2010 /31/12

Last chance to post something in 2010. So I'll try to think of a quote for the day.....(thinking)..."The people who make art their life are mostly dreamers."

Just finished a painting!

Yesterday, after a long dry spell of getting our house in order here in Lima I was able to stretch a canvas and paint. What a good feeling to be putting paint on canvas again.  Not sure what to call this work, but I'm sure I'll think of something.

The quote of the day...

“I begin with an idea and then it becomes something else.”

Pablo Picasso

Me too.

It's a start...

    I did a painting! However it was painted on our serving tray. The tray was in need of a face lift. So instead of just slapping a coat of paint on it I thought why not paint something abstract. So I did...
The tray sits in our Tea Cart. I  think it came out rather interesting.

A NEW STUDIO

I have a STUDIO again, in Lima Peru!! It's over a month since my last post but I will start posting again. I plan to start painting again in about a week. We are still getting organized in our new house, but when we have a handle on where all our stuff belongs I can concentrate on ART. :-)

Wow, How time flys...

My last post was late in Aug. and it is now October! We are in Lima, Peru, n have a long term rental house rented which will be ready for use mid. Oct.. Our stuff will be on board a ship bound for Peru in a week. And we have only been in Lima 12 days! I can't wait until I can have an art studio again. The house has a finished basement, tile floor, painted walls, and good lighting.

So right now we look for items for the house and wait. But time does fly.                              ---------------->
                                 My Studio

Echos of the past...

The movers are gone and the house is empty except for the echos. A house that is devoid of furnishings has a hollow sound to it, as though all the life has been drained out, and the only thing that remains are the echos of the past. Many happy get-together s with friends.
Just some more sweeping and throwing out or giving away the last of the items that did not sell in the garage sell and the plastic coolers that I forgot to bring to Emma and Jon . Our remaining days in Costa Rica are with our friends Jon and Emma. They are excellent hosts.  

They went right to their work...

I have moved many times and this is the first time the movers packed everything. They didn't have much to say,(all in Spanish) except where to start and what gets packed.
It's still stressful and tempers can get short, but it still went well. They will be back in the morning to wrap our bed and desk and any other odds and ends that we might say "that one also for Peru". The number of boxes is way more then we expected. But then they pack better then we would. I think my painting took up a lot packing supplies. Over 40 painting going to Peru!
Laurie is wondering where the hell are we going to put all this "stuff" when we find an apartment. I hope we have a good amount of wall space for hanging paintings. Tonight we will bunk in with Emma and Jon. Then up early to meet the movers again.

The quote of the day...

“Everything you can imagine is real.”

Pablo Picasso

Almost there...

The garage sale is over. We still have lots of stuff to some how get rid of. Oops, just sold some more today! One of the neighbors came over to look around and wow did she see a lot that she bought. But Laurie was into some serious bargaining! Typical Latin way.
My Spanish is terrible but I managed to figure out what they wanted and then convert from Dollars to Colonies.
They liked my paintings but no offers and I don't bargain well.
I'm waiting when we board our flight, knowing that we won't be coming back, settles into my brain. Eight years of our lives have been living in Costa Rica and now we start all over again. For me it's a mixed bag, the excitement of moving to a new country and the sadness of leaving friends behind.
We have new friends in Lima that will be waiting to greet us when we arrive. We won't feel alone. I hope I can keep up with the blog and make it interesting enough for others to read and enjoy. I know that the weeks ahead will be filled with laughter and anxiety as we deal with getting settled in Peru.

Where did the week go?...

