Cathy

Cathy   oil on canvas   12 x 9 x .5

is an amazing woman who posed for our class....and also the wife of one of the group artists.  She is and has been a teacher, a wife, a mother. an ardent supporter of her husband's work and a minister.  Her open and inquisitive nature provided a bond for me that allowed for a tender interpretation.  Before we painted, a genuine and positive observation was made by Sharon, another artist in the class.  Her observation:  Cathy is rosy.  That simple statement led my process.  Generalizations can be good...they take us away from the mass of detail before us and lead the way to the "gestalt".  After all, detail + detail = just more detail....and often too much.  I am grateful for Sharon's simple observation and also to have met this wonderful woman.

And....she reminded me of the inspirational book I read when my children were small about Alva Myrdal who postponed her career until later in life, after child-rearing responsibilities were somewhat lessened..  She was a Swedish sociologist and politician who won the Nobel Peace Prize in 1982. You go girls.

Brown....

Julie   conte crayon and pastel on toned paper   17.5 x 10

has always been my least favorite color.  This time of year, even though summer still reigns, we are seeing bits of the yellow and orange that precede the brown.  I think that I have been over-browned.  Our old farmhouse had exposed beams of brown.  All woodwork in the living area was painted brown, including wainscoting. It took us over 20 years to work up the courage to paint over all of the brown.  The lightness that exudes from the Scandinavian palette we selected has definitely put us all in better moods.

However.....there is one exception that keeps brown in my vocabulary.  Portraits that result from the use of the great variety of earthtones are among my favorites.  The warmth of these tones softens a face and warms the soul.  (Those same works rendering in black charcoal lack that warmth but make up for it, in my opinion, by their great power) Ochre.  Umber.  Sienna.  Yes.