Happy New Year: What Does A Year Look Like in Color?

A detail from a color spectrum created at the website Year of Colour. The site took Melani Grube's Instagram posts throughout the year of 2018 and extracted the colors and responses to those colors to make this color representation.

  Happy New Year! Would you believe they make a way to look back at how you used color over the year?! That’s what the image above is showing: the colors I used in my posts to Instagram and Facebook in 2018 and how you reacted to those posts and colors. You can do this,…

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See All That Happened at the Open Studio Party

Website countdown to Melani Grube's Open Studio at zero days left!

Welcome to Dreamland! Thank you to all who made it to my Open Studio Party, “Welcome to Dreamland”. You made Dreamland a reality. I could not have imagined a more delightful Open Studio/Solo Show. Seeing all the artwork displayed on the wall together was amazing. I have never seen it together in a cohesive grouping…

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The Completed Painting: “Wild Horses”

A detail from A herd of wild horses stampedes its way in a circuitous route, bolting and bucking and prancing and looking back. Violets, blues and yellows featured.

  The big reveal of the completed painting of “Wild Horses”. I am happy to say that it was already accepted into a shoitw, the Art of the Horse Art Exhibit. Getting into shows and exhibits takes a lot of work. So, it’s always a win when your artwork is accepted. These horses appeared as…

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Illustrated Title Banner for the Painting, “Wild Horses”

A detail from Hand-lettered title for the painting, "Wild Horses", with illustration element of a horse head with flowing mane.

  Happy Sunday! I hope you are having a wild and wonderful time. “Wild Horses” is the title of my newest painting for which I have been sharing the work-in-progress pictures. Now, watch for my next post when I reveal the completed piece. What is your favorite thing to do on Sundays? Tell me about…

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Horse Protection Day

Detail from pen and ink illustration of a cantering horse, mane flowing, tail flying behind.

  Horse Protection Day is March 1st (I know I missed it by a couple months. I just found out about it.) It was founded by pet lifestyle expert and animal behaviorist Colleen Page to bring awareness to the plight of both wild horses and unwanted horses being auctioned to be slaughtered for their meat.…

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The Image Appears in This Work-In-Progress, “Wild Horses”

A detail from The first application of ink to reveal the image for the painting, "Wild Horses".

This is the third phase in creating my painting: applying ink to the paint spatter to define the image. It’s a tense, but satisfying part of the process. The problem is ink splats happen! And you never know when. But there’s still a ways to go before this painting is finished. See the evolution of…

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Preliminary Sketches for the Painting, “Wild Horses”

A detail from A preliminary pencil sketch for the "Wild Horses" painting, of running, wild horses, featuring one looking back.

These pencil drafts (see the second image below) are the second phase in the creation of my paintings. (You can see the paint spatter in the first phase here.) They’re messy and loose and far from refined. But the looser they are, the more they keep the spirit of the initial inspiration for the painting.…

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Using a Flat Lay to Explore the “Wild Horses” Painting

A detail from the flat lay exploration of associations we have with horses, through an assortment of objects: a horse shoe of good luck, the glove of English-style riding, the wildly beautiful horse on the book cover, the bow-tie of the proper gentry riding class, the red and white lariat, the silver cowboy, an arrowhead pointing to the Native American riding tradition, the archer-horse-man of the horoscope sign Sagittarius, and a mini celluloid pencil for scoring horse shows.

  Have you noticed all the different ways that horses touch our lives? When I started working on my “Wild Horses” painting, I  kept running into associations with horses. But I got worried when I started putting together a flat lay image to expand my ideas for the painting. I thought I didn’t own anything…

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Just In: A Solo Show!

Announcement of upcoming solos show for Melani Grube with details from a trio of her paintings: Afternoon, Revisited; Wild Horses: Horse Cantering.

  I’m so excited! I met with Tyler White, the manager at Pause Coffee in Fair Oaks, CA and he has invited me to collaborate with them and put on a solo show of my artwork. This is incredible because it will allow you to see the original pieces in person, which is a completely…

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