Storm Passing

One day in the fall, late in the day, I looked out the window to see the western sun shining on the trees across the cul-de-sac, with the day's storm clouds moving off to the east. I used that light as inspiration for this pastel. The light on the trees is the only resemblance to what I see out the window! It's good to be back making art. As always, this version of this picture next to the words you're reading is muted; you'll get a better idea of the painting if you click on the picture and see the larger version.

Mad Dogs and Englishmen

Who wrote "only mad dogs and Englishmen go out in the noonday sun"? Anyway, that's what came to me as I did this painting. It's taken me weeks to do; these holidays sure do mess up our schedules, don't they? The photo was taken somewhere in Germany, I think, by my father in 1964. I love the light and the angle until, that is, I tried to draw it. I see a couple of things to finish, but basically it's done.

Feeding Grandpa

I finished this one today, after it has sat around with the drawing done for many days. It's from the same photo as a previous painting, only this one is a half-sheet and cropped while the other was a quarter-sheet and full length. It was a bit scary to start with the paint, but I'm happy with it now. I love Grandpa's hand in this one: it looks just like my father's hand (Grandpa is my father's father). I think this is finished, but as always, I invite critiques. And as always, you'll see better colors and more detail if you click on the picture for the larger version.

Sky

This little landscape was done for a monthly project of an email watercolor group to which I belong. It was inspired by a photo taken by Marci, also a member of the group, although it doesn't much resemble the photo. It's somewhat smaller than a quarter sheet.

Autumn Road

Another pastel. This is the same photograph that I used for the previous, blurry painting. The orange and lavender in the sunlight is really what attracted me to this photo. As usual, you'll see the colors better if you click on the picture here to see the larger version.

Two pastels

To make up for that leaf painting that took weeks, I did two pastels this morning. Both are from slides that my father took and that I have been scanning (all 6700 of them!). The autumn scene was done on a piece of red, flocked paper that another person in the studio had found in her old art supplies. If it looks out of focus that's because that's how it looks in person. The paper would only take the softest pastels and sharp lines were out of the question. It was fun to do, but the two of us who tried it recommended that no one buy more.

Catching Up

Well you haven't missed many paintings in the 6 weeks or so since I posted. About a month ago, Fran tripped over one of our dogs and broke her shoulder. As a result, she spent almost 2 weeks in the hospital and had a partial shoulder replacement (the knob on the top of the arm bone). We discovered that the closest hospital to us has improved greatly over the last dozen years or so and Fran got excellent care there, as well as from the ambulance guys who got her there! That means I've taken over all the cooking, as well as the other household tasks Fran usually does, and I haven't gotten much painting done.

I did paint this dogwood tree that grows on our back hill, and these canna leaves from a photo I took at Chanticleer, a local-ish garden where we were taking a plein air class. The leaves took me weeks . . . not my usual finish-in-one-sitting style of painting.

Whte Abstract

This is the same painting as August 23 and September 23! After living with it for a week, I decided to revise it yet again. This time I put white gesso over most of it, using a scrap of foam core for a spreader . . . sort of like icing a cake but messier and not nearly as sweet. I added some things, took away some things, threw some paint and generally made a mess and had fun. As always, critiques welcomed.

Birches

I started this pastel yesterday, too, and I'm really excited about it. It has an energy that I like. This needs more work yet than the low country painting, but I'm going to try my best to maintain the energy.

Low Country

I did this pastel yesterday from a photo I took in South Carolina. The marshes of the low country are beautiful with different colors practically every time I see them. I'm probably going to do a bit of this and that before I call it done, but it's close

New Work on Old Work

Today I worked on two paintings from my mixed media workshop in August (see the entry for August 23). If you go back and look, you can see what I did with the blue, gold and white painting. It really needed some darker values and to have some more solid places. The second one here, which I'm calling The Strip for now, was so bad that I only posted a teeny section of it in August. After I cut that section off, I had an almost square, very busy painting left. I covered large sections with black, letting the original mess show through where you see the color. Then I adjusted and added a bit, mostly the touches of blue.
I don't know if either is finished; who can know, when they're so abstact. Click on larger versions for the brighter colors and send me any critiques you feel like.
By the way, both of these paintings are the same height, I just can't get them to look that way here. 14" high

Catching Up

My goodness but it's been a long time since I posted. Not that I haven't been painting. I guess Life has just gotten in the way. I worked on this start from my mixed media workshop and I like it better, probably because it now has all three primary colors.

I also revisited the photo of the pastel, "Cheryl's Lake" that I posted on July 22. I did two more versions, one with acrylic paints and the other collaged with colored tissue paper. Neither is a masterpiece, but its a good exercise, I think, and makes me realize that the pastel is pretty dull looking. I'll work on that one the next time I put away the paints and get out the pastels. Here are the other 2. As usual, these will look brighter if you click on them for the larger versions.

Finally, I did these two which are called "Dreams" and "Dog Dreams." They were done as the result of a challenge to a small group I'm in. The challenge was to pick 2 colors which are complements to each other (opposite sides of the color wheel), add an earth tone, and paint anything using only those three colors. The colors I picked are a coral and peacock blue for the complements, and a gold for the earth tone. The image slowly formed in my head but it wasn't until I had it, as well as I could, on paper and looked at it for a while that I knew how to do it better. The first one has acrylic mat medium blotched on the paper before any paint . . . which didn't cover the medium. For the second, I used gesso for the texture. That takes watercolor, although differently from plain paper. I also planned the values better with a pencil value sketch.

Mixed Media Workshop

I just finished a week-long, mixed media workshop at our local art center. There were 6 of us the first 3 days and then only three of us the last two, plus the teacher (Nancy Barch), of course. Most of us had taken MM workshops from Nancy before and we had a great, if exhausting, time. Nancy did demos and critiques. We each had mounds and mounds of stuff . . . watercolors, acrylics, collage materials, pastels, various drawing implements, glue, scissors, thread, gesso, stuff to make texture such as bubble wrap, meshes, etc. Nancy scheduled this week just at the end of the art center's summer season so we had a room where we could each have a large table and could leave all our stuff spread out and ready to work. I have a few pieces which aren't anywhere near finished, but many that are close enough to share. The paintings are roughly in chronological order, although I often worked on 2 or 3 at a time so they had time to dry.

As usual, these are brighter if you click on a picture for the larger version. And also as usual, comments and critiques are invited.

Most of the paintings are on half sheets (about 14" x 20"). The more square painting is a small part of a larger, definitely unsuccessful, painting and is probably more or less 8" square. The final one, with the dog pictures collaged on, was originally painted on a full sheet but is cropped all around.

Peonies

I love the red stems 'n stuff on these white peonies. The painting is a combination of two photos.

waterfall

I have had a photo cropped from a larger one which is of one of the creeks that abound in our area. This crop just shows the water falling over a rock, making a "waterfall" perhaps a foot high. This makes a good abstract shape and I've been working on painting it over the last week. Here's the photo:



First, I painted the picture in watercolor, quickly so as to stay loose. I knew watercolor wasn't the best medium for this project, and I tried anyway. I was right. I don't much like this painting, although when I just looked at it small (it's 10" x 14," a quarter sheet) it didn't seem so bad.



Today I did what I've wanted to do all along, and painted it in pastels. A much better medium for painting the value shifts and blends that are in this photo, and I didn't have to save any whites. I've changed it from the photo, something easier to do with pastels because when I don't like something I can go back and change it easily.


So here's my final waterfall painting, the same size as the watercolor version.