Tropical Storm Debby At Tampa Bay

Palma Ceia Skies As Debby Rolls In

Tropical Storm Debby is winding down in the Gulf, though Tampa is still under a Tornado Watch.

Heavy rain pounded the roof last night as lightning flashes made it impossible to sleep. This morning we heard the sound of cars pushing through flood waters in surrounding streets as some made their way to work.

Next we look forward to an explosion of mosquitoes from standing waters.

Picnic Island Palms As Tropical Storm Debby Slowly Moves On

After days of being cooped up (and no painting!) I had to venture out to Picnic Island with the first sun rays to break through this afternoon.  It was difficult walking the beach in high winds.

I took 148 pictures of the shoreline, kite surfers, and a ship in the bay--most are too blurred to use. The filtered look of this photo is due to the salt water on my camera lens. Note the waters have washed  away the palms' soil and roots.

Picnic Island Beach Washed Away in TS Debby

This photo dramatically shows the severe erosion a mild tropical storm can cause. The beach is gone, washed away.

That three foot "ledge" is what the raging storm waters gouged out. As I tried to walk along the water's edge, waves washed the sand from underneath my feet making for an interesting scene as I maintained my balance.

Just off shore, kites with dangling surfers held my attention. This guy was awesome. He's at least twenty feet above the water.

Picnic Island Kite Surfing During TS Debby

As I watched four kite surfers, I noticed one lone wind surfer had sense enough to keep his gear on the shore. A great example of Risk Takers and the Risk Averse.

(These are the young people we want covered under insurance plans to even out revenue and expense that SCOTUS is to rule on today.)

Needless to say, I got some terrific reference photos today, though my lack of photography experience shows in the cloudy saltwater covered lens, and movement from heavy winds.

Picnic Island Gulls Grounded by TS Debby

Aw, look who's strolling in the park.

These usually raucous, begging, and territorial birds seem a little stunned.

What's a gull to do? Too windy to fly and waters too rough to eat.

I always wonder where gulls go during storms. I'm thinking a lot of birds move away from storms. I saw only a few gulls and a couple egrets today.

Picnic Island Palms as TS Debby Passes

Water, Water Everywhere

As winds picked up speed and skies clouded again, no risk taking, I nervously left for home.

I'm eager to compare this photo with a prior one offered on my print site Tampa Bay Sunset
that I took during the Full Moon Sunset.


I saw several palms that were topped by the storm. Though we experience these storms every year, it's sad to see nature's fury destroy nature's beauty.
 
 Arriving at my car I realized why I couldn't see anything in my camera's display. My glasses and the camera lens were covered in a salt spray film, too.

Comments are always encouraged.
If you're following interesting blogs, feel free to comment or post those links here, too.

All the best,

Gail Kent
Gail Kent Studio

Find me or my work at the following addresses:

Gail-Kent.artistwebsites.com  my Fine Art America gallery
Twitter.com/@Gail_Kent
www.facebook.com/GailKentStudio
Gail Kent Studio Notes  my Tumblr blog site
Gail Kent Studio on Pinterest
https://sites.google.com/site/gailkentstudios 

www.etsy.com/people/gailkentstudio


Google+ Profile link
Gail Kent

Fine Art America Gallery Page Link for Gulf Coast art prints:
gulf coast paintings

Fine Art America Gallery Page Link for Tampa paintings:
tampa paintings

Painting From a Distance

Lights In the Distance 

A fragment of pure joy describes this link of a flash mob concert of Peer Gynt. It brought happy thoughts of distant travels in "the old country" and tears to my eyes as I watched the happy faces of the listeners.

Navigating today's ever-changing unsavory political and economic climate  with a smile on our faces may be the best we can do for ourselves. Snippets of distant events flood the news as we go about our everyday lives and ease into daily routines.

This link of a Belgian flash mob in a do re mi performance will make your day and guarantees you a big smile. If you get the political ad up front, listen or not.

I found this quote to be apropos to my own distant thoughts: Ancient Greece and ancient Rome - people did not happen to believe that creativity came from human beings back then, OK? People believed that creativity was this divine attendant spirit that came to human beings from some distant and unknowable source, for distant and unknowable reasons.
Elizabeth Gilbert

Read more at http://www.brainyquote.com/quotes/keywords/distant.html#ysJlwWUxJlz28Pc4.99

Clear Skies in the Distance

Painting from a distance, figuratively and literally, is my plan for the next month.

 

Pulling back from my perch on the beach while re-imagining many shore and mountain knife paintings as larger more developed works is a task I've looked forward to for a while. 

 

Minimalist tendencies will remain in fleshing-out the memories of places nearby and distant from "some distant and unknowable source."

