Tag Archives: shelly leitheiser

05/15/12

Art A Whirl

I’ll be at Art a Whirl this year!   My location is Fitness Crossroad, which is located at 2912 Pentagon Drive, St. Anthony mall, NE Minneapolis.  The painting above is a watercolor titled, “Little Mound Lake” and you can see it in person at Art A Whirl!  Below are additional details about Art A Whirl:

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Art-A-Whirl is the largest open-studio tour in the country. It’s a great opportunity to tour private artist studios and galleries, connect with the artists, and purchase original artwork.

Art-A-Whirl takes place annually in Northeast Minneapolis, the third weekend of May. This event is free and open to the public.
DATES and HOURS:

Friday, May 18th -  5:00-10:00 p.m.
Saturday,  May 19th -  Noon-8:00 p.m.
Sunday, May 20th -   Noon-5:00 p.m.
Tour more than 50 locations throughout Northeast Minneapolis, including studio buildings, art galleries, homes, storefronts, businesses, and restaurants.
Plan your visit with NEMAA’s Artist Directory and Guide, [there will be copies at Fitness Crossroad] which includes information about the NEMAA artists, a map of Northeast Minneapolis and the Art-A-Whirl locations, a dining guide, and more.

Continue reading “Art A Whirl” »

05/6/12

Whitney Center Show

12 pieces of my new and recent art work are now on display in the Sexton Gallery at the Whitney Center, 1527 Northway Dr., St. Cloud, Minnesota.  This show was installed on May 1st and is on exhibit through June 30th.  This work consists of 12 new and recent paintings in watercolor and acrylic collage, with fantasy, futuristic, and illustrative themes.  You can visit the Whitney Center from 8:00 am through 5:00 pm, M-F.  If you go:  The Sexton Gallery is past the reception area and to the left, around the corner by the piano.  Here are some photos from the shows. (Photos taken by Shelly L.)

My other current art show is currently at the Women’s Building in St. Paul, 550 Rice Street. It is a 2-person show featuring 18 of my paintings, sponsored by WARM.  Find out more at Leitworks — Events

Upcoming show: May 18, 19 and 20: Art A Whirl sponsored by NEMAA.org. I’ll be at Fitness Crossroad in the St. Anthony mall, which is an official AAW location — new this year.  Stop by and say hello!  This is a 3-day only event.

 

04/18/12

Kinetic Connections

This is the postcard for my two-person art show in St. Paul which is coming up very soon. The text below was written and sent out by WARM, the Women’s Art Resources of Minnesota. Reception is May 5th at the address below. It’s quite easy to find, and quite close to the Minnesota capital.  Which is why I invited Governor Dayton and the Lt. Governor also. In fact, his whole office is invited.   Actually, the entire state legislature is invited.  YOU are invited.

Image: (upper left) Shelly Leitheiser, Anniversary, Acrylic on canvas & (lower left) Sunset Woman, Acrylic on canvas; and
(upper right) Deborah Vander Eyk, Bird on the River Band, Mixed media & (lower right) Fall Colors, Watercolor.

Kinetic Connections: Shelly Leitheiser and Deborah Vander Eyk
Presented by Women’s Art Resources of Minnesota
and the Minnesota Women’s Building
550 Rice Street, Saint Paul, MN (map)
April 30 – June 8
Opening Reception: Saturday, May 5, 6:00 – 9:00pm

The artwork of two WARM artists from Greater Minnesota will be featured in the upcoming WARM exhibition at the Minnesota Women’s Building in Saint Paul. From Shelly Leithesier, who lives in Saint Cloud: “For me, art is about ideas and expressing those ideas. The purpose of what I do is to express a philosophy, an idea, an emotional moment, or something else that isn’t easily captured with words. I like to create things that others can relate to on some level and make it all visually interesting enough so that people want to see more.” From Deborah Vander Eyk, who lives in Sauk Rapids: “I have a tendency to create art forms using color, different textures and soft lines to convey feelings and thoughts. These images seem to speak to an audience at an unconscious level inducing more of an individual reaction. As an artist I continue to develop within these styles.”

To see Shelly’s artwork, visit her website. To see Deborah’s artwork, visit her website. If you’d like to share the opening reception event with your Facebook friends, here’s the WARM Facebook event page. To make an appointment to view the show outside of the opening reception hours, call 612-567-9276 or email info@thewarm.org.

