Bartlett

Bartlett   watercolor   12.5 x 9

It has been said that many artists like to paint pears as they are reminiscent of the female form.  Plus, to me, they are interesting.  In this case, I had a preconceived notion of the work.... a simple warm dominant work in an analogous color palette.  The cool greenish color was used as a dark tone.  It really did thrill me when applied.  Overall, while I like this work, I miss the drama of a wider range of value.

Art for Art's Sake

Zinnia   oil/canvas   24 x 8

I greatly admire the work of Oscar Wilde.  If I could choose a dinner guest, he certainly would be at the top.  What a wit!

  His brain seems to go to quirky and ultra observant places.  His leanings were toward art for art's sake...each work being unto its self.  I guess that is where my leanings are as well.

Leftover painted over canvas+

Late in the season sole tall zinnia in a pot of shorter companion+

Desire to play...to put something into the given space=

Art for art's sake.

A zinnia memorialized.

Fun quote from Oscar Wilde via the J. Peterman catalogue:

Rugby is a good occasion for keeping thirty bullies far from the center of the city.

"S"

"S"   oil/canvas   16 x 12 x .5

is an young, yet established artist who participated in my class. She has an interesting beauty and a confidence in her work and in her person that radiates.

I really like my painting of S. and I do not know exactly why as it is a bit distanced from my usual.  My usual is a smoother and more blended face and hair.  In this case, I chose not to eliminate bits of untouched accidental texture throughout the face and hair.  Why?  Not sure.  But I have trusted my instinctual approach for so long that I am not going to turn away now.  Maybe I am still pushing the envelope?  

A Moment Presents Itself

Removed (E)   oil/canvas   14 x 11 x .5

 Seeing a figurative gesture that sparks my interest is a rare moment.  Arranged figures during life drawing sessions often appear strained and stiff....the pose that the model assumes while on a break is the one that pleases me.

In this case, the young boy plops himself onto the ground for some listening pleasure.  This pose was oh-so-very-difficult in its pretzel-like configuration. It really does play havoc with the elongated nature of the human body that seems to please us so much!  And It was so so very difficult.  The curved spine area behind the head was in and out, in and out...any attempts at a hard line ruined the illusion.  The darkness of the hair needed to be balance with the somewhat dark horizontal line behind the figure....at least that was my solution.

I am pleased....and it came at a cost.

Radishes

 

Radishes   oil/canvas14 x 11

Gotta say....I loved making this painting.  Painting vegetables and fruits gives me the opportunity to paint more freely, weaving darks and lights throughout nature's bounty and chaos.  (After all, there are no likenesses involved).  Cooking has been such a large part of my life (often larger than wished for).  Opportunities to cook creatively in a novel manner abound.  I also relish the opportunity to grant animation and liveliness to that which nourishes.

OK.  So I love painting radishes.  But what have I always done afterwards?  Usually a few have been sliced oh-so-thinly to toss in salads.  The remainder was pitched when they became mush.  Sad.  This time, I decided to think outside of my cooking box....they were roasted with a couple of simple ingredients.  They were unbelievable!  

Try painting radishes.....and try eating them as well!

Sand + Water

S and K   oil on canvas   30 x 40 x 1.4

 Spending a week at the shore with dear ones alters one's perspective!  Beach life is indeed a bit of altered reality.  People play with reckless abandon...sand filters into your swimwear, your hair and your ears.  Castles are created and then abandoned to the tide....creativity and energy and time spent with the realization that nothing built is permanent.  Waves surfed send you speedily to the shore.  Heavier waves send you tumbling as you recognize the greater, much greater, power of the sea.  Marine life is appreciated without being caged.  Imperfect shells are collected as treasures.  Momentary sunsets grace our lives.  It mirrors a wabi sabi existence:  

Nothing lasts

Nothing is finished

Nothing is perfect

Wow....heavy duty.  I am hoping that this notion filters into me and into my forthcoming work.

Saying Goodbye

 

Luther   watercolor   13 x 9.5

Eleanor...a sketch 

Within the past year, both my mother-in-law 
Eleanor and my father-in-law Lu have passed away.  She was 94; he 97.  All of my memories of them are activated by the many sketches made of them over the years at our visits.  "Luther" (right), is a recent watercolor done from a sketch made a decade earlier.  

