It's all his fault.

Blame it on Bob.

Recently my favorite mentor, Robert Burridge, was in town and we had a chance to catch up at the opening of his show at the Lucky Street Gallery. His continued enthusiasm and dedication to painting is uber infectious. I've taken a number of his "Loosen Up" workshops and loved every one of them. It was great to see him and his paintings.

I recently went through a phase where my paintings got a little out of control (well okay, maybe a lot) and the colors were super amplified. They were huge fun to do. And because the fall hadn't been all that much fun, (Thanks Irma :(() It was just the thing I needed at the time. I used almost all of the techniques Bob taught me in that series. I could hear him in my head going, "A brush has two ends." "Negative shapes, negative shapes" and "Where's the wow factor?"

Which was a very good thing because this painting came in handy

When a local gallery, that shows some of my larger pieces, came to me and said that they wanted paintings that were "brighter" I was able to say, "I've got just the thing for you!" 

Happy Hour aka Giant Umbrella Drink Painting

24" x 30", acrylic on canvas

available @ Art on Duval, Key West, Florida

Mini version

Happy Hour II

10" x 20" 

acrylic on canvas

$385.00 available in my studio

Bob Burridge at his opening with local artists.

thanks Bob for all you do.

Find out more about Bob HERE    If you're and artist make sure to sign up for his Bob Blast videos.

Maggie Ruley is a studio artist living in Key West, Florida. 

Her colorful paintings and tropical pottery are collected world wide and can be found in many island homes. She has been featured in the Key West Citizen,

the New York Daily News , and other publications.

Her handmade ceramic flip flops have been sold in gift shops all along the east coast and in California and Hawaii.

 Her studio and gallery is located in the historic Seaport area of Old Town Key West.

Maggie Ruley~Island Inspirations

933b Fleming St.

Key West Florida 33042

www.maggieruley.com

I Need Your Vote! and Here's Your Rainbow!

Some very exciting news!

I have been nominated by the Keys Weekly Newspaper for a Bubba Award.

I have been nominated in the category of "Best Artist" and I am up against 2 strong contenders; Koz and Wyland.  (I know this sounds like pre-mature sour grapes, but Wyland doesn't even live here.)

It's on-line voting and I'm giving you the link. You don't have to fill in any category other than Best Artist, but you will have to scroll all the way to the end of list to find the category.  For some reason "Best Artist" is all the way down the bottom with the banks.  Go figure?

Now there is no real prize other than bragging rights, but I'll take them so please vote for me!

Maggie Ruley for "Best Artist" click here to vote!

Now for the Pretty Stuff

Twice as Lucky
Acrylic on paper
22" x 30"
©Maggie Ruley 2015
Unframed $395
 

 

I've rarely considered painting a rainbow because I think they are the sacred territory of second graders. A second grade girl will always paint rings around you when it comes to rainbows. But after this morning's car ride I had to give it a whirl. So I channeled my Robert Burridge workshop stuff and painted my first rainbow!

 

Rainbow on the Over Seas Highway
©Maggie Ruley 2015

 

 

Here's the photo I shot with my phone while driving.  Shhh! don't tell the Fuzz.

 

 

Did you know you can find me one Facebook?  Here's my Page.

See, it's really big.  I love blues and greens.

Duet ~ Day 9



Duet
acrylic on paper
7" x 5" matted to 10" x 8"
$45
©Maggie Ruley 2014

The painting above is the middle painting, middle row in the photo below.  You can see it changes a lot from this stage to the final painting.

This is a painting exercise I learned from artist

Robert Burridge

Nine little bouquets in progress



Each little painting is starting to take on a life of its own, but I still leave them joined.  They do not get separated until they are all finished.  All of the paintings get worked on at the same time.

