I’m just getting started!
Falala skelly xmas painting, 6×6″. ©Marie Marfia.
Ho ho ho skelly painting with santa hat in red, green, black and white. ©Marie Marfia.
Meet me under the mistletoe skelly painting by Marie Marfia. ©2018.
Still have to get some lights, too, but maybe Steve will let me use some of his. Here’s what he’s up to, the mad man.
What are you doing for Christmas decorations this year?
Get 25% Off all iterations of Skelly Dancer No. 8 now through Sunday, November 18, 2018. Especially with all this surprising snow, don’t you wish you were dancing on a beach somewhere?
Skelly Dancer No. 8, skeleton dancing on the beach, by Marie MarfiaThanks for following my blog!
Bona Lisa, 12×18″ pastel on paper. $600. Skeleton Mona Lisa by Marie Marfia
Who doesn’t love the Mona Lisa? But haven’t you wondered what she looks like under that enigmatic smile of hers? Inside, I bet she’s grinning from ear to ear!
She’s on sale this week in all her iterations–original, prints, cards–through Sunday, November 11, 2018. Go get yours!
Bone to be Wild, pastel painting of two skeletons riding a motorcycle on the beach.
On sale this week, “Bone to be Wild,” a special motorcycle skeleton couple that I did for Bike Week one year. Still one of my faves! On sale this week for 25% Off, including cards, prints and canvas wraps. Sale ends Sunday, October 28, 2018. Go get one!
The smoke cloud fading behind our house.
Summer’s gone now. The trees are starting to turn. I saw a pair of brilliantly colored trees, red and orange, on my way down to Grand Rapids to drop the skelly paintings off for ArtPrize Nine.
I’m sorry summer’s done but I’m enjoying the cool mornings for walking in the woods with my dogs and it’s nice having seasons again. Makes me think of football games, raking leaves and the smell of burning stuff in the air.
Last week one of the neighbors had such a big burn pile going that it made a fog over our entire back yard. The sun was low in the sky and it lit up the smoke, throwing the trees in silhouette.
Part of me was thinking, “I hope I don’t die as a result of all this toxic smoke in the air,” and the other part was thinking, “This is so cool looking!” I ran in to get my phone for a picture but by the time I came out again, most of the smoke had dissipated. I can still picture what it looked like, the branches all backlit and peeking through that huge cloud of smoke.
Frida Skelly with Monkeys, 12×18″ pastel on sanded paper.
You’ll be happy to know all seven Old (Dead) Masters paintings are officially delivered to the bitter end coffeehouse and by this time next week lots and lots of people will have a chance to see them up close and personal. I’m excited and nervous and feeling a lot of dread right now.
Kind of like I used to feel right before a particular fundraising auction in my previous life as a Rotarian. Back then I’d have nightmares about nobody showing up and then to add insult to injury, I’d get what I called my “Christmas Cold Sore” on the day of. It never failed.
My contact at the bitter end wasn’t there when I arrived but his father, Mike, was. Mike told me that when he and his son, John, first saw the skellies they knew right away they were perfect for their place.
“We’re on the fringe of ArtPrize so we appreciate art that’s also kind of out there,” he said. “We had another exhibitor a few years ago, and she had twelve pieces featuring the role of underwear during the course of a person’s life. It started out with diapers and it ended with them, too.”
I think I couldn’t have chosen a more perfect place to exhibit skeletons in, don’t you? Meantime, I keep feeling my lip for impending cold soreness. So far, so good.
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You can buy my art imprinted on all kinds of cool stuff in my Fine Art America Shop. You can purchase my original art on Daily Paint Works.
Whew! She’s done and I’m so glad. You ever have a project that you want to finish but you just can’t seem to move forward on it? That was me last week.
Finally, I sat down and wrote a short piece about a person named Marie who just got down to it and finished the painting she’d been wanting to finish. Then I decided to hold myself accountable by live streaming the process. And it worked! Something about having someone in the room watching me actually do the painting really motivated me to finish it.
So, I’m very happy to present my beautiful skelly in yellow for your viewing pleasure. See the guy in the back? He’s enjoying her, too.
High Skeller, 20×16″ pastel painting on gator board with pumice ground by Marie Marfia.
Here’s my Work in Progress pics.
And if you’d like to purchase my darling girl, you can do that in my shop. She’s all dressed up and ready to go! She’s also available as a 8×10″ print or a 5×7″ greeting card.
I am really enjoying the longer shifts (11am-6pm) fewer times per month there. I get at least two Saturdays off a month with the new schedule, so that’s great, plus I have more time to put a painting together while I’m working.
Yesterday I got most of the way through this little pin up skelly girl that will be part of the Skeleton Crew I’m bringing to Amelia Island Shrimp Festival this year, April 28-May1, 2016. I’m excited to have new art to show, and I have been busy planning on just how to offer it. I want to have 5-7 original paintings for sale (pin-up, seiner, shoveler, sorter, captain, ship with crew, cook, zombie shrimp), matted and framed prints of each painting that I will take orders for to ship after the show, and one print that I’ll give away at the end of the show. I may also offer cards of each painting, but I’m still deciding about that. It’s nice to have different price points but printing the inventory is a pain, since I do it myself, and it may also keep people from buying the prints instead, which is what I want to sell the most of.
This girl still needs a little more tweaking as well a title, though. I was thinking about “You’re the shrimp in my grits,” or something like that. Any ideas? Put them in the comments!
Madame X-Ray has a new home! Congratulations, Stephanie and James, on your newest acquisition to your skeleton art collection! It makes me happy that you loved Madame X-Ray so much that you just had to take her home with you! May she bring you joy.
I enjoyed talking with them about skeleton art and I’m excited about making plans for next year’s Day of the Dead Festival in St. Augustine, Florida. It’s gonna be great! Stephanie and James, hope to see you there!
For Madame X-Ray fans, please note. You can purchase a version printed on practically anything in my Fine Art America shop. Enjoy!
Sign up for my Bone Appetit newsletter! You’ll get regular updates about my latest work in the studio and insights into my process. Plus, get a free downloadable print just for signing up!
Sign up for my Marie Marfia Fine Art newsletter! You’ll get regular updates about my latest work in the studio plus insights into my process. Plus, get a free downloadable print just for signing up!
You can buy my art imprinted on all kinds of cool stuff in my Fine Art America Shop. You can purchase my original art on Daily Paint Works.
The Skelly Dance, WIP
Do you ever get to a point in a project when you just want to be finished? That’s where I am right now. But I know it’s not finished yet. So I’m going to set it aside for a while and figure out what’s bothering me about it and really be done when I say I’m done. I’m close, but there are still lots of parts of this that I’m not happy about. If I didn’t think I could fix them, I’d quit right now. But I can do this.
So you’ll be seeing this one again, but it might take a little while. Some things come clear after you let go of them for a bit. This feels like that sort of project.
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Want to see more? Sign up for Bone Appetit! and get the best of my blog every week, plus a printable card, just for joining my list!