European classical music has given way to the awesome salsa and Latin beat often heard on Picnic Island on weekends as one group practices or another records performance CDs on the beach. 

 

Mountains are now low clouds in the distance that become heavy summer rain clouds. 

 

It's all in the distance, waiting to be painted, regardless of the source.

Comments are always encouraged.
If you're following interesting blogs, feel free to comment or post those links here, too.

All the best,

Gail Kent
Gail Kent Studio

Find me or my work at the following addresses:

Gail-Kent.artistwebsites.com  my Fine Art America gallery
Twitter.com/@Gail_Kent
www.facebook.com/GailKentStudio
Gail Kent Studio Notes  my Tumblr blog site
Gail Kent Studio on Pinterest
https://sites.google.com/site/gailkentstudios 

www.etsy.com/people/gailkentstudio


Google+ Profile link
Gail Kent

Fine Art America Gallery Page Link for Gulf Coast art prints:
gulf coast paintings

Fine Art America Gallery Page Link for Tampa paintings:
tampa paintings

Art Lovers Rich and Poor

Sittin' by the Docks of the Bay

An early morning visitor sits on the banks of Hillsborough Bay, lost in texting the moment the sunrise peeked above the horizon.

I learned from him that the boat in the bay was a castaway, a term I hadn't heard applied to a boat. Having grown up in high country, it's not part of my coastal jargon.

No tides rollin' away this morning and just a couple of ducks and blackbirds to watch. It's a quiet start to a new day.

Sunrise Jog

These piers are in an affluent area of South Tampa. I'm fortunate to live nearby and marvel at nature's beauty that surrounds us.

For the last year I've chatted with less affluent frequenters of these piers and Picnic Island where I painted. Most were local; some from other states and countries. 

Last year I was shocked by the numbers of young people I met who had lost jobs, yet hoped for something to come along. Then I met early retirees, all of whom would rather be working.

Young people starting their lives or older downsizers, they shared a solemn expression and gentle smile when they stopped to look at my art. Many who chatted mentioned that they had painted or drawn in the past but gave it up. I always encouraged them to take it up again. Some of my visitors were castaways, too, having lost their moorings. Our economy has brought tragic consequences to many good people who deserve better.

Another Just Ducky Day!

Art Market Thrives
This link was tweeted by Slate this morning. It's a good short read about the art market thriving in this horrific economy because of the super-rich, the "Ultra-High Net Worths." The point is that the Super-Rich love the art they buy.

Well, I'm sure art lovers buy art even when it's not a smart investment. However; I'm old enough to know we've had a number of economic cycles when art was a terrific investment. Besides, it's like "donating" for naming rights-the gifting of great art benefits both givers and receivers.

A sincere thank-you to the Super-Duper-Ultra Rich for sharing your great art! Everyone can appreciate it, especially when they again have disposable incomes to visit museums, or have access to internet connections to enjoy it online. Now, what can we do about this economy for rich and poor?

Comments are always encouraged.
If you're following interesting blogs, feel free to comment or post those links here, too.

All the best,

Gail Kent
Gail Kent Studio

Find me or my work at the following addresses:

Gail-Kent.artistwebsites.com  my Fine Art America gallery
Twitter.com/@Gail_Kent
www.facebook.com/GailKentStudio
Gail Kent Studio Notes  my Tumblr blog site
Gail Kent Studio on Pinterest
https://sites.google.com/site/gailkentstudios 

www.etsy.com/people/gailkentstudio


Google+ Profile link
Gail Kent

Fine Art America Gallery Page Link for Gulf Coast art prints:
gulf coast paintings

Fine Art America Gallery Page Link for Tampa paintings:
tampa paintings

Artists No-Pin Policy for Etsy and Other Sites

Fine Artists Seeing Red? you Betcha!

Visual artists and artisans of fine jewelry and hand crafts are seeing red and making noise all over the web about their work being pinned on Pinterest without permission. Pinning intellectual property without permission is theft.

In yesterday's post, Pins Steal Your Art, I linked to two sites to explain how to avoid pins or to take back your work if it's already been pinned to Pinterest boards. You can embed an HTML code that prevents this process, if the website host permits it. Etsy doesn't permit it. Fine Art America allows pin-it button deletion. My domain site built on WordPress will have no-pin code from day one.

I contacted Etsy legal about my art shop having Pinterest pin-it buttons placed on every item I have listed when my permission to embed these buttons wasn't asked. They responded very quickly giving me links to the notice and policy. Etsy replied, in the most gracious non-legalese way, basically, I can have buttons or close up shop.  I still have the shop.

