Experiment with oils...

8"x10" oil and enamel on canvas

Well, it's not the best composition but it was a successful experiment. I used oil paint from the tube, you know, the traditional stuff, then I used black oil based enamel that you buy from the hardware store. The two paints so far seem to be getting along. I have ideas for using this mix on a larger scale.

This is supposed to be a painting of bourbon in a "rocks glass" sitting on a cocktail napkin. It's another beginning.

Whew hoo!
-JanettMarie

"Oh What Fun It Is"

4 foot by 2 foot mixed media on canvas

One could say this painting took 8 months to complete which is pretty true. I started this painting last April and yesterday it finally broke loose and I finished it. It is relatively big at 4 feet by 2 feet so I'm just as surprised as you may be at the result. Wait, do I have any photos of it before?

Well, okay here it is, a photo from last April, it's the painting in the middle. Things that make me say "hmmm…" and "wow".

Merry Christmas all!

-JanettMarie

"IMA" and "Surviveoar"

Front: mixed media on paddle

Back: mixed media on paddle

Here she is Ms. Ima Surviveoar.

Ima paddles in a dragon boat for the Indy Surviveoars Team.

This is an oar that I've painted for the "Pink Paddle Party",  which is the teams annual conclusion of the Indy SurviveOars dragon boat racing season and their come together for a celebration and fundraiser. Hopefully this paddle will help raise a lot of dollars for the survivors cause. 

Go team!!

-JanettMarie

"Who?"-Sold

2"x3" mixed media on paper mounted on canvas

This is a small piece done today for Randy's mom. This owl has many possibilities, mostly devouring mice and other small rodents!

I started painting with acrylics but the feathers required more, so I searched and searched and I found my color pencils, thus the "controlled scribbles" for the small feathers. Mixed media, gotta love it.

Enjoy your week,
-JanettMarie

"You Can Do It!"

6"x6" oil on canvas panel

Click Here to Bid

I'm not sure what's going on here. Is that little tomato trying to jump up to the other one or is the other one trying to jump down to the other two? It's a quandary, I find myself in that type of situation all of the time!

This painting I again got a little crazy with, the orange especially drove me crazy, but I came back from the craziness and I'm going to try this one again also. The big question... when.  : )

Enjoy the day!

-JanettMarie

"October Pear" -Sold

6"x6" oil on canvas panel

Click Here to Bid

This little painting was an exercise in using conservative brush strokes. Trying to paint without overdoing it by dabbling too much, or too much blending on the canvas. Each stroke is supposed to be deliberate and with purpose. Hey, just like that golf book, every stroke/shot must have a purpose. Well, toward the end of this exercise I got a little impatient and put the shadow area in a little crazy like. That would make it expressive like.  : )  Maybe this should be titled "Expressive Pear". I think I will try this again.

October is time for change for the leaves, and me, so I changed the look of my blog page and tried to clean it up a bit. Hope you like it. Also, I am going to try the auction process of selling my paintings again. I gave up on it pretty quickly in the beginning of my "blogging my paintings" career, so I'm going to go back and give it a try again. If you think it's just crazy, let me know, I don't mind, we all need a little crazy in our lives.

-JanettMarie

"Wave Breaker"

6"x8" oil on canvas panel

Click here to buy now

The last post was an image of the last painting I did on Madeline Island before coming home to Indianapolis, Indiana. This is the first painting I did when I was on Madeline Island. This is a view from the ferry dock, looking out toward one of the Apostle Islands. The day was over cast so there was very little contrast to be found. The orangey rusty looking part in the middle of the painting is the "wave breaker". There were seagulls all lined up waiting for the next free meal to arrive I'm sure.

Have a great day!

-JanettMarie

"Island Speed"

16"x12" canvas panel sitting on my easel.

Can you believe it? I went outside and painted on an island, who does that?

Plein air painters do!

15 mph, that's "Island Speed"... slow down baby.

Have a nice casual day, it's Sunday.

-JanettMarie

A Video about the Indianapolis Piano Project

Click on this photo to see the video.

Just thought this was a great video explaining the "Go Ahead & Play" project and it shows many of the pianos being played.

The piano's have been relocated to their new homes and the Women's Fund of Central Indiana has some of the stories on their facebook page. Go Ahead & Check it Out.

-JanettMarie

"Red Hat Tea"

12"x9" Mixed media on paper

Sometimes, you just have to put something down to get started again.

