Solo Gallery show UPDATE and new Watercolor paintings

I'm super excited to officially announce:



If you are in the area( Portland Oregon) come visit me on September 18th at T.Ruth Artspace and take part in my opening art gallery reception: there will be plenty of trippy psychedelic paintings to behold as you sip wine and enjoy these last moments of blissful summer. This will be my first solo gallery show ever....so support will be ever so much appreciated.

Danny designed this little flyer for my upcoming show using my painting "The Faery Guide". However the design was rejected by the local publications for the naked faerie breast. I guess In Portland naked bike rides are OK, but not naked faerie paintings. We are still going to print this flyer at home and do the some xeroxing and Guerrilla distribution. As for the official postcard flyer, we redesigned everything to a classic invitation layout and went with my "River Spirit" painting(3 eyed fish) for the image. From what i understand we should have the official postcard flyers all finished and printed this week, so i will scan the finished product and "show and tell" when all is ready!

...im still working like mad to produce a few more smaller pieces for the show. At the moment i will have about 9 of my larger pieces showing and about 6+ smaller pieces in between. The gallery is a bit snug, but super charming- so i think i have plenty of material to pack the joint. cant wait to see how it all turns out! And for those of you who can not make it, no worries- i will take some photos ; )

In other news, I finally bought some more water color paper so i was inspired to brake out the paints! Its been a very long time since i have dabbled with water color- i almost forgot how much fun this medium is. Its been a wonderful thing, being able to play with WC after working with acrylic for so long- a much needed change.

Here are some of my WC experiments:

In Full Bloom
9"x12" Original watercolor painting
by Chelsea Rose


Evening Gown
9"x12" original watercolor painting
by Chelsea Rose

- Both of these were done on the same day. On a recent Saturday morning i was woken up at 6:20 sharp by my faithful-super obnoxious and fuzzy alarm - my cat, Sushi. I went into the living room, put on a movie and was getting ready to doze back asleep curled up on the couch when i remembered something exciting. A few days ago I had purchased some watercolor paper and have been forced to ignore it because of all the other projects i have to get done. I was certainly swept up in a good bit of reverie as i hurriedly hunted for my watercolor paint storage box. It took some digging to find it, and then i spent the rest of the morning in complete meditation: myself and my watercolor.

The next day i painted this one:


Sweet Water Gem
9"x12" original watercolor painting
by Chelsea Rose

I started it out with a quick pencil sketch to get the outlines down. I then did a wash for the background from blue to green( sprinkled some salt for a tad bit of texture)- once that was dry i began going into the eyes and the scales. Slowly adding shadow and more and more color.
The last thing i did was use my new super fat Faber castell india ink brush pens( compliment of Mr. Wonder Randy Tooth for my birthday. thank you!) to go and do some black outlining of the main shapes of the piece.

I got some positive feedback on these pieces when i put them up on my flickr page which was encouraging since these were certainly experimental and rough since i have been away from the medium for so long. In my watercolor storage bin i have a couple different brands of tube watercolors-some super fine quality ones that i purchased on sale when i was working for Art Supply Warehouse, but strangely enough i totally bypassed those tubes and went straight for my dirty old Prang watercolor set( do you remember prang? its what they used to give us in public school to use.) And i was pleasantly surprised with how vibrant the Prang paint ended up being. It just goes to show its really not that important how fancy and nice your materials are- as long as your able to express yourself and produce work from the heart!

In other news-
Yesterday Danny and I went to go see Karah, an artist friend of mine, at a place called The Manor of Art, Milepost 5 where she had participated in a huge art show featuring 100 artists- but with an interesting twist: They had taken over a yet to be renovated old folks home( built in the early 20s and has been used for many different purposed over the years)- every artist was assigned a room and aloud to make it into one big piece of artwork. As danny and i walked around this trippy(slightly spooky) building- we were awed as we journeyed the three floors and wandered in and out of all 100 rooms that really felt more like mini parallel universe. karahs room was super wonderful- she had taken large square cuts of green grass and tiled them in the room to create an rather earthy carpet. She displayed her pottery pieces( interesting plant holders that remind me of honey combs and mushrooms at the same time) while a friend of hers did elaborate hypnotic pen and ink drawings + fabric and flower creations on the walls.

It would be impossible to accurately describe the various scenes we walked into last evening but i can try- there was one room where someone had built up a wooden shooting gallery( like the ones you see at carnivals) where he crudely arranged pictures of Bush, Obama, Cheney, Micheal Jackson and more + beer bottles, cans- there was a Bebe gun wired to the booth- which you used to take shots at it all. it was wondrous fun. This art show is so hard to describe because it was sooo far out there. I loved it to death and went home bursting full of inspiration.

Whats also very interesting about The Manor of Art, Milepost 5 - they will be turning all of those rooms, once renovated, into super cheap/affordable artist studios. Right now they already have a live on/art studio thing going on made specially for the starving artist, or art student. There are some rooms that are fully equipped with room, sink, shower and all- others are simply rooms and down the halls are community bathrooms. They have a community kitchen, a wonderful courtyard with stage and more.

Im so glad Karah invited me to come and behold such a trippy/super awe inspiring art project. Im also very happy to know about The Manor of Art- it warms the heart to know that places like this do infact exist.

So thats all the latest news. Stay tuned- there is more to come.

Much love to all,
-Chelsea Rose