Turtle Prints Crawl to Lafayette Art Gallery

The turtle prints, along with a few of the original watercolor paintings, will be featured in the first exhibit at Kelly's Custom Frames in Lafayette, Indiana. Our gallery assistant, Martha Gilliom, moved there last year and is now the gallery manager for Kelly's. Owner Janie Peters decided to expand her frame shop into a gallery - what a great mind she has - and invited me to be the first artist to exhibit works. I am honored. Lafayette is a great river town, and an active arts community. I grew up nearby - in Monticello - and my wife, Genny, is from Lafayette. The exhibit takes place this coming Thursday, March 11th, from 6 to 8 PM. Kelly's Custom Frames is located at 2505 S. Earl Avenue. Please drop in if you're nearby. They've promised light refreshments will be served.

Snow Plows thru Watercolor Class Schedule

My watercolor students were right at the midway point when The Blizzard II of 2010 hit east central Indiana. How bad was it? I used my giant snowblower for 4.5 hrs straight. Two driveways at home, then the side and front sidewalks of our downtown store, Gordy Fine Art & Framing, then the street where patrons need to park. Burned up the snowblower and almost burned up the Watercolor Instructor's back.

One art student commented, "Watercolor class is the highlight of my week," when I called to give the news. Almost changed my mind right then and there, but good sense took over. It was really bad in Muncie. I hope my students used their time off to practice their new - or renewed- art skills. I also wish I could report that is how I used my evening "off," but no way: there was firewood to haul and groceries to grab. Cats don't like it when you run out of their food. So my own painting sat on its roost, staring at me as I did everything but my artwork.

The good news is that it's been a busy time for my giclee prints. First, I ran a brand new framed one down to The Wandering Turtle gallery in Bloomington, http://www.wanderingturtle.com/, for their gallery walk last Friday. Then I sold another large print to a family friend today for his new office - thanks, Chris. I'm part of an art auction for our local hospital this Friday that features works of 4 local artists, and then next Friday I'll do my first art fair. The Indiana Artisan program will host a two-day event in the Indiana State Museum on the 20th and 21st of this month (February). Big thanks to artist, Alan Patrick, http://www.alanpatrick.com/ for the use of his setup and van.

Another big thank you goes out to the fabulous Web Witch, Carey Hays, for helping us link everything together like it's supposed to be... there just isn't enough time to learn all that wee woman already knows. Where would we be without friends?

Thank you for your interest in my art. To see more, please visit www.gordyframing.com and www.TurtlePaintings.com .

Winter Watercolor Class in Downtown Muncie

Sixteen art students file into our gallery each Tuesday evening to take my watercolor class. I haven't taught one for several years, but have been asked about it enough that I decided to brush off my teaching persona and give it a go. Three weeks in, I think it might just work out.

Watercolor is a most elusive medium, demanding an almost poetic approach. Rather like learning to jump rope on skates, I imagine. I try to teach the basic strokes, loading the brush, wet-on-wet, wash, and drybrush. We all paint a scene together to begin, and what came back this week was impressive. Either I have a talented group of students, or I am one good watercolor teacher. I try to hold them in with pretty tight parameters to begin painting, and will cut them loose a bit more each week.

Here's a picture my wife wanted me to include of my watercolor exhibit at Minnetrista a couple of years ago, here in Muncie. Their gallery spaces are beautiful, with great lighting, so my turtles looked their best there. Where I'm sitting is just a couple of blocks from my turtle spotting place, down the steep north side of the White River. Minnetrista is a great community treasure. Farmer's markets in the summer, music & entertainment on the lawn, nature areas, and art events. Their gallery spaces are some of the very best Indiana art gallery spaces I've seen. Of course, there's another sweet gallery a mile away in downtown Muncie; Gordy Fine Art & Framing. Check it out: www.gordyframing.com You'll see my work and works by nine other Indiana artists - Kim Anderson, Carol Burt, Eric Ernstberger, Jim Faulkner, Charlene George, Paul Laseau, Alan Patrick, Margie Prim and Carol Strock Wasson. Of those, Jim, Paul and I are the watercolorists. Kim and Carol Burt are potters, and the others paint in either oils or acrylics.

Come see us sometime in downtown Muncie. For hours, etc, click on the website just above.

Thanks for your interest. Until next time.

I am painting the woods. Magical places, woods. And here in Indiana, important for both man and beast. For the animals, of course, wooded areas are their only cover from ever-encroaching farm fields, highways, and "edge ville" housing developments. For humans, the woods can be a sanctuary, a place to rest one's soul and delight one's eyes and ears. So when I trek through a particularly nice woodlands, and remember to take my camera, I capture moments of light through trees, entwining branches weaving patterns I can't resist, and the very subtle colors I lean to in my palette. The act of drawing and painting the remembered scene can take me back there in my studio during the cold, dark months of our Midwest winter.