Like Martha said today, "a good start". She's right, it's a start.

A featureless face. What will tomorrow bring?

-JanettMarie

Piano "Flash Mob"

Click on the photo below to see some "Heart and Soul"

JanettMarie at her transformed piano.

The Go Ahead & Play students gathered around "Out Loud in the City" with Indianapolis' Channel 8's David Barras.

Here is the link to the Women's Fund Facebook page for all of the latest with the piano's around Indy.

Have a great day.

-JanettMarie

"Grand Hotel"

11"x15" mixed media on paper

Today, I finished this little guy and resumed working on the pieces that need to get finished.

This cup has a splash of coffee on it and a few other mixed media items. For example, there is golf leaf,  glitter and some kind of screen stuff (not sure where it came from anymore) and layers of paint, stained papers and pieces of financial charts.

The piano's will be out this Thursday and I am working on putting a little video of last Saturday's Piano Party.

Have a great day!

-JanettMarie

The map of piano locations and the back of "Out Loud in the City"

42"x55" mixed media on canvas to be mounted on the back of the piano.

Painted for the back of the piano, so it can be experienced from all sides, this piece of canvas I taped to the floor of my studio and just had fun.

A map of all the piano locations through out the Indianapolis area can be found here on the Women's Fund GO Ahead & Play Map page.

Also check out this little video to hear and see more about this project.

Have a good day!

-JanettMarie

7 Paintings for "Walk Away With Art"

"Stairway to Heaven"   10.5" x 10" Mixed media on paper

"Bailey and Me"   10.5" x 9" Mixed media on paper

"Martini Moulin Rouge"   10.5" x 9" Mixed media on paper

"Orange Twist"   10.5" x 9" Mixed media on paper

"Alan Harpertini"   10.5" x 9" Mixed media on paper

"Clock Work"   10.5" x 9" Mixed media on paper - SOLD

"Martini Magic"   10.5" x 9" Mixed media on paper

These are the seven paintings I have in the Raymond James Stutz Art Gallery for the "Walk Away With Art" show the month of July.

The idea is this; there are seven artists and each artist submitted seven pieces of art to be sold at $100 each. Patrons buy a ticket here and then on July 26th at the "Walk Away With Art" reception numbers are drawn and the first number gets to make the first pick. And if you are a couple you can buy a ticket for $150 and pick two. Wow, to me that's a pretty good deal.

Anyway, I finished these last week along with the piano's finishing touches.  : )

Have a great day.

-JanettMarie
PS:  That is chickens in the background of the piano movie.

Piano un-assembled June 2013

A little experiment.

Seven paintings tomorrow.

-JanettMarie

Piano Update July 3rd - Angela this is for you!

A couple of images of the piano, still in the shop. For some reason and I don't know why (fatigue maybe) I didn't take a photo after I painted the other leg. Hmm.... I do have an idea so that you all can see the whole piano, but that will have to wait a bit too. I'll tell you this, it has to do with taking a video.

Happy Fourth of July tomorrow!

-JanettMarie

Piano Update June 28th

Counting down, I actually have more of this done than I show here, and I do only have two, yes, two days left.

Oh, Angela, I'm working like CRAZY, to finish this. I can hardly wait myself to see this all together.

The top photo is the piano assembled. The photo on the bottom left is in my studio assembled on a table. The last two photos are the sides of the piece. I actually put paint on the sides a bit today. 

Oh, Monday, Tuesday, one of those two days I will give you the full view.

Okay, gotta go back to work.

-JanettMarie

"Salvo's Martini" ---Sold

8"x6" oil on canvas panel

A finished little commission piece, painted especially for Salvo. This special surprise did surprise him. The painting was still wet on Sunday afternoon and the presentation was that evening! So I carefully put this piece in a cigar box and labeled the outside of the box with little instructions on how to open it.

Here is the photo Andrea took with Salvo and his painting.

Don't you just love it when a plan comes together!

More on the piano later.

-JanettMarie

Piano update June 18th

June 18th, the top panel is pretty much finished. 

This is June 15th, working out a few color combinations.

Last week, counting Sunday, I finished a couple of "must finish" commissions and taught a few painting classes. Now, it's time to finish the piano. It must be finished June 29th, ten days.

Getting the colors figured out and how to control my glitter application and I'm good to go, but it is a process. Today, I will try to work out the color scheme for the lower buildings.

