East Austin Studio Tour 2007

East Austin Studio Tour 2007

The tour this year was great. Even with a little rain on Saturday, over 110 people did make it to my little home studio for the tour. I believe most of the people who came had specifically picked out my work to come see. Considering there were about 210 artists and over 100 studios on the tour this year — and that my studio is not located in the thick of East Austin — I’m very happy that many people managed to make it here.

People loved my color, loved the new abstracts, and the poppy paintings were extremely popular. I had to deliver the originals of the poppy paintings to Artspoken Gallery on Friday for the 12×12 show coming up in 2 weeks, but I had made some full-size Giclee prints of them, and archivally mounted the prints on cradled gesso board, so they served as an excellent stand-in for the originals.

The tornado series was quite popular as well. One of the guests asked if I had painted them on location, En Plein Aire(!). Ha! I wish. But I’d have to paint really fast! 🙂

One darling young man who was among the crowd late on Sunday said he’d been to so many studios with dark work, he really wanted to end his day on a happy note, and so came here.

I think the only downside to doing the tour is that I can’t go ON the tour! I would so love to have been able to visit so many of the other artists’ studios.

Poppies Painting Series

“Impression of Poppies” Encaustic on Paper on Board, cradled 12″ x 12″ © 2007 Marilyn Fenn
“Impression of Poppies” Encaustic on Paper on Board, cradled 12″ x 12″ © 2007 Marilyn Fenn

This series was inspired by a split-second view I had from BBC News of poppies growing in a field in Afghanistan — it just showed a couple of pods on stems. I took it from there. As with all my encaustic paintings, there is a depth of beauty to these that has to be seen in person to be appreciated.

"Poppies in Blowing Duststorm" Encaustic and Beeswax on Paper on Board 12" x 12" © 2007 Marilyn Fenn
“Poppies in Blowing Duststorm” Encaustic and Beeswax on Paper on Board 12″ x 12″ © 2007 Marilyn Fenn
"Poppies in a Windstorm" Encaustic and Beeswax on Paper on Board 12" x 12" © 2007 Marilyn Fenn
“Poppies in a Windstorm” Encaustic and Beeswax on Paper on Board 12″ x 12″ © 2007 Marilyn Fenn
"Stoic Poppies in an Earthquake" Encaustic and Beeswax on Paper on Board 12" x 12" © 2007 Marilyn Fenn
“Stoic Poppies in an Earthquake” Encaustic and Beeswax on Paper on Board 12″ x 12″ © 2007 Marilyn Fenn