Lisa's artwork on the cover of the November East Bay Monthly!

The East Bay Monthly, a regional magazine "of commerce and culture", is renowned for its beautiful full-color covers featuring local artists' work, and I am very pleased to announce that my painting of The Plane Tree Allée at Sunset will be featured as their November 2012 cover image.  Published since 1970, The Monthly is the oldest independently owned East Bay publication. It has a distribution of over 80,000 copies throughout the Bay Area, and I am thrilled to become one of their long line of cover artists.

Copies are distributed at many bookstores, libraries, hotels, and restaurants at no charge, and you can find all of the drop points near you at the East Bay Monthly website under Circulation. Check out the Cover Archive page to see all of the amazing artwork they have featured on their covers over the years. Museum quality prints of all of these covers - including mine - can be ordered through the website too.

Here is the description in The Monthly of the image of The Plane Tree Allée:

The Plane Tree Allée at Sunset, Crab Cove, Alameda
(gouache on heavy rag paper)

Lisa Haderlie Baker, who lives and works in Alameda, has been a painter and illustrator for over 40 years. This painting is of a row of sycamores that extend along a path that used to be part of Neptune Beach in Alameda, a huge amusement park that had its heyday between the two world wars. Called the Coney Island of the West, it had public baths, dance halls, a huge saltwater swimming pool, and roller coasters.  Now all that is left of the rowdy Neptune Beach is this quiet path between the trees, and the view of the Bay…

Most of Lisa’s paintings are of quiet, mysterious  “secret” landscapes of the Bay Area, and especially of Alameda – old neighborhoods, quiet gardens and shorelines, often at sunset or twilight. Lisa’s work is in many private collections, and is also exhibited at ACCI Gallery in Berkeley, and at Vines Café and Gallery in Alameda. She has an extensive line of greeting cards printed from her paintings available at ACCI Gallery and Castle in the Air in Berkeley, and at Books Inc in Alameda, and regularly creates commissioned pieces.  See more of her work at her artist blog, manopanthea.blogspot.com, or contact her at manopanthea@yahoo.com

Open Studios and New Greeting Cards

  

The 2012 East Bay Open Studios, sponsored by ProArts the first two weekends of June, was a fun and successful event for me. I rented a space at the Jack London Square Pavilion in Oakland for both weekends, with 45 other artists in the same building, and it was a very lively venue, with lots of foot traffic all four days, and gorgeous weather helped too. I sold framed and unframed paintings, limited edition giclee prints on rag paper, inexpensive smaller prints, and many greeting cards. It was hard work, but definitely worth it, and there was never a dull moment. Having a space shared with lots of other talented artists - several of whom are friends - made it even more enjoyable.

Lisa Haderlie Baker in her space at East Bay Open Studios

So now I am introducing a brand new set of 22 greeting cards, which debuted at Open Studios, from my oil and gouache paintings! Many are of Alameda, where I live, but my subjects also include Stow Lake in San Francisco's Golden Gate Park, Monterey Bay, Mare Island, a painting I did of Exmoor in Southern England, and some of my favorite animals.  A few are reprints of my most popular cards that have sold out, but most are new images.  They are currently available at Books Inc and Red Wagon Collectables in Alameda, ACCI Gallery in Berkeley, and at other venues soon.  They have blank interiors for your personal message, are printed on 100% recycled stock, folding to 4.25" x 6", include white envelopes, and are individually wrapped in a protective clear sleeve.

