Category Archives: Updates

Thanks Lion Coffee!

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Lion Coffee unveiled the new art wall, and the redesign of their packaging in May of 2018

I noticed today that Lion Coffee in Honolulu continues to support local artists with their cafe wall which has been displaying and selling local art since May of 2018.  Oahu’s high real estate prices make running a gallery very difficult. It has been a wonderful help to us all to have restaurants, boutiques, and other businesses willing to share their walls with the local art community on a rotating basis so we can more easily sell our work. From the very beginning of the project, Lion understood this need, and they have been so supportive! This is truly an effort on their part to encourage the arts scene and give us all more wall space and more opportunity to sell work.  I helped design the rail and line hanging system they have installed on the wall and tested it as their first artist.  They are a joy to work with as an artist setting up display there too!  I had a truly great experience working with them to establish this display area, and also during the installation of the show. Their friendly staff serves and sells amazing coffee!

You can see the artist currently on display at their site here: https://www.lioncoffee.com/lion-cafe/local-artists/  They keep a running archive of the artists who have been on display as well – such a generous idea!  My archive is here: https://www.lioncoffee.com/artist-wendy-roberts/ 

This space has been open to artists for about a year and a half as of this writing. They reached out to me back in 2018 asking for assistance in knowing which types of display system to install.  The timing was perfect because I had experienced the full range of hanging systems throughout the years of display with art guilds like Windward Artists Guild  and Association of Hawaii Artists.  Not every space works best with the same hanging system, but clearly in their situation, a rail hanging system with perlon lines and sliding hooks was ideal for security and flexibility considering the rotating displays. We crunched some dimensions together and came up with a two-rail system that spans the wall and offers hooks for up to 30 pieces, with almost infinite adaptability while reducing damage to the wall.  Most artists will only be able to fit about 15 – 20 pieces of art depending on size of the pieces.  The lighting and paint create a wonderful environment for the art. If you are an artist living and working in Oahu, you can call the cafe to start the process of applying for a show there.  It’s a great space for a small solo show.

Lion makes amazing coffee, delicious pastries, and offers tours of their roasting facilities.  The cafe is my favorite oasis in that area of town! I stop in when I am running errands around that neighborhood of Honolulu. The cafe is located at 1555 Kalani St, Honolulu, HI 96817.

HI on Art TV Show Guest

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Photo during filming by Will Espero

I am very pleased to announce that I will be one of the guest artists on HI on Art, a new TV show that is currently running on Oahu Spectrum Cable Channel 11 at 11 pm each Saturday.  The episode with my clip will be on July 27, 2019, and you can find it online at the HI on Art website:  https://www.hionart.com/ for a limited time after its airing.  Special thanks to Will Espero and Fred Vanderpoel for taking the time to come to my studio and film the segment – they were wonderful company and very skilled!  Their show is seeking sponsors and artists, and all kinds of community involvement. They do great work!  I will be tuning in each week and look forward to seeing who will be on the show each week.  The premiere was wonderful!  I like the long pan shots of details of the art, and I love hearing the thoughts everyone has to share! Truly, everyone has an interesting story and since I enjoy hearing from other creative people, this is a new favorite show!

 

Quality Time at ZAFA Workshops

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This October an November I have been honing my skills, I took an amazing workshop at Zwick Academy of Fine Art (ZAFA) entitled “Master Copy Workshop”. We worked on a master painting copy of a work by John Singer Sargent – I chose “Lady Agnew” I am mostly done copying the detail, and ready to show the results.  First we worked on the value study.  This turned out to be quite enlightening for understanding the overall tones of the piece.  It was years since I had worked with charcoal, and I found out I really love it for a drawing medium.

Then we worked on color studies (not pictured), before launching into the real deal. We used a nice color print out in lieu of being able to spend a month in front of the actual paintings. Every time I mixed a skin tone, I found myself saying “Needs more purple!” Sargent is a surprisingly saturated colorist.  I look forward to the changes this will bring to future pieces as I incorporate the lessons learned by studying Sargent’s careful yet expressive painting style which I would classify as “effort-filled effortlessness”.  I can highly recommend William Zwick’s classes.  He’s an excellent teacher! I learned more in less time by doing this master copy under his mentorship than I would have if I had picked up a brush and done it without guidance. Maybe I will end up doing more copies in the future, and I would even dare to do them solo now, but I think the process of being guided through this copy helps me know how I would go about it in the future if left to my own devices. It takes a lot of research if you plan to replicate the painting down to the technique and palette.  I was grateful to have that footwork in place already for this piece.

There is a little glare on the photo, but I think it is not hampering the viewing of my copy too much.  Also, the piece is not varnished yet.  I will post again when I have the necklace done and the varnish done (which will deepen the colors), but you can see that the detail is almost complete.  I am planning to frame this and hang it in my studio to remind me how to soften my edges.  What a great way to spend October of 2017!

I returned to ZAFA in November to work on my master copy-earned skills with some life painting sessions, and painted a portrait of the absolutely gorgeous model posing at ZAFA for the week.

Here she is with her painting. Posing for hours like that is not easy.  She did a great job of standing still for the 9 hours (!) it took us all to paint her likeness.

I worked hard to soften the edges and was pleased with the results, as was the model who bought the piece – I always love it when a painting finds its home.  ZAFA is one of the few places you can go on Oahu for a multi-session life painting experience, which I highly recommend if you are looking to hone skills and learn to paint beyond the confines of a a photo.  As of 2017, it is on Fridays and you can sign up with ZAFA to get notice of the status of the sessions.  We are lucky to have high quality art resources like this close at hand. Maybe I will see you there, fellow Oahu artists! 

 

September/October Shows

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I am participating in two shows for October/November.

