Experimentation

There has been little consistency in my artwork lately, other than the presence of a figureand that I am doing it every day. I have been experimenting with abstracting the figure.  So far, I don’t think I have pushed the actual abstractness of the figure very far, just the backgrounds or the style of presenting the figure.  I worked really hard to create a consistency in my work and now, I am all over the place using different mediums and different styles.  And, I am having a lot of fun.  I am feeling confident enough to play around.  I was talking to some artists yesterday about how hard they work and how they are trying to convince the people around them that it isn’t a hobby, but serious work.  I get that.  We all want to be taken seriously in what we are trying to perfect.  But, even in the midst of hard work, it should be fun I think and I am currently at that place because I gave myself permission to see what I could do.  Anyway, there is no convincing others of the value of your work.  You just have to keep going out to the studio and do it.  There is no perfecting in creating artwork.  You can build skills if you work at it, but there is no final destination.  Doing it is the process of learning and learning should be fun I think.  I don’t think I will ever be “taken seriously” at least by my family.  Go Figure!

Self Portrait

This is me in a box.  Why am I in a box and why do I look so haggered?  Good questions.  When you stare into a mirror intensely to see what you look like, all the imperfections seem to show.  This is not an unhappy painting.  It is not like I want to hide in a box or anything.  However, I do have fond memories of making secret little play houses out of boxes as a kid.  Occasionally my mom would arrange to have a refrigerator box delivered for our creative pleasure.  Back then, those boxes seemed like a mansion and refrigerators were a lot smaller then they are now.  I wonder if I could get an appliance delivery person to drop one off at my house?  Sounds like a perfect grandkid activity.  A box for one of those double doored monstrosities would make a good duplex. I admit it, I am as goofy as this self portrait portrays.  Go Figure!

A Bit of Cold 11x14 acrylic

The last time I posted was last August, when it was very warm and all you had to wear was a swim suit and cover-up.  Today I drove through the worst blizzard conditions of this winter.  It was a complete white out and it occurred to me that my mission did not justify the risks I was taking to get to my destination.  All turned out well and I came home with a desire to reintroduce myself to the opportunities available through technology.  So, I am posting on my blog, intend to post on my art facebook page and, even do Instagram.  The thing about technology is that there is always a learning curve to get back track after taking a break. At least that is true for me, which is why I have taken so long to talk myself into it.  I am stumbling around a bit, but with the effort I will get good at this again.  So, on this chilly winter day I am posting icebergs from Alaska.  Have I ever been to Alaska?  No. Have I ever seen an iceberg?  No.  Did I paint this from a photo I took?  No.  All those things disqualify me in some critics eyes, but as I always tell my students,  "whatever you are painting, it is just a combination of values, lines, shapes, colors and brushwork."  So I saw this photo and just wanted to paint all those blues.  I did it with a limited number of colors, blue, black, white, and yellow ochre.  It was fun.  It was different.  And I learned a few things.  Go Figure!

Figuratively Speaking - A Bit of Sunshine

8"x8" acrylic

I painted this on a gloomy February day.  Our weather has been above normal for the last couple of weeks, meaning rain instead of snow and slippery ice.  This is my least favorite weather of all.  Give me cold temperatures and loads of snow and I am happy even on a cloudy day.  I am not sure if it was the weather, or recuperation from my grandchildren visiting, or general malaize, but I didn't get out of bed until noon yesterday and never got dressed. I binge watched comedies on Netflix.  When I finally got up and did some chores I realized I felt a lot better moving than moping around.  That really isn't like me, I usually am .  I was totally unmotivated and indulgent.  Today the sun came out and even though I still feel tired, I had a productive day.  In general I think the best medicine is exercise and painting.  The thing is, you have to be willing to push through the doldrums and get moving to understand the benefits.  So to help me out, I painted a cheerful sunflower.  Sometimes, faking it until you make it is the best solution.  Go Figure!

Figuratively Speaking - Pink Ponies

8"x10" acrylic

Normally you would associate pink elephants with drunkenness, especially if you were from the Dumbo generation.  However, if you are a three year old, pink is the perfect color for horses.  I found two horse paintings in a pile of photos and momentos my mother gave me years ago.  One was a paint by number I did when I was young and the other one was a paint by number my daughter did when she was young.  Since my daughter's children were visiting me, I decided to give each of the boys one of the horse paintings and gave their sister the opportunity to pick the color for a third painting I would do.  They were in transition, moving from the west coast to the east coast, with most of their possessions in boxes while the family resides in a rental while looking for a house to purchase.  I thought this would give them each a painting to hang up in their rooms in the meantime.  I have encouraged each of my five grandchildren to appreciate art, make it and to start to collect it.  Of course it helps that my mother was an artist, I am, and my children are all creative as well.  My daughter has done an amazing job teaching her children about artists and how to handle art materials.  The three year old made a pirates' ship and carefully painted it with well thought out details and colors, keeping all the colors seperated, making no "mud."  It was quite impressive.  What an advantage to start at such an early age, with such a vivid imagination.  I wonder if a three year old consulted on the Dumbo movie.  Go Figure!