In the mean time, last Thursday Kristen featured me in her weekly blog post. You can check it out here, there may be some things that you didn't know about me.  : )

Catch up more soon.

-JanettMarie
"Go Ahead & Play"

"Like the Wind - Madison Marie" -Sold

16"x12" mixed media on canvas

Madison Marie is so fast in this relay race, she's like the wind!

Who wouldn't be fast with hot blue shoes!

More piano photos soon.

Have a nice weekend.

-JanettMarie 

Piano June 9th

Piano pieces June 9th

Piano update. Today, I put more gesso and paint on the three pieces I have in my studio. Once I get the color established on the pieces I have here, I'll put them on the piano and finish the job.

Before I go for now, I going to put the link to the "Go Ahead & Play" project here. This is why I'm painting a piano.

More later...   : )

-JanettMarie

Saturday's Cookies and Canvas Painters

How about all the creativity going on here. These young painters chose their own colors and bedazzling for the hermit crab shell.

This is Ella with her painting. She named this little guy "Hurry, like hurry up let's go swimming".

Today is the first day of June!

Have a wonderful weekend.

-JanettMarie

"Wednesday the Pieces Come Together"

Here are the three pieces back in their respective places. This is when I stood back and thought "Hmm..." 



I put myself on the floor and I looked at this piano for awhile and this is what I came up with.


Then I stood up and looked some more, and drew some more.
Who is more surprised, you, or me?


This allowed me to know my piano a little more. Now I'm curious as to when this piano was born.

Big day Wednesday. While cleaning and wet sanding this little gem, I had to keep telling myself, "You're painting a piano, not restoring it." I may have gotten carried away cleaning, oh well, it made me feel better.

I'll touch back later, like maybe I should tell you why I'm painting this piano.

-JanettMarie

Piano Project

Sketch on pieces in my studio.

Before photo of my piano.

Piano with large panels removed.

Have you ever painted on a piano before? This will be a first for me.
I sanded and sketched on the big three pieces faux assembled in my studio.
Wednesday I'll get a chance to look at the pieces back on the piano.

More later,
-JanettMarie

"Favorable Friday" -Sold

48"x24" Mixed media on canvas

One big olive martini on a big canvas. This painting has several paintings underneath it.
Here is one version...

Early March version...

You know that was not a bad version. Oh well, do another.  : )

One of the studies from the "After Myrtle Beach" will be showing up in the future, I hope around the August area of time.

Gotta get painting.  Enjoy your day.

-JanettMarie

Before and After Myrtle Beach

"Before Myrtle Beach"

Mixed media on paper (forgot to measure 15"x22" maybe)

"After Myrtle Beach"

Water media on paper (I think 22"x30")

Busy, busy time of year. Just finished the big studio open house last weekend, we had just over 5000 people in our building. Not just people, nice quality people. My sister Suzie shot some video, one of these days I will get it You-Tube-able.

In March, I went to a water media workshop in Myrtle Beach and got myself abstracted. You can see the above before and after paintings. Some of the patrons at the open house thought it was the martini's that caused the crazy looking after painting. It really wasn't that easy. 

Lately, I've been painting larger, and larger paintings take a little longer to finish. My friend Myra, suggested that I show some "in progress" images. She's right, so I will work toward that goal and try not to be such a stranger.

Beautiful day today, enjoy!

-JanettMarie 

"Coffee Kup Hundred and 3" -Sold

12"x16" Mixed media on paper mounted on canvas

Hello, remember me, JanettMarie?

Just delivered this painting today, so I feel it's safe to post now. This coffee cup is a gift and I didn't want to take any chances to let the cup out of the bag!

The background has coffee commodity charts in there. The letters KC is the coffee symbol and the H is for March, so this is really a 2003 March Coffee symbol. TMI, right? Although with all the coffee cup paintings I've done, maybe it is number 103! You know, I think it is, how fun it that!

Have a great coffee day.

-JanettMarie

"149 Bleecker Street"

20"x20" mixed media on canvas

It's seems to me that listening to the blues while sipping a martini only makes sense.

It's Friday! Have a nice one.     : )

-JanettMarie

"Gray Goose" or "Grey Goose"

12"x11" Mixed media on paper 

You guessed it, another martini painting. Is it one martini, two martinis or three?

More later!

-JanettMarie