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03/31/12

Variety of New Paintings

I’m finishing up paintings for the next month, then I’ll need a break just to try to sell some things. My inventory is building up to ridiculous levels! This is in progress:

Yes he'll be nude, but not entirely.


See below for ones that are finished.
Continue reading “Variety of New Paintings” »

02/19/12

Oil and Dolphins


This is called No Way Out… for Dolphins and other Living Things. (Sorry about the low image quality as I took this with my phone, despite the fact that I own some great cameras.). This painting is small, 10″ x 10″, and part of my Endangered series. Next up: Canadian Lynx, Orangutans, and Grey Wolves. This series does not limit itself to officially endangered animals either, as the dolphin is not currently endangered. I’m also working on endangered man and woman paintings because even though there are a lot of us (7 billion, in fact) we may be endangered at some not too distant future time, too.

02/18/12

2012 Exhibits

New exhibit information for 2012. There will be more!  But for now:

(this one is over) Current group show until February 29, 2012:  St. Cloud Hospital, “Rio On Pools”

This painting is a watercolor for the Central Minnesota Watercolor group and is titled “Rio On Pools”.  It is a painting of a natural rock and pool area in Belize, where I was lucky enough to spend the day in 2007. The pools are called Rio On Pools and are part of a long river system.  The day I was there they were also being used by the British Military for jungle training exercises!  Note the top of many of the trees are bare sticks. The area was undergoing a beetle infestation when I photographed the area and it was killing many of the trees. I don’t know if the infestation has been stopped but it is one environmental effect of climate change.

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WARM Show: Kinetic Connections

This is part of the WARM exhibition series. Kinetic Connections is the title. I originally called my portion of the show reclamation. It’s a word used for what coal companies do to mountains after blowing them up for coal. Essentially, they destroy the mountains and the natural ecosystem and when they are done they plant some grass and trees, making it an elevated golf course, essentially. It’s a word I like for other reasons though. The word reclamation is an empowering word of renewal when faced with, in this case, a lot of environmental devastation. Most of my paintings have to do with the effects of global warming and industrial effects on the environment. I will be exhibiting with another artist, who does mainly abstract watercolor paintings. The WARM exhibition is scheduled for April 30 through June 8th, 2012, in St. Paul at the WARM building. The address is: Women’s Art Resources of Minnesota @ the Women’s Building, 550 Rice St., St. Paul, MN 55103

 

01/26/12

New Projects and Drawing Tablet


I am working on this painting for a group show at a local hospital, and I’d say it’s about 1/2 done. It also looks far less dreary than this  (I took the photo with my phone). It is called Rio On Pools and is based on a photo I took of the Rio On Pools in central Belize, in 2007. The first time I went to Belize we looked for these pools and couldn’t find them, but two years later we looked harder and found this magical place — or at least I think that’s what happened. They did seem to appear out of nowhere.  (It might have been a sort of Brigadoon situation.)

I’m about to put the paints away and get out the pastels to finish it up. Meanwhile I’m working on my other series, especially the Endangered animals one.  I have a larger abstract watercolor that is nearly finished and it’s at the point where I need to decide what to do with it to finish it up.  I am also doing a lot of looking at other artwork. Where I live, there are no local galleries that show a wide variety of art so I need to look at galleries online as much as possible! Two magazines that I love with artwork I love to look at (and I subscribe to both of them) are Hi-Fructose and Blue Canvas, and I recommend all artists have a look at those excellent websites and publications.

I also recently bought a copy of Painter 12, a painting software program that I have wanted for a long time. Here’s a video about it.
Continue reading “New Projects and Drawing Tablet” »

01/25/12

Stating the Obvious

Every now and something on Facebook gets it right and is actually worth sharing on a real website. (My appreciation to the artist who produced this drawing, PearlEden on deviantart.com)

Sure, finding something of value on Facebook happens at least once a week, but this one is really a great reminder to the general public. Here’s the message: Artists work, they are not fooling around with a “hobby” left over from childhood. It’s real work to produce art, and it’s also something that most people can’t do, so it’s valuable. Because few people can do it, it’s actually more valuable than most work. Yet, most artists do not make much from their work.
Continue reading “Stating the Obvious” »

12/19/11

Pretty Much Done or in Progress

I have three art shows next year that are not part of art crawls so I have a lot of work to output in these next five months. I am not panicking yet but I probably will be doing just that in about two months.