After I successfully pulled up a painting, copied it, printed it in full size, full resolution, off a 600x600 photo with watermark, I dropped larger items from the Etsy shop and placed in the title of every remaining item "No Pin Policy" to discourage the practice. I haven't found Etsy to be a great venue for my art because I don't work their system. I don't believe anyone is downloading and selling my prints, but the fact that they can isn't a good situation.

So, now I've setup a Pinterest account, Gail Kent Studio on Pinterest, and I'm trying to use it without infringing on any copyright to provide the article and informative links that I typically do in my blog posts. Not so easy to do. No original art works will be pinned and none of the art articles I've linked to allow pinning-none. When you look at the dozens of share options provided on art articles, Pinterest isn't one. You have to ask yourself why. Pinterest was described in some of their online description as a catalog. That's exactly what it is. Artists need catalogs, just not free art ones. I'll still give it the ole college try and follow-up in a later post. It may be a very boring site.

Beautiful Bird on Picnic Island Beach Strewn with Algae Bloom

Art for sale and art not for sale

The photos I post on my blog are usually nature shots from the beach where I paint and are watermarked so folks know the source. I would be happy to share most with a request for personal use. They are seldom of high resolution or cropped and edited as fine art. I upload some photos to Fine Art America for affordable small prints and cards of local interest, Tampa Bay Sunset.


My art photos on the other hand are my art and I will do all I can to protect my art. Notice has been given in the watermark and, on Etsy, in the Titles.



Comments are always encouraged.
If you're following interesting blogs, feel free to comment or post those links here, too.

All the best,

Gail Kent
Gail Kent Studio

Find me or my work at the following addresses:

Gail-Kent.artistwebsites.com  my Fine Art America gallery
Twitter.com/@Gail_Kent
www.facebook.com/GailKentStudio
Gail Kent Studio Notes  my Tumblr blog site
Gail Kent Studio on Pinterest
https://sites.google.com/site/gailkentstudios 

www.etsy.com/people/gailkentstudio


Google+ Profile link
Gail Kent

Fine Art America Gallery Page Link for Tampa Bay art prints:
tampa prints

King of the Wild Things

Picnic Island Sea Grapes

Living on the Gulf Coast of central Florida allows me to explore nature's contrasts throughout the year.

Many days of the last year were spent on Picnic Island, a habitat restoration and park setting with beach. There I paint and photograph all manner of "wild things" indigenous to this area--persons, plants, and things--the sunny tranquility and stormy high waters.

I've learned to venture out and touch sea life that I've never seen before, both the living and the once living remnants that I gather. With exposure to these creatures, fears diminish.

Early on a foggy morning or late in the evening when catching the last rays of the day with my camera, an uneasiness can manifest itself in the solitude, isolation, and sounds of silence of this popular island paradise.

Supermoon Rising on Picnic Island

Maurice Sendak would have understood my uneasiness as I headed off to Picnic Island to capture both high and low tides of this weekend's perigee moon--supermoon.

Maurice Sendak died today. It is our very great loss. I heard an interview he gave to Terry Gross on Fresh Air during one of my painting outings. He talked about the loss of his partner, about aging and being alone, about life. It was incredibly moving, provocative, unforgettable. With this link you can either read or listen Maurice Sendak Interview

Sunset on Picnic Island

"One of the few graces of getting old—and God knows there are few graces—is that if you've worked hard and kept your nose to the grindstone, something happens: The body gets old but the creative mechanism is refreshed, smoothed and oiled and honed. That is the grace. That is what's happening to me."

 http://quotes.dictionary.com/One_of_the_few_graces_of_getting_old#GTkdB8cuizylW1L6.99

He said we may never tame the wild things and I believe him. I'm just as afraid of the dark as those little kids who've loved his books over the years, but I've learned to venture out anyway.

Sendak Exhibition  at the Jewish Museum. Thanks Maurice Sendak for all you gave to so many.

Comments are always encouraged.
If you're following interesting blogs, feel free to comment or post those links here, too.

All the best,

Gail Kent
Gail Kent Studio

Find me or my work at the following addresses:

Gail-Kent.artistwebsites.com  my Fine Art America gallery
Twitter.com/@Gail_Kent
www.facebook.com/GailKentStudio
Gail Kent Studio Notes  my Tumblr blog site
www.etsy.com/people/gailkentstudio
https://sites.google.com/site/gailkentstudios 

Google+ Profile link
Gail Kent


Fine Art America Gallery Page Link for Tampa Bay art prints:
tampa prints

Supermoon Saturday

Supermoon at Picnic Island

Supermoon arrives Saturday night and should be at it's fullest brightest beauty around midnight.

