Why do you paint a house blue??

Why do you paint a house blue??

Blue has always been my least favorite color, so not sure I decided to paint this blue house. Blue seems such a sad color. When you are sad you are also said to be blue. Why not paint your house a happy color, so every day when you come home to your Haven, you see a happy color?

It is true the blue of the sky (when it is not smoggy) and the blue of the lake or ocean could not be more beautiful sometimes, but the blue of everyday living….

Random thought for the day.

Check out my website at http://www.dianakingsley.net

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Figure Drawing at Artist’s Edge

Figure Drawing at Artist's Edge

On Thursday nights in Poulsbo Derek Gundy has a live model come into the Artist’s Edge and we all have the opportunity to spend three hours drawing the model of the evening. Sara is a wonderful model and hold her pose perfectly. I am usually lucky enough to have one or two of my drawings be presentable enough to post.

I love the environment of other artists of all different levels of ability having a great time working on their skills.

There is is always room for more artists as generally only about 8 show up on any given night and there is room for at least 12. come join us!!

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Nicolai Fechin exhibition in Seattle

Nicolai Fechin, “Portrait of a Young Woman,” 1912, oil on canvas, 31 3/4 x 28 in. Seattle, Frye Art Museum

The Work of Nicolai Fechin

Jeffrey Carlson Reporting
Contributing Editor, Fine Art Today
Followers of the Russian master Nicolai Fechin (1881-1955) will not want to miss a large-scale exhibition now on view at the Frye Art Museum. 
The Frye Art Museum in Seattle has gathered 55 paintings and drawings by Nicolai Fechin in a major exhibition that will be on view through May 19.

Nicolai Fechin, “Lady in Pink (Portrait of Natalia Podbelskaya),” 1912, oil on canvas, 45 1/2 x 35 in. Seattle, Frye Art Museum
Titled Nicolai Fechin, the exhibition concentrates on the early Russian period of Fechin’s career, a strong point in the Frye’s permanent collection. Loans from U.S. museums and from private lenders, American and international, round out the exhibition.
At one time a student of Ilya Repin (1844-1930), Fechin led an eventful life that saw him emigrate to the United States and earn worldwide fame for his vibrant, expressive canvases. His “Lady in Pink,” now in the Frye’s permanent collection, was exhibited in the International Exhibition at the Carnegie Institute in 1913 and in the Panama-Pacific Exposition in San Francisco in 1915 alongside the works of Pissarro, Renoir, Sisley, and Boudin. Fechin’s career accelerated as a result of his participation in the important Exhibition of Russian Painting and Sculpture at the Brooklyn Art Museum in 1923 and his solo exhibition at the Art Institute of Chicago in the same year. Later in life he moved to Taos, New Mexico, where the landscape and Southwestern culture inspired the artist to create many brilliant pictures. The current exhibition at the Frye concludes with these Taos paintings.
Nicolai Fechin, “Nude Figure,” 1911, oil on canvas, 28 1/2 x 26 in. The Filatov Family Art Foundation
Nicolai Fechin was curated by Frye Director Jo-Anne Birnie Danzker. It is the first major overview of Fechin’s work held at the Frye Art Museum since 1976.
The exhibition will be accompanied by a series of lectures, classes, and gallery talks. To see the full program, visit www.fryemuseum.org.
View my website at http://www.DianaKingsley.net
Nicolai Fechin exhibition in Seattle

New Evidence – Another Mona Lisa by de Vinci

The “Isleworth Mona Lisa”

Evidence for New Mona Lisa Mounts

What at first seemed highly improbable – even ludicrous – is now closer to becoming a reality: The evidence in favor of a second, older Mona Lisa by Leonardo is growing.
New tests and scholarly attributions are moving in favor of attributing a recently re-discovered painting to Leonardo da Vinci. Advocates of the “Isleworth Mona Lisa” claim this to be the original, painted when the sitter, Lisa del Giocondo, was in her youth.
Since the painting’s revelation in Geneva in September 2012, the Zurich-based Mona Lisa foundation has spear-headed efforts to demonstrate the painting’s authenticity (though it claims to have no financial interest in the work).
One strong piece of evidence came from a carbon-dating test performed by The Swiss Federal Institute of Technology (ETH). The test results directly refute arguments that the “Isleworth Mona Lisa” is a later, 16th-century copy of the Louvre’s painting. ETH determined that the painting was almost certainly created between 1410 and 1455 (95.4% probability), and most likely between 1425 and 1450 (68.2% probability).
A second argument was made by Professor John Asmus, a nuclear physicist who conducted four tests on the “Isleworth Mona Lisa” and the Louvre’s “Gioconda.” By digitizing the brushstrokes of both paintings, Asmus determined that they would have been painted by the same artist.

