. It is 11 years old and it is slow. Really slow. I have to wait for my other one to be repaired before I can upload photos here.

So if you are on Instagram, I post there often. www.instagram.com/helvismith

Photos to come when the starts align!

Together Alone

4/27/2020

Well, who woulda thunk?

I am pretty much used to spending a lot of my time by myself, but I do miss the little social life that I did have.

Lots more Facebook and phone calls lately. It helps.

My art pal, Beck Lane, who lives in Florida, posted on Facebook that she was doing a "social distancing art walk" in front of her place. What a great idea!

So each day I put a painting on an easel on my porch and post it on my instagram page and my Facebook art page.

Come hang out with me!

3/2/2020

I have a new show at a gallery in McMinnville, Oregon - The Gallery at 10 Oaks in March and April.

The opening event has been cancelled, but all the art is there!

I created all new works for the show and they are meant to display in a different way that most art.

The long tall paintings are on un-stretched canvas and meant to hang on clips and I call them "paintestries" as they are similar to tapestries.

They are very affordable at only $200 each and clips are included in the price.

Here is Dan hanging up one for the show!

Oh! What fun to see them up!

The 8"x 10" paintings on the right are all original works and they are painted on peel and stick paint samples. Yep. Peel and stick.
That means you can put up the artwork and then if you want to move it, peel it off your wall, or fridge or window and plop it down elsewhere. These are really affordable at $50 each.

I think they did a good job hanging these up!

This one I painted for a local art show, Knickers in a Bunch, and it will be available at that venue on March 6th at the opening of the show,
Appropriate, for that show, this one is titled - "A Royal Pain in the Ass."

Long and Tall

1/11/2020

I have a big roll of primed canvas and I had a whim to paint tall paintings. Un-stretched artworks that will hang on the wall with clips. Why not?

Black and White. Imagine That.

11/12/2019

I adore colors.

Big bold and bright colors.

So lately I have been painting black and white paintings.

Whaaaa?

It was great fun to play with black and white.

I may do more of those, and I may not...

One great thing about being an artist is the unpredictable nature of it.

OK. You caught me. I added red in there too. heh

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