Poppies and Irises, 7x5"

Poppies and Irises, pastel on board by Adriana Meiss

  This small painting and twenty six more of mine will be at the Onondaga Art Guild Spring Show and Sale this coming weekend.

  If you live in the area, stop by and support the local arts. It's really a nice show and there will work from thirty artists.

Front Yard, 12x16"

I'm very happy to say that this paintings was recently juried into the National Northeast Pastel Competition at Old Forge, NY. 

Generally, the View arts center holds a Walkabout hosted by the juror of awards the day after the award ceremony. Last year's juror, Lucy Petrie, decided to have a more interactive walkabout and had the crowd divided into small groups. Each was given a list with some important points to consider when looking at a given painting. While each juror has his/her own way of determining whether a painting merits an award or not, for me it was very informative to see what where some of the factors she had taken into account when making that decision. Framing was one of them. A frame that calls too much attention to itself, or one that doesn't enhance the painting in any way, or even one that has seen better days (and believe it or not, there was one like that!) will detract a lot from the painting.

 I had a crazy week looking for the perfect frame.  It's so hard to figure from a corner sample if the moulding chosen is the right one. I'll find out very soon...

Meadowbrook in Summer, 9 x 12

This painting was started and practically finished on location one August afternoon. However, back at home I started to have doubts about the dark trees that were originally on the left. After several attempts at reworking the trees while trying different greens, I had to stop and think. At this point I had also looked at other photos taken at this same spot under slightly different light conditions and that confused me even more. Finally, I decided it was best to try and convey a mood, and it was smooth sailing from then on. I hope you get the feeling of a warm and lazy afternoon.

As an afterthought I added three seagulls.