The Glade

This is from another photo I took during that loooongg bike ride last summer along the Greenbrier River in West Virginia (22 miles). When we came to this place, we were close to the finish point and we were utterly exhausted and one person was crabby (that would be me). Still, the beauty of this particular spot along the river drove cranky thoughts from my mind for more than a few minutes. It was like a place in one of my favorite but rare dreams - a forest with places of lush green lawn where I wander around in delight. Some people have dreams where they fly, not me, except once, and it was in a place like this. I took lots of photos but they can't capture the alive but calm greens and deep quietness.

This painting is the largest I've ever done: 24 x 36 inches. Took a lot of sap green and ultramarine blue, my favorite pigments for mixing my base green. I add alizarin for the darkest areas, and various yellows (lemon, cadmium, and indian) for the different warm greens. A touch of white either lightens a hue to a lovely cool bright highlight on leaves or else neutralizes some hues to dull grays which are necessary to bring out more intense color. Still, working within this color range is challenging to keep it interesting. I hope I succeeded for the viewer. For me, this painting takes me back.

Michigan Dune

Somewhat of a prosaic title, but to me, dunes in Michigan seem a strange idea, although I think Michigan does have the most coastline of any state in the union. The lakes surrounding this state are a gorgeous turquoise blue and trees grow quite close to all of them. We spent some time on a peninsula where cherry orchards and vinyards flowed over gentle hills right down to the sand and water. Absolutely beautiful!


This scene is at a park. I have not painted Lake Superior which is only a few yards from the right edge, but I concentrated on the looming trees that are starting to cast a shadow on the sand dune.

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.

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.

breath of heaven

Painting Number 3, of some bushes in a yard at a bed and breakfast that we stayed at in West Virginia, named Breath of Heaven. A humble sort of house, built in 2001, not at all the Victorian or stately homes that are usually turned into bed and breakfasts! It's in a rural neighborhood of other homes like it, and I was disappointed the first time we went there. But, notice I said "first"! The innkeepers became friends and we've been back there a second time, with another couple. I intend to repeat the visit often. This image is early morning - the mist is diffusing the light, the colors are cool.

Blue Ridge

This is painting Number 2, done on a 4 x 6 inch board with palette knife. I'm very pleased with how the mountain ridge captures light. Thanks for visiting my blog!

4 paintings a day!

A year or so ago it was an internet sensation to post a painting a day on various art sites. This activity promoted a following among buyers. So far I'm not selling anything online from this blog, but I liked the idea of trying to paint more often and keep to the challenge of a painting every few days, at least. Yesterday I made up for some lost time and painted four paintings. Granted, they are small, only 4 x 6 inches, but I had fun churning them out.

Here is painting Number 1, I call it American Field, as I forget where in the USA this image came from - West Virginia? Virginia? Ohio? Michigan? Somewhere I snapped the photo on our travels in the past few weeks. There is no specific area of "interest"; I enjoyed swooping on the oil paint with the palette knife and playing with the colors: white mixed with sap green, cadmium yellow light, ultramarine blue, and cadmium red medium. There is some alizarin crimson mixed into the darks as well. My composition is bands of color across the horizon to suggest sky, treeline, and field grounds. The other three paintings are soon to be posted, be sure to check back soon.

the bike path

Again, West Virginia, a few weeks ago when we biked along a path that took us eventually to a wonderful mountain laurel forest. Several weeks later, I was at the Portland, Maine Museum of Art looking at a show of New England painters. Two paintings featured mountain laurel! There are no laurel in this painting, but the path is pink. Paths repeat in my landscapes - it's an easy way to lead the viewer into the painting and it's a common theme of walking along life's pathways. Now that I've said this in writing, I may finally stop painting obvious paths. Still, I jog along them, I hike and bike along them, I meditate upon them, I look for the way at all times.

on the Greenbrier Trail

OK, here is the painting, step 2. It may be finished, I may tweak it some more.

Yesterday, I wanted to work on this, but did not have any ultramarine blue or cadmium yellow light. Goldilocks came to mind when I first went to the hobby shop in town where I can purchase relatively cheap oil paint - they were closed. On to the "real" art supply store in the historic district where I nearly fainted at the price on the tubes: ultramarine blue - $14.50, cadmium yellow pale - $34.50! I wanted something in between, the price just right.

Came home and dug around in my squirrel pile of old tubes and found nearly squeezed out tubes of both colors. Enough to finish the painting! God provides.

in progress

I thought I would post a painting in progress today. I started this yesterday - palette knife as tool, old painting underneath. I am using up old canvases to save money, in the spirit of the economic times as well as to keep them out of landfills. The downside to using old paintings is that the texture of old work shows under smooth thin paint. At the moment there is a definite ridge line from the previous horizon. Sometimes I wonder whether to add thicker paint to cover up the "blemish" or just leave it as evidence of change.

Also, some of the color peeking through I will leave. Another reason I like recycling old paintings - I take advantage of the color surprises!

This is a scene from a biking trip we took a few weeks ago in West Virginia, along the beginnings of the Greenbrier River.

Sunset St. Michaels

I took a photo of this scene while biking around a neighborhood in St. Michaels, Maryland. So many scenic views of the bay and boats, but I loved the light pouring over the field and past the trees near a golf course. I used a palette knife over a canvas that had been "texturized" with a previous painting. I continued the texture with lots of thick paint. The canvas is now somewhat heavy! It may not last 100 years without cracking, but I enjoy looking at the play of color, knowing that the light really was that bright on that late afternoon.

Arizona Moon

New painting! I surely wish to live someday in Arizona. I love the landscapes there. Yes, I love my green Virginia hills and valleys, but there is something about the desert that makes me want to settle down there and just paint, paint, paint, hike a bit, paint, and drink a margarita in the late afternoon.

I added a little crescent moon to this image that I shot from a car, while we were driving to Yuma.

still tweaking

This is our front field. The painting is large, for me, 24 x 36 inches, and I wanted to straddle the line between realism - yes, you know these are trees and grass and shadows - and abstraction, playing with patches of color, letting the viewer stay with it as a painting on canvas. It's about the paint and texture and color interplay, more than an image of the fields and trees. Where should I make a stand? Hyper-realism is amazing when it's done well, but with photos as an option, I don't want to go there. I suppose Diebenkorn and Kahn and Avery are my influences - they start with real world places and images and then have fun with the paint and geometry of the rectangle plain.

When I start musing along these paths, I come up against the question of why paint in the first place. My kids do amazing things with computer programs and video. If I were thirty years younger I wouldn't paint, I don't think - I'd be doing what they're doing. Ah well.

This painting isn't finished. I want to work on the mid-field, the light area. It's too horizontal right now; it needs some vertical strokes, and maybe some striation of color to break it up visually. Maybe the design process is still valid, even though oil paints are so previous millenium.

Bradfords' Spring

I took a photo of these trees in April and I can't remember whether it was early morning or late afternoon! I'm geographically challenged, as my husband will confirm. But the light really made these colors in the digital shot, and I played with them in the painting. This was done with a palette knife, no brushwork.

Bradford Pear Pair

Oil painting done with palette knife of the bradford pear trees flanking our driveway.