Pregnant (no, not me!)

This morning I was very busy with logistical stuff.  I'll be glad when this show is up and running and I can get back to painting!  I went to Uptown Color again to check on the proofs for the catalogue and to give them new files for the text (which my most excellent friend Tina edited for me with her professional eye so they're pretty darn close to perfect!  Thanks, Tina!).  I hope tomorrow will be the last day of working with Uptown - they're wonderful - it's just been hard to get the colors right and I've had to go back there at least 7 times.  I sure appreciate their willingness to get it right for me.  The problem is that I'm seeing the colors on my screen how I want them to print out, but Michael at Uptown is seeing them yellower and darker on his screen, then they're printing even darker, so I'm not getting the images how I'd like them to be.  Today I showed him my computer and how they should look - hopefully that'll help!

In addition to working on the catalogue, Wendover Art Company, the company which wants to print my seascapes, emailed and called to say I was going to have to Fed-Ex my paintings to them so they could do the scans themselves.  I had them done by Staples Fine Art here in Richmond.  Mark Staples does outstanding work, and his assistant, Carole, is a dream to work with.  They have both been incredibly helpful.  Wendover was wanting to print my 6"x9" pieces 50" big, and they were thinking the files were too small to do so.  I think the problem was more that my art is too small to blow up so large.  Mark scanned them as large as is technically possible to do so at this time.  Finally we got it resolved.  I'm going to take over some larger pieces so they can make big pieces out of them, and the smaller pieces will be blown up smaller, and the pastels won't have to be shipped to FL.  It's all good.  Everyone involved is wonderful to work with and is doing everything they know how to make things work out just right.  It's just complicated getting art made by me, scanned here in Richmond, coordinated by Catharine in Atlanta, printed there in Florida, and marketed all over the world!  Next time I'm in Crate and Barrel and see artwork, I will certainly appreciate the effort that went into making it a lot more!  Geez Louise!

After settling all those details, I flew into the studio, ready to work!  I feel done with Faux Fur Follies so I had to find something new to work on.  For some reason, I'd been craving working on a pregnant nude - I started drawing them in 2000 and a series of small drawings of them was my very first show.  I found an image I've drawn several times before and painted it all afternoon.  It felt so good to create those fabulous curves.  Pregnant bellies are so gorgeous and so satisfying to draw!  (The red image is the one I did in 2000 of the same image.  It's in pencil on textured paper and is very tiny, so that's why it looks so static-y.)