Final Venus Painting

Venus

Here is a new painting that is nearly done:  Venus revisiting the place of her birth:

New painting

Rhiannon Reborn in the Surf by Sara Star

I entered this painting in a competition for Spring Paintings made with Cobra Talens Water Mixable paints.  I am crossing my fingers that I win and that I win something cool like more paint, or some auxiliaries or such.  I really love this paint brand, its is fairly new and I just tried it recently and it is my favorite for color and consistency. (please ignore the glare from the flash).

This the Welsh goddess Rhiannon.  She is associated with horses, the moon, the ocean and night song birds.  I really love to tell stories about her from the Mabinogion a cycle of Welsh Legends.  She moves like the moon in that as she is riding her horse, no matter how fast you follow her you can never catch her, she just moves along just out of reach.  She is also a cognate goddess with the Pan Greco-Celtic Goddess Epona.  I have painted a saint Anna icon based on a relief of Epona before:

St. Anne Icon based on Greco-Celtic Relief of Epona

That was one of my first icons and one of my first paintings way back in 2003 when I was just learning to paint.  It is nice to see how I have progressed in painting horses and such, but it is also humbling to see how much charm the more primitive earlier pictures have.  I want to manage to capture both in my more mature work.  I hope Rhiannon has some of the charm that Anne does.

Various sketches from classes

Sketch of a horse head cast, from Eduardo Fernandez's mentored drawing

Portrait Sketch/Underpainting for Craig Srebnik's Class

Life Drawing for James King's Workshop

I am on a major education kick.  Just taking tons of classes so I can break through to the next level.

A new picture

For the show at Stray Gallery Friday.

I have a little treat for those of you who show up.  I have started doing still life drawings of witch stuff.  Come and see my new little passion.  I will post pictures later on, but I want folks who come to the show to get first preview.

Here is a new picture about friendships between women:

Keeper and Companion by Sara Star

Portfolio Stuff

So I finally go around to photographing a few of my pieces that I never had a good picture of.   I thought you might like to see them.

Nerding out on Birth Art

I had the best experience meeting with a patron, the president of Birthingway Midwifery College invited me to meet her and interview for some future projects for the college's upcoming 20th anniversary.

Study for the Crowning by Sara Star

I was fretting all over the place!  I don't have high resolution photos of most of my art, so I couldn't put together a proper portfolio and I was so nervous.  Thank goodness my dear friend April Younglove, a fellow artist with her BFA by virtue of which she has so much more knowledge than me on the business of art, talked me down.  April told me it was fine to just bring the art itself and it might be better than a portfolio.  So I bagged up what I consider my absolute best pieces that show a variety of my styles and interests.  I also brought my sketch book with mural ideas.

The day couldn't have gone more perfectly--despite total disasters the day before: the last part of the frame for the piece I hoped they would buy, was a quarter inch too small! But an emergency trip to my dad's fixed all that and I arrived with a nicely framed piece.  Holly Scholles, the President of Birthingway is such a birth art nerd! We had so much to talk about and the entire two buildings are decorated with a collection of birth themed art.  My piece fit right in and the college purchased it for their collection, as well as talking with me about ideas for the mural and the poster as well as showing me the mural it will go and so forth.  My brother, Eric served as my assistant and helped me carry all the paintings I brought as well as driving me and making sure I didn't bump into anything and hurt myself over all the excitement!