forest for the trees

My husband and I stayed at a beautiful French Tudor mansion hotel on Mackinac Island in Michigan this summer. Down at the coast level of Mackinac Island are beautiful homes and tourist attractions, but if you hike or bike or take a horse drawn cab (no cars allowed on the island) up the hill, through the woods, and down some trails, you will come across this "home" once owned by a meat-packer industrialist.

This is a view of part of the front lawn, a wonderful grassy expanse with tall trees. I loved the way the sunlight made interesting striation patterns from the tree shadows. This was one of our best vacation trips ever and we hope to go back to this place again.

As for the painting - I did this quickly, in less than a day. It is a 10 x 10 inch canvas. Square formats can be difficult, and again, only 4 trees are featured (even number of objects are also tricky to handle). But I like this little painting and may not offer it for sale at my upcoming "show", the annual St. Nicholas Day sale at a local Episcopal Church. I will be showing my paintings there along with another painter, Jean Beckham. Email me for details if you are interested in attending!

Maine

My daughter and I were south of Portland last summer, driving around on a beautiful July day. I took a photo of this site as it seemed to evoke the feeling of the landscapes all around. I could spend all of July and August in Maine!

improvement?

Four Trees kept bothering me. The trees were realistic in color, the field was an abstraction, the painting was confused. I decided that the idea I started with was to go with color and shape; I wasn't interested in going back to depicting grass in the same manner as the trees. So, I worked a lighter color onto the trees to try to unify the painting. I lost the illusory effect (small as it was) of the leaves and now have something that is an idea of four trees in a field with the color changed to match what I want in my mind, not what I saw that day in the pasture.

I'm feeling my way here, with words on this blog and with paint on my palette. Landscapes that I see in the world are my starting point. The parts I keep in the composition and the colors I mix are an unconscious beginning of where I'm headed.

Close-up

I zoomed in on my painting "Four Trees" to show the palette knife work on the colors. I like the composition here better than the entire painting. If it was a work on paper, I'd cut it. We'll see. I might like this painting better as time goes by.

At Last

After a long break, I'm back to painting. I touched up this one, 18 x 24 inches, after looking at it for 6 weeks. "Too flat" was the consensus of my husband and son, so I added more color to the foreground, the trees, and then some more to the trees. There is no bright sunlight in this painting unless you consider the overhead sun on a cloudy day at noon which does flatten everything visually in a landscape. The elements become more important and I'm not sure about an even number of trees. But I was initially struck by the trees in a line on a field with a treeline behind them, and the color play of the shapes, especially the negative space of the field around, behind, and between the trees.

Next post: a close-up

morning has broken

This shot was taken during an early morning run in West Virginia, at the previously mentioned bed and breakfast, Breath of Heaven. It is still misty, but the sun is breaking through and warming the grass in places. I'm not sure I like painting buildings; I don't want to imitate Hopper. But I liked the sun hitting one face of the house and I liked the yellow green starting to appear in the grass while everything else was light and cool, both temperature and color.

exit

Fourth little painting - I got around to actually measuring them and they are 5 x 7 inches, not 4 x 6! This is another pathway, and an area of our farm that I've painted many times. I love these Bradford pear trees that flank the driveway entrance/exit.

I hope to get back to painting soon. My oldest is getting married in less than three weeks, it's fall planting time (perennials only now, I've given up on the idea of fall produce), and I start teaching my fall/winter art classes next week, and did I mention wedding?

Also - a bit about some websites I've listed: zma3d is my son's animation demo site, check out his cool animations along with the intricate and elaborate pen and ink anatomy drawings also on this site. He needs, imo, some close-up views of those drawings, hopefully you can see his masterful and controlled strokes in the images. Popup Studio is a blog that my younger daughter contributes to along with two other pop-up art designers. They all work for Robert Sabuda, who designs and constructs those amazing collector's pop-up books! I've listed his website as well - my daughter's hands are in many of the how-to photos.

Liz Saucier is my soon to be son-in-law's sister - her photography of children is the best I've seen. The other sites feature work of friends and acquaintances - be sure to visit! And thanks for visiting my little online gallery!