Happy New Year!

I would like to wish all of you out there a Happy New Year!  I don't have any new paintings to show just yet but that's more a function of my laziness about taking pictures than not having produced any work.  I have a new Buffalo River painting as well as a couple of portraits which I'll eventually get around to posting on my other blog, The Art of John D. Wooldridge.  That's a very good thing since it's been a few months since I've had anything to post over there!

2011 was a pretty good year for me.  I won several awards and was accepted into all but 2 shows I entered.  Sales were better than I've ever experienced also.  I didn't do as much heavy lifting on the Painting Arkansas project as I had hoped but I did complete 15 new counties this past year.  I was hoping to be halfway done by the end of this year.  I got close but not quite there.  Around the middle of last year, I made a pact with myself that I would paint nothing smaller than 9X12 in the studio.  The spirit of that commitment was to force myself to produce larger landscapes.  Even though the 2 portraits I did were 8X10, I'm not going to count those against my commitment since I really did intend it to apply to landscapes.  In fact, after that commitment, I did no landscapes smaller than 11X14!  I'm happy for the calender to shift though so I can do some more smaller work and try to get some substantial progress made against this project.  I have photographic reference material for 8 additional counties that need to be done before I ever have to get into the car for more travel!

I'm not much for publishing my goals because it seems as soon as I do I wind up not living up to them.  That's one reason I don't publish any WIPs of my work.  As soon as I take in-progress pictures, I find myself unable to close the deal and the piece gets set by the wayside!   However, in the interest of trying to get over that trend, I'm going to go ahead and establish some goals here.  I'm only going to include those things over which I feel I have enough control to enable them.

1.  Get a gallery
2.  Complete 10 show worthy plein air paintings
3.  Get into a show outside of Arkansas
4.  Complete at least 20 counties
5.  Publish a WIP!
6.  Post more often, even if what I write about seems very mundane to me
7.  Network more online
8.  Participate in a plein air competition

In addition, I plan to join the American Impressionist Society and also submit to join Oil Painters of America.  Membership in AIS is non-juried but OPA is.  I think I have the quality of work to get in, but I guess I'll find out if the jurors feel the same or not.

Snowball, AR, Searcy County and Merry Christmas!

Snowball, AR

14X18, Oil on Panel

SOLD

Merry Christmas and a Happy New Year to everyone out there!  This painting is currently on display at the THEA Foundation as part of the Arkansas League of Artists Winners Show until the end of the month.

Long Pool Rocks, Pope County

Long Pool Rocks

11X14, Oil on Panel

SOLD

I've built up a bit of an inventory of paintings during the short period while my camera was broken.  I have a new one that is a touch more sophisticated than my old but photographing paintings is never easy.  This new one goes into "landscape" mode when I do closely cropped shots of my pieces.  Guess that means I'm doing a good job!

These huge rocks at the end of Long Pool on Big Piney Creek in Pope County make excellent diving platforms.  They really are this big.  It is rather unusual in the Ozarks when no glaciers were ever active to move huge stones of this size.

Gist Music, Helena, AR, Phillips County

Gist Music

9X12, Oil on Panel

SOLD

I have finally gotten my camera replaced and have several paintings that need to be posted.  Here is the completed piece from my recent trip to Helena.  This is Gist Music on Cherry Street.

I am very pleased to announce that I have had two pieces accepted in the Arkansas League of Artists Juried show.  This show will hang at the Cantrell Gallery at 8206 Cantrell Road in Little Rock from September 9 to October 29.  The pieces accepted can be seen here and here.  This show was juried by an outstanding Little Rock based artist, Stephen Cefalo.  I feel very honored to have had not just one but two pieces selected by him for this show.

Buffalo River Artisans Guild Demo Painting

I was invited to do a demo for the Buffalo River Artisans Guild last Saturday so I traveled up to Marshall, AR in the heart of the Ozarks.  I was hoping the weather would cooperate and enable me to do a plein air landscape painting but with the heat, I thought it would be best to keep everyone inside.  I had never done a demo like this in front of people who would be watching everything from beginning to end and expecting some commentary.  But as it turns out, this was a great dry-run for something I will be doing this fall.  I have been selected to be Artist in Residence on the Buffalo National River in September.  In association with this, I will be giving a workshop so the experience here was invaluable.

This painting will be auctioned by the club in August.

Art of John D. Wooldridge Blog

As promised, I've put up a second blog to showcase my work that is not related to Arkansas.  Every so often, when I think a piece warrants it, I'll cross post some Arkansas work over at the new one.  So without further ado, please visit my other blog here and I hope everyone who is following this blog will go ahead and add that one as well. 

As of right now, I have about 5 or 6 pieces I think that I'm working on.  I put in a big 8 hour day of work today and made significant progress on a new painting of the Heights area in Little Rock.  I think I want to put most all of those to bed before getting started on anything new.  I think I suffer from creative ADHD sometimes:  I have way more ideas than I have time to execute paintings!  It's a good prediciment I think.