Guest Artist, Mary Anne Cary, from Maine

This month's e-interview is with Mary Anne Cary,  a pastel and oil painter living in Cape Elizabeth Maine.  A former graphic artist, she now devotes her time to painting.  Inspired by the Maine coast and landscape, she strives to capture everyday scenes with a fresh vision and energy.


" I find that, living in Maine, I am supplied with endless possibilities for paintings. I see intriguing studies every time I take a drive, whether down the street or up the coast. I love having my camera ready to record the many compositions and ideas I see around me."

She has attended workshops with local and nationally recognized artists and enters regional juried art shows. Her blog displays her current paintings at maryannecary.blogspot .com

Mary Anne, starting at the beginning, when did you begin to be interested in Art?
I was interested in art as a child and in high school, which prompted me to go to art school. I feel that when I was in college, it was just an introduction to art in some ways. I was young and not sure what direction to go in. Graphic art is very different than fine arts where I took more photography and calligraphy type courses. A lot of my fine art is self taught. Now, as an adult I would love to be in art school again full time! I would appreciate every minute, I was not serious enough when I was "younger!"

Do you have a favourite artist?
I don't think I could choose a particular, favorite artist. I am definitely more interested in contemporary art,
and I am strongly attracted to artists who paint with strong colors and bold, looser styles. I love paintings
where you can see paint strokes.  I tend to study their work and try to learn from these working artists, the internet has become a great teacher.

The internet is full of 'daily painters' - do you manage to paint regularly?
I don't know why I am so busy, I am not painting nearly as regularly as I would like. Recently, I have been
painting intensely for a couple of days, I stock up for some postings and then I return to my busy life. That is not a healthy way to progress and grow, but sometimes we grab what we can. I would like to get back to a point where I am painting almost daily.

I am a 'fast and furious' painter, where my pastel paintings are concerned, and looking at your paintings, I suspect you work in a similar way?
Yes, I paint fast and furiously! I make a mess. I really need a large studio and I know I could fill it in a couple of days. I am never that meticulous, I do need to consciously slow down. I work well with messiness and then I start the cleanup process and do it all over again. (I probably would not make a good studio mate!)

It was your pastel paintings that first made me sit up and take notice, but do you have a favourite medium?
I go back and forth between pastels and oils. I really like pastels, but I feel I get more response from my oils, even though I personally feel my pastels are fresher.

Is there any particular subject matter that draws you to paint it?
I am moved by the coast here in Maine, it has endless possibilities and diversities along with such different light throughout the year. I am painting mostly from photos, with a little memory and plein air added in. 

Some artists are reluctant to part with their originals - how do you feel about it?
I will sell almost any pieces of my work, I feel I can always paint another. There are one or two I will not part with.

Finally, do you have any particular future projects or plans in mind? Where do you see your artistic journey taking you?
I always have painting plans going on in my head. Right now I would like to start painting larger and begin to put together a more cohesive body of work. I feel so inspired by other successful artists, but I still feel I don't have a true direction. I believe that takes a commitment of time and serious planning, something I am
still struggling to work out. It is a commitment I look forward to making.

Thank you, Mary Anne, for sharing your thoughts and experiences with us, as well as some of your wonderful paintings! There has been many a time that, seeing your work, you've tempted  me to put aside my greeting cards and get out my soft pastels again. Seeing how you use them, what you 'get out of them', is truly inspiring!


You can see more of Mary Anne's pastel and oil paintings and contact her about purchasing details, over at her blog, maryannecary.blogspot .com  


Alternatively, go straight to her Etsy shop or, to feast your eyes on even more of Mary Anne's fabulous work, visit her website.

A whole bunch of flowers!

 

For some reason that I can't explain, I seem to be almost addicted to the weather forecast! I think my fascination may have sprung from learning about the British Climate, and its main characteristic, 'variability', in A-level geography - I don't know, but even if I'm too busy to watch The News, I always make sure to catch the weather forecast! And I have three weather website icons on my desktop, which I check regularly! I was particularly keen to know what today's weather would be because I'd had a slight problem with my drains yesterday and a neighbour had kindly agreed to come round and 'rod' them for me this morning!

'Wintry showers', sleet, hail and snow were all forecast - but in fact I wasn't too worried. For once, I didn't believe the forecasts. It's the nearest Saturday to my eldest daughter's birthday and, beginning on the day after she was born, we always had lovely spring-like weather for her birthday party that enabled us to let the little 'guests' out into the garden to let off some steam. Year after year the same thing happens, Spring seems to arrive suddenly on the Saturday nearest 17th February and today was no exception. It was probably the first time I'd really looked at my back garden for a while - and there were several little clumps of crocuses 'smiling at me'!

