Hello friends, happy March!  

I hope February treated you well and you were able to enjoy those few days of nice warm weather before the snow.  

This month started off with a lot of homework from the Maine Master Naturalist Program.  It's moments like this where I am grateful that I committed to making a painting/drawing a day.  Even if I only make 10 minutes worth of something it still serves as a record of my hand, emotions, daily experience.  In a way this has almost begun to act like a diary.  I've yet to lay everything out to see it all together, to mark the patterns, note when the work changed or used a certain color.  In a lot of ways, it's like phenological recording but with art and of myself instead of the landscape and environment.  

I will have a piece included in this year's 13th annual ARTPM Show at the Buoy Gallery in Kittery, Maine.  I am also working on my 10" x 10" piece for Art Van's 10" x 10" Bridge Messy, Emerge Ignited show at Frontier in Brunswick.  I will be dropping that off in a couple of weeks.  

I also got Covid this week which has been surreal and not ideal.  I am grateful to be vaxxed and boosted and everyone I had close contact with has tested negative which is such a relief.  In between rest, I've been able to take the time to photograph and edit work on the computer.  Taking it one day at a time.  It could be so much worse and I am so grateful it isn't, that I have a safe place to isolate, no one else has gotten sick, and that I can work from home, something I did not have the privilege of doing a year ago.  

Stay safe out there everyone!  Thank you for being a supporter of my newsletter, here is some new work: 

Raquel 

BUOY GALLERY'S

13th ANNUAL ART PM 

Kittery, ME

Untitled, 2022. 

Acrylic ink on canvas.  

10" x 8" 

This was my first time taking some of the techniques I've been utilizing on paper and attempting it on stretched canvas.  I've been working through the difference of surface and what works best for me.  Should something work best?  And just because it does, does that mean you only work on that?  I don't think so.  Working through color as always.  I am obsessed with this Chartreuse color with dark blues, purples, and pinks.  It reminds me of a quilt my Grammy bought me years ago.  I still have it even though it's falling apart and has holes.  

February 365 Paintings 

February 16, 2022

Day 47 

This month I used a total of 6 different papers, watercolor, acrylic inks, colored pencil and posca pen.  Switching up the different surfaces has been so important in keeping myself engaged and excited by what I am doing.  At the same time, becoming familiar with different surfaces allows me see what I can and can't do with the paper and in that, know what limits I can push through.  

Overall, I just feel more curious and apt to experiment.  I feel more apt to just go further, or not.  Last night I made a painting with so much less marks than I have been doing but it felt okay to allow it to be sparse and see what that does versus filling the entire page.   

NEW PAINTINGS

Will be sharing more new work in the upcoming weeks on Instagram and in next month's newsletter.  Thanks for reading and viewing <3 

Raquel