Alizarine

Flowers for You!

I have hundreds--maybe thousands!--of flower photos clogging up my computer. These photos are of plants in our yard or from places where Jeff and I have traveled, and I'd love to do something with at least a few of them. I'd love to paint them for you!

If you've wanted me to paint something for you (either for yourself or as a gift), but you're not sure about what that might be, may I suggest something floral? Take a look at the different types of flowers I have here, and if you see one you like, send me an email at kellye05 (at) gmail.com, or tweet at me or comment here or whatever, and I'll get to work! If you want me to paint a rose, for example, but maybe not the rose I've posted here, let me know, and I'll send you lots of other options. But these are some of my favorites. Click the photos to see that row slightly larger.

Above (left to right):

Apple blossoms -- I have so many of these!

Crab apple blossoms -- I think that's what they are. They range from purple to pink to red.

Crocus -- Spring's first flower!

Daffodils -- gorgeous yellow.

Jonquils -- I love the colors in the white!

Dogwood -- ranging from red to medium pink. This one has been photoshopped a bit.

Geraniums -- more 'shopping here. That indicates a photo I'm very interested in working with.

Grape hyacinths -- How cute are these?

Helicopters -- I'm just gonna call them helicopters.

Tulips -- I have many colors and shapes, but I love this one so much.

Hibiscus - -photographed when we were in Florida this spring.

Irises -- purple ones, creamy ones.

Lilies -- red and orange.

Moss roses -- so delicate and colorful.

Orchids -- fluttery and unreal!

Pansies -- I love their little faces.

Peonies -- I have so many of these! This particular photo is awfully complex and would take me much longer to paint than some of the others. My prices are below, and I charge based on size and complexity.

Petunias -- The color mix I planted this year has been so lovely.

Red buds -- They remind me of pink mice heads!

Roses -- I have TONS of photos in lots of different colors. You name it.

Strawberries -- I wish I would have taken more photos of these back in June!

Misc. Tropical -- Other photos of flowers and plants from Florida.

Violets -- shown here with bonus dandelion.

Peonies -- I just wanted to toss these crazies in here.

Irises -- Showing another one because it's pretty.

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Here is my price breakdown for floral paintings. Keep in mind that I can always go bigger with these. I'll let you know if your flower is easy or hard--they're all so different. Please know that if you select a hard one but were wanting "easy" prices, I probably have other photos of that kind of flower that are easy. Just ask me! :)

Thanks, and please know that if you want me to paint a Christmas gift for you, now's the time to be asking.

Favorite Parts

Almost every watercolor I paint has a sweet spot--an area that makes me breathe easier once I've completed it. Sometimes this is a section that "makes" the painting. Sometimes it's the hardest part, and if I'm satisfied with it I think, Well, if I can paint that, the rest of this will be no problem. And sometimes it's one of the painting's unsung heroes that nobody ever points out as being especially good, but it's one of the places I focus on.

I thought it might be fun to explore some of these. Readers who are familiar with my work: see if you can recall the painting from which I've taken each chunk! Here they are, in absolutely no particular order (click on the links to see the entire paintings and read more about them, and click on the images to see them a little bigger).

Apple Blossoms: This is the best leaf I've ever painted. I like how the shiny spring green on the top contrasts with the velvety khaki underside.

Glass Gems 3: The area under the red gem seemed molten, and I loved playing with that color range.

Planets and Foil: I like the way this marble seems to be grinning, and I'm especially happy with the window reflection near the top-right. I painted it with pink-yellow-orange, and it felt weird at the time, but I think it really works.

Mushrooms: Ugh! Those little purple fingery things were so hard!

Abandoned Knowledge: Most people focus on the apple, but I'm happiest with this vinyl seat. This was a one-shot, wet-into-wet situation. I really had to nail it. At a juried exhibition a couple of years ago, I was told that the judge pointed at this part and said, "Yep."

The Graduates: This little blue pot was tough. The colors shifted from cool to warm in a very smooth way that, like the vinyl seat, required wet-into-wet. Similar color problems are happening with the plant, too. This whole painting has a lot of individual still-life moments.

Dale's Super 400. The couch my uncle Dale is sitting on had a bunch of velvety pillows, and that's a tough texture to achieve with watercolor. Plus one of them was floral!

