Here she is, Cookie's evil twin, Salome. I know, I know, Cookie was a great painting and she had her fans, but this was so much fun to do and I for one, like it better. Maybe she just suits the state of things, what with hurricanes and the mood of the country right now. These bird paintings did in fact start because of how I felt after the 2016 election and the inauguration in January. Not to get all political on you, but yeah. I'm now looking at old pieces I've done of a falcon and a vulture for the next giclee to rework, although I have a lovely new image of a pelican on the drawing board to do as an original.

 

 This is Cookie, the first of my bird paintings that sold to someone who was a stranger. They had been walking down the street in Provincetown when they saw it hanging in the Adam Peck Gallery on the day my show was about open. As soon as they saw it, they rushed in, asked the price and then pulled out their credit card. Or at least, that's the way the story was told to me when I met them later that evening. Three other pieces sold that night, one to another stranger. I had only been painting the birds for six months and had already sold eight to friends before the show, but having an exhibit and selling them to strangers was very exciting.

Recently, when I started doing giclees to sell as prints, I decided to have some made so I could rework paintings I no longer own but wanted to change. Cookie was on the list. For me, she was too cute, as much as I loved the brushwork, but it was more about the blue being just too blue.

Not anymore. The background has become a deep, darker than navy color, and Cookie now has an evil twin in the making. It's only about halfway done, but I love it. I've been taking pix to put on the website in the Process category and I'm sure the transition will be interesting. Since I can't keep away from it, I'm calling her Salome, I should have it done in time to post it in next week's blog. Stay tuned, I think this one will be amazing.

Today, I sent out my first official email blast. Honing in on the marketing end of my art website project that started this spring when I awarded a grant to upgrade the site and learn about the dreaded SEO exposure expansion. Frankly, it's been exhausting but if you had told me six months ago that I'd be doing what I'm doing these days, I would not have believed you. I'm more about holing up in the studio and making art, or talking about art, or looking at art, than I am at putting it out there. But out there it is, I even have a Saatchi account, which I don't know if anybody but me has looked at, but Hey, every little bit helps. Onward!

 

Here’s my dilemma. Do I create a bird portrait that looks as true to life as possible, or go with my instinct and imagination to express something deeper? The struggle comes once the piece has been sketched out and is still loose and painterly. For example, I’m currently working on a gannet, which a very white bird, but my favorite version of it was from a few days ago when it was in its pink undercoat state. Luckily, I have been taking pictures of the progress and it has occurred to me that I could have a giclee made of it at that stage and finish it as a pink fantasy by embellishing the print while continuing to make the original gannet white. 

The real question is am I a bird painter, or an artist who incorporates them as talismans and totems into my work? I think you know the answer, I certainly do. But sometimes it’s just about the paint. 

This is Milagros, the most recent piece in my bird series. It's also a fairly new process for me that started in the early spring when I decided to do a number of giclees of paintings I no longer owned and wanted to rework. I had them printed larger than the original and reversed the image if I felt the new owner would object to me reproducing it. Some of the prints came out great and required very little to enhance them. Others needed a complete overhaul because of issues with the jpeg I'd sent to the printer. As I went along changing backgrounds and eye shapes and adding more detail to the feathers and such, I used a blend of colored pencils and acrylic paint, both as glazes over the pencil marks and as the dominant medium. Not as intricate as my actual paintings on wood panels, these mixed media pieces have become my primary process for the time being. And since I had duplicates made when I ordered some of the giclees, it has given me the freedom to experiment. For example, the print that Milagros grew out of was originally a crow. Only the back of the head is the same. If you look closely, you see the complicated chest feathers that got covered up with layers of colored pencil and acrylic washes as it transformed into this new parrot.

I will be posting more of these mixed media pieces, but here is another from the crow prints which got reworked earlier in the series. Titled Raven Redux, its silvery feathers were not so pronounced and copper background used to be a deep burgundy.

 I haven't been on this blog in years, but I have a whole new life in Provincetown, and am very happy here. I do birds these days, which I see as kin to angels. Using glazes of saturated color and gilded backgrounds give them the aura of medieval icons. Wise, alert, often provocative or otherworldly, these birds are talismans and avatars; but still archetypal messengers and guardians. They exist in the borderland between mystery and fantasy — as do my mixed media pieces on wood, which also contain birds in their innate if elusive narrative.

With them in mind, I have created a new website and hope you will join me there, I think you will like it!

www.maureenmccarron.com

I have a new blog, Donegal Chronicles, I hope you'll join me there.