Between Laurie working on getting the Garage sell ready, my dentist appointment, more good bye lunches, and closing one of bank accounts this week really whizzed by. Today was no exception. Once  nine A.M. rolled around and we opened one of the large metal doors the shoppers arrived. We had a nice turn out up til noon, then it tapered off.
Our friend Linda stopped by to pick up the painting she bought. Our friend Dale helped us with the customers.
Not sure what we will do with the left overs.
Now next week will not get any better either. Another dental appointment, dinner with friends again. Then on Thur the movers arrive with their 20ft container to pack and load the container. By Thur. night or Friday morning the house should be empty! Wow where is all our "stuff"? We will hold out enough stuff for our trip to Peru.
 This time we will careful how much stuff we accumulate...sure! Stuff Happens!
We will be in Lima a while before our stuff catches up with us since we have to have an apartment to put our stuff in.
Stay tuned for more to come... 

The day after Mothers Day

As I take my daily walk in the mall I notice the leftover flowers are on sale. All the stores in the mall have Spanglish signs in the windows "Se Sale". The food court is only a quarter full. What a difference from Saturday and Sunday. I stop at my favorite place Cinna-bon for coffee. Then I take a rest from my walk down the hill. I enjoy drinking my coffee while I people watch. There seem to be two sizes in young women walking through the mall today anorexic and obese. The men seem to be in the middle.
Today the mall maintenance people were working on tall ladders and going into openings in the ceiling.

I turned to a sketch I was working on in my little note book. A nude women sitting on the ground her back against a long wall. She looks sad for some reason and her hair hangs down as if not combed in a long time. The only cover she has is small rag over her feet.
I stopped sketching and put the book away. Finished my coffee and continued on walk through the mall.    

Big day in Costa Rica...

Such a big day in Costa Rica and I almost slept till noon, Mothers Day!! Aug. 15th.
But mother nature didn't care and sent rain almost all day. Maybe it was her tears from watching as we pollute and ravage the country side with trash and bill boards. That's right bill boards, and big, tall SOB'S that almost block out the sun. But I shouldn't get started on that on this Sunday mothers day.
I sold another painting! One of our great friends Linda, told Laurie that she wanted to buy the one I called Night Flowers. I love it when I know that the painting will be with a wonder person.
Makes me wonder if I could sell a painting to someone I didn't like. I've never thought about this before. Would I sell, but just raise the price? Or be gracious and sell at the first price? Paintings can become like children; hard to part with. After all I did create them. Now even to sell them sounds so, so crass. Sell your own children! Maybe if I raised the prices higher? Or, give them away? I think I making too much out of this. As Laurie says "Take a deep breath and calm down."
You have over 40 painting! You need to sell some of them.
She's right...Hey, buddy wanna buy a painting...cheap.   

The speed of creation?

 Some want to turn the creative process into a race to the finish line or the last brush stroke. "The French and German embassies in conjunction with the Ministerio de Cultura y Juventud in Costa Rica is conducting a rapid painting contest."
What fools!
Michelangelo's sistine chapel ceiling painting took 4years to create and who can say if he was fast or slow. God only took 6 days for his creation, ( He rested on the 7th day.) Fast or slow? What does it matter. Both were/are magnificent creations.
When I sit down in front of a blank canvas I don't think about how much time it will take to the final stroke. I create and work on until it is finished and I am satisfied.
Thomas Edison, in his lab, had the insides of a clock taken out and replaced with a round block of wood, because he said that time must be measured in accomplishments.  I saw that very clock in his lab in Greenfield  village, Michigan. I strained  to look up and marveled at the Sistine chapel ceiling when at the Vatican in Rome.  Then the awesome creation of the Grand Canyon in Arizona .
When looking back and time compresses all, the above happened in the twinkling of an eye.
The Abstract Mind 

Blogging while it Rains...

It's a Wednesday afternoon as the rain drizzles down. The wind coming off the mountains is cool so the mixture makes for hot chocolate time. It also makes me feel a little lonesome. If it wasn't for Laurie and Larry's comments on my blog I would be down right blue.
I now know how writers must feel if no one buys and reads their books. Keep those comments coming so I know that there still are folks out there in cyber space.
I've been getting a little stressed out lately. Medicare is ok, as long as you don't have to deal with them. I've been on Skype for hours at a time and the best answer I can get from them about anything is "I don't know".  "I will have to get you up to our Claims Representative...please hold....music....all our reps are busy "helping" other clients....your wait will be approx. ten minutes". Twenty minutes later...."we are sorry for the delay, please hold....more music...".