Married With Cats. This is Bun's happy pose, and I liked how her tabby pattern makes her blend in with the rug. Plus cute little belleh, sweet haunches.

Mabel. The Roger Ebert book is to the right of this section--I think I did a better job on these books than I did with his, but whatever, he loved it! I was thrilled to paint the magazine that was shoved in there backwards near the left side of this chunk. It featured a truck ad, I think.

Dr. Terry Sherer: I thought this was a cool intersection of patterns: his plaid tie, checked shirt, and the studs on his leather chair. The chair's arm features yet another softly shiny surface that required wet-into-wet.

Art Theater: This painting was very dark, so the bright areas really popped. These are just some orange/yellow lights on the left side of the street.

Ruby Liberty Dragonfly: I like this whole section, but I'm especially proud of the disco ball-looking glass earring. It was hard to draw, and I had to consider each segment individually in terms of color choices. I had the 15-minute version of Voodoo Chile by Jimi Hendrix on repeat as I painted it.

Emily and Cupcake: When my sister was little, I loved the way she looked when she slept, and a lot of that innocence is still there in this picture.

Last Meal in Italy: I painted this watercolor during a couple of snow days back when I was still teaching. I liked this white shell and the way it reflected the turqoise building nearby. Painting those tiny ridges was no joke!

Self-Portrait: I really need to scan this painting. What you see here is from a photograph, and in real life the titles, etc, are more precise. Anyway, this section was such a speed bump, and for a while there I completed one square inch per hour. But I loved the spines of these books, some with creatures and famous paintings and sculptures, some old and falling apart, and some instantly recognizable based on color alone. I painted this during my "I will never use masking fluid" phase, and I made myself paint around all of the white or light-colored words. That really slowed me down.

Treasure: This painting featured several orange glass beads that were incredibly tricky. The darker areas called for muted purple-orange-browns, and as with the earring from Ruby Liberty Dragonfly, the many diamond shapes had to be dealt with one at a time.

Sunflowers: When I see this part I instinctively squeeze my fingers together, mimicking it. I rarely work with this much yellow.

Wilting Parrot Tulip: The challenge here was to paint extremely bright colors in shadows. I toned them down a bit with some greens and browns, but they're still pretty blazing.

Hey, I enjoyed that! I have lots of other paintings I'd like to chunk-ify, so maybe this will turn into a series.

Imagekind update: as of right now (Sunday, May 5), it's still having problems, so in the meantime please visit my merchandise store for all your Cinco de Mayo/art-related needs. Thank you as always for your support!

Roger & Us

Roger. Oh my.

Jeff and I learned about Roger Ebert's death last Thursday about an hour after everybody else did. We had spent most of the day away from our computers and were enjoying one of central Illinois' first truly springlike afternoons, reprising our role as The Couple That Walks Around St. Joe Holding Hands.

Jeff found out first. We were sitting in the living room and getting set to watch Justified when he gasped. "Roger Ebert died," he said, looking up from his iPad sadly. Oh no. Instinctively my arms and legs bent in toward the center of my body--sort of a seated fetal position--as sadness swept over me.

My Facebook and Twitter notifications started erupting with "you're the first person I thought of when I heard" posts, and I responded to them for a few hours. Thanks so much to those of you who contacted me--Roger would have appreciated the immediate, easy way people were able to reach out to each other. I would love to see a map of the world dotted with those whose lives he affected and the amazing web of connections he spun between us.

My husband knows too much about cancer, and Roger's "leave of presence" message from the previous day had caused him to remark that the end was probably near. We had no idea it would happen within 24 hours, though.

As some of you may know, Roger and I were Twitter and email friends. Not wanting to waste The Great Man's time, I only communicated with him when I had something on my mind that I thought he would appreciate. And he would contact me as well. My Gmail says we had 92 conversations.

One of my favorite exchanges with him was in 2011 regarding the movie Crumb, a documentary I've loved and rewatched on VHS countless times. I had received the Blu-ray edition that included Roger's commentary track for Christmas. I listened to it as I painted one day and told him about how I appreciated his insights and how great it was to hear his voice for a while. We talked about R. Crumb's brothers and their "stupid mother" (Roger's words). It was fun and more than a bit surreal to talk about one of my favorite movies with Roger Freaking Ebert.