Figuratively Speaking - Meditation in Neutrals Day 7

My daughter's family, the Blundell family, is moving from the west coast to the east coast....stop me if I've previously mentioned this.  Don't you get tired of the the same old stories getting rehashed?  Well, I can't help it, because I am so excited to see them all and to see each individual one...mom, dad, each of the 3 little ones.  So we had a big snow storm to day.  I think they called it Liam.  I was happy as a clam because I was out in it snowshoeing.  Much of the country experienced it in some form or another.  Another one is hitting Chicago on Friday.  The thing about that is that the Blundells were scheduled to fly to Vermont via a Chicago layover.  Long story short, they were bumped backwards, and are coming tomorrow!!!!  When you are moving your family across country there are a million things to do the last day you are at your old location.  Well, they are scrambling to pull it all together.  Today was my son-in-laws last day at his job, so he wasn't even around to help my daughter out.  It will be a late night for them tonight.  It is all good, but even with the best laid plans, there is always an opportunity for grace in the line of fire.  At this end,  I am scrambling a bit too because I was counting on that extra day to get everything perfect for their arrival.  I have canceled the little party I was having for my art friends, and I am doing the sheets right now.  A dash to the grocery store tomorrow will probably wrap it all up.  Those skinny little kids eat an amazing amount of food! I have no idea if I will be able to paint while they are here.  I mean, I will paint, but it will be with the kids....maybe I will post their work.  Go Figure!

Figuratively Speaking - Meditation in Analogous Warm

I made a snowman today!  Actually that is not completely true.  I made a base for a snowman.  The snow wasn't as packable as it needed to be so I made the bottom layer then spritzed it with water so it will be really hard and ready for the next part.  I felt like a six year old, which was actually a good thing!  We are getting another snow storm on Wednesday.  I can't wait.  I have not been able to get out and enjoy the last few winters and I think I am making up for lost time.  Anyway, I painted today's little figurine with analogous colors of red, orange and yellow.  Analogous colors are ones that are next to each other on the color wheel.  These are warm, which probably is because I was acting like a six year old today and frolicking in the snow....a fire in the fireplace and painting with warm colors....just the ticket!  Go Figure!

Figuratively Speaking - Deep Thought

5"x7" oil

I want to paint the kind of paintings that are so intriguing that you fall into them over and over and don't get complacent or tired of looking at them.  I realize that this isn't always going to happen, but it is nice when it happens once in a while.  Interesting shapes that illicit memories or feelings will do it.  The painting above that he is looking at is like that....a summer scene on a lazy day when you are just kicking back with your good buddy, sitting on the grass.  Maybe you'll both go fishing later on.  It has a nostalgia creating narrative.  Abstracts can do it too without the narrative.  The colors and shapes and lines swirl around in infinitely interesting ways, sometimes looking like one thing, sometimes like another.  I want to live my life like that!  I want to find what makes the day worth being alive and hold on to that for a moment, then come back later to find another reason or feeling that is interesting, fun, curious, sweet, whatever. I want my brain power to grow a little bit and my body to feel its own strength and flexibility.  I want what I eat to make me feel energetic and enthusiastic.  I also want to get a good night's sleep...so I think I will go do that now.  Go Figure!

Figuratively Speaking - Sunflower Sunset

4'x6' acrylic

Right before I had shoulder replacement surgery I started this painting.  I usually do tiny little paintings but I chose to do this one 4'x6'.  I wanted to have something momentous to work on with my left arm as my right shoulder recuperated (I finished it with my dominant arm).  I had been requested to paint sunflowers so the decisions for this painting started with that.  Then I decided it would be about patterns and I wouldn't obsess about details.  I wanted to include the green mountains which I painted green (clever, aren't I?).  I wanted a dramatic sunset so I could get some purple into the sky and also repeat the yellows and oranges.  It is simple and really a fun and lovely painting so I am happy with it, but I am even more happy that the recipient is thrilled with it.  It met her criteria and expectations.  It is an honor and a privilege to be able to spend my time making others happy while I am doing what fulfills me.  I don't have to be brilliant or clever or perfect....I just have to keep trying, keep learning and pay attention.  The paying attention part is really important....but that is another story...Go Figure!

