At the beach

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At the beach

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At the beach

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At the beach

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At the beach

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At the beach

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At the beach

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What are you doing today?  Hope you are having as much fun as we are!

 

This incredible painting is by Fongwei Liu who is one of the best contemporary figure painters in the US.

At the beach

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An artist who is really great at water scenes is Mike Barr.

Cousins

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Aren't they sweet?  Someone who is really a master at painting kids is Kim Stenberg.  I love this beach scene of hers.

Salmon Moon

5"x7" oil

You will just have to take my word for it...this painting is so much better than it looks here.  It has a lot of texture and a lot of really dark colors.  I went out two nights this past week and just sat and studied what I was looking at.  The design was pretty simple, but it was the color that I really studied hard.  I found out that the August Moon is known as the Salmon Moon and I understand why between the yellow/white of the moon and the peachy ring around it which fades to blue then purple.  The ground is barely visible at the base of the trees which dark shadows that reach out over the meadow which lightens slightly as it approaches the foreground.  The only other light is a tiny bit of grayish highlights on the tops of the Black-eyed Susans and the white flox.  Well, I guess you will have to take my word for it!  I will attempt taking a better photo when I have more time.
So my featured artist today is June Hovekamp Osgood  who is also my mom.  I found this sketch she did on the back of mat board and it struck me what a lovely piece it is so I varnished it, attached it to a painting board with mat medium, and framed it.  She is "going on 90" (rather than being 89) and is an avid painter and game player.  She is very active, and yes I am a big fan!  So enjoy this:

Raven Mad

This is the second raven I did with an abstract background.  It was a demo for an art class I taught this week to beginning artists.  I have put a couple of their versions here as well.  This was about color mixing and experimenting with ways of applying paint.  For some it was there first painting since elementary school!  We have 2 hours to do a complete 16"x20" painting.  I think it is rather a daunting task, but it is always fun!

A Method and "On Leave"

"On Leave"  7"x9" oil  this is for my nephew who is a Marine and great dad!

I thought I would talk about a method I have been experimenting with in painting.
These are the reasons I like it:
1.  It is a method, therefore, I know what to do first and can get started right off.
2.  By drawing out the image, I get to practice my drawing skills, and it helps me to get the drawing part accurate.

3. By adding in a very thin and very quick layer of local colors, I can paint over the drawing, and diminish it, so I am not so picky and finicky about painting the drawing.
4.  I  get to evaluate it after each step which makes me take a brain-refreshing break (and I hoola-hoop for a couple of minutes).
5.  I can see if the design and basic values work.
6.  By doing the local colors, I quickly cover the whole area making it all much less intimidating.
7.  Since I don't add any subtle highlights, smaller values, warm and cool colors and variations at this stage, I can think through those things before I actually do them.

8.  I like it because it slows me down, yet I can still paint fast.
9.  There is instant gratification, which I always crave.
10.  I still get to apply all those wonderful teaching tips I've learned from other artists.

What I don't like about it:
It takes longer....and I end up fussing anyway!

True Story

7"x7" oil

Really it is a "True Story."  I was cleaning out my studio and had the doors open (I have garage doors on my studio so that I can work "outside" when the weather is warm enough).  A hummingbird flew in, got confused and couldn't figure out how to exit.  I anxiously watched as it first flitted to the flower paintings hanging then banged into the lights.  I didn't want to startle it more so I went inside and made some "nectar," put it in a feeder and hung it in the studio, to no avail.  I was worried about the poor little thing who needs to constantly eat, and talking to it gently didn't seem to help.  Finally it landed on my table.  I picked it up gingerly and it didn't move, except that it looked at me.  I carried it out and put it next to a red flower and it didn't move.  I even tried to coax it to take nectar, but it just laid there.  Then it perked up and flew away.   In the meantime, I was able to study it pretty well.  I wanted to do this like I do my "Gallery Viewers" series so I did a fancy frame, but I am wondering if I should just do the plain black frame that I use on my paintings.  BTW, I signed both the flower painting and the hummingbird looking at the flower painting. One thing about hummingbirds is that they are more about movement than color and shape.  Artist Brande Arno is amazing at capturing this movement.  I have included an image of one of her paintings, below.

