In June 2004 when I did my first outdoor Art Festival after a 30 year gap since my debut at the Floral Park Art League shows, I bought a tent and some shoji screens to hang my work. What was I thinking? I wanted the booth to look classy so I didn’t want to use metal frames that I’d seen at other shows so I figured that I’d hang my paintings on the screens and … Continue reading →
As with all the other aspects of your booth design finding the perfect chair is extremely important. Much as you may not think so you need to have a very comfortable chair available for you to rest during the inevitable slow times in the booth at an Art Festival. My first chair in 2004 was the same one I had used at the beach and at softball games prior to exploring the world of Art … Continue reading →
Finding the right furniture for your Festival Show booth is not an easy task and for us it took quite a few twists and turns. Granted the work I’ve been showing over the last four years has also taking dramatic zigs and zags, I spent more money, time and energy trying to get my sales desk right. In 2004 when I started doing Art Show and Festivals, I bought some extremely cheap folding tables for … Continue reading →
Doing Art Festivals, whether they are indoor or outdoor, are quite grueling events. Basically what you are doing is building a moveable, temporary store. All the requirements for showing, selling and packaging your work are amplified since you must be able to set-up within an hour or two hour time frame in a temporary location. When you’re done you need to do the same in reverse and leave the location as you found it. You … Continue reading →
I really enjoy writing my blog. But I really enjoy making my Art. I also really enjoy gardening, family, friends, cooking, reading and studying. So where do I find the time to do it all? There is only so much time management you can do to be more and more efficient. Eventually you actually have to make choices of what your priorities are and eliminate tasks from your action item lists. Today the maintenance tank … Continue reading →
You would think that if you were given the gift of reinventing yourself into a career which would be more personally satisfying emotionally and without consideration of financial income, you would instantly jump into the deep end of the pool. Well, I’m here to tell you that it doesn’t work like that. When my new husband Dave, gave me the gift of reinventing myself at the age of 50 I felt overwhelmed. What I found … Continue reading →
Excerpt of Article posted in The Times of Northport Artist cultivates her livelihood like a garden By Arlene Gross June 13, 2007 | 02:39 PM Northport resident Mary Ahern is a successful artist who practices a unique technique she describes as. “Digital Mixed Media Painting”. But Ahern, who… (was) among the exhibitors at Arts in the Park in Northport July 8, (2007) was not born an artist. “I didn’t come to paint until I was … Continue reading →
During my freshman year in the York College, Fine Arts Program in 1975 I took a class in Two Dimensional Design. First we studied the rudiments of rhythm, and then we abstracted the underlying design elements of images. The third project was an introduction to color. We used acrylic paint to make color charts of both warm and cool gray scales. 2-D Design project exploring color It took a great deal of trial and error … Continue reading →
Having explored rhythm in the first classes in my two dimensional design class in my freshman year in college, we then moved on to visualizing abstraction. I had to find an advertising in a major magazine, select a portion of the image and analyze why the composition worked. Then I had to take a one-inch section of the ad and reproduce it in acrylic paint. 2-D Design painting in abstraction This first piece was from … Continue reading →
Among the first Art classes I took when I began my college art education at York College, CUNY in Queens NY was the study of two-dimensional design. I began this class in the fall semester, in September 1975. At the time I believed that Art school would teach me how to paint and draw but here I was cutting half inch pieces of cardboard and gluing them onto unlined 3×5 index cards. Two Dimensional Design … Continue reading →
Now that I make my living by creating Botanical Fine Art, image my surprise when I stumbled upon my first botanical drawings, dating from 1976. In an effort to document my classical art education I have gone to the attic to retrieve my early drawings and paintings along with the schoolwork I saved from the excellent Art Education curriculums I attended at York College and Queens College, (CUNY), City University of New York during the … Continue reading →
I actually enjoy drawing the folds in fabric more than drawing the nude figure. The anatomy of bone and muscle structure is so compelling in studying the nude but the intricacies of fabric on the figure adds another dimension of complexity. I love the pull of a belt on a waistline or the cinching of the fabric at the bend of an elbow or knee. Life drawing with clothed figure in pencil on newsprint paper … Continue reading →