The 22 images are all reproduced below:

Abandoned Airfield, Alameda

Approaching Storm

The Chinese Pavilion, Stow Lake

The Seawall, Crab Cove, Alameda

December Evening, Mare Island

Exmoor

From The Alameda Ferry

Full Moon Over Crab Cove

The Garden Gate

Monterey Bay from Carmel Hill

Odd Goose Out: A Snow Among the Canadas

Ohlone Oaks

The Ready Reserve Ships at the Alameda Navy Piers

Study of a Beurre Hardy Pear

Study in Black and Fawn: The Artist's Pug

The Palms

The Oak at the End of the Road

Vallejo Ferry from Mare Island

Woodland Reverie

Belinda, The Red Hen

The Freshwater Lagoons at Crab Cove

The Plane Tree Allee

LISA at EAST BAY OPEN STUDIOS in JUNE

   I’ve been working for several months now preparing for the huge upcoming Pro Arts East Bay Open Studios on the first two weekends in June! Since the beginning of the year I’ve been painting, framing, and photographing a lot of artwork, and designing a new set of greeting cards too. 

Open Studios will take place on two weekends,

Saturday and Sunday,

June 2-3 and June 9-10

from 11a.m. - 6 p.m. 

http://www.proartsgallery.org/

   I will be exhibiting for this event with a group of over 40 other participating artists in the Jack London Square Pavilion (formerly Barnes and Noble, 98 Broadway, Jack London Square). The variety of artwork that will be available at this one group studio space is impressive: painting, photography, sculpture, jewelry, mixed media, glass, and ceramics of all kinds.

   Over 400 artists will be participating all over the East Bay in Open Studios, and you can pick up a directory at the Pro Arts Gallery in Oakland and take a look at samples of all 400 artists’ work, with maps and more information.  Pro Arts also has a great online artist gallery at http://db.proartsgallery.org/ebosGallery_12.php

   You can view the art by last name, media, or city – and if you go to “Baker, Lisa Haderlie”, you can view 8 of the pieces I will be exhibiting, and get other pertinent information about me and the other artists participating in Open Studios.

   Below find a few of my images that you can expect to see at my space in the Jack London Square Pavilion in June… I hope to see you there!

December Evening, Mare Island

Full Moon Over Crab Cove

The Plane Tree Allee at Sunset

East Bay Open Studios is produced by Pro Arts, an Oakland-based nonprofit that supports

the arts within communities by serving the ongoing needs of artists. Open Studios connects

the public with over 400 regional artists and is accompanied by the Directory of East Bay Arts.

More information and online gallery at www.proartsgallery.org

  

Lisa's Line of Greeting Cards at Red Wagon Collectibles

The greeting cards I have designed based on my paintings are in many stores in the East Bay, but one of my favorite venues is in Alameda, at Red Wagon Collectibles (1553 Webster Street at Lincoln Avenue). Red Wagon is a charming and cozy antique and collectibles shop, totally at home in a handsome 19th-century storefront. The owners Calvin Hao and Arvi Dorsey are friendly, funny, and knowledgable, and they sell a fascinating selection of vintage items and also display artwork by local artists with an Alameda focus.  Hence my greeting cards!  I want to mention their store in particular for the wonderful card rack, shown below, where they display my artwork.  I've discovered over years of selling cards, that the key to success is good, noticeable placement, and this antique card stand is a doozy.  According to Calvin it's cobbled together from an old storage unit with drawers, and a 1950's hand-painted advertizing sign specifically for greeting cards. It all reads as one unit, it displays my cards beautifully, and it makes me smile every time I see it... go in and take a look.

  

New Line of Greeting and Holiday Cards from Lisa

In the past few months, I have been working on a new line of greeting cards to add to the twenty one cards I designed last winter, some of which have sold out and had to be reprinted. This time I have eleven new cards, making a total of 32 images to choose from.  Included in this latest set are several cards with winter and seasonal motifs.  Most are landscapes and streetscapes, some include animals, and some are flights of fancy inspired by old children's book illustrations.  They are 4.25 x 6" and are blank inside, for you to write your own personal greeting. All of the greeting cards are printed on 100% recycled stock, with high quality envelopes and clear protective sleeves. They are available at Books Inc., Vines Cafe and Gallery, Red Wagon Collectables and the Alameda Natural Grocery in Alameda, and also at The Framer's Workshop on Channing, and Castle in the Air on Fourth Street, both in Berkeley. The greeting cards will be priced at $3.25 retail, but I will also accept mail orders with an additional charge for shipping.

