I Went to Sante Fe and Loved the Mailboxes

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Originally uploaded by Renee paints

Thats sounds crazy! My husband Jay and I recently returned from a trip, (our first) to Santa Fe, New Mexico. I heard about the landscape, the art, the food...adobe, green chile everything, and 50 shades of brown...It is a beautiful city, along with the wilderness that surrounds it! As all the gallery staff explained...Santa Fe is the 2nd largest art market in the country. Truly remarkable art, everywhere!
Armed with my trusty camera and my iphone, I took hundreds of photos during the trip. Along with taking pictures, I instructed my husband on the shots I wanted him to take..."bend down and shoot up through the tree branches", "get more of the blue sky", "before you eat that...let me take a picture". He is a good sport and used to being married to an artist.
I think the first Santa Fe image I will be working with are the mailboxes in a row. I just love the colors and designs! Then...on to cowboy boots, green chile enchilada plate and lovely images of the mesa.

Sanctuary

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Originally uploaded by Renee paints

I have been enjoying my yard and all the vegetation that I have planted and watered and coaxed over the years. My somewhat new addition is my little fountain. I grabbed my phone a few weeks back and headed outside to explore. I have this phone app thats lets me take photos that have an altered appearance, somewhat vintage-esque.
Being a visual artist, I am always intrigued by imagery with a different perspective. Often, these images find a home in one of my paintings. My fountain may appear in an upcoming painting, (minus my toes in the lower center of the picture). I am working on lots of new pieces this summer! The hard part will be narrowing down all the choices of inspiration.

Blank Books

Ahhhhhh....blank books. After the Hopes and Dreams art exhibit that I organized last year for the Fifth Avenue Art Gallery, I order a few (a bunch) more blank books. So many ideas for ways to make wonderful one of a kind art books...I realize now, that I probably didn't need a whole box of blank books, one or five may have been enough.

I not only have those blank books, but I have boxes of "things" to use in those books; images, stamps, tags, ink, paint, ephemera...love that word. It sounds so lovely and innocent.

I am hoping to tackle some of those wonderful blank books, very soon. I have some fairly concrete ideas. My problem, as an artist is that I love all the possibilities, and don't want to leave anything out.

I did finish my first book a while back...it is all about my admiration for the lovieliest of God's creatures, the bird.

I love birds and for years have felt a connection to them. I feed them and provide an almost always filled birdbath for them. I have saved them from cats, revived them after they crashed into my window. Once, several years ago, I helped a woman in a beautiful linen suit rescue a large bleeding heron from the roadway. She had hit it with her car...a white BMW with white interior, and she was so upset. I helped her wrap the injured bird in a blanket and put it in her car so that she could drive it to the wildlife hospital.
I love birds. So, my finished book is all about birds, and why I would enjoy being a bird...
I will never forget my bird Scout, a quaker parrot that lived with us. He was a character. He could say, "here kitty, kitty, kitty, and "Go Gators" and "whats up". So for all the birds God has sent my way...my book, "Birds are Wonderful"

Hope you enjoy :)