Well you get the idea. I could say more about my adventure in Medie-land but that will be for another post. Have a nice day...

Three weeks and three days...

We still have three weeks before we leave Costa Rica and we have had several farewell get together events.
The sale of our things have been better then expected and that's good news. And we haven't even had our garage sale yet.

More sales...

There is an echo in the house now that we have all the art work off the walls. The guest room is empty now. Steve picked up the bed and is happily sleeping on it in his house. Haven't sold any painting, But then I'm not advertising them for sale with the house hold stuff. I will take them along to Lima. There is a lot of artists in Lima and I'm hoping that my art will sell their. I need to find another quote of the day... Found one that made me laugh...

“I'd like to live as a poor man with lots of money.”

Pablo Picasso

I used to say..."I don't want to be millionaire; I just want to live like one." But that only gets one into debt. and Picasso's isn't good either. Need something in the middle. Live within your means as best you can.  

Movin right along....

The house is still full of our stuff, but the stage is set and things will be disappearing soon. "Will the last one out please close the back French doors and turn out the lights."
No matter how excited we may be, heading to a new country and finding a new place to live; I will feel a little sad leaving a house that has been our home since 2002.
I have lived in many places and many houses in my life. Just counted and I came up with 16! That's about 5 years on avg. per place. Some longer and some shorter stays.
Still haven't gotten any better at packing.

This time we will have professional packers and a 20 foot container to put our stuff into and, when we have a new place in Lima, they will unpack it for us too. :) Can't wait to populate the new home with all our art, mine, Aunt Kay's, Dales, & others. I really feel that art helps to make a house a home.

The Final count down!

August 1st. and 29 days -6hrs,55min. till lift off and the beginning of the adventure "Edging Farther South". Final destination...Lima Peru and a new life in South America! Wow!
Still so much to do. Ship stuff, sell stuff, give stuff away, and toss stuff away.
The artist has now been given his "to do list", which does not include creating any art work. So that part of my life will be suspended for a few months.
The blog updates will be about getting ready and being ready for lift off. WE WILL BE READY!  What fun this will be.

My Abstract Quote...

My own quote of the day...
"Jazz is to Music as Abstract is to Art"
Laurie said that the quote was probably said by someone else, but I don't think so.

This photo I call "Kneeling Figure"

The quotes of the day, and thoughts to ponder....

These quotes are all from Pablo Picasso...

“The chief enemy of creativity is "good" sense.”

“Success is dangerous. One begins to copy oneself, and to copy oneself is more dangerous than to copy others. It leads to sterility.”

These two quotes seem to talk to the same end. One must always be thinking, "what if?" Other wise it's easy to get in a rut or get stale. Creativity needs thinking outside of "good sense" or that box that everyone talks about. It is like looking for the perfect chord, or the perfect place. I love to paint without thinking about how the painting will look when I feel it's finished. But it's so easy for one's art to become "Deja Vu".
Laurie is my best critic.   

Still painting...

I still have some time to paint. The list of for sale items is really working out well. We have already sold several things.
I started moving my paintings from the studio to the dinning room. The studio is beginning to look like a garage again. The garage sales won't begin until some time in Aug.

Well today I airbrushed another painting on watercolor paper.  

Not to worry though...

Even though I may not be painting for a while, the art goes on! Keep your eye on my www.Zazzle.com/genefoltuz . Laurie has been out doing her self by putting my art work on product after product! I'm so proud of her editing talents, making it possible for my painting to fit better, and look better on the many products we have. I enjoy knowing that people all over the world can get enjoyment from these products.
So the Quote for the day is...

“I begin with an idea and then it becomes something else.”

Pablo Picasso

 

Make Room for our stuff...