These supermoons are mesmerizing beauties, especially when viewed with just a few clouds. These were my skies yesterday, and I'm hoping for clear skies tomorrow night. Here's a brief description of these moons. Supermoon Descripton Video

New moons are also fun for me for the beauty of the shoreline at low tide. Unfortunately, I never remember to watch the tide tables, only rarely catching really low tides during my beach outings to paint. This one proved to be a very popular painting Morning Low Tide

Before the Storm in Tampa

All week we've had the most interesting skies in Tampa Bay.
A painter's dream. I'm building a library of sky shots just from the Spring seasonal color.

This drama played out over Busch Gardens Wednesday afternoon.  After the cloudburst, I snapped a beautiful rainbow over South Tampa, but it pales in comparison to the depth in these clouds.

My hometown, Asheville, known as "land of the sky" made me a skywatcher from an early age. Sunrises and sunsets over mountains are stunning, too.

April Sunset over Tampa Bay

One last Tampa sky in this post-a bay Sunset!

This sunset was in the last few weeks when we finally got some rain. Completely surrounded by water, we seem to suffer an unfair number of droughts in this area. Wildfire season has filled our air with smoky smells several times this Spring, but all clear for now.

That's all from this beachcomber for now.

Have fun catching the Supermoon 2012, skywatchers!


Comments are always encouraged.
If you're following interesting blogs, feel free to comment or post those links here, too.

All the best,

Gail Kent
Gail Kent Studio

Find me or my work at the following addresses:

Gail-Kent.artistwebsites.com  my Fine Art America gallery
Twitter.com/@Gail_Kent
www.facebook.com/GailKentStudio
Gail Kent Studio Notes  my Tumblr blog site
www.etsy.com/people/gailkentstudio
https://sites.google.com/site/gailkentstudios 

Google+ Profile link
Gail Kent


Fine Art America Gallery Page Link for sunset art prints:
sunset paintings

Protect the Environment Every Day

Message from the Overseas Houston Docked at Old Port Tampa

Protecting the Environment at Home: 

Earth Day 2012 was a success in Tampa Bay with many community groups of volunteers organized.
Though I'm accustomed to channel traffic of commercial shipping lines, barges, fishing and sail boats, coast guard and other security traffic, this ship got a second look during Earth Day clean-up on Picnic Island Saturday.

Docked in Old Port Tampa at the entrance to Picnic Island, which runs under Tampa Airport fuel pipes, this line is in-port frequently and all ships are lettered with the "protect the environment" reminder.

Beautiful Egret Wading on Littered Picnic Island Beach

I cleaned up one small section of beach and park for three days Easter week, collecting hundreds of plastic eggs, plastic "grass", flipflops, candy containers, boxes, plastic drink bottles, plastic cups and other refuse left by adults. Most dangerous were the small plastic rings that birds and waterfowl will become tangled or trapped in.

I gave three days to protect this beautiful egret and thousands of other birds whose home is this island estuary. In this photo, taken after my clean-up, the beach is still littered in green plastic grass and at least one plastic jar top I missed.

Pristine Picnic Island Beach

The Keep Tampa Bay Beautiful group volunteered at Picnic Island for Earth Day. As you can see, it's clean again, after the volunteers collected countless bags of litter from in and around the park and playground plants and beach areas. Park staff were on-hand, too.

Another island painter is in this photo. I believe he keeps to himself. If you visit Picnic Island and happen upon me when I'm painting, I'd very much enjoy your stopping to chat. Sometimes I have to keep working while chatting, though, if the winds are high and I'm using acrylic paint-it dries very quickly.


Comments are always encouraged.
If you're following interesting blogs, feel free to comment or post those links here, too.

All the best,

Gail Kent
Gail Kent Studio

Find me or my work at the following addresses:

Gail-Kent.artistwebsites.com  my Fine Art America gallery
Twitter.com/@Gail_Kent
www.facebook.com/GailKentStudio
Gail Kent Studio Notes  my Tumblr blog site
www.etsy.com/people/gailkentstudio
https://sites.google.com/site/gailkentstudios 

Google+ Profile link
Gail Kent

Fine Art America Gallery Page Link for nature art prints:
nature prints

 

The Artist as a Brand

Winter Morning Canvas Print

What I've learned about investing in an online art presence, building my brand, selling my art:

• Art is fun
• Art marketing in multiple venues is not fun
• Selling art is fun
• Pricing, billing, collecting and shipping art are not fun
• Self-representing myself in online galleries is fun
• Working half a day on artist's websites, editing to assorted formats, then uploading art is not fun

• Note to Self: Don't worry be happy, paint, hire an intern!

