Zen 5

Zen V
30" x 40" acrylic painting on stretched canvas

This is the painting I did last night at the "Alley Arts Festival." I will be doing a Zen paintinge every 2nd Saturday at the "Alley Arts Festival" until September. In Sacramento the 2nd Saturday of each month is when the local art galleries have their public receptions. "Alley Arts" will have artists booths, music and a beer garden during the warm spring and summer months. In the winter it will be something else, somewhere else. I like the ambiance of this venue and it is soooooo awesome painting to live music!!!!

This is a scan of the 0.5" x 1.5" piece of Zen I pulled from the Zen Jar for last night's painting. As you can see I squashed it to fit within the dimensions of the canvas. I did have quite the audience while I was painting this. The best compliment came from a little boy who excitedly returned again and again and said "this makes me want to paint!" The second best compliment came from a guy who said, "I don't even like abstract but this makes me want to lie in bed and look at it hanging on my wall."

Ignorance
10 x 15" 3 color woodcut printed with acrylic paint on Japanese calligraphy paper.

Ignorance
it enslaves
it victimizes
it is without voice
it is without vision

Sold one of the above prints last night too. Woo Hoo!!! Thank you Brandon!

It was a totally fun night last night and I so look forward to more painting fun each month at the Alley Arts Festival in downtown Sacramento. My friend and mentor Rachel Stonecipher brought iced tea and kept me company while I painted. My awesome hubby Jeff helped me break down and pack up (that easy pop-up canopy aint so easy [especially for a shorty like me]). And the latin jazz really grooved! I told Jeff that I was going to have to hire a band every week to paint too...

Thank you Kevin Santos-Coy for organizing this totally cool publicly accessible arts venue!

Zen Painting at the Alley Arts Festival

I'm thinking I will do a zen painting at tonight's event.

my zen paintings started out as an 18" x 24" drip/splatter painting on paper. I cut that painting into .5 x1" and 1x1" pieces and tossed the pieces into a jar. Occasionally I will pull one of the pieces out of the "Zen Jar" and blow it up into a much larger art work. Either I will paint it on large sheets of paper (36 x40") or carve woodcut plates. The images in this blog are examples of works I've done over the years from "Zen Jar."

Come see me tonight while I work on a new Zen Painting

"ALLEY ARTS FESTIVAL"

Tonight 6-10 PM

featuring:

Live Latin Jazz Music with:

Nagual Quartet,
La Sociedad Cafe,

and Atapaz

AND 10 Fine Artists
1 of whom is ME

On the huge parking lot in the ALLEY between:
18/19 & I/J Sts. in Midtown, Sacramento, CA

behind: 1812 I Street, Sacramento, CA 95811
Come enjoy this special FREE pre-Mothers Day event one block from the bustle of 15,000 attendees of the epicenter of the ArtWalk.

Look for the ALLEY ARTS FESTIVAL signages on the corners of the block for a great find!!

AND Great Arts Fun!!!

Calaca IV featured

My monoprint titled Calaca IV will be part of the Featured Artwork rotation on the homepages at World Wide Arts Resources and absolutearts.com. The feature will be on August 23, 2008. The duration of the feature is one day and the rotation changes every few minutes. Please stop by at http://wwar.com and http://www.absolutearts.com on the 23rd of August and take a look at my featured artwork, let me know what you think. You can see my Premier Portfolio in progress at: http://www.absolutearts.com/portfolios/p/pharecamp/

You may also view more of my artworks at:

My website: http://www.imp-s.com/
My Etsy Shop: http://www.PhareCamp.etsy.com
My flickr photostream: http://www.flickr.com/photos/pharecamp/