Polish Pottery

Polish Pottery   watercolor   9 x 19

is powerful, eye-catching and comforting in a folksy kind of way.  Each piece is individual, allowing the user to know which cup is his.  It is also full, full, full of detail.  What was I thinking?  A complete battle was waged within me as I worked.  For me, the overall shapes and rhythms are far more important than the detail.  But, isn't Polish pottery all about the detail?  To and Fro.  Push and Pull.  Again and Again.  This is my final answer.

I need some coffee.

Hydrangea Blooms

Hydrangea Blooms   Watercolor   13 x 10

is a painting that equaled the preconceived image in my mind.  That rarely happens, as I usually don't have such a clear image of my goal....I am a wanderer, I'm afraid.  Each autumn, I clip a few of these papery spent blooms for my front door wreath....they are so very beautiful.....they make my heart sing.  I planned to oppose these light papery things with a hard glass jar....polar opposite textures.  Two sessions were spent in painting the image monochromatically with raw umber.  My new tube of this hue is by Daniel Smith.  I have found it to be more brown than the  more yellowy hue by Winsor and Newton that had been on my palette for years.  Whites were held for most of the progress....more than you see here.  The last session was spent in glazing and dropping color onto the forms....lightly, very very lightly.  On the blooms, the color was absorbed off after a few minutes with a paper towel.  The pattern of the darkest darks was laid in last of all, including the small pockets of dark within the blooms.  The painting was then fine-tuned to my liking.  I am pleased.

Sketchbook Skeleton

Skeleton from sketchbook

I rediscovered this sketch while searching for an empty page to work on.  I have many many books.  Some have been destroyed.  But most maintain the status of a treasured classic on my shelf.  These books represent, to me, the realm of possibility...ideas carried through to painting; ideas discarded; tender drawings whose success was totally unexpected.  Even pages with a line or two, brought to a premature ending due to the temperament of the model, or my own impatient mood.  Either way, I love them. 

What would you retrieve from your home in the face of disaster?  For me...my loving mate....and then my sketchbooks.

They represent a playfulness, a lightness of spirit that easily evaporate when met with the rigors of the leap to paint. 

This drawing was done from a live(?) model.....a skeleton housed in the public school art classroom where I teach on Thursday evenings.

S. and C.

S. and C.   watercolor   7 x 5

is a small monochromatic work in watercolor done on a Strathmore watercolor card.  The card was given to our son S. as a wedding card.  He and his bride C. were married in  September in a remote location near Pisgah National Park in North Carolina.  Family and close friends stayed in cabins near a stream....we hiked, played ball and floated in the tubes in the days previous to the nuptials which were held on a sandy beach.  It was so very lovely!

I have made these cards for each of our sons...and I tend to diddle way too long on them...I guess in search of perfection.  Painting family members is always more restrictive, as they are so much more precious.  This time I chose to use only brown and am satisfied with the result.  The card was taped to the masonite support both to keep it flat and to create a border when complete.  The artists' tape these days is way too sticky.  I have been using painters' tape (the blue or the green kind) instead, and always rub the tape on my clothing to reduce its tack.  Even then, the nap on the paper is roughed up on its removal.  A slight burnishing with a bone folder can smooth it down again.

Congratulations S and C!