Island Butterfly Series -3/6

Well, perhaps only extraordinarily successful painters hire interns or other assistants who help with everything but the painting. But we can dream. We paint because we enjoy painting and perform as best we can in all the work that supports our brand--our service of delivering our best product.

I've worked hard for six months setting-up my websites and painting a little over 100 small acrylic paintings and studies and 3 medium-sized oils. With the children's gallery that I've started, I'll begin with maybe 30 images and then move on to larger works for the GailKentStudio.com domain site.

Before taking the domain gallery live,  a consultant will get all the websites performing the social networking plan functions I began with. A few major kinks with Google's Plus changes have to be smoothed out.

I've used PayPal with my Etsy shop, and been pleased with performance there. Easy for the buyer to know they will get the product they paid for, easy for me to ship out my art knowing I'm being paid.

With my Fine Art America site, I have nothing to do but upload the art. They format, print, ship, and collect and pay me through PayPal. Wonderful!

The brand is established and now must be maintained. I've met interesting artists through my online presence and we've supported one another with concerns, endeavors, and pats-on-the-back. Contacts, customers and potential customers also contribute to the brand when they comment or share information and links about an artist's work. It's a sense of accomplishment. 

All in all, online art marketing has been a learning experience and will continue to present challenges, growth, and rewards as I expand my art activities. It was a decision without regrets because I started with a plan. I posted about that in this link Set up Online Gallery

Now, to get on with a promotions plan and creating lots of little canvases to fill the children's gallery.



Comments are always encouraged.
If you're following interesting blogs, feel free to comment or post those links here, too.

All the best,

Gail Kent
Gail Kent Studio

Find me or my work at the following addresses:

Gail-Kent.artistwebsites.com  my Fine Art America gallery
Twitter.com/@Gail_Kent
www.facebook.com/GailKentStudio
Gail Kent Studio Notes  my Tumblr blog site
www.etsy.com/people/gailkentstudio
https://sites.google.com/site/gailkentstudios 

Fine Art America Gallery Page Sponsor
minimalism prints

Is Amazon Art Marketing for You?

Island Flowers from Picnic Island Series

We've transitioned from retail to online shopping by putting out of business the very retailers who helped us find the specific products we wanted to buy from Amazon. I do just the opposite--research online and go to the neighborhood retailer to buy.

Artists research and read a lot. We purchase equipment and supplies and plan travel to great venues for whatever our media or interests and keep up with what's happening. Visual artists have to know everything from brushes to marketing to online techie news and brand building.

Amazon is one artists' venue for managing the business end of inventory and shipping our works. I'm certain to move in that direction rather than find storage for hundreds of paintings, digging through them to ship one little piece. But as long as I have neighborhood retail stores where I can shop for supplies and all the other needs, I will.

Amazon and Apple, with suits and countersuits, have been under fire in the news lately for the pricing of digital books. E-books for Sale  We've been in a new marketing age for a decade. When I shop at my neighborhood Michael's, I see that everyone under thirty uses their phone to pull up their discount coupons. I'm still a Gutenberg printing out coupons the take to the store. The store is encouraging "bulk" purchases, as well. They'll ease us into ordering our product.

Just noticed a new sign outside my neighborhood Barnes + Noble South Tampa bookstore last week "20,000 square feet for Lease"  I didn't stop to ask details, but this doesn't bode well.

Since my Border's closed, I shop B+N several times a month. I spoke to the manager back in the Fall about student squatters having no limits set. Buying computer books at the time and needing to determine technical vs. my skill level (or lack thereof), after the manager located a chair for me and pulled it into the retail area, I stacked the books on the floor and tried to balance one by one on my too short legs or too tall chair to peruse. I chose two and left--quickly. The manager told me they needed to build a large separate cafe or just be a bookstore. They were aware of the problem and were "working" on it. Looks like they found the solution. Borders also had customers unable get tables because of students spreading out computers and in-store publications.


A month ago, while having Sunday brunch in Panera's during standing room only hour, again older students had already staked claim to the tables, some having brought their own beverages.

I'm not anti-student; I am pro retail. We're all guilty of freeloading off the retailer in difficult economic times. These students are but one piece of the overall marketing problem for booksellers and now for restaurants, electronics stores such as Best Buy, coming soon to all retailers, including art galleries.

We have no choice but to market online. Art Online Here's one of many e-books to tell us how. I haven't read this book and haven't done business with the publishers. I still  have a dream of opening a workshop/studio/gallery for multiple artists working in many media. It's only a dream that is likely to remain unrealized. I spoke with someone about a prime location (a former small gallery) who offered that you need something other than art to get people in. Okay. How about blood, sweat and tears? Art galleries are for art. Bookstores are for books. Restaurants are for dining. Libraries are for students, and Amazon...who knows how many markets they can service?

