08Sep 2022 by DebbieleeMiszaniec

New Project Announcement! Earthly Delights – 10 Still Life Paintings in Places

Events & Announcements, Uncategorized, What's the Big Idea?
Preliminary Drawings, & me on location taking reference photos. I’m on location here taking reference photos at Reader Rock Gardens in Calgary for my new project, Earthly Delights - 10 Paintings of Food in Places, funded by an individual artist project grant from Calgary Arts Development. As some of you know from reading earlier posts about the development of my Cravings series, I (intentionally) lost more than a third of my body mass in the last decade. Despite the many health benefits, there are other physical and psychological results of this journey which continue to make maintaining a healthy weight a challenge. Earthly Delights is about exploring that journey through the genre of still life painting. This project juxtaposes the still life within places to speak to the dilemmas presented by our…
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30Jun 2022 by DebbieleeMiszaniec

How To Prepare Your Art For The Show.

Art Sales, Uncategorized, Working Artist
Well the 2022 Calgary Stampede Western Showcase is a little over a week away and I have six oil paintings going into the show! So the task now is to make sure my art is show ready. Strawberry ShortcakeMaple CookieLemon BarCupcakeCinnamon RollButter TartPaintings in the show!Each are 5"x7" o/c $250 framed. So what goes in to getting art "show ready"? Painting finished, varnished, framed & ready to hang, with 3 points of identification on the back! Well, in case you have a show coming up and are looking for tips, I'll share my tips with you today. Finish the Art! Make sure your paintings are finished and dry enough to handle being out of the studio and in the real world (Duh, you say, but this can sometimes be a…
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03Mar 2022 by DebbieleeMiszaniec

Repeating Art History: Influence and Allegory

The Story Behind the Painting, Uncategorized, What's the Big Idea?
Sisyphus Jelly Doughnuts, 24" x 20" O/C, $1600 CAD Although the image above is of my most recently completed painting, Sisyphus Jelly Doughnuts, this is not a blog post that comes to any conclusions or announces any new events. Actually this one is just about some of the research and influences I am looking at as I journey through my current direction in the studio. Obviously some of my research involves baking or buying delicious treats to use as still life props. Definitely a bit of a conflict of interest going on here. However for the most part, being an artist and talking about the psychological effects of long term caloric restriction through art means I am doing a lot more research into art history than into recipes. To begin…
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19Dec 2021 by DebbieleeMiszaniec

The Covid Chronicles & Cravings Paintings at Arts Aqui

Uncategorized
Do you love shopping local, visiting physical galleries, and seeing new art in person when you collect? Well then I have good news for you! I've just framed up and dropped off a couple of my Covid-19 drawings and Cravings paintings at Arts Aqui in Calgary. A Good ShepherdGuardiansButtertartNanaimo Bar Let's show our local galleries some love! Stop in, view the art in person and build your collection. Arts Aqui hours are Tue – Sat: 11 a.m. – 5 p.m. and they are located at: 1909, 34th Avenue SW (Marda Loop) Calgary, AB T2T 2C2 Canada
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18Dec 2021 by DebbieleeMiszaniec

Limited Time/Limited Edition: A Fun Money Holiday Promotion

Art Sales, Events & Announcements, Uncategorized
It's better than an NFT: you can actually hold it in your hand. Better than cryptocurrency: a truly limited number of coins, less damage to the environment, and again, you can hold it in your hands. What is it? It's Fun Money: Unwrapped, a limited edition of 10 hand painted signed and numbered sculptures. Fun Money: Unwrapped. Sculpture. Edition of 10. 2021. 4.5"x5.5"x 1" And guess what? While valued at 95$ CAD each, this is a numismatic offer you can get in on for free for a limited time only. For the holiday season, now until January 1st 2022, I am partnering with Abstract Art Canada (whom I introduced you to last month) to give away 1 of the edition of 10 with each purchase of one of my paintings…
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14Jun 2021 by DebbieleeMiszaniec
Why An Artist Should Write Project Grant Proposals (even if you never get one).

Why An Artist Should Write Project Grant Proposals (even if you never get one).

Uncategorized, Working Artist
I just spent the last week after taking down our exhibition for the Medium of Exchange Collective show, Process, writing a project grant proposal. It's the second one I've done this year and I will likely write at least one more. I have probably written one a year for the last 10 years. Although I am getting faster they still take me a while to write, and I have never gotten one. So, given my terrible track record (no one is going to be hiring me for grant writing services anytime soon) why would I continue to write them? Once upon a time I wrote them for big projects that I could not accomplish without taking time off from my day job. So they were always written for projects to…
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03May 2021 by DebbieleeMiszaniec
We Need Help Planning the Closing Reception for Our Show Medium of Exchange – Process

We Need Help Planning the Closing Reception for Our Show Medium of Exchange – Process

Events & Announcements, Uncategorized
In light of increased Covid-19 case numbers and increased public health restrictions here in Alberta it seems unlikely we will be able to physically welcome you to the gallery for our closing reception on the afternoon of May 20th 2021. So since we are all new to this virtual event thing we would like to ask for your help deciding how, where and what to do in lieu?  We have a brief 3 question survey below and would appreciate your feedback. We’ll share details for the event once we’ve had a chance to discuss the feedback. Thanks! Take The Survey Here
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03Nov 2020 by DebbieleeMiszaniec

Tricks & Treats: October Review

Uncategorized
Trick or Treat, 12"x16" o/c, $950 So Halloween is over and we have 2 weeks to see where it takes us in regard to new Covid-19 cases. Trick or Treat is my latest instalment in the Covid Chronicles saga of paintings this year. I was quite anxious about this holiday, it is so hard for us to disappoint the little ones, but no one can be sure who is passing along the Covid Apple in this rendition of a Halloween Snow White fairytale. Is the little old lady giving it to Snow White, or the other way around? Is the child transporting it from one house to another (all unintentionally of course)? It was good to see all of the creative approaches people took to carrying on with Halloween traditions…
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21Apr 2020 by DebbieleeMiszaniec

Studio Life & Covid-19: Part 4

Events & Announcements, Sketchbooks, Uncategorized, Working Artist, Youtube Channel
While the weather and the news had its ups and downs in the outside world, it was another busy week in the studio. As an artist who is perpetually in isolation, there is never a shortage of things to get done, even while others post about not knowing how to fill the hours suddenly vacated by their jobs. However, it can be difficult to motivate myself to actually get things done as some projects seem to be futile when their fate is currently unknown due to all the uncertainties of the Covid-19 pandemic. Such is the case with my preparations for The Calgary Exhibition and Stampede Art Show. Currently we have no news one way or the other on the fate of the Calgary Exhibition and Stampede this year, so…
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06Apr 2020 by DebbieleeMiszaniec

Studio Life During Covid-19 Part 2

100 Rejections, Events & Announcements, Sketchbooks, The Sunflower Project, Uncategorized, Working Artist, Youtube Channel
So it is another interesting week as we see the progress of the Covid-19 crisis on the global stage and I have continued to document it in my Covid 19 series of drawings I uploaded the final instalment of Kathleen and Quinnton's Wedding Painting to Youtube last week, so here together for the first time are all three videos so you can see the process from start to finish! https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=UAvrhEIE4vA https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=yXvYwDDWsyw https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=WmUOiHw0x5k Each video represents one day of work on the painting. So why are the lengths so different? I'm recording the time-lapse video's using my iPhone, so I need to press stop periodically to adjust the number of dropped frames per session. In the shorter ones I stopped recording less frequently. So it appears I am a super fast…
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