Figuratively Speaking - Forever Friends

8"x10" oil

Shelburne Farms is the setting for this scene.  The balustrade is in the gardens overlooking Lake Champlain and the Adirondack Mountains in NY state.  These women are some of the important women in my life.  I feel very blessed to have had so many wonderful females in my life, starting with my mother who was humble, sweet, nurturing, supportive and offered unconditional love.  She taught me to see the world in a joyful way and tried to teach me to not be swayed by silly things, opinions or people.  She was an artist and one of my dreams came true when she and I attended a Dreama Tolle Perry painting workshop together.  I miss her funny way of saying things, her passion for her family and her wonderful giggle.  She wasn't perfect, like the rest of us, but her faults have faded in my mind because her positive qualities overshadowed them.  I remember as a 12 year old hearing her story about her mother's death when she was 12 and thinking I could not go on without my mom.  It helped me start to see her amazing strength.  She couldn't read and would have been diagnosed with dyslexia if they had known what it was back then, and she was left-handed, another deficit.  She was one of 13 siblings and the school decided she was unteachable and was needed more at home rather than get an education.  She was ashamed about this, but I think it just goes to show what a resourceful woman she was.  She went to art school for a short time and joined the Navy as a bookkeeper because she was a wiz with numbers.  She was a talented mom to five kids and the true definition of great homemaker.  She felt insecure about her lack of education, but taught herself to read and educated herself and she and my dad both valued their children getting an advanced education.  I didn't know, until I was an adult, that my mom had been faking her way life because she couldn't read.  So many things made sense then, like: not ever reading to us when we were little, spending nights up reading when we were teens, and the way she wrote notes in beautiful penmanship but would always leave out words.  Vocabulary was important to my parents. My dad taught me the word "facetious,"  and he was a good example of that.  My mom taught me to use "flibbertigibbet," of which she was not at all!  Go Figure!

Figuratively Speaking - Umbrellas

8"x10" oil Not for Sale

It is so easy to forget that for the majority of my life I have not had immediate access to obscure information at my fingertips, literally.  In my father's lifetime, he went from flying a heavy tin can around to seeing a man land on the moon.  We can instantly talk face to face, "2001: A Space Odyssey" style, to friends across the globe.  It is amazing, but equally amazing that we can also take courses online for free or very little money.  This painting is a result of Leslie Saeta's online course of painting with a palette knife, which is something new for me.  I have been thirsty for a change in my artwork, and even though I don't think painting with a palette knife is it, it is a nice tool to add to my bag of tricks. There are tons of online classes available and the advantage of them is not just the low cost, but the opportunity to take your time or move quickly through them.  The drawback is the lack of interaction with other students or an instructor, however most of the art instructors I have become familiar with are willing to correspond via email.  I think it is a great way to mix things up a bit and step into new territory.  It gives those brain neurons new pathways and shakes things up a bit.  It will take making a bunch more of these paintings to feel comfortable with the palette knife, so it may take me while...but I am in no hurry.  Considering that I am well into the last quarter of my life, that may not be true about everything....Go Figure!

Figuratively Speaking - Fiesta

6"x6" oil

My grandson used to live close by, however, and alas, they have moved across the country.  Initially we would take him to a Mexican restaurant every year for his birthday.  They sang to him, gave him a balloon, and he got to wear a sombrero.  One day he told me he could speak 3 languages, American, English and Spanish.  American because, well, he is.  English because his dad is British, and Spanish because of the restaurant.  It is funny what we hold close to our hearts and carry freshly in our minds from our experiences in the past.  Recently, I remembered something from junior high journalism class.  I had a great teacher.  She really taught and valued the intellectual curiosity of her students.  One day she said, "The biggest problem with propaganda is that eventually people will believe nothing."  It struck me at the time like a light bulb going on.  I really thought about it, but didn't have any personal experience to back it up.  It was a bit like the story of the boy crying wolf.  At the end of the year it was a question on the final exam.  Of course I remembered it, and amazingly she told me I was the only one in the class that got it right and that someday it would mean something to me.  In this age of fake news and Russians influencing what we think by interfering in what is leaked, that phrase really does mean something to me.  For all of our differences, I hope Americans can come to grips with who we are.  I don't want to live in a country made up of radical factions that are at war with each other.  Really, are we not just a ginormous tribe?  Go figure!

Figuratively Speaking - Sorting It Out

8"x10" oil  $75

It was a discovery for me that I really like the shape of circles and bubbles.  I have always loved bubbles, their shape, flexibility, reflective quality, but didn't realize how drawn (pun intended) to them I am.  Generally I paint alla prima (doing the entire painting in one session) but I let this one percolate for a while while "sorting it out."  What I mostly love about painting abstracts is that it makes me think differently.  A book, a movie, a play, a dance, a poem, music, even an exquisite meal, that makes me think differently brings me joy.  I am currently reading a satirical book about the ideal Republican.  I believe its intention is to look at the foibles of Republican thought and policy by expressing an inflated belief in them, but mostly it comes across as sarcastic.  I am not sure its intention is to also poke fun at a particularly narrow minded liberal attitude about conservatives, but it succeeds on that end as well.  So why am I reading it?  The reason is to understand the author better.  This is the second book I have read recently to better understand these authors as humans, because they touch the lives of those I care about.  Then I think about writing a blog and how that tells something about who I am.  Too bad we can't read our own writing totally objectively, or evaluate our own artistic endeavors totally objectively.  All we can do is try to "sort it all out" as best we can.  Go figure.