Comments are always encouraged.
If you're following interesting blogs, feel free to comment or post those links here, too. 

All the best,

Gail Kent
Gail Kent Studio

Find me or my work at the following addresses:

Gail-Kent.artistwebsites.com  my Fine Art America gallery
Twitter.com/@Gail_Kent
www.facebook.com/GailKentStudio
Gail Kent Studio Notes  my Tumblr blog site
www.etsy.com/people/gailkentstudio
https://sites.google.com/site/gailkentstudios 

Butterfies Flutter By

Island Butterfly

I've always thought butterflies should be called flutterbys. That's the way my mind works and why I love languages.

Childlike fun in my art, getting as much paint on myself as on the canvases, is the order of the day this week. Escaping business, politics and planning, can be difficult, but we must take the time occasionally.

Butterflies is one of my latest series of small spontaneously executed paintings on Picnic Island that capture my beautiful island surroundings in Spring. The originals are offered at Etsy  Butterflies Series  with reproductions soon from my prints site at Fine Art America 

Butterflies are popular with many artists, visual and performing.  They're capable of garnering academy awards as in the classic Butterflies are Free, or stimulating commentary and action on social concerns as with Julia Hill.  Julia Butterfly Hill

Island Moth

While these paintings aren't my usual genre, they are a wonderful diversion from the domain site I'm patiently waiting to load up with original works. Meanwhile, there will be several small series of garden subjects painted in different background colors.

Having a camera that only worked on scenic shots for a few months, I've uploaded photos for card prints to my Fine Art America site. Some are quite stunning captures of the Tampa Bay area and flower photos. Photo Gallery

With a new camera, I can "focus" on photographing my paintings now when I finish playing in the garden, watching the butterflies flutter by.

Comments are always encouraged.
If you're following interesting blogs, feel free to comment or post those links here, too. 

All the best,

Gail Kent
Gail Kent Studio

Find me or my work at the following addresses:
Gail-Kent.artistwebsites.com 
 Twitter -  Twitter.com/@Gail_Kent,  and Facebook -  www.facebook.com/GailKentStudio
www.etsy.com/people/gailkentstudio
https://sites.google.com/site/gailkentstudios

Tampa Artists Welcome RNC

Picnic Island Where Fish are Jumping

Welcome to Tampa Bay! 

We're a little different in these parts and proud to strut our stuff for the RNC. Even the fish are friendly here. Enlarge this photo and you'll see two jumping out of the water as I snapped the shot.

A colorful city of great beauty (full of purple blossom-laden trees today), we're gathering a herd of painted elephants to welcome the RNC gathering in August. Trees courtesy Mother Nature; elephants courtesy local artists. There's sure to be at least one pink pachyderm in the herd.  Tampa's elephants

Picnic Island Shrub Unedited Snapshot

I went to Picnic Island yesterday afternoon to play with my new camera and to prep canvases for a new series. Not much I could photograph, so I staked out my perch for two hours of painting. The beaches were strewn with discarded cans, plastic Easter eggs, Easter basket straw, and other garbage people left behind on the sands, grasses, and in shrubbery, after their Easter reunions. Even the road into the park was badly littered. Plastics in the water and on the shoreline now have to be cleaned-up by taxpayers. No photo ops.

Bird's Eye View from Picnic Island

Tampa is getting a facelift for the RNC.  Already a natural beauty, a facelift will only augment our amenities. Intense planning is underway and all should go well. Don't know that Picnic Island will be a venue for any RNC activities, but the crew has worked very hard for months on improvements and general spruce-up. I've observed what appeared to be shoreline security practice in the bay, as well.


Hate to miss a good party, I'll be on the road in August.


Today's post is loaded with photos that are totally unedited, no color correction, and no cropping. These shots were taken with the new P+S Panasonic Lumix camera which I wrote about in an earlier post along with the link for a recommendation. Artists' Cameras  I haven't yet read the manual and don't yet know how to use the camera very well. The touch screen is wonderful, it's intuitive, and produces quality images. All this for under $100. I could have gotten a model with a view finder to conserve battery life, but my only objective with this camera is a quick fix to photograph my art. That's my next experiment and I'll upload comparisons in a future post.

Comments are always encouraged.
If you're following interesting blogs, feel free to comment or post those links here, too. 

All the best,

Gail Kent
Gail Kent Studio

Find me or my work at the following addresses:
Gail-Kent.artistwebsites.com 
 Twitter -  Twitter.com/@Gail_Kent,  and Facebook -  www.facebook.com/GailKentStudio
www.etsy.com/people/gailkentstudio
https://sites.google.com/site/gailkentstudios
 

Museums and Other Cultural Changes

When is the last time you visited a museum or any other community cultural center, or read an actual newspaper? We're online (alone) garnering our cultural snippets of art, literature, games, music and movies, and community news. We don't go to museums or to libraries unless we're in search of blockbuster entertainment.

