News (and honors!) from the studio...

...with thanks and appreciation for my generous friends!

I'm pleased to say two paintings have recently received awards and one was selected for a museum exhibit. All three came into being thanks to supportive friends. I have such generous friends!

Sitting Pretty ©2014 Dorothy Lorenze

Most recently Sitting Pretty received SCAN's Society of Creative Arts of Newtown's award at their Spring Juried Exhibit. This interior painting depicts the sitting or dressing room connected to the bedroom in a friend's beautiful Victorian home. It's a very interesting layout with an alcove leading into the sitting room, which leads into the bedroom. And the cool thing is the jury said that they liked how the viewer is brought into the space through the angles and contrasting light. And that's exactly what had attracted me to this view as well.

Also recently, Mechanical Staccato and Scotch received the award for Outstanding Still Life from American Women Artists' national online exhibit. This is pretty exciting because as a national organization, it's kind of difficult to get into AWA shows at all as they receive thousands of entries.

The subject of this painting is a vintage typewriter belonging to my friend Rich. Actually... Rich has quite a collection of typewriters and he'd been "offering" to loan me one for a while. But I didn't bite for quite some time because it's a complicated machine with many tiny parts, perfectly uniform in size and shape: 32 matching keys. Plus shading and highlights for each. Seriously. Eventually I realized Rich wanted the painting for himself, so it was actually meant to be a commission (perhaps I was in denial). Once I got into it i really enjoyed it. I guess the jurors appreciated the challenge as they awarded it Outstanding Still life! Very cool. The full exhibit will be online shortly, but for now you can see a link to the award winners here.

Mechanical Staccato and Scotch ©2015 Dorothy Lorenze

This week I'm heading to southern New Jersey to bring my painting Vintage Sleigh Bells to the John Peto Studio Museum in Island Heights for their International Trompe L'Oeil Exhibit. As I explained in an earlier post, the sleigh bells have been in the family of a friend for generations. They are old and somewhat fragile so it was an honor to be entrusted with them. The added benefit to this trip is that there are many antique shops along the way and I'm looking forward to scoping out new painting subjects!

Vintage Sleigh Bells ©2015 Dorothy Lorenze

Below are some details about the John Peto Studio Museum exhibit. If you are in the area this summer, check it out! It very cool place to visit and be in this renowned artist's home and work space.

The show promises to be amazing and when I have the complete list of artists I will share.The few I know of are truly amazing and it's kind of amazing to be in their company!

Thanks for joining me on my artist journey.