This watercolor also reminds me of the woods I slip and slide through to get to the river's edge during non-winter months. I wouldn't catch any turtles there now, anyway, as they should all be buried in the mud at the bottom of the White River, in a deep sleep state until spring. Just looking at this paintings gives me good memories of the smell, feel, and the sounds underfoot in the woods nearby. So I will appease my senses with painting from photos, music by my favorite Bloomington musicians cheering me on while I soak, stretch, staple then sketch, all so I can dip my big mop brush into that magic water and fall into the deep woods of my art and imagination.

I'll post the results as soon as I'm done. In the meantime, I start teaching a six-week watercolor course tomorrow evening in our gallery in Downtown Muncie. It's been a while, and I am pretty excited to kick it up again. So far, sixteen adults have signed on to learn, or re-learn wet-on-wet, wet-on-dry, and drybrush techniques that are particular to watercolor painting. What an adventure.

Just like a walk in the woods.

If you'd like to see more of my art, please visit www.TurtlePaintings.com, or www.gordyframing.com. I'm on Facebook now, too.

Indiana Artist, Brian Gordy, Watercolors

As an Indiana artist, I paint what is in my corner of the world. Living a few blocks from White River, as she winds through Muncie, and being a life-long nature lover, I am drawn to sit on the wooded banks. My "fast world" eyes adjust, and my "artist" eyes begin to see the subtle color changes, the angles, reflections, the composition I want to paint. The turtles just happen to be there, and the bumps they form on the logs create repetition and more reflections that I like.

This watercolor painting - I work almost exclusively in watercolors - was done from a photo I took last summer at my favorite spot. I have to sit quite a while before the turtles return to their sunning business. I've grown very attached to having turtles in my water scenes. Those strange shells reflect light, and we watercolor artists are all about painting the light. See, watercolor paintings are supposed to be transparent, so all the white you see in them is supposed to be the paper showing through. White paint is not acceptable, and is actually not allowed in most watercolor competitions. There aren't many watercolor competitions in state for Indiana artists, but many of us exhibit in other competitions. I'm happy to report that my watercolors have been pretty consistently selected in those shows I enter, occasionally earning awards.

To see a large number of my water scenes with turtles, please visit www.TurtlePaintings.com .
Or, you can start at www.GordyFraming.com, where my bio is located. To see them in person, visit our family business, Gordy Fine Art & Framing, in downtown Muncie, 224 E. Main St.

Thank you for your interest. Comments welcomed!

Indiana Watercolor Artist of Muncie

Indiana watercolor artists often paint landscape scenes and still life images. My particular area of interest is water. Turtles and canoes have dominated my watercolor paintings for several years now, although I have other series that include abstract paintings and scenes of Canada.

As an Indiana artist, I strive to depict the wild areas that I love: river's edge, woodlands, my brother's farm, and, yes, turtles. It's not just that our family loves turtles - we do - but, as an artist, I am taken with their shape. That domed shell that reflects light, takes a shadow for a ride, keeps my artistic interest. So, until I tire of their form, their antics, their communal habits, I will continue to paint Indiana turtles in their natural habitat. This watercolor painting, titled, Two Turtles 2, was from a photo I took at the White River near my home studio. I've been told that authentic Indiana art gives a sense of time in which it is painted. These turtles live here right now, right in the middle of Muncie, although I think it could have been painted long ago.

To see my first series of giclee prints from my turtle series of watercolors, please slide over to www.TurtlePaintings.com . The turtles are waiting for you.

Nature Prints from Indiana Artisan, Brian Gordy

My nature prints focus on turtles, salamanders, frogs, and the occasional canoe... but these creatures - and vessels - all hang out in Indiana waterways, and that is where I, too, like to spend time. In fact, I've been known to tromp through stinging cold swamps in early, early spring to find salamanders with a nature group here in east central Indiana. It's almost like being on a different planet, it is so very foreign to most of us.

I take that amazement that I feel and push it through the end of my paintbrushes with layers and layers of watercolor paints. This nature print was a real moment in time, where an Indiana artist/naturalist interacted with a rarely-seen spotted salamander, and then returned him to his hidden world. It is comforting to know they're still there, under leaves and fallen grasses in Indiana wetlands and woods that have been spared plows and concrete. My nature prints are an act of admiration for these fascinating critters that live along our waterways here in the heartland. Nature prints as vehicles of appreciation; I like that. I hope you share my sentiment.

To see more of my nature prints - and original watercolor paintings - please visit www.gordyframing.com and www.TurtlePaintings.com . Comments appreciated!