Roxanne Baldwin's Artsy Blog

  • Art Career and the Day Job

    Sometimes, at work, I feel like shouting “Quick!  Go back to school and become an accountant before it’s too late!”   No, I lie.  I spent many years trying to come to terms with working a menial job, when I wanted to be an artist.  Spent many years in frustration, thinking, “I’m better than this”.…

  • Stick a fork in it

    Sometimes, the hardest thing in art is calling it quits.  I don’t mean art totally, but each piece has to have an ending, and it’s usually far short of the perfection that you intended. So it is with Sunny Chair Paradise.  I like it, but it doesn’t live up to what I’d like it to…

  • Where’s my Mauve pencil?

    No one will ever accuse me of being a neat freak.  Messiness seems to run in the family.  Here’s a photo of my studio. Somehow, the disorganization hasn’t kept me from efficiently doing art…in fact, I think it helps.  I’ve seen studios where the colored pencils are meticulously kept in color coordinated containers.  I think…

  • Prussian Blue

    I have done some new work on the sunny chair picture.  In it, I use liberally a color known as Indigo Blue.  I use that color a lot, never sure why.  I often use it in place of black, because it make a picture more interesting, IMO. But last night, coming home from work, I…

  • The Comfort Zone, and taking risks

    I get the impression that many artists from experience know pretty well what each pencil or brushstroke will do.  They’ve mastered their particular medium, and they can create without too many surprises. Every so often,in the artist forum, I read about artists talking about the Comfort Zone.  This mastery is what I think they mean…

  • Lazy Day

    Been a busy week, and now I’m having a restful day.  Did a little work on Sunny Chair, but I’ve put a hold on it for a while.  I’m too tired to really do a good job. So, I thought I’d show some odds and ends of work I’ve done but never featured.  As usual,…

  • Ode to Oil Paint

    In trying to get together the live action painting business, I invested in some oil paint sticks.  They’re oil paint that you can actually roughly draw with. So just to see what it felt like I tried one.  What I didn’t expect was to be so affected by the aroma. As with everyone, sometimes a…

  • Relaxing…..

    It’s been a cloudy, lazy weekend.  I took advantage, and got some rest. I have been working on Sunny Chair, though.  It’s evolving. At one time, I used to start out a picture with an exact idea in mind of what I wanted it to look like, and work towards that.  One thing that I…

  • In the Place We Live 2012

    Last night was the reception for the show.  It was a lot smaller than it was last year, and the AC actually worked this year!  I was delighted that the manager from my job, Dave, and his lovely wife Kelly came. There was a lot of interesting work from local artists from Western Queens.  I…