A comprehensive discussion of the American museum historical perspective in today's changing needs can be found at this link. It's a long article, about our society, too, and well worth the read if you love art and museums. What's a Museum?

Picnic Island Prickly Pear

Thinking about our digital focus this week I spent lots of time at the beach, my cultural center. Google vs. Facebook; how we socialize and interact with one another, it's changing. I enjoy nature with other nature lovers at the beach where outdoor activities don't compete with computer time. We need both.

I found this ancient prickly pear in some mangroves. I've never seen cacti taller than I am, so had to read about it online. My digital library completed the picture by warning me to stay far away to shoot.

Picnic Island Restoration

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 This photo of fresh plantings at Picnic Island beach appears to be random growth of tropical plants. We know otherwise if we read local newspaper blogs. The whole story is: we've lost beach during storms and new sand was brought in, newly planted with sea oats, sea grapes and flowers and grasses, so sand won't wash away so badly during storms. Not at all nature's randomness in placement.

Gray Morning at Picnic Island

 For visual artists, the web is our life's blood. We must have an online presence to grow and survive in what can be a prickly environment. We are not in museums.

This is my only new finished painting for the week. All those that I've had on the drawing board are complete and just need to be photographed and uploaded.

Is there a museum masterpiece on this post?

Most probably no masterpieces. But until and unless Google decides to shutdown this blog, which they own, these images are captured for all the world to see and I've happily expressed a little of our Tampa Bay culture along with my images. I was able to do so only because life is changing and anyone can share almost anything digitally if they take the time to develop the skills.



Comments are always encouraged.
If you're following interesting blogs, feel free to comment or post those links here, too. 

All the best,

Gail Kent
Gail Kent Studio

Find me or my work at the following addresses:
Gail-Kent.artistwebsites.com 
 Twitter -  Twitter.com/@Gail_Kent,  and Facebook -  www.facebook.com/GailKentStudio
www.etsy.com/people/gailkentstudio
https://sites.google.com/site/gailkentstudios

New SEO Best Friends

I gave in today to 100 or so e-mails from my new SEO best friends at the search engine submitter site I looked at when I purchased my own domain. I'll link if performance is what they claim. Their marketing e-mails, in the tone of old-time used car salesman or snake oil salesman, are sometimes off-putting as rude, aggressive, and get-rich-quick in the subject line because I'm of a different marketing mindset. I believe they are offering a quality service though.

Coming Ashore?

This beautiful fish swam along the water's edge with me as I walked the Picnic Island shore this morning to collect my Google thoughts.

No longer seeing my blog posts in searches, and my profile & Plus photos showing with Windows but not Firefox (which I use, and is current). Having spent hours and hours trying to resolve these issues, I'm burned out on Plus and really angry that my beautiful blogs go nowhere. No sales, no comments if the posts aren't out there!

When I upload into my blog, I don't actually see the photo until it's in the blog. No Google service person to address these troubles; no help found online. I don't know if my new SEO best friends will pull my past Blogger posts to show in searches based on my post-specific labels, or just the few search words they allowed. Perhaps that's another small fee. I should read the 75-page service (ad) e-mailed today.

Big City Life in Tampa Bay Today

My new domain site, Gail Kent Studio is still inactive as of this post. I wanted the dust to settle on Google and Facebook transitions in the Master of the Universe race and coordinate with Blogger. As these guys would say, fish or cut bait!

I chose ipage with Wordpress for my new gallery site. The love affair with Google being over, I'm eager & excited to  tackle the new site again in a week or two (that's Tampa time).

Uploading a few photos to my prints site tonight.  Fishing Buddies is one of this genre that works well in any of the print choices or as cards. It's particularly popular globally.

Comments are always encouraged.
If you're following interesting blogs, feel free to comment or post those links here, too. 

All the best,

Gail Kent
Gail Kent Studio

Find me or my work at the following addresses:
Gail-Kent.artistwebsites.com 
 Twitter -  Twitter.com/@Gail_Kent,  and Facebook -  www.facebook.com/GailKentStudio
www.etsy.com/people/gailkentstudio
https://sites.google.com/site/gailkentstudios

Artist at Work on Picnic Island

Visual artists who work in outdoor public spots, and plein air painters, often face challenges:


-  weather (for me it's the beach) can be too wet, too humid, or too windy
-  wildlife when in the natural habitat inland or on the shore can be territorial
-  visitors can be either a distraction or a welcome diversion
-  safety can be a concern in isolated locations
-  medium can be problematic - acrylics dry quickly even with gel medium mixtures
-  electronics don't perform well if you continually drop them in water or hard surfaces! 