Now is the time we need to get rid of some of our "stuff", so we will be having a studio/garage sale soon. That means that I have to "move out" for a while and make room for a lot of junk. Oh, I sorry I meant to say "previously owned items" of great value.

I may get in a few more painting before I close shop. I really don't need much room to paint. Just a drop cloth and 4 sq. ft of floor space close to an electrical outlet.

The quote of the day...

“Only put off until tomorrow what you are willing to die having left undone.”

Busy Painting

I've been very busy these last two days Painting and other stuff. Will show what I have done so far...

A quiet day...

Just the usual Monday. The world cup "Futball" games are over and all the TV sets in the country are cooling down. It really is true Foot Ball or Foot Ball/Head Ball. US football should really be called a version of Rugby, maybe Rugball or Throwball but not football.

This was not an art day, although I did try to buy a large size watercolor tablet without success. The rain didn't help much either. However, we are getting some art sales from Zazzle.com which is encouraging.  I used "we" because Laurie has a Zazzle store for her photography and I have my Zazzle store for my stuff. We both sold!  
I hope that I get a sale from my web site on Fine Art America.com. I should have started this 9 years ago when we first came to CR. But a start is a start and a good reason to keep on painting in Peru.
As Pablo Picasso once said...

“Inspiration exists, but it has to find us working.”

Today LTG

Today we are going to watch a performance of monologues by the Little Theater Group in San Jose. I will be dropping off the painting that am donating for their salient auction fund drive.
I hope to paint some more Tee Shirts later today. The tee shirts that we bought in the States all said large, but I neglected to notice on one shirt that the large was a child's large! I've checked all the other ones and they are all adult sizes. I enjoy creating abstracts on tee shirts.

   

Who Does Better Posts?

Laurie just told me that her posts for today over at http://edgingfurthersouth2.blogspot.com/  are better than mine here. Doesn't that strike you as a bit rude?

New T-shirt painting

We had a very enjoyable lunch, 2-1/2 hrs. After lunch I did my mall walk. Laurie walked along with me. The mall was very noisy today, the soccer world cup games are still going and every TV was tuned to the game,

Well we survived the mall and came home and I quickly turned to painting a tee shirt. I went at it for about 2hrs and I took a break and told Laurie to take a look and she said...Stop! It's finished, don't do another thing. She liked it. So here it is...

A great day to do Lunch

It's Thursday and lunch with our friends. It's great to have friends that are spur-of-the-moment people. Makes life more alive.

After Lunch I'm going to paint another Tee shirt. Then Laurie will take a picture of if, crop the photo and put it on some products in my Zazzle web site. She uses her "Photo Shop" program to crop and make my paintings and sketches "photo ready" to use on Zazzle. We make a great team! 

Weather or Not...

I know, why talk about the weather on a blog that's for art, wit, and wisdom. Our rainy season is a bit unusual this year. The rain has not been really starting until around 4 or 5 pm  and lasting until 7 or 8 pm. I always tell people that the rain starts around noon and is finished by 3 or 4 pm. Now I'm a liar!

The quote of the day, and thoughts to ponder....

“Every act of creation is first of all an act of destruction.”

Pablo Picasso

I wasn't sure  if I agreed with Pablo's Quote. But the more I thought about the quote the more I began to agree. A mountain range was a act of earth quakes pushing up the crust of the earth, destroying what was there to create what is now there. Now that I have written that last sentence I think I would want to change the word "destruction" to the word. "change".

 “Every act of creation is first of all an act of change.” 

 So when we create a work art are we in the of process of creating a change or just copying?  

Past Artists remembered...

As you can see,if you follow my blog, I like Pablo Picasso. I think that he and I could have been good friends. A lot of the his quotes I put on the blog are how I feel also.
Seems that several artists that I liked and who were good friends are now dead. Time has a way of doing that. Not fair!