I love my sketchbook diaries as they represent me to the fullest:  the searching; the finding; the visits; the moods and a bit of experimentation.  

Bill B.

 

Bill B.   oil/canvas   14 x 11

This is an oil portrait of Bill B. done as a demonstration for the Hudson Society of Artists.

Painting done as a demonstration for a group comes with its inherent issues:  no preparation; poor lighting; the inevitable turning of the body during the pose; and, most importantly, for me, is my nervousness.  It is difficult to paint and talk at the same time.  Keeping the interest level high with several breaks weights heavily.

This is the result.  

Snow Mountain

Snow Mountain   oil/canvas   16 x 20

 ...just three months ago

Hidden Symmetry - Another Lost Landmark (and the difference between a simile and metaphor)

Hidden Symmetry   oil/canvas   48 x 24 x 1.5

Oh-so-many years ago when passing down our main county road, I constantly marveled at this charming spire.  There were two on the rooftop of the dilapidated barn, one at each end.  I continually made mental notes to photograph them before gravity had its way.  

Eventually I did and two paintings resulted. From the time I was a child, certain objects had an animation to me...perhaps the result of too many Disney movies...Fantasia to be exact.  It is almost as if we are witness to the struggle of this spire's attempts at staying erect.  As time marches on, and being a woman of a certain age, I see myself in this struggle and view this architectural detail as a human version of myself.  Simile.

Both spires were removed weeks after photos were taken.  The spires remained on the ground for years, I believe.  They are no longer.

For inquiries about this work, please contact Hudson Fine Art and Framing.

FIRE!!!!!!!

Heartland   oil/canvas   30 x 48 x .5

Dussel farm's barn burned to the ground a week ago.  I was painting that afternoon in my studio.  Breaking my solitude was a rash of sirens that carried on for what seemed to be hours.  It wasn't until the next day that we realized their source.  We were saddened for the Dussel family and for our community, a township that was once rural and now being overtaken with housing developments and commercial properties.  I have painted this barn many times....this last one, "Heartland" makes it the focal point.  

I painted the beautiful rolling hills where Walmart now reigns.

I painted the spires on an aging barn....spires that were removed a few months later for safety reasons, I believe.

While viewing my own work in retrospect, I usually take note of how my process has evolved.  But an event like this brings to mind an historical viewpoint that I have never really consider....subjects of paintings that no longer exist...rolling hills, spires, people and, yes, barns.  Time marches on.

Heartland can be seen at Gallery C  in Raleigh.

Winter Rick

Winter Rick   oil/canvas   14 x 11 x .5

 There are many paintings of mon mari in my archives....and even more drawings.  I feel that I know his face better than my own.  I quickly snapped some photos of him as he descended the porch steps one wintry morning.  And this result is perhaps my favorite of him.  It is Rick through and through.  Everything sings of him:  the style of hat and how he wears it; his shallow cheek bones; the tilt of his glasses;  the cut of his beard; the style of his clothing.  As one would guess, the eye area was the most difficult to paint and the one carrying most of the weight of "likeness" in this pose.

So let it be a lesson to me, to you.  A successful portrait does not necessarily rely on two symmetrical eyes, a nose and a mouth.  Broad shapes tell the story as well.

Marketplace

Marketplace   oil/canvas   20 x 16 x .5

There are many facets of my life, too many really.  At the top of the list these days, I am a PAINTER and I am a COOK.  Sooo...the market is a place where, for me, visual pleasures preside.  The colors and textures are widely varied, and the imagined flavors boundless.  We are lucky to be exposed to so much variety these days!  

I am pleased with the way this painting turned out - four quadrants of varying textures and colors keep the chaos away.  For me, the metal shelving adds design relief.  Maybe it's just my secondary career calling, but I want to reach my hand right in!
 

Landscapes?

Freshly Shoveled Driveway   oil   11 x 14

Landscapes are my least favorite subjects, I'm afraid.  While I look out at the fresh environment, I am certainly taken with its beauty, but have no need whatsoever to replicate.  Interior::exterior.  Interiors, taken figuratively, are what move me.  

