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.

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.

Hollyhocks

In Michigan, the summer season is short, but the summer days are long. July and August flowers have extra sunlight each day and the hollyhocks there are enormous! I did this painting two years ago at a painting workshop. While I was working on it, another painter came by and loved this so much that she asked me to name my price and she'd pay it for the painting, right then and there. Flattering, and probably profitable!, but I liked this painting, too, and didn't want to part with it.

While we were on our trip to the Great Lakes State, we visited Macinac Island (pronounced Mackinaw). While biking around (there are no cars allowed there - only horses and bikes besides feet for transport) we stopped to buy fudge at a local hotel/gallery/fudge shop. The owner/artist had decorated each ceiling beam with quotes about art and life. Some I had read before, but one was new to me, although the thought was my own. In fact, after the workshop mentioned in the paragraph above, I drove home with a friend who had taken the poetry classes at the same time. We talked of all sorts of things that new friends do as well as about art, poetry, and religion (the workshop was sponsored by the Episcopal Church). I told her of my yearning for painting in eternity - she said she was SURE painting and writing and gardening would be work for us to do in the kingdom of heaven. Here is the quote, attributed to the painter Corot: I hope with all my heart that there will be painting in heaven.

And hollyhocks!

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.

blueberry land

Two weeks ago, my husband and I and another couple took several hikes in the Dolly Sods Wilderness Area of West Virginia. I am not fond of West Virginia - the mountains seem too looming and make me feel closed in, unless, of course, I'm on top of them :-). This plateau area is open and high, so it is a place I like to visit. The view here is coming up a trail from some bog-type areas near a river, through some blueberry fields, soon to arrive at a cluster of very large rocks that look over a valley. The wind is always blowing up there and if you go on a day in early October, let me warn you to take thick parkas and gloves and hats. This is tundra landscape and atmosphere!

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.

my three pears

I painted pears a lot when I studied at the Corcoran. A fellow student commented that my pears appeared to have human attributes by their relationships to each other as they leaned in or out in their grouping. I always think of my three kids when I look at this painting! This is one I don't think I would ever sell. My "model" was a photo by Priscilla Treacy.

the white pumpkin

I love this little pumpkin painting. It is for sale, but at a high price, as I don't want to see it go.

Bradford Pear Pair

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