Low tide & gentle sailing breeze today

Having worked outdoors a little over six months, (eager to get into my new space indoors), I've enjoyed many hours on our white sand beaches at Picnic Island watching sail boats, kayakers, commercial ships in the channel and an endless stream of  locals and visitors who stop to look at my art. I've even gotten to know a few of the regulars who hike or walk daily.

Parking Lot Picnic Island Style

Mornings are often quiet when I arrive at deserted scenes like this area near the island entrance. Park staff stop by sometimes to be sure everything is okay when I'm painting alone on the shoreline. Owners of vehicles in the parking lots have usually already gone out in kayaks or small fishing boats.

Umm, umm good crabs- only shells left

I walk on the beach with my camera before painting to get lots of reference images for future use. Unfortunately, I drop my camera all too often, and now can't upload to my Fine Art America print site until I get a new one. Present Kodak lasted only three months. A great article link from another artist about getting a new camera  Need a New Camera  I'll review her results and reader input before making my own choice.

Outdoor painting challenges aren't insurmountable.
I've adapted very well by changing my medium, changing from finished works to small studies, and learning to deal with distractions. The bugs: can't say I've adapted to no-see-ums! I'll continue to visit this beautiful estuary from time to time after moving into new space and again painting larger oil works.

My outdoor visitors seldom see my finished works, but I give them my card to look at the "good stuff" online. I stop painting to chat, unless I'm at a critical focus and don't want my paint to dry. In which case I explain that the paint is drying quickly, but to please stay and chat. Got to get that good stuff online for them. Blog and Facebook uploads are often incomplete or cropped differently than works offered as prints, so the camera is now critical--don't want people to only see snapshot uploads.

Comments are always encouraged.
If you're following interesting blogs, feel free to comment or post those links here, too. 

All the best,

Gail Kent
Gail Kent Studio

Find me or my work at the following addresses:
Gail-Kent.artistwebsites.com 
 Twitter -  Twitter.com/@Gail_Kent,  and Facebook -  www.facebook.com/GailKentStudio
www.etsy.com/people/gailkentstudio
https://sites.google.com/site/gailkentstudios

 

Why the Sky is Blue

Picnic Island Blue Skies

Blue is the most popular color in paintings, with lavender a close second. Next favorite is the tint of either color that matches fabric and paint swatches for any new decor project in the works.

Painters may use half a dozen other colors in rendering blue (or lavender) skies. In this little study of a beautiful island day, I used three blue hues, magenta, sienna, and white to capture the sunny day sky.

Facebook Cover Picnic Island

This stormy day sky required more intensity and movement to capture the storm. Two blues, magenta, and white were used to keep focus on rapid movement.

Lantana Study unfinished

These butterfly attracting wild flowers grow around mangrove habitat areas on Picnic Island. This very rough study will become a painting with a soft Blue Sky painted in ultramarine blue, magenta and white. This keeps the focus on the flowers. Having grown these in my own butterfly garden, I'm resisting the idea of a butterfly on the flower nearest the center flower - too sweet for my taste, I think.

In Olive Tree, one of my most popular Fine Art America listings, I used all colors, achieving exactly the dramatic effect I wanted in depicting the Great Flood story. Olive Tree This sky is not blue, but full-spectrum conveying a sense of wholeness, completeness, within the drama.

I read an interesting article in The Guardian about the ten best skies in art. Best Skies in Art in Pictures The great artist JMW Turner's listing didn't include the photo, but does have a link. I find his skies to be very interesting and certainly would have given one of his images front page placement. More often than not, his skies go for dramatic movement with many colors, but he's also guilty of sweet blue skies using multiple colors.

So why is the sky blue?

We expect the sky to be blue on clear days and so we see it as blue (unless we're painters!). Light waves of blue filtered through our atmosphere give us blue skies, but all the colors are there radiating from the sun.  We see all the colors after a storm when we are gifted with a rainbow. Skies beyond our atmosphere, deep space, are black.

Comments are always encouraged.
If you're following interesting blogs, feel free to comment or post those links here, too. 

All the best,

Gail Kent
Gail Kent Studio

Find me or my work at the following addresses:
Gail-Kent.artistwebsites.com 
 Twitter -  Twitter.com/@Gail_Kent,  and Facebook -  www.facebook.com/GailKentStudio
www.etsy.com/people/gailkentstudio
https://sites.google.com/site/gailkentstudios