4″ x 6″, colored pencil

4″ x 6″, colored pencil

The third weekend was the quietest out of all three. There were almost no visitors, very few people even walked by. Maybe it was the heat, maybe something more interesting was going on in the neighborhood, maybe we didn’t do enough to promote the event.

Slava and me were showing at the Great American Framing. Marsha Sims, Kathy Sartain, Cathy Zander from the 1st SVOS weekend at Community School of Music and Arts were here again, and I met other artists that I don’t remember seeing before: Lei Min and Linda Salter.

Lei’s oils are beautiful and energetic. She used to do commission portraits and showed me an prospect from her solo exhibit with awesome portraits of Taiwan, Philippine, and Malaysia prominent figures and of their family members.

Linda Salter paints and draws many different subjects: great portraits, still life, figure drawings, landscapes. She seems to work in every medium available – oil, watercolor, graphite pencil, pastel, ink – and always experimenting. She was doing nice small ink drawings while in the gallery. Made me want to pick up my ink and brushes again.

We still had some guests, some good conversations with them and with each other, and I saw the local University Arts store for the first time. To say that I was impressed would be an understatement. It’s huge, it’s full of great stuff, and what I can’t or won’t use myself is still fascinating to look at. I am not going to their San Jose store, ever.

Got my horse photos, thanks Irina!

4″ x 6″, pastel pencil

6″ x 4″, pen and ink, colored pencil *SOLD*

I liked Holly’s work since the first time I saw it when she joined FALC. Today she did a demo for the club, and it was a great one. Holly painted an abstract city with a palette knife, using a photo of New York as a reference or, better to say as a starting point for her artwork. I read about this technique before, but not a single author pointed out that it was noisy. Holly said that music helps to get over it, and I would imagine after some time you just stop paying attention to all the funny sounds that a palette knife makes. For me, the way Holly was going through the demo was of big help too. She explained her process, eagerly answered all question, and eventually got the audience involved into the creative process – people were making suggestions, calling her to the back of the room to take a fresh look at the painting, sharing their experience with oil and abstract art. It got very lively, and when the time was up I didn’t want to leave.

This time the weather was certainly better then during the last weekend – not too hot, not too cold, with a nice breeze. Both Slava and me were showing in the backyard of the Nina Uppaluru’s house. Iona Ezaki, Janki Chokshi, and Rajiv Khilnani kept us company.

Don’t think I saw Rajiv’s abstracts on paper before – they are awesome. He also brought my favorite acrylic one, and the big acrylic that he had on the easel next to his booth was pretty good too. The fact that acrylics can be put in direct sun and still survive makes me slightly envious. I kept my pieces in the shade at all times.

Nina said the first visitor came at 7:30 am in the morning, and there were more early visitors while we still were setting up. Nina’s gorgeous Japanese Shiba (I keep forgetting her name) was in dog heaven, enjoying attention from new people and closely following some of those who seemed to be interested in art more than in her.

Two nice horse ladies brought good news that the racecourse in Pleasanton is to become a replacement for now defunct Bay Meadows. I suppose they are going to improve it and make the season longer than current 20 racing days or so during the Alameda County Fair. Exciting! Would be even better if a harness racing track materialized nearby, but chances of that happening are nill. I will gladly take Thoroughbred races as the next best thing.

Another very nice lady offered to send me horse photos as a reference for my work, free of charge. She showed them to me on her camera – head shots of pretty sport horses from Mozhaisk, Russia. Yay!

6″ x 4″, pen and ink *SOLD*

On June 6, 2009 I will participate in AVArtFest with the Fine Arts League of Cupertino. The park is located next to downtown Mountain View.

AVArtFest is open from 10 a.m. till 6 p.m.

For more information please visit AVArtFest website.

4″ x 6″, charcoal