He especially liked it when I sent updates about nature, farming, and the weather in this part of the state. I live a few miles from his boyhood/college hometown, and I'd let him know when the corn was sprouting and show him photos of things like a cluster of mushrooms I'd found growing beside a tree stump in the yard.

As time passed, his email messages became shorter--sometimes just a sentence or two, but always cordial and often humorous. Ignatiy Vishnevesky explained why his notes were so brief in his wonderful letter to Roger from a few days ago:

"You communicated largely through your computer, but you typed slowly, your hand hovering over a key before pressing down. It could take you thirty seconds to type out a sentence."

 

Last month Roger asked me for a digital copy of this painting, which I'd sent him as a thank you gift a few years ago when he first started tweeting about my work.

He wanted to include it in a blog he was writing and credited me there, mentioning (incorrectly) that he owned two of my paintings. I sent Roger a quick "I'm pretty sure you just have the Art Theater" message, and he responded with,

I believe I have that one and the child with the book shelf. I've been in the hospital so it's hard to say…

Anyway, I feel like I have 2. And it sounds better  :)

Cheers,

R

Sometimes he'd send emails to me accidentally--meant for other people--and I'd let him know. In February I got one containing some confidential information regarding Ebertfest and his health. He had some big, wonderful plans for the last day. I told him his secret was safe with me and he called me a dear friend. Imagine!

It's hard to describe what it's been like to have known him even in my minor way. He had over 800,000 followers on Twitter and followed 255. I had the extreme good fortune to be one of them. Whenever I tweeted something, I asked myself, "Is this Roger-worthy?" So there were no "going to the library LOL" tweets from me. He was my writing's conscience, the little voice I heard and continue to hear before I hit "post."

Just when I thought he wasn't reading this blog anymore--the man was beyond busy--I'd get a comment (!!!!!!) or a retweet. He even read at least one of my recipes. He made my month when he told his Twitter followers that "damn it, she's right" when I ranted about how most fruit crisps contain too much fruit and nowhere near enough crisp. Roger Ebert cared about the fruit-to-crisp ratio!

So the past few days have been loaded with Roger memories.

I was in the right place at the right time when he discovered my watercolors. He gave me confidence to pursue my dream. I've made new friends because of him. I've sold watercolors and prints because of him. He gave me the idea for one of my best paintings. He sent me messages from the hospital asking me how I was. He told me "I'm there with you--thank God for Jeff" during my cancer scare.

I was lucky to have met him in person two years ago. He looked at me and applauded. He wrote in his notepad that I was an artist and underlined it. I'll never forget it.

Roger did so much for me, and he didn't have to do any of it. But he did. He did, and I'm one of many, many people who have been saying things like this over the past few days. I can't thank him enough, but I think the best thing any of us can do to remember Roger is to try to be as kind, thoughtful, and appreciative of beauty as he was.

What a life. What a hero. I miss him very much.

 

SnowBun!

For the first time in two years, a medium-sized snowstorm hit our town yesterday, and today as Jeff and I wolfed down our lunch, I mentioned that I wanted to make a snowman. Surprisingly, Jeff was into the idea--"Let's do it now!" Of course, we couldn't do the same old played-out normal snowman. We made a snowBun.

It took us a little while to get on the same page as to how this snowBun would come together, but soon enough we established the Garfield-ish main form and began fine tuning it.

I messed around with the photo settings on this one to make the profile more visible.

We took turns making the face--I roughed in the main shape and eye sockets while Jeff refined the ears and added the features. He was charmingly businesslike while I emerged as the project's cheerleader.

It's my belief that if Bun had existed during Biblical times, people would have created golden idols in her image. So it was all too appropriate for Jeff and me to make a snow sculpture of a creature that we basically worship every day.

That face cracks me up.

This is the view of our snowBun from the house. She's not long for this world--this weekend we'll have highs in the fifties with a good chance of rain.

But this was so much fun, and for about an hour we felt like a couple of kids. We came inside soggy and gleeful. Bun groggily hopped downstairs, glanced at her giant likeness out in the yard, and demanded some wet food.