I have an abstract portrait of me that my artist friend Steve Sanada painted around 76. I lost track of him so I went online to find him again. I found him on an artist group...they said that he "passed on". There were others too, artists friends now gone, that influenced my work.
So I thank them for being my friends and I am glad that there are new artist friends, in my life, with whom I can exchange ideas.

The quote of the day...

“I begin with an idea and then it becomes something else.”

Pablo Picasso

An Artist on the 4th July

What should an artist paint on Independence Day? Maybe some thing using the colors Red, White, and Blue? What do they mean? Well I looked it up...
White: Signifies purity and innocence
Red: Signifies valor and bravery
Blue: Signifies Vigilance, perseverance, and justice  
Wow, this will be a difficult one to paint. Are we as a nation living up to the colors of our flag?
WHITE...  In my opinion, the age of purity and innocence has past. so the I will have to use Pains Grey. 
RED...I will have to mix blue into the red to get the bloodiest red. Seems like we have to sacrifice our sons and daughters in wars that last 9 years. There is more valor and bravery then is necessary these days.
BLUE...I will use several shades of blue. Vigilance Dark Blue, perseverance Dark to light Blue, and  justice Light Blue. We are Vigilant to the point of loosing Freedoms and justice is easy to loose while being Vigilant. Perseverance is getting tested as we battle tar balls on our beaches and wet lands.

So now you know my thoughts on this 4th of July. I will try to create a painting that symbolizes my feelings as well as a statement of where we are as a nation and where we should be. 

A great day to do things

Saturday's always were times for doing things, clean up, fix up, go somewhere. And now that I'm retired and can do all those things any time of the week, I still feel the same about Saturday.
I will take my walk, down the hill and then across the street to the mall for my mall walk. Then pick up some things at MasXMenos, and home again to get a canvas ready for another painting. Why? Because it's Saturday!

Work day

I have a stretcher frame ready for the next canvas, but I have to clean up the patio first. I got out the hose to wash down the tile floor and the rain started. I don't think the rain helped much except to get me wet. Maybe I'll do an abstract of rain.
Laurie just presented me with an artistic  bowl of culinary delight...Cream of Mushroom soup, Hummm good!
Think I'll put in a quote for the day...

“The world today doesn't make sense, so why should I paint pictures that do?”

Pablo Picasso 

How is that in place of a picture?

The paint isn't hardly dry...

What a great feeling to paint again! Over three months since I've gotten paint on canvas and my hands, a few drops on the floor. So here is ...the first showing. Do you like what you see? Don't be shy, write what you think. I can't take criticism. Just joking. :-)) lol
I've called it Cosmic Dance.

The Artist at Work!

Psssst! This is Laurie. Don't tell Gene that I snuck in here to his art blog to chat with you! He's actually out in his studio "violating" a canvas! I've been messing around with some of his art and doing stuff with it with my newfound Photoshop skills! Got a bunch more stuff on his Zazzle art store site, too. How 'bout this little fun thing I just did fooling around on Photoshop!

Last day of June...

Last day of the month...Started my physical therapy today, We're going to a new restaurant that Jon found. It's Italian, I hope it's good. We need some new places to add to our list.
Later this afternoon I plan to "violate" the new canvas. I want to work more in colors as well a black and white. My brain is spinning with ideas.

The quote of the day...

“Each second we live is a new and unique moment of the universe, a moment that will never be again. And what do we teach our children? We teach them that two and two make four, and that Paris is the capital of France. When will we also teach them what they are? We should say to each of them: Do you know what you are? You are a marvel. You are unique. In all the years that have passed, there has never been another child like you. Your legs, your arms, your clever fingers, the way you move. You may become a Shakespeare, a Michelangelo, a Beethoven. You have the capacity for anything. Yes, you are a marvel. And when you grow up, can you then harm another who is, like you, a marvel? You must work, we must all work, to make the world worthy of its children.”

Pablo Picasso

Up date on This is the day

It's 6:30pm and I still haven't gotten to work of the canvas! Any suggestion? :-(

today is the day...

