Hopeful

Hopeful   watercolor/pencil   16 x 10.5

Each Spring we anticipate the arrival of bluebirds who fill our box with a nest and small blue eggs.  They face many hazards:  late Spring freezing, parasites and house wren assassins who pierce their tiny eggs.  It becomes a real-life drama in our own back yard.  Will they fledge?  We are always HOPEFUL.

(The) Wood Pile

Wood Pile   oil on canvas   60 x 20 x 1.5

has been our best friend here in bitter-cold northeast Ohio this winter.  Throughout the late summer and autumn my husband carefully plans our "stash" and arranges it priority-wise by its seasoned past.  Large stashes of kindling are collected.  Because of our intimacy with our our wood, it became a lovely subject to me.  While, admittedly, painting stacks of things would probably be boring to some painters, I find the rhythms that abound and the individuality of the logs to be interesting and challenging.  "Wood Pile" is a slice of my life.  I offer it up.

African Daisies

African Daisies   oil on canvas   5.5 x 12 x 1.5

are the subject of this small painting.  Although flowers are not my usual subject matter, I do appreciate all they have to offer in terms of learning:  complexity, rhythm, intense as well as subtle hues, and those darned ellipses!  Most of my work requires much contemplation, much deliberation, and many changes.  These small florals offer a bit of a break in the seriousness...an opportunity to paint what is before me.  This arrangement is a small cropping from a large plant on our patio.  I also enjoyed a variance in the usual format.  My goal was to allow patterns of both darks and lights to weave through the work in a rhythmic way.  I am pleased...for now.  (Pleasure in painting, I'm afraid, is fleeting)

Rhythm of the Pine

Pine   watercolor   9.5 x 7

I have relented. We are painting landscapes in watercolor class. Most painters love them. I never have. When I first began painting in watercolor, the medium was fully represented by rustic barns, ramshackle buildings and marine settings. These subjects became kitsch-y to me. But....back by popular demand....landscapes! As a result, I have been studying trees. Lucky for me, my husband is a tree-hugger and we have vast quantities of tree photographs stored up. On "tree night" we painted a variety of trees. Each variety has its own posture, its own rhythm. Branch formation on a pine tree dances in a figure-8 formation. My six-year-old brain remembered only the color of the branches and the overall shape of the tree, an approximate triangle. I was happy to draw the conclusion......