A lot of the people in the area are obsessed with their dogs--on a busy street a couple blocks from my house, there are two (not one, but two) dog bakeries. It was only fitting that I'd do a park scene that included a little dog.

And I'm done with this series for now. I'm off to work on cutting paper for my next projects. Perhaps another portrait? A flower? Another animal piece? We'll see where my inspiration leads me.

A collage of another street view. I'm thinking that for my last collage in the series, I'll do a view of the park in the area.

This is a collage of the Torpedo Factory, which is a well known art gallery/artist studio community in Old Town. I'm thinking about making two more collages in this series. Then it'll be back to working on art for the festival, and perhaps even working on another portrait.

In other news, the Alexandria Times published a little blurb about my work being exhibited in the Smithsonian's Ripley Center, which I discovered today although it was published a month ago. The exhibition ended yesterday and I'll pick up my piece later this week.

Also, thanks for everyone's feedback about Etsy. I'm going to work on figuring out the best way to go about getting prints of my work before opening an account. And whenever I do get started with Etsy, I'll post about it.

Another day, another collage.

The Masonic Temple in the city of Alexandria--another one of the well known buildings in the area. I managed to begin and finish this mini collage today. More to come in the series later this week.

Here's the latest--I plan on doing at least three more in the series. I also ordered some materials to get started on making magnets for the festival in October. I'll post pictures of those whenever I get around to completing a few.

I finished this piece really late last night. I like it a lot better than the first one--I thought my first landscape was a little too abstract. Thus I plan to submit this one instead.

Also, I'll try to get started on another mini collage for the Around the City Series. I'm hoping to complete about five or six collages to show the editor before August.

The second piece completed in the series. I've also realized how much I prefer doing pieces that are portraits or have animals in them. It's a struggle to work on architecture or landscapes. But I'm giving them a try!

Also, Jessie Cacciola has posted an interview with me in her blog today - she posts about artists, fashion, and books.

And I'll get started on another landscape today. I am determined to make something that I'll like.

I just finished a landscape collage for an upcoming exhibition. However, landscapes are my weakness, and I haven't really studied them with my collage work. I'll probably try to work on a couple more of them in order to figure out which ones to submit.

I met with the editor and publisher of the Alexandria Times the other day to talk about the artwork they publish for the newspaper. He gave me a list of themes and ideas for a few papers that will be published in the future. I've begun working on a series of collages around the city for their newcomers guide to Alexandria. I've decided to make a bunch of mini collages for this project so that the editor can choose his favorites from the group, and then those can be collaged together using Photoshop. Here's the first one I completed today:

I went to the opening reception at the Art League Gallery today. I found out that 627 pieces were entered and only 120 were accepted. And out of the accepted number, fourteen received awards. I was surprised to hear that my collage was one of the fourteen.

Here's the piece I finished this morning. I'm planning on working on a series of scenes around town which I'll post as I finish each one.

The portrait is complete! Of course there are a few areas that I'd like to fix, but I think I'm pretty much done with this one. I'll probably return to it in a few weeks when I can approach it with a more critical eye.

More to come next week, since, well, I'll be busy this weekend and won't have much time to make art.

Happy 4th of July!

Today I heard back from the Del Ray Artisans' juried exhibition that I entered. My gestural drawing, "Dancing in the Nude," was chosen by the juror and will be on display at the Nicholas Colasanto Center. It will be open from July 3rd to July 26th.

I've decided to work on another portrait series and this is what I have so far with the first piece. This one is about 1/3 finished--it's a lot bigger than the other collages I've posted below (18"x24") and thus it takes a little bit longer to complete. Hopefully it'll be done sometime later this week, unless I get super busy at work.