Website Upgrade

Bun, seen here all bein' a Rockette, wants you to go to my art website, kellyeddington.com, and check out its new, cleaner, prettier, easier-to-navigate design. I wanted to do a screen shot and add it to this blog, but Bun was like, Then they'd never go to the site.

This is true.

SO PLEASE CLICK THIS THING AND GO TAKE A LOOK!

The new design comes courtesy of Jeff, who noodled around with it on WordPress for about a month. And by "noodled" I mean "squinted at code, bashed his head against his desk, did fast and complicated cut-and-pastes, looked up answers on WP help sites, resized and inserted dozens of images, found widgets, and did many other things that I will never completely understand."

Thank you very much, Jeff!

And thanks also to Bun, who nailed the above photo in one shot today. She is easily the most photogenic cat ever. Observe.

CLICK THE THING.

Thank you! Please let me know if you run into any problems with the site.

Christmas Decorations

Jeff and I finally broke down and put up our Christmas tree. I've been busy with some U2 lunacy and a difficult portrait commission over the past couple of weeks. Those tasks completed, I engaged in a bit of therapeutic ornament-making, this time with salt dough. In the past I've made gingerbread ornaments, but this year I thought the tree needed something more colorful, and salt dough is so much easier and less expensive. I used to make salt dough ornaments with Mom to give to my teachers as Christmas presents, so the smell and texture of this dough transported me back to my pre-teen years.

INGREDIENTS

• 1 cup salt 
• 2 cups flour
• 1 cup  water

DIRECTIONS

In a large bowl mix salt and flour. Gradually stir in water. Mix well until it forms a doughy consistency.

With your hands form a ball with your dough and kneed it for at least 5 minutes.

Store your salt dough in a air tight container and you will be able to use it for days.

You can paint our creations with acrylic paints and seal with varnish or polyurethane spray.

You can let your salt dough creations air dry; however, salt dough can also be dried in the oven. Bake at 200 degrees F until your creation is dry. The amount of time needed to bake your creations depends on size and thickness; thin flat ornaments may only take 45-60 minutes, thicker creations can take 2-3 hours or more. You can increase your oven temperature to 350 F, your dough will dry faster but it may also brown, which won't matter if you are painting your entire creation.

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My ornaments, which were between 1/8 and 1/4 inch thick, took around an hour and a half to bake at 200 degrees. I used the entire cup of water in making the dough, so it may have been a little on the damp side. I let them continue to air-dry overnight before I painted them the next day. I used cookie cutters shaped like Christmas ornaments--an early present from Jeff--and, when I dipped them in a little flour, they cut through the dough beautifully, and those complicated, delicate shapes were no problem.

This recipe produced over 40 ornaments, each about 3 inches tall. I took them up to my work table and busted out some sequins and extra-cheap acrylic paint. I had no real plan, but I found myself painting each ornament with tints of a single color accented with coordinating sequins. Then I varnished them with a clear acrylic glitter paint. A couple of hours later, I had these:

I found a half-box of ornament hooks (or whatever you call them) leftover from last year, and I was ready to hang them!

Earlier this year, Jeff and I rearranged our living room furniture. We love the new setup, but it messed up our usual tree-area, so we moved the tree to our library, which you might remember from this painting:

The tree is small, so to give it some height, we set it on the table between the two wicker chairs. We also had to move the middle bookshelf away from the wall to access the outlet behind it. But soon enough we were decorating the tree, and Jeff used some gargoyle bookends to hang stockings behind it.

And here are some of the ornaments, which we paired with our usual birds.

They're prettier at night.

Two weeks ago, I transformed my studio into a GLOW CHAMBER.

As I sat on the floor, trying to arrange the lights in a way that made a tiny bit sense, I'm pretty sure a spider bit my foot through my sock. I felt an instant, mild itch and watched a small light yellow spider crawl beneath my bookshelves on the left. The bite swelled up immediately and turned pink. Fearing a week of pain, I popped an antihistamine, applied some antibiotic cream and anti-itch gel, elevated my foot, and put the sucker on ice. Over the following week I watched the formerly-swollen-but-now-just-bruisey area, which was about the size of a Chips Ahoy! cookie, turn a rainbow of colors: dusty plum, cadet blue, zombie green. But it never really hurt or itched, and then it went away. I suppose I'm writing about this so that if one day my skin splits and billions of small light yellow spiders come streaming out, well, here's how that happened.