Be sure to see my post of December 25, 2010 for all of the images from my first set of cards
(most are still available, some in limited quantities).

These are the images of my new line of greeting and holiday cards:

New Landscapes:

 Alameda Evening, Bungalows and Palms

September Sunset, Taylor Avenue

Island of Ghosts

Sunlit Courtyard

Winter Street

New Holiday and Seasonal Cards:

Christmas In Our Parlor

Early Spring

Christmas Cottage, Taylor Avenue

Winter Gifts

 The Eiger by Moonlight

Firelight Pug Dance

Lisa's Paintings at ACCI Gallery, Berkeley

I am very pleased to announce that this month I was juried into ACCI (Arts and Crafts Cooperative, Inc.) Gallery.  ACCI is a Berkeley landmark that has been on the corner of Lincoln Street and Shattuck Avenue for over fifty years, and is in the heart of the famous Berkeley Gourmet Ghetto.  It is also the oldest arts and crafts cooperative west of the Mississippi.  The handsome old brick building, formerly a French laundry, has been extensively renovated over the years to provide a spacious, well lighted space for displaying a wide range of high quality original art, including jewelry, ceramics, sculpture, textiles, glass, photography, and paintings.

I currently have eight framed gouache landscapes exhibited at ACCI: a selection of atmospheric scenes of the East Bay, San Francisco, and the Monterey Peninsula. My extensive line of greeting cards based on my paintings is also available at the gallery (see my December 2010 blog posting for all of the available images).

Below are some photos of the gallery and of my pieces there.  Visit the ACCI gallery website to look at all of the artists represented, and to learn more about current exhibitions and events. Please stop by ACCI Gallery to see my work and the huge selection of other fine arts and crafts on display.

The entrance to ACCI Gallery on Shattuck Avenue in Berkeley.

Lisa's landscapes at ACCI

More of Lisa's paintings, between a quilt and a bronze sculpture.

The small outdoor sculpture garden is in the background.

Lisa's paintings displayed above some of

the large selection of hand-crafted contemporary jewelry.

Fairytale Pugs by Firelight

I have just completed a commissioned painting for my friends Phil and Sue Lauer.  They have three pugs and a wonderful website at Pupstar Sonoma, featuring their adventures with their friends and their pugs.  Both Phil and Sue are terrific photographers and are also serious mushroom hunters in the northern California woods, as well as collectors of carnivorous plants like sundews and venus flytraps.  We decided on a fairytale scene for the painting, in a dark forest by firelight, with lots of mushrooms and a carnivorous plant or two! Their three pugs dance gleefully around the fire, surrounded by a fairy ring of mushrooms of many varieties, with an owl and a frog as the amazed audience.

One of the things I love about doing my pet portraits is including all of the crucial details that are important to the owners - setting the animals in real or symbolic landscapes, with special objects or toys, and concentrating on the personality of that particular pet - in this case three pugs in one picture!

Below find photos of the progress of the painting over the course of a couple of weeks, from the full-sized final sketch to the finished 12" x 17" completed work in gouache, titled Firelight Pug Dance: Blue, Roxy and Bono.

Pencil sketch, final size.

The sketch has been transferred to heavy rag watercolor paper,

 And the some of the outer details have been roughed in.

More detail and color - only the pugs

(the most challenging part of the painting, so I left them until last)

 are still in sketch form.

The fire now "glows" more effectively, 

and the mushrooms and carnivorous plants are taking shape.

Blue, Roxy and Bono start their dance!

The final painting on the easel, masking tape removed.

I've darkened the owl's wings and toned down the white smoke

with a pale purple wash to make the core of the fire the brightest

thing in the picture, and I've added shadows under the dancing pugs. 

Firelight Pug Dance: Blue, Roxy and Bono