Honolulu Hale (City Hall)

Honolulu Hale (City Hall)

Asia-Pacific Arts Consortium’s Pamana Show will take place at Honolulu Hale from September 27 – October 13, 2016.  The reception is on October 6, 2016 from 4 – 6 pm. I will be there , but I will by necessity arrive late by at least a half hour. Three of my works have been juried in for display, “Fiery Sunset”, “Honu Laule’a” and “Sea Lions”.

WAG 57th Annual Member Show

WAG 57th Annual Member Show

Windward Artists Guild is holding its 57th annual Member’s show at the Hoomaluhia Botanical Garden Gallery October 2 – 28, 2016. Please join us at our reception Saturday, October 8 from 5:00 – 7pm. I plan to attend the entire reception. Two of my works will be on display, “Understory”, and “Waterlilies”.

 

Brilhante in Kailua

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Today I delivered several of my art pieces to Brilhante Custom Picture Framing and Fine Art in Kailua.  It is wonderful to be among a talented group of artists, and to sell work in a framing store where it’s easy and convenient to buy a frame for the painting. It’s also pleasure to be in a gallery that is at the epicenter of my personal inspiration right here in Kailua.

Brilhante Framing and Fine Art in Kailua

Tracy Brilhante, owner of Brilhante Framing and Fine Art in Kailua with Wendy in front of a few of Wendy’s paintings. To the left you can see just a few of the many framing options. There are several other surfaces with additional frame options as well.

Tracy, the owner of the gallery, and her staff have years of experience and a wonderful eye for which frame best compliments each piece. I have been very pleased with all the framing they have done for me over the years. A good frame unifies the painting with the rest of the room, creating unity in the interior, but also creating a border that allows the painting to stand out from the wall.  There is harmony between the art and the surrounding furniture if they are similar in style or materials.  I have always found great options for each of my pieces at Brilhante (with plenty of help from Tracy and Nicole!) It’s nice to know that anyone who buys my paintings there can easily have them framed, and the quality will be top notch!

Keeping my paintbrush moving…

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Greetings from my studio.  I have just finished my latest show (“Paradise Painters” at Hoomaluhia).  It went very well, and now that my show is done, it is time for me to enter a new chapter of my creative state. Before the show, I worked actively for the majority of the days producing new work on canvas or panels.  I postponed work on my mural project for a few weeks to make sure I would have enough new pieces for my show. Once the show was up, I worked more on the mural again and dreamed up the next few pieces I want to pursue. Now I must balance my massive mural project with paintings once again as I get ready for the upcomiong Windward Artists Guild show in October. This flurry of productivity has meant that I have not been communicating as much on my site lately, but I took a moment today to add a few of the pieces I created for the Paradise Painter’s show. I am looking forward to sharing the mural, but it isn’t really ready to be seen just yet. I showed a couple of previews of the secondary walls on Facebook (Wendy Roberts Fine Art) and Instagram (@wendysroberts), which I will share again here, but the main wall is a huge (10′ X 15′) scene with water lilies, foliage, a waterfall, and a weeping willow that I will be excited to debut when it is done.

Mural in progress

Mural in progress

 

I better get back to work at the easel in order to assure the quality of the pieces I have planned for the October WAG show will be up to my standards.  Two of my next pieces are going to be larger works in the 3 and 4 foot range.  I feel they deserve more space and more creation time to achieve the correct impact and scale.  I will check in a little later, but in the meantime, if you don’t see me much out on the town during September, you know where I am!

Gifts and Prints Available on Redbubble

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I am in the process of uploading selected works from my portfolio to redbubble.com, adding some of my images to the site.  You can purchase prints and fun, inexpensive gifts featuring my art images from an easy e-commerce interface.  I have a small selection of paintings now on redbubble.com just to see how it goes.  If you would like to order something from redbubble.com with one of my other images, please let me know by contacting me. There are certain product and image combinations I can’t allow, either because it doesn’t look right, the source painting is too small, or in some cases because it is limited edition and I am not able to allow any canvas prints, but I think some of the items they are able to make are really fun!  Particularly I like the mugs and pillows, but there are lots of other neat things on there.  Click here to take a look >>

Favorite Place Follow-up

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I realized I never officially closed out the Favorite Place Contest results with a follow-up post of the results.  In March I held a friendly collaborative contest on my Facebook page offering a free giclee to the person who submitted the photo that most caught my eye and made me want to paint it.  I selected a photo of sea lions off the coast of La Jolla, California by Marjolijn Bekken. The painting was completed in late May, scanned in June, and displayed in the August Hoomaluhia Gallery show and December Oahu Open Studios event.  Meanwhile the promised giclee was given to Marjolijn for her outstanding photo.  She has my sincere gratitude.  It was a pleasure to paint the sea lions.

“Sea Lions” is a good example of the adjustments I make to an image when I paint from a photograph.  I like to take advantage of the strengths of painting, and veer off a bit from the initial photo. In this painting, I used a blue underpainting throughout the image which peeked through in the thinner areas of the painting throughout, giving it a sense of cohesiveness.  I made the colors slightly more vibrant, especially in the sea, and I brought the elements into sharper focus.  There are a few less sea lions in the final painting to help simplify the composition, and I chose to make the colors of each sea lion a bit more differentiated so they would stand out from each other and from the rocks.  I enjoyed the directionality of the strokes of paint, curving over sea lion shoulders and undulating with the waves. The whole painting had a very sinuous rhythm to it.

Lastly, I learned a lovely piece of trivia that appealed to my geeky nature side.  Sea lions are easy to tell apart from seals because they have stronger flippers that allow them to sit upright, rather than lounging on their sides like seals. Now that I have told you, if either of us see a seal or a sea lion, we can definitively identify the correct name for it – bonus!

Sea Lions

Sea Lions