Busy Painting Year So Far

I’d like to thank Cyndi Papia for redoing my website. It has changed from .blog to .com and should load faster than before. The new address is JanetFrancoeurFineArt.com, so the only thing that changed was the last 3 letters. I love the clean look of it and how the blog posts are shown now.

Last fall I judged a wildlife show in Wilmington and then I was asked to judge the Wilmington Art Association spring show. But it wasn’t until January that they said, by the way, we have 3 panels for your artwork and a 12-foot wall at another gallery for your work. Yikes! I’ve been painting a lot of New Bern scenes lately so didn’t really have any appropriate work for Wilmington. On top of that I was invited to be the featured artist at Carolina Creations for April!

I did manage to snag a few pieces from Carolina Creations to take to Wilmington but also painted several new ones.

And now we have the New Bern Studio Tour coming up!

I hope you’ll stop by my studio at 1801 Rhem Ave. Carol Tokarski and I will be showing our work. I’ll have pottery, watercolors, oils, my Christmas cards, my CD calendar, and some of my prints. Carol with be showing her new oils.

It is free to the public, you don’t need a ticket other than to the reception at the Bank of the Arts the night before, but the tour itself is free. Here is a link to the brochure.

I’m trying to take photos of all the art work I do this year. It’s only April and I’ve already let some go that I didn’t get a photo of.

Close to the Palace on Pollock Street – oil – 18 x 24

Tiny Orchid painting – oil – 5 x 9”

First Presbyterian Church Yard – oil – 24 x 48 SOLD

Pemaquid Point Light – my favorite!

Christ Episcopal Church – oil – 18 x 18

I’ve probably painted 100 pieces of pottery this year.

I thought I’d do some rabbit pieces for Easter. The first time I painted a rabbit on a piece of pottery, it sold before I even got it put out. I thought it was a fluke. Well it wasn’t, people seem to love rabbits!

Looking Up!

For my show with Carol Tokarsi at the Bank of the Arts I decided to do a series called “Looking Up”. I have continued with that series.

Morning Sun – 11 x 14 – oil This was a scene from Upperville, Virginia (SOLD

I started seriously painting in oils in 2022. I still do ink drawings, watercolor paintings, paint on pottery, it just depends on the subject matter and what I am going to do with it. I thought painting in oils would be faster than watercolor, not true, at least for me. I guess I see these plein-air artists paint fast, maybe I’ll get there some day, I’m just not sure of myself yet!

This is my wall at Gallery Citrine in Wilmington. There are several paintings on this wall that were so new when I took them down there that I did not have time to take photos of! I love the chair in the painting above!

Artwork for the 2025 Historic Home Tour
Year 20 for me doing the artwork for the Home Tour!

Year 35 for a New Bern Christmas Card and Year 15? For my New Bern calendar!

Every year I do 12 New Bern paintings of some sort for my CD case calendar. This year instead of doing paintings of just buildings, I decided to paint some of the things around town you have to look closely to see. I did them in gouache this year. Sometimes I do them in oil, or watercolor, or on clay like this year’s Christmas card.

I used a limited palette for this orchid painting and let my drawing lines show through.

I will often do pottery pieces for weddings, usually depicting where the couple was married with their names and date of wedding. I think I’ve done 7 this year.