I'm no great photographer, though I do take a lot of photos. I'm not in the least bit worried about definition - I'll leave that to the real photographers - because I mainly take photos for references for paintings, a kind of modern-day sketchbook. In fact I sometimes think that a slightly out of focus photo enables me to really see what I want to paint...that's my excuse, anyway!

Last time I wrote I suggested that floral designs are generally acceptable for most occasions for most women and throughout the spring and summer, I pop out to my tiny garden with my camera whenever something catches my eye and paintings often follow. I've tried painting the real thing instead of using photos but it gets very hot in my attic and the flowers tend to wilt even sooner than I do, even though I paint very fast.

The greeting card publishers, Phoenix Trading, in their Advice for Artists, rank 'flowers' fourth in their list of popular subject matter for greeting cards, behind Fairies, Football and Animals (mostly cats and dogs). I know I am always pleased to receive floral greeting cards, particularly in the winter months when there are fewer flowers in the garden to enjoy. Most of my friends have similar tastes - and yet, so far, I have sold very few flower cards online, in spite of there being plenty to choose from.

On offer in my Greeting Card Universe 'store' are flowers in soft pastel -

 

- I am rather attached to this one and have refused to sell the original, partly because it was one of the better things to come out of a very disapppointing family holiday on the Burgundy Canal. But also, it was one of two of my pastel paintings that were accepted by the Bath Society of Artists for their Summer Exhibition a few years ago, as a non-member entry.

That was quite a big event for me! When the anxiously awaited postcard dropped through my letter-box, informing me whether or not my paintings had been accepted, I was totally mystified because it just had 'RESERVED' stamped across it. Having no idea whether this meant that my work had been accepted or whether it was on some sort of 'reserve' list, I phoned a friend in the Bath area to see whether he had any idea what it meant. Like me, he thought it might possibly mean that it had been accepted but didn't want me to 'count my chickens...' so I plucked up my courage and phoned the gallery, who confirmed that my paintings had indeed both been accepted. So, that is a painting I have hanging where I frequently walk past it to restore my confidence in the inevitable moments of self-doubt. However, as a greeting card, or a print, I am more than willing to part with it and it can be bought through Red Bubble.

I have also painted flowers from my garden in oil pastels and made them into greeting cards -

 

and in watercolours - 

This is my latest floral design -

 

I didn't have any hyacinths for reference so I painted it this week from memory as I'm very fond of them and grow them in pots for indoors, in spite of the fact that I seem to be sensitive to them - my favourites, the white ones, actually give me a headache and make my glands swell!

On Zazzle, my flowers have graced mugs, aprons, mousepads, bags and more! Compliments keep appearing on my store wall and products featuring my flower paintings seem to be popular amongst other artists. As I mentioned, my screenprinted Sweet Pea bookmark won a Today's Best Award. But so far not one of my floral designs has been sold. I'm beginning to think that the reason may not be so much to do with my 'products' as with the fact that I am getting relatively few visits to my 'store'. A few days ago I discovered how to make my store statistics visible and learned that my daily total of visits is generally in single figures, whereas other stores clock up double and treble figures daily. Judging by the number of comments and messages on my store walls, I would imagine that most of the visits I do get are from other artists or store owners, rather than from potential customers.

I'm at a loss to know what to do about this! I blog, I update my facebook fanpage regularly and I've made a webpage of all the addresses of my online stores, complete with 'flash panels', to email to friends and other contacts. I also check the Zazzle forums daily so as not to miss any opportunity to have my products promoted on Squidoo Lenses and so on. I'm not sure what more I could do.

Maybe it's a question of being patient and giving it time?

On the other hand, I have just printed out 50 assorted St David's Day dragons for sale in my local newsagents.

 

(This is the painted-paper collage version).

I approached the newsagent because he seems like a particularly patriotic Welshman and his shop is one of the few places to buy bi-lingual Christmas Cards here in Abergavenny. He seems keen on art, as long as he can see what it's meant to be - he has nothing but derision for most of what's on display in our local art gallery, selling for thousands of pounds!  When I was exhibiting my soft pastel paintings a while back, he was very willing to display posters for my exhibitions and he once embarrassed me dreadfully by introducing me to a shop full of customers as 'Mrs Monet' - but that was a while back and I don't think he recognised me. But even if he does remember, I think it's a small price to pay for getting some of my cards sold here in the UK. It will be interesting to see how they go - whatever happens, the newsagent is happy. The warehouse he gets his cards from had plenty of St Patrick's Day cards but none for St David's Day. So me turning up out of the blue with my samples made his day!