Amdall Gallery

One of the painting highlights of 2024 for me was getting to participate in the Postcard Art Exhibit (PAE). It’s a charity event that is hosted in different locations, and the one last year was fairly close to me in McKinney, Texas benefiting the Millhouse Foundation. I don’t have much experience with art shows, but this was a ton of fun and I’m really glad I got to do it. Basically, an artist can enter a piece for free and the sales go to charity, with the restriction that it’s a postcard sized artwork in any medium. I submitted a small portrait of a woman looking to the side, which I thought turned out fairly well.

My family and I attended the gallery opening, which consisted of a pre-sale for VIPs who paid for early access, some speeches by the organizer, and then the public portion. To my great surprise, my portrait actually sold in the pre-sale! By the time we got in there and saw the display, my painting had a sticker on it already (which I someone had to tell me meant it sold). The event was so much fun – it made me feel more like a “real” artist, getting to participate in something like this. Even though the next one is in the Netherlands and I couldn’t physically attend, I will probably still submit a painting. And I want to participate in another show somewhere if I can this year.

Another really cool part of this – one of the board members actually selected this piece as one of his “Board Member Choices” for the exhibit, which resulted in a page in their catalog. According to their social media post, each year the board chooses their top five and this was one of David Sandum’s selections. This was really an honor and I’m appreciative for the opportunity to participate, the interest in the piece, and for the kind words written by PAE.

Here’s what the PAE/Millhouse Foundation said about this painting in their catalog write-up:

“The best works of art are a dialogue, triggering emotion. This beautiful card does just that. It is a quick glance, a capture of time. The woman is on the move, looking away from us. There is a sense of being lost, or in need of help, but also of wanting to manage alone. It is beautifully painted. The artist is a master of his palette, highlights and shades.”

This piece was painted on 5 X 7 oil paper and was my 207th overall. I’ll follow my standard format here, which is to share an image of the painting, the Instagram time lapse, and some verbiage specific to the piece. Then, I’ll embed the YouTube discussion video, including another brief writeup on the topic, materials used, and some other hopefully useful information. I’ll wrap the post up by sharing the YT Shorts time lapse and some other similar painting videos.

In this embedded discussion video, I discuss some of my background when it comes to art shows…which is actually just one previous that was quite a few years ago now. The video also covers some details on the PAE show itself, and the two paintings I made for the show, only one of which I submitted. I can’t remember if I covered it in the video or not, but I would say the only thing I was a bit disappointed about is that I didn’t get to meet the person who purchased my painting. I saw several other artists meeting the folks who bought their art, and I think that would have been pretty fun and interesting. But that’s a small matter – overall, this was such a great experience.

Anyhow, here are some additional details of the video I shared on YouTube, including materials used and some other information. The video discussion I’ve embedded is about 6 minutes, and is similar to some of the others I’ve done (also linked after the timestamps).