My blog, that is.
 
Hello dear followers!

I just want to post a reminder that my blog has moved to a new location. Same blog, new residence. It's still called the MW Grant Art blog but is now located within my new website, MW GRANT ART.

So please come on over to the new location and click on the follow button in the lower right hand corner of any page. I hate to lose track of you! I've just put up a new post about my recent pastel workshop in Italy. Lots of photos and very few words ... just the way we like it!

To jump straight to the new location of my blog just click here. See you there!

With thanks and fondness,

Michelle

Moving! My blog, that is.

 M.W. Grant Art website has been launched!!! Thrilled! Stoked! Yay!

And it shore is purdy. Please visit! You'll find available paintings there, sold paintings, links to purchase originals and even prints (that's a new thing!) and something especially noteworthy .... that the website now houses this blog. Yep, this here blog is moseying on down the road to the new M.W. Grant Art website location.

I'll leave this blog up with all previous posts intact, but I won't be blogging from here anymore. The blog's content will be the same, it's just that it's been relocated. Please transition with me to the new website and please, please, please click on the "follow" button in the lower right corner of any page so that you will continue to get notifications of blogs posts as you do now. I don't want to lose you!

You can read about my journey as an artist and a late bloomer on my "About" page and you'll also see what's coming up for me next week. Hint: arrivederci!

So please follow me to ....   www.mwgrantart.com

See you there!

       Michelle

Day at the Beach

Surfer series and more!

I've been riding the wave of surfer paintings lately, rolling out one after the other. These and the other beach paintings you see here will be contenders for my 2016 beach calendar. At this rate I may have about 20 paintings to choose the 12 favorites, but the surfers are taking over! Feedback welcomed ... which ones would you like to see in the calendar?

All of these paintings are available for purchase in my gallery on Dailypaintworks.com.
Small, affordable and easily shipped!

Thanks for looking .....

Off the Top, 9 x 12

Toes on the Nose, 8 x 10

Orange Sundress, 9 x 12

Aqua, 9 x 11

Not Starving, 6 x 8

Tahitian Delight, 8 x 10

Chat Time, 8 x 10

Here's whatcha do when all else fails .....

When the painting isn't going well 

and you're feeling discouraged 

and inadequate ....

STOP .... 

working on that crappy painting ....

and paint your beautiful daughter instead ....

and everything will be ....

just fine.

Well Heeled #2

I'm trying out my first auction on Daily Paintworks and it's kind of fun to watch! This pastel painting titled Well Heeled #2, is first up. I know it looks very much like the one I posted below in my January 26 blog post, but it's actually a different painting.

I spied this well heeled couple in the NYC Meatpacking District one day and the poor unsuspecting characters had no idea they would end up being the favorite subjects of three of my paintings. That's right, I've painted them three times! I loved her flowy melon scarf and leopard coat and his styled, man-chic look. And such attitude! I'm thinking I should have a naming contest ... something along the lines of Mr. and Mrs. Thurston Howell III.

Well Heeled #2, 9" x 12", unframed

This well heeled couple would love to jump onto your wall. There are a few bids going on now and a little less than four days left in the auction. Click here to go directly to the auction.

The paintings in my Daily Paintworks gallery are very affordable because most of them are small and sold unframed. Most are offered with a "click to buy" button, however ... this auction stuff is fun so I may switch them all to auctions. In any case, please visit my gallery and browse around. I'm adding new paintings all the time ... and if you're interested in beach paintings, I will be listing almost all of the 12 beach paintings with figures to be featured in my 2016 beach calendar, available in the fall.

Thanks for stopping by!

P.S.  Bragging note: I DID get a painting accepted into the Austin Pastel Society Juried Exhibition! See post below ... it's the painting called Blue Morning. I'm honored to have it hang alongside the 50 other accepted pastel paintings in the Corridor of Art in downtown Austin from March 2 - May 1. 

Fingers Crossed ...

Sheesh. You'd think I could show you something besides the same ol', same ol' paintings. I really have done others lately. But I wanted to say that I've just entered these three paintings in the annual juried exhibition for the Austin Pastel Society. Fingers crossed that I get one of them juried in.

Someday, when I am a more seasoned artist with a few prizes under my belt, I'll stop squealing like a 3rd grader about simply entering a competition. Here's to the day when I really have something to squeal about!

Thanks for taking a look ....

Well Heeled
12 x 16 image
$350

Golden
17 x 13
NFS

Blue Morning
7.5 x 9.5
NFS

2016 calendar, anyone?

After a recent vacation in Hermosa Beach, a southern California beach town where my family lived in the 60s and where I spent the happiest years of my youth, an entire new world of painting subjects rolled up on my shore. I never really had an interest in painting seascapes or beach scenes, never even thought I was capable of it. I've become a figure painter for the most part. That's what I'm passionate about.

But when I spent a week in Hermosa Beach ... riding bikes on the Strand, basking in the warm sand, body surfing the waves (okay ... getting knocked down by the waves that I body surfed in my youth) ... I stepped into my young girl's bronze skin again and was reminded of how much I loved it there, how much the beach is a part of me. And then there is that realization that if an artist paints the subjects she is most passionate about, that passion will show up in the painting and the work will be good.

And so I'm painting a series of beach paintings with the idea that I'll put together an artsy-beachy calendar for 2016. This is such a great idea which was suggested by artist extraordinaire, Rita Kirkman,  when she gave a talk to the Austin Pastel Society about how to best market our work. It's brilliant when you think about it ... every month a different painting will be featured on some one's wall for 12 months!

I hope to do about 16 paintings so that I have 12 good ones to choose from, have a 2016 calendar printed by September 2015 and have it ready for holiday sales.

Here are a few beach paintings I've done so far. And yup, I'm combining two favorites ... figures on the beach. Double passion!

Beach calendar, anyone? I'll put your name on my list!

Golden
13 x 17 pastel

Blue Morning
8 x 10 pastel

Paddling Out
8 x 10 pastel