The artists in my classes always list landscape as one of their subject choices, so I comply.  In order to capture my interest, there simply must be a very personal reason to spend the effort.  In this case, a 22"  snowfall gave me just cause.  There were no snowplows for hire.  Two painting problems resulted.  Both were so very exciting.  One involved the play of the warm light against the cools of the shadows, temperatures, and the sky.  Cool dominant playing with warm.  the second involved the interesting topography of the lay of the snow:  harder vertical snowbanks and softer ones.  Shadows that helped to explain all of that.  Yes, I  feel tied into this picture.

And....I feel very very tired.

Patterning

Pot From Lebanon   oil/canvas   11 x 14 x .5

I love patterning and spent some time earlier on designing wrapping paper.  I love fabrics, and all paper products, a guilty pleasure when thinking about environmental waste and unnecessary spending.

And, for some reason, I am always stimulated when some of these patterned pieces end up in a painting.....one person's art being featured in another's.  What could be better than pairing a hard, smooth and shiny object with a backdrop of leafy pattern?

In this instance, an antique familial vintage pot from Lebanon County, PA and a wallpaper that has graced our bedroom wall for 35 years.,,it is quite humorous that, while I have changed just about everything in every room in the house, that wallpaper has remained.  Lessons learned and relearned:  study of the multitudinous whites on walls and surfaces, as well as the reflective qualities of the shiny black surface.

 

Doodle Do

Doodle Do   watercolor   20.5 x 12

Chickens and roosters are exciting creatures to paint and push me to recognize the intelligence of all living things.  Their presence recalls simpler earlier times....pastoral, if you will, where the chickens we experienced were not just presented in plastic wrap.  Simple.  Real.  Perhaps this is why there is a concurrent movement of free-range poultry to suburban and city lots where collecting your own fresh eggs is desirable.  

What's not to like?

Up The Street

Up The Street   watercolor   12 x 20

When I was a kid, we lived on a road with many many post-war Cape Cod style houses.  Many houses.  Many kids.  Telling your mom that you were going "up the street" was acceptable, and even encouraged.  Up the street has a different significance now...up the street is a ways away...and the houses are all different...

...which has nothing at all to do with my difficulties in achieving a good house painting....one where the strong two-point perspective lines take over the painting, subduing the creativity.  In this watercolor, I tried not to be so very precious, so very perfect, giving in to the funky wabi sabi feel of this old house.  Porch is crooked.  Windows on a tilt.  I found myself trying to quiet my notion of right-on draftspersonship.  For the most part, I am pleased....and it does carry the feel of an autumn day in the country....which was my goal.

...
 

Finery

Finery   oil/canvas   18 x 18 x 1.5

Group gestures are among my favorite subjects to paint.  I love the multitudinous relationships and the spaces and counter spaces that provide visual rhythm and excitement!

This painting was conceived by an old family photo of 5 sisters (of 9) that was for years displayed on a shelf at the home of my husband's parents.....it had always caught my eye.

I am assuming that this particular photo was from a wedding photo and guessing that the bride was Aunt Bella, who is in the middle wearing white.  Hats were a fashion necessity.  

Destroying is part of my artistic process.  I have the feeling that, in wiping about passages, including faces, results in a bigger picture where the individual likenesses are less important than the overall feeling of the group.  I happen to love this work.  It was exciting to paint. In addition, it was worked on a square canvas, which I have always found to be difficult.

I will challenge myself to paint in a square format more often!

 

Un certain je ne sais quoi

Apple Series   watercolor   14 x 10

Painting is an unrelenting task of constant decision-making...for me a combination of honoring the subject, great design and my own personal aesthetic.  The more freedom you yearn for, the more difficult the task, I think.  Sometimes, the parts are all individually accomplished as best as you can, yet the results do not move or stimulate as intended.

In this case the composition,  of two apples in varying degrees of slice, makes my heart sing.  This is how I want to paint....it has everything that I try to express in terms of paint quality.

It has that rare quality of a certain je ne sais quoi....a certain something.