Meanwhile, I am doing some small things just to have a few things to store and use if I need them (they are not necessarily what I’ll be putting in any show, but they very well may be used.)  The first is above, called “Solar, Duh” for now. I’m sure I’ll name it something better later. The second is below, and I’m calling it “Memories of Ice”.  It will have a companion canvas finished soon. They are both in 3D!  (But you don’t need the zany glasses to appreciate them).

This is 8″ x 8″.

The third is below that and has no proper title yet either, because my brain has already moved on and now I’m painting a steampunk spaceship in a purple sky. (And believe it or not, doing absolutely no drugs of any kind, except caffeine of course).  This is 8″ x 10″.

I don’t know if I’ll post again before this weekend because I’ve been lazy at blogging  lately.  I’ve been working on my new website called MN ART BUZZ and trying to design that with a look that is more exciting than the current one.  If you know of Minnesota artists who should be featured on it, let me know.  And I’ve been trying to get some of my paintings posted around on all the internet sites I exhibit on. This is frustratingly slow and requires me to have something to say about everything, and sometimes I have nothing to say about a painting at all, believe it or not. So I have to come up with some fascinating gibberish and that’s not always easy.

So anyway, if I do not write more before this weekend, Merry Christmas and happy holidays to all ! who stumble upon this blog.  May your 2012 be wonderful and happy and all of that.

12/7/11

Water Based Dreams


I’m painting more ocean scenes, mainly because I like them, and like a lot of northerners, I wish I lived by the ocean — somewhere in the south. Specifically though, I have always felt an affinity and connection to oceans. Here in Minnesota we are 100% land-locked, though we have a lot of lakes. Lakes are pretty, but they are not the sea. They are totally different, more like ponds compared to an ocean. The closest thing we have is Lake Superior, and that is 300 miles north of me. Every now and then I try to take a trip of some kind to visit the ocean, but it’s too expensive to do that every year.

These are smaller paintings. Rough Seas is 12″ x 12″ and Purple Seas is 8″ x 10″. Both are acrylic on canvas, and both are for sale. I will have them listed for sale on Fine Art America soon. I plan on starting a lot of small paintings this month, mostly having themes of sky, storms and night skies.

Purple Sea

Continue reading “Water Based Dreams” »

11/30/11

Planet Earth Art Exhibit

The local arts organization sponsored several themed juried art exhibits this year, and the last on the list is the Planet Earth exhibit. My painting “Erosion” (which you can see here) was juried into this show, which you can read more about in that previous post too.

Below are more photos from the exhibit.

I hope everyone in the central Minnesota area can make it to see this show. Studio C is in the lower level of the Paramount building, which is directly downtown near the Falcon Bank. You can’t miss it. It’s an unusually strong show, in my opinion, and not because of my painting but because of the other artwork in it. There are some very unique pieces and I’m very happy to see St. Cloud art shows branching out into accepting more mixed media and collage and unusual things in general.

11/26/11

Visit a Local Art Gallery for Small Business Saturday

You have probably heard of Small Business Saturday. It’s a day when people are promising to visit a real small business (not a Mega-Mart) and buy at least one thing in that small business. I would like to extend this to include small local art galleries. Not the big Mega-Galleries, but the small galleries where local artists (small business people) are displaying their work. Hint: they want you to buy it. I, and a lot of other good artists, am in two local art exhibits at the moment. One is called Planet Earth (pics of that one in the next post) and the other one is called the Wrap Up show, sponsored by the Great River Arts Association in Little Falls, Minnesota. These exhibits are good examples of small gallery shows that lots of artists depend on to show their work and hopefully, some day, if the stars all align properly, make some art sales. So when you are considering which small businesses to give your business on Saturday, and other days in the future, consider the small local art galleries. Visit them, and maybe even buy something.

Below is a good preview for you of just such a small gallery, this one in Little Falls at the downtown art gallery. This is part of the Wrap Up show and it will last through December, until January 5th. I have four paintings in this exhibit.