Alfonso Rubino’s application of Vitruvian geometry to the “Isleworth Mona Lisa”
Further support has come from Italian geometrist Alfonso Rubino, who, after studying Leonardo’s “Vitruvian Man” in relation to the artist’s paintings, determined that Leonardo incorporated Vitruvian geometry into his other artwork. Rubino has studied the “Isleworth Mona Lisa” and concluded that its similar proportions and structure serve as incontrovertible evidence of Leonardo’s authorship.
The Isleworth Mona Lisa still has notable detractors in the world of art history. British Leonardo specialist Martin Kemp has argued vehemently against the painting’s acceptance, as has U.S. scholar Richard Spear.
You can see my artwork at http://www.dianakingsley.net
New Evidence – Another Mona Lisa by de Vinci

Coffee in Paris

Coffe in Paris

My best friend and I have been friends for over thirty years. We have sons, the same ages, a daughter and son within two weeks of each other and two younger children. Then she had a wonderful surprise and her twins are also my God Sons.

I thought of her when I put this together, thinking we should have coffee in Paris some day before we are too old to enjoy it. Alexandra this is for you!!

Don’t forget to check out my website at http://www.dianakingsley.net

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Eat Ice Cream

Eat Ice Cream

What a fun weekend taking a collage class with a lot of fun women. Never done any of this before and Kat DeBose was a great teacher. I used a lot of photos from my travels and decided rather than approach it as an art form to use it as a way to express satire.

Note in this one, the man is walking on water, or so he thinks and women enjoying their Ice Cream say to one another “Let him go”.

Tell me what you think of the idea! Might make a fun series of cards?

Don’t forget to check out my website at http://www.dianakingsley.net

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Sometimes we need to think about more than art.

Kate Smith - God Bless Americahttp://www.youtube.com/watch_popup?feature=player_embedded&v=TnQDW-NMaRs

In 1940, a new song was introduced by Kate Smith. Please take the time to read the story before you listen to this very patriotic song as you see history being made before your eyes:
The link below will take you to a video showing the very first public singing of “GOD BLESS AMERICA “. But before you watch, you should also know the story of the song.

The time was 1940. America was still in a terrible economic depression. Hitler was taking over Europe and Americans were afraid we’d have to go to war. It was a time of hardship and worry for most Americans.

This was the era just before TV, when radio shows were HUGE, and American families sat around their radios in the evenings, listening to their favorite entertainers, and no entertainer of that era was bigger than Kate Smith.

Kate was also large in size, and the popular phrase still used today is in deference to her, “Ain’t over till the fat lady sings”. Kate Smith might not have made it big in the age of TV, but with her voice coming over the radio, she was the biggest star of her time.

Kate was also very patriotic. It hurt her to see Americans so depressed and afraid of what the next day would bring. She had hope for America , and faith in her fellow Americans. She wanted to do something to cheer them up, so she went to the famous American song-writer, Irving Berlin (also wrote “White Christmas”) and asked him to write a song that would make Americans feel good again about their country.

When she described what she was looking for, he said he had just the song for her. He went to his files and found a song that he had written, but never published, 22 years before – way back in 1917. He gave it to Kate Smith and she worked on it with her studio orchestra. She and Irving Berlin were not sure how the song would be received by the public, but both agreed they would not take any profits from God Bless America . Any profits would go to the Boy Scouts of America . Over the years, the Boy Scouts have received millions of dollars in royalties from this song.

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Port Gamble Church

Port Gamble Church

Port Gamble is a quaint picturesque town near Kingston in Washington. This is one of the original churches in the area. In the summer you often drive by and see beautiful brides and expectant husbands coming out of the doors to enjoy their new lives together. It always makes me smile.

 

Don’t forget to check out my website at http://www.dianakingsley.net

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