And what holiday season would be complete without Christmas Marvin Gaye? I've always thought his What's Going On album seemed Christmasy, and for years I have made a point of displaying it next to something festive. First known example:

So that was great, but this year I really topped myself by placing him in the GLOW CHAMBER. I urge you to make Christmas Marvin Gaye a tradition in your house.

One last time: I have to plug my online merchandise store. Thanks to all who have ordered items with my paintings on them--I just put together some new compacts featuring details from Ruby Liberty Dragonfly. I appreciate each and every sale I make. Please go there and get a little something for yourself!

And it's not too late to pick up a print of mine from Imagekind. Prints are 25% off this weekend, and how about that free shipping? Framed and canvas prints tend to take about a week to ten days for them to produce, but unframed prints usually get shipped out a couple of days after you order. Thanks again, everyone!

More art news!

Busy week! I completed a rush commission for a client who wanted me to paint a couple of 8"x10" roses. I worked quickly and finished both in three days, and they're already on their way to his house as I type this.

Above: a Rio Samba rose. This variety of rose has exciting petals that change color as you move from base to tip, and these are positively blazing. I used opera (hot pink), alizarine crimson, and cadmium(s) yellow light and yellow medium, and I worked one petal at a time, first laying down a wet-into-wet layer and later tightening things up with additional intense glazes.

The other rose variety is called Veteran's Honor and is a solid, extra-bright red. I had to work a little longer on this one--the background is more complex, and it takes time to build rich reds. I used cadmium red light, which is an intense orange-red, along with opera to create the brightest parts of the petals, and I added shadows with alizarine crimson and dioxazine mauve (a dark purple). You can see some Rio Samba roses and a rogue violet on the left. While this rose is not as exciting as the first one color-wise, I like the dynamic shape of it.

Commissions are great, and hey, it's nice to earn some money, people!, but I've been working on them for a while now. You haven't seen my main late-fall project yet; it's a Christmas present that will be kept a secret for a few more weeks. I can't wait to get back to painting subjects that I choose myself. Soon.

That cat is very Bunlike.

East-central Illinois people might want to know that I have some paintings on display locally! I'm calling this exhibition "Hey We Need Somebody To Put Art In The Urbana Free Library And All The Other Artists We Know Have Already Had Shows Here So We Did An Internet Search And Found You So Can You Do It In Like Two Days?"

It's a little bitty show of six watercolors, but it's an all-killer-no-filler kind of thing. Stop by the Urbana Free Library between now and sometime in January to take a look at some of my favorite paintings! They're in that nook between checkout and the new books/cafe area. Thanks to Jeff for taking over and hanging the show single-handedly while I talked to Jan Chandler, the nice woman from Urbana's Heartland Gallery who asked me to do this.

My sister-in-watercolor Carrie Waller interviewed me for her blog and posted it today. Carrie's paintings are fantastic, and she discovered my work on Imagekind earlier this year. She interviews artists on her blog every Friday, and I'm happy to be one of them. In fact, I think this is the best interview I've ever done. Thanks Carrie, and check out her watercolors. She's the real deal.

I'm loving my little merchandise store! Thanks to everyone who has purchased items there so far. Let's keep it going! I put my new roses on a variety of items and recently tossed a range of leather mini-wallets onto the pile. My sister received a bucket bag yesterday that she says is "Amazing!!!" (her exclamation points). The runaway hit of the store has been my compacts. Early reports from my first customers who bought them confirm that they are terrific and are the kind of under-$20 gift you can give to that random woman in your life whose likes/dislikes are hard to pin down. I can almost guarantee that she doesn't already have one of these already. Enter the code SHOPUP to receive 15% off!

Imagekind's big Cyber Monday sale is over, and thanks also to those of you who participated in that blowout. Currently in its place this weekend is a 25% off sale, which is nothing to sneeze at. I added prints of both new roses to my portfolio yesterday. I love Imagekind--the prints they produce are freaking identical to my originals--and they work fast, especially if you're just buying a paper-print (canvas prints like the one above take around 10 days). If you have any questions about how to order prints from them, please comment or email me, and I'll be happy to advise you!