Today I am going to stretch a canvas! I keep saying this everyday since I got back to Costa Rica. But today I will do it. I have to get back to painting. People say "your retired now and can do what ever you want to do". Well you can't. There is always something that can interfere with what you start out to do. But today will be different and right after I finish this post, have some breakfast, take my walk to the mall, (have to walk), water the plants in the studio, sweep up the patio vine clippings, etc., etc., etc., I will stretch a canvas, and paint!    

61 Years and going for another 60!

I'm talking about Aunt Kay and Uncle Nello! Yes today marks their Anniversary;  61years of marriage. Laurie and I surprised them with a gift basket of wine, cheeses, and chocolate. From Costa Rica I was able to find a great wine and cheese place, via the Internet, and it was only 5 miles from Kay and Nello's home.

So marriages do last and a long time too. Congratulations!! 

Still under construction?

Laurie has been doing a remodeling of my Blogs and it seems that Blogger has made some changes too that have screwed up things rather then making things better!
I am so grateful for her help because I would really make a mess of things. Though I sorry that she has to go through hell to fix things.

I haven't produced any art since my spinal operation at the Mayo Clinic in May. However my good doctor created a great abstract along my spinal cord. I won't go into details, but if you're interested look up AVF on one of those medical web sites. Or for a price I can send you the report of the operation in all it's technical wonder.
That being said, it was a great success and I'm at the end of my fourth week of a six week healing process. I guess we can call this post "The art of medicine."

Anguish

As an artist I feel that my work should at times express significant events of our times. This drawing is just a sketch I had to make to express my feeling about the oil gushing  out of man's inabilities...

New T-Shirt Design!

Well I finished my new T-shirt...
"The Flying Orb" - original design on a navy blue T

This and That

I've stretched the T-shirt over the stretcher bars. Now I'm trying to find time to paint the T-shirt.
I will  post it when it gets finished. Just have to get myself organized.

The Art Store!

Our mentor, the artist Jude, suggested that we put my art designs onto products that could be sold online. And Laurie has been learning Photoshop. So here we go with another fun project! We've been doing greeting cards and mugs and all sorts of things. You can see all of the products we've created so far at my Zazzle Art Store

On the Patio

No new art work to show, just enjoying the morning. I'm in between operations at the Mayo Clinic. Seem like we are in between a lot of things. Our move to Peru has been delayed because of me and my medical problems. Hmmm.
I will do a painting on a T-shirt very soon.

The Exhibit!

A million thanks to everyone who came to my art studio show! It was a great turn out. And 5 original pieces were sold during the week! It was more then I expected! I plan to have more shows once we get settled in Lima but it doesn't look like we'll be able to do another one before we leave Costa Rica. It was a lot of work and fun putting it all together and thanks to Laurie and friends it all went well. If you would like a private showing, email me at  genefoltuz@yahoo.com

Some More Wood Art

I finished working on the old piece of tree trunk. I took out a lot of dryed out wood, sanded, scraped and shaped the wood.  Then with airbrush and paint I went about creating an abstract art piece by combining the naturalness of the wood and my perception of what it should be.

Preparing to Move

Any new paintings will have to be put on hold while Laurie and I start packing, having garage sales, throwing out things, all the things one does to move to another country, Lima, Peru. Maybe I'll have a chance to sneak in a painting during all this.

The Paint Just Dried

Painting Complete

As soon as I get a picture of my latest painting I'll have it up on the blog. It was fun creating this painting, except for the purple paint container falling to the floor and the breaking off the top. What a mess! I was able to save most of the paint though.

Gene

Working on Another Painting

As soon as I finish my new painting I will add it to the list. Not sure what to call it yet. I'm having fun with this one and I'm letting the painting direct me. All last night I was dreaming about this work and what it will look like when it's finished. That's why I like to paint abstracts, if that's the right term. lol

Gene