To see day 9 from last year

Click Here

 

To see the other paintings in the 30 day Challenge

Click Here



Mute Monday (almost)

Ring around the Rosie
acrylic on paper
7' x 5" matted to 10" x 8"
$45

Day 8
2014 Leslie Saeta's
30 in 30 Days Painting Challenge

Step 2 of the Robert Burridge style warm up

Photos from last year's workshop

 

 

 

Today's Bouquet

I 'm taking a Robert Burridge workshop in February, (birthday treat for myself) so I am refreshing myself with his techniques.  This will be my 3rd workshop with Bob.

Today's Bouquet
7" x 5"
acrylic on paper
matted to 10" x 8"
$45.00

Burridge starts his studio day with small warm-up paintings on paper.  A sheet of water color paper is toned and then divided.  While the paint was still wet I used the end of the paint brush to lay out basic shapes and composition.  The paintings are all 7" x 5".  By the way, did you know, that painting dimensions are correctly given as vertical size first and then the horizontal dimension?

The painting above was the lower right hand grid.  As you can see the final composition is different than the first one.  If you take a Burridge workshop you will hear him say, "Anybody who doesn't change their mind, doesn't have one." 

Today's Bouquet is painting # 7 in Leslie Saeta's 30 day Painting Challenge

Click here to see the other paintings

SNAIL MAIL PROJECT

I am participating in Kate Miller's Snail Mail Project with my friend Pam Hobbs. Art work is sent via US Postal service without an envelope from one artist to another. My work is above. I have taken two pear paintings that I started in my Bob Burridge workshop and re-worked them. After I reworked them I cut them and then re glued them so that each side of the art work has part of two pear paintings. Sounds more complicated than it is. The above photos show each side. Now, I am going to sent them on to Pam Hobbs, who is going to finish them and then send them on to Kate Miller. Kate has a number of artists participating and I think there are plans to show the finished pieces a year from now.

http://www.hobbsart.freeservers.com/

http://www.katepmiller.com/

NEW DIRECTION

This painting started out as an abstract sunset painting, that I kept painting over, and wiping out, and glazing and no matter what I did it was still a boring sunset painting. So I decided to go in an entirely different direction. I went back to some of my Robert Burridge workshop rules and reworked this canvas until I wasn't bored anymore. It's not for everyone, but it's not boring.

AS I LAY SLEEPING

16" X 20"

acrylic on canvas

FINISHED WORKSHOP PAINTINGS

Here are some of my finished workshop pieces. Following Robert Burridge's suggestion these paintings on paper have been mounted on stretched canvas. I used inch and a half deep stretcher bars and painted the sides and part of the top to match the paintings and then adhered them with the Minwax Polycryl. Then I gave them a really good couple of coats of varnish. Now there is no need to put them behind glass.

Go to http://www.robertburridge.com and check out his newsletter for more tips like this.

NEGATIVE SHAPE PAINTING - MAKE A MESS, AND THEN, "OH LOOK, A TREE"

demonstration examples by Bob Burridge

More thoughts on the Robert Burridge Workshop

For every exercise we did Bob put examples on the wall. The photos above and below are his examples. The above photo is for our negative shape paintings. First the paper is toned with various shades of yellow-orange. Next a "mess" is made with other colors. It is dabbed on with paper towels and splattered. Then we painted over the parts that weren't the tree, with some additional tweaking, of course. The 3 trees in a row shows how Bob works in a series.

demonstration examples by Bob Burridge

Above is Bob's group of trees at night. I haven't quite finished my grove of trees. But when I do, I'll show the photo.

http://www.robertburridge.com/

BACK FROM MY WORKSHOP AND VACATION

The workshop was a very intense learning experience. We covered tons of information in a short period of time. 3 days sounds like it is going to be a long time but it went by in a blur. I tried to soak up all the information I was given. The photo above is our work room. My table is the one with no person behind it. Notice the paintings on the walls. Apparently the the space where we were going to have the workshop turned out to be unacceptable, no air conditioning, no water, no restrooms, so we ended up working in the gallery area of the Tubac Art Center. The work on the walls was the complete opposite of what we were aspiring to, so in some ways it was a good example of how not to paint ( for the context of this workshop).

One of the many themes we explored was "loose and juicy florals". Here is my example from that section. It still needs a little work.