Sorry for the blatant self-promotion, but this is the time of year when I make most of my money. Rest assured that within a month's time I will have crawled back into my watercolor cave and started painting the sparkly stuff again. Thank you for your patience and kind support!

Representation!

Good things are happening in my art world! Last week UGallery took me under their massive, cuddly wing, and that is where you can buy my original paintings now (not prints, not merchandise--I'm talking about the actual piece of paper with the actual paint on it).

UGallery is an online art gallery that's received positive reviews from CNN, The Economist, InStyle, USAToday and others. If you search for "buy art" on Google, it's right up there near the top if not the very top. I had to apply to be accepted, and I waited and wondered for over a week before I received a happy email and phone call. They accepted all of the paintings I offered, and the gallery manager answered all of my questions in a friendly, welcome-to-the-family kind of way. I'm currently being featured on the site's front page along with other artists with new work ("A Forest of New Art") and on the UGallery blog in a short article introducing artists new to the site. You can also view my art and profile here.

Unlike my art website, UGallery receives lots of traffic from people who are serious about buying art, and I want those eyes on my work. UGallery is currently--like, it ends today--having a 20% off sale, their biggest event of the year, so please check them out.

Anyway, I'm happy to have my work up at UGallery--wish me luck there!

I also have a couple of paintings at Cureeo, including Planets and Foil, above. Cureeo is smaller and more boutique-y than UGallery. They said no to everything I offered up for sale except for Planets and that second portrait I painted of Mabel with the little-kid background. So I don't really understand Cureeo's selection process other than the fact that the work they seem to go for is a bit more avant garde than mine, but it's nice to be included there in some way.

We'll see how things go at both of these online art galleries! I can continue to sell my paintings independently, so feel free to contact me personally if you want an original. Last week my friend and former colleague Dave bought Apple Blossoms for his wife Sandra (don't worry; she was in on this) from me on the day before it was about to appear on UGallery--thanks Dave! Nothing makes my day like a sale.

In other good art news, The Graduates (above) won an Award of Excellence at the Illinois Watercolor Society's annual members' show. After Best of Show, three Excellence awards are up for grabs, followed by some honorable mentions and merchandise awards.

People who won awards included (l-r) Carmelo Schifano, me!, Sylvia Aruffo, Sally Konley, Bret Steinhaus, Tom Herzberg, Robert Krajecki, and Rochelle Weiner.

So this was huge for me, and Jeff and I were very happy that we made the long drive up to Oak Brook for the Thursday night opening earlier this month. I provided a boatload of cookies for the opening. If you'd like to see my painting along with forty or so other watercolors, please stop by the beautiful Mayslake Peabody Estate in Oak Brook before the show closes on December 5.

Finally, please *like* my art page on Facebook--I'm currently 8 likes away from 500. I regularly post in-progress photos of my paintings and let you know about print/merchandise sales. Thank you!

Exciting News!

You can now buy my paintings on all kinds of things!

See, here's the problem: my original paintings are expensive. They've got to be--some of them take over a month to create. I can't afford them, either! But this year I've had reasonably good luck selling them on Imagekind as prints in a variety of formats and sizes. However, even those can be a little pricey when you factor in a mat and a frame, and maybe you want something more functional...? That's the vibe I'm getting from you, anyway.

So last week I put together a store on CafePress. They reproduce my watercolors on fun and useful items hand-picked by me from their massive selection of over 250 products. There's something for everyone, with a variety items for sale for under $20, including gorgeous mirror compacts that are already my best sellers.

And that bag is more expensive, but it makes me want to die it's so cute.

T-shirts are available for people of all ages, shapes, and sizes, and they come in a range of colors. Making this happen took a whole day. It was hard, you guys!

I've also got a slew of greeting cards, note cards, and blank journals, including Abandoned Knowledge, above.

And come on: you need at least one calendar. We all do. I agonize over that decision every year. I'm so happy to finally present my first-ever calendars featuring my own paintings: normal-sized, oversized, vertical, and single image.