Go Figure - Ruthie's Bouquet

12"x12" oil SOLD

It is tax time.  There are numerous things which make me cringe when I have to do them and taxes hold an honorable place on that list, along with dental appointments and making travel arrangements.  But, somehow, those things are not nearly as imposing after the fact as they are in the anticipation.  Yesterday it was plane tickets and today taxes.  However, it is hard for me to jump into painting when I have days like this.  I fiddle around a bit painting, and then occupy myself with tasks like framing, or preparing painting panels, cleaning the studio or I do the laundry.  It is all part of my resistance behaviors and I am reading a great book about this, "The War of Art" by Steven Pressfield.  I highly recommend it.  This was a painting that I did over a number of days.  I thought about it a lot.  Considered the composition, the colors, the values, the textures and patterns.  It is not my usual way of working, but I have been needing a shake-up and this represented part of that process.  It was satifsfying.  I framed it today and will mail it out this weekend.  Tomorrow, I am going to be all about painting.  I may create a flop or surprise myself and have a success.  That is part of the fun of all of this, not knowing if the inspiration and technique will cooperate for me.  It gets me out to the studio and that's what really matters....go figure.

Figuratively Speaking - Windblown

I taught a painting session today at the lovely Harvest Moon Restaurant.  We painted a fun winter scene on beautiful slate.  Andrea, the proprietor, provided homemade potato and sweet potato chips and Focaccia pizza, while wine, beer and Argentinian pastries were available for purchase.  A good time was had by all.  After I have been teaching, or have lead a painting group, I always feel rather hyper and it takes me a while to settle down.  This sketch is a self portrait based on my Facebook profile photo.  I am windblown in the sun.  It is rather appropriate for how I am feeling.  This also marks day 30 in the 30 paintings in 30 days challenge.  I am going to continue with sketches for February as I took a 60 sketch challenge but I am also going to do a few paintings as I am ready for color.

Figuratively Speaking - Take a Moment

8"x8" oil SOLD

This is always a hectic month.  I am not sure how you avoid the hustle and bustle but I do know that taking a few moments on a regular basis to just breathe is a great idea.  Some of the ways I take it in is to take a walk, especially in the woods, do yoga, swim, and of course paint.  However, those things only work if I am willing to let everything else go and just be in the moment.  I am curious how you relax and regain sanity.  Do you read a good book or listen to or play music?  Let me know!

Twilight in Boston

4"x8" oil

This lovely hippie girl is meditating on Childe Hassam's "Boston Commons Twilight." It is a lovely, warm painting.  The young woman caught my attention because of the bell bottom jeans and fringed purse which definitely gave me a Deja Vu moment.

Quiet Corner

5"x7" oil

I am getting so excited about all the things I can do now that I can walk and drive!  It is exciting to be alive and well.  I really want to make a trip to one or more of my favorite galleries/art museums.  On another note, I have had 3 requests just today for donations of art to auctions to benefit worthy causes.  I am glad to do this because I paint so frequently, but I know a lot of other artists that get asked as often as I do, and they don't have nearly the inventory.  It would be interesting to see some actual numbers on the amount of art donated by artists around the world every day, and see all the different causes it helps.  So, if you go to a fundraiser that auctions art, think of those artists who are donating and do your best to purchase something you love.

Long Dresses (revised)

8"x8" oil

I just wasn't completely happy with my first stab at this painting.  I thought the gallery viewer was stiff and that was the problem, but after looking at it for a couple of days I realized the background magenta was just too colorful and drew too much attention so I neutralized it and now the person doesn't look odd to me.  The little painting on the left is by Tarbell and is called "Girl Reading a Book." It is my favorite part of this painting, not for the least reason, because it is so tiny and I think I got a reasonable representation of it.  Again, I have to say, Karin Jurick is my favorite painter of these types of scenes.

Long Dresses

I haven't done any of these gallery viewer paintings in a while.  Karin Jurik is my favorite artist who does these types of paintings.  There is a flow to her work, especially in the stance of the viewer that I feel I have not captured as well in this.  However I do really like the brushwork here and the colors are pretty yummy.  Getting a likeness of the painting on the left was a real challenge because it is so small.   So, all-in-all I like this, but I recognize there are things I need to work on.