Get in on this and help support your friendly neighborhood artist/blogger/butter-consumption-enabler! And I know, CafePress is kind of a behemoth that's probably only marginally less evil than Walmart, and I'm certainly not going to make a fortune here, but maybe it will help me buy Bun's medicine every month...?

She's such a good girl!

Click here to look at my little shop. The URL is

http://www.cafepress.com/kellyeddingtonwatercolors.

Thanks in advance--I can't tell you how much your support means to this little painting operation I've got going.

And for the half-dozen of you who read my blog because I'm the nutjob who paints U2 all the time for @U2.com, I have fun news for you, uh, too.

For the first time ever, 37 of my best U2 paintings are available as prints on Imagekind! Click this thing!

I sifted through my heaving U2 digital folders today and put together a selection of images that includes personal favorites such as the always-game Pop Edge, Adam and Bono painted on blue construction paper, and a citrus-y Screaming Green Bono. Because most of my originals were only 5-10 inches tall, lot of these prints are small, but you'll see a handful that can be majorly enlarged.

You'll also find pretentious concept art inspired by their videos, U2 reimagined as punk rockers on the planet Venus, and my controversial portrait of Adam Clayton made from pasta and birdseed. You can also buy prints of the following, which I think is probably my favorite U2 painting ever.

You'll see all of those along with more straightforward and normal-seeming pictures of this promising little rock 'n' roll outfit from across the sea here. URL is:

http://KellyEddington.imagekind.com/U2.

Thanks so much, and please share this post with anyone you think might be interested!

New York City Part 4

Sorry for the long wait between posts! Among other things, Jeff and I were busy with a flooring project during the past couple of weeks, and it ate up my afternoons. But it's finished, it looks amazing, and it is one of something like five blogs I need to write.

So! Back to New York City with Jeff, Mel, and me. As you can tell from the photo above, we spent our last vacation day at the Museum of Modern Art, where Mel caught me interacting with a man painted on a mirror. My expression probably explains why I had to wait until age 39 to get married.

But first we needed to try the best bagels in New York at a place called Ess-A-Bagel. So much time has passed since we ate these, but boy did my brain imprint a taste-memory that will make every bagel I eat in the future seem inferior. Because they will be inferior. These were perfection: not rubbery at all, but yielding and warm with a perfectly crisp exterior. Once again we ate them while standing on the sidewalk like a buncha hobos.

I also discovered that several years of walking on Dr. Scholl's gel insoles will cause them to disintegrate, so I bought some more and, and to be even more of a hobo, I did this whole boot-takeoff-insole-switcheroo bit while squatting in the entrance of a drugstore.

It was an unseasonably warm and humid morning, and as we walked toward MoMA, I took off my jacket. The dress I wore came in a fuzzy mystery fabric that seemed to promote active sweating. My ponytail became its usual awful black frizz pom-pom. So I was miserable but attempted to take on the devil-may-care attitude of the female sculptures we saw frolicking in the middle of a busy intersection.

Once we arrived at MoMA, we were disappointed to discover a giant line of people waiting to enter. We joined their ranks and prepared ourselves for boredom. Museum workers patrolled the line and said that some of the blockbuster paintings were not on display, and also people who downloaded the MoMA app and used it to pay online would get to skip the line and go inside. Jeff didn't have to be told twice--he got to work downloading and paying, and whoooooosh, we swooped inside like a trio of VIPs.

That museum worker was right about some of the museum's pieces being unavailable. It seemed like 75% of the things I wanted to see (1900-1950) were gone, but their gallery tags were still in place as if to mock me. This was a shame because those paintings are in my art teacher wheelhouse, and I was all set to bombard young Mel with interesting painting tidbits all morning long. Unfortunately we were treated to a mere handful of masterpieces (such as the fantastic Rousseau and Starry Night, above) followed by a dollop of Pop, a whole lot of Minimalism, and some Abstract Expressionism. I bemoaned this, but Mel had a grand time anyway.

Andy Warhol's Gold Marilyn, a woman by Willem de Kooning, and my tribute to my sister Poof. :)

I told Mel about Rodin's portrait of Balzac--she said it was one of her favorite things in the museum. And I love the photo she took of a Jackson Pollock painting viewed from the side.

We had lunch at Tina's Cuban Cuisine, which was relatively nearby, and Jeff took this photo of the straightest leg in the city.

The place was packed, and we sat in a kind of so-what dining room with what seemed like fluorescent lighting--it made me feel like I was back in a school cafeteria (PTSD!). We shared everything, including a Cuban sandwich and some ham croquettes. Jeff and I were hoping that these would match the ones we had in Spain, and while they were crispy-creamy-tasty...yeah, sorry.

These little guys were fun: empanadas with chicken filling, a Twinkie-looking item that I can't remember, and a red ball of mashed potatoes surrounding some kind of ground beef situation. I'm pretty sure I had a mango (?) shake. Sorry so vague--it's been over a month!

After lunch we headed to the Hirschl and Adler gallery on 5th Avenue. Sara, a friend of mine from grad school, told me that her husband Peter had a small show there, and I was curious to study his exquisite oil paintings in person--I'd only seen them online. The above photo doesn't do them justice--here's an example of his work.

Gorgeous and Hopperesque! Peter is my age, and I couldn't help feeling like I was so far behind him in terms of art production. He was fortunate to have been born into an artistic family and has painted professionally for his entire adult life, whereas I've only been at it for two and a half years. But this is nothing new: I feel insecure pretty much every time I walk into any gallery at all. I'm such a newbie!

And then in an adjoining room: enormous watercolors by Alexander Creswell. This artist counts among his patrons THE QUEEN OF FREAKING ENGLAND. He is so good, you guys! Included in his show was a series of giant (4 feet across, maybe?) paintings of Venice at night with fireworks, and they were color-drenched and masterful, with a sort of effortlessness that only supremely confident painters can pull off.

I was in awe, intimidated, and in love with these, and I wanted to go home and paint paint paint. I walked back into Pete's room, and yes, please just let me go home and paint. I start to feel not right if I go too long without painting. It's kind of like my need for chocolate. Speaking of...

We bought some fancy-ass desserts and hot chocolate at the Francois Payard Bakery (ground floor of The Plaza hotel).

We were feeling glamorous (at least I was) as we sat at a tall table and savored macarons and other gorgeous creations. A woman of a certain age stopped by as Jeff and I were digging into that shiny chocolate dome, and she exclaimed, "What is THAT?" We told her where she could find one. It was almost as fabulous as it looks--there was something hazelnutty going on inside, if I remember correctly.

And then Jeff's phone buzzed. A text from Southwest Airlines told us that our flight home had been canceled. Whut.

Jeff was a hero as per usual and got on the phone with the airline, and after about a half hour, we were booked on a new, slightly earlier flight. GO JEFF. He said that Southwest did everything right and were actually surprisingly soothing about the whole thing.

We spent the rest of the afternoon walking around, working our way back to the hotel. Along the way Mel took some photos of Bergdorf Goodman's windows--they were a purple tribute to fashion over the past 111 years.

Above and beyond, Bergdorf Goodman!

Our last meal in New York was at a Cambodian sandwich shop called Num Pang. It was close to our hotel and, like all of the restaurants we visited on our trip, vetted by Jeff weeks in advance. Mel and I shared a meatball sandwich while Jeff abstained, claiming he was still full from lunch. Num Pang was decorated with fun graffiti, and we stood at a little bar and inhaled the sandwich and a couple of refreshing tea concoctions.

Soon enough we were on our way back to Laguardia, where the Southwest chaos meant that we had nowhere to sit once we reached our gate. Actually I found one seat, which Jeff and Mel insisted I take while they sat on the floor, during which time Mel took the above self-portrait. As you can see, she was still full of energy and happiness.

I'll spare you the description of the flight home, our hotel shuttle that decided to not pick us up because our flight was cancelled but then after an angry call from Jeff and an hour of waiting, they came to get us after all, and then the two-hour drive home through the absolute middle of nowhere and the bag of Tato Skins I ate to stay awake and didn't exactly share.

If you wanted Tato Skins so much maybe you should have bought some for yourself, Jeffray.

We dropped Mel off and were reunited with our confused cats at around 1:30 a.m. Everyone was fed, watered, and adored. Cat boxes were cleaned out, and my wonderful husband and I fell into deep, dark comas for the rest of the night.

In conclusion, New York is awesome. You should go.