"Laureen and Lois"  by Brande Arno 6"x6" oil

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Windy Hill

7"x9" oil

I was inspired to do this because I cleaned out my studio and went through my photo references (hard copies) and found a photo of the house I lived in when I graduated from high school.  Daily Paintworks was having a challenge to paint your house, so I decided to put the photo to good use.  By that time in my life I had already lived in 8 houses in 6 cities in 4 states, as we were kind of an upscale gypsy family.  After high school it got worse and I became more of a real gypsy, but I have great memories from this place, and once I married a stable guy, I more or less settled down.  I love the shadows and feeling of moving air and hope I have captured that quality.

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I Do!

7"x9" oil

I painted this from a photo that was emailed to me for a commission.  I love the image because it has a strong story even if I don't know exactly what it is.  This couple is getting married in a few weeks, and I wish them a great deal happiness.  There are so many things to feel depressed about if you pay attention to the news reports so I am staying focused on all the happy things in life.  Even though I look a bit like an ostrich, I don't think I act like one!  If an ostrich sticks its head in the sand, it can't see the good either. I wish you a day with many moments of joy.
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Peace

We are getting ready for our annual trek to the beach.  I am hoping for sunny warm weather, but it is beautiful regardless.  Looking forward to lots of future beach paintings as well.  My favorite part of this is his right arm...that is what I wanted to paint!  Notice there is no one else in sight!  now that is the image of peace!

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Ramona's View

9"x7" oil

Firstly, I want to thank you for looking at my paintings and taking the time to read my blog.  I know it is a commitment to do that, and I really appreciate that you give my work this attention.  This painting is from a vacation photo taken by someone who means a great deal to me.  This is a pretty personal story.  Ramona is my daughter born to a different family.  She wasn't adopted, because she was in my heart from the day she was born, and although our hours together are significant, she has a loving family of her own.  Life throws us some interesting curve balls and my relationship with Ramona has a few in it.  Ramona is now married and I am painting this for her.  It is her memory, but the painting reflects my love for her...everything in this painting has a symbolic meaning for me.  I should say that there are a lot of subtle color variations in this that I just don't think are there on a computer monitor.  The location is Yucatán Peninsula on the Caribbean Sea in the state of Quintana Roo, Mexico, near the Tulum Ruins.

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Raven

9"x12" oil

Several weeks ago there was a challenge to paint a raven on Daily Paint Works.  I am a bit late with it, but I finally got around to it.  It seems like everyone eventually paints a raven or a crow.  I like it because of the dramatic high contrast design.  I used lots of different dark colors to get depth in the feathers.  I also did an exercise mixing up greens from my blues and yellows for my color chart book and decided to make an abstract background with the colors.  I painted the background first then the bird.  I am so glad I did this exercise because I discovered some really cool ways of making green in the process.  This is a bit larger than usual and is on canvas rather than a gesso panel.

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Sunflower Explosion

7"x9" oil

This is the second demo I did at Art In the Park.  I found it difficult to paint, talk and promote myself and my work all at the same time.  I kept this very loose and just wanted the overall feeling and impression.  I applied the paint very thick and I really like that!

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Park Rose

6"x6" oil

I had real doubts as to whether or not it was worth it to do an art fair, but based on my first experience this weekend, it was!  I did this painting as a demo, and then when we were packing up, my husband (who was key to me being able to do it all) stepped on it twice and slid!  So I wiped it off and re-painted it.  A friend suggested I call it "Marital Bliss"  and consider his actions a Freudian slip!

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Artist In the Woods6"x9" oil

6"x9" oil

I like this one because I did it under stress....waiting for the rain to lift so that I can go set up my tent for Art In the Park tomorrow.  I kept it loose and had fun with it.  It actually helped me keep from feeling a bit nervous. If you are in the Rutland, VT, area the next couple of days, please drop by.  It is a really nice event.  I am a newbie.  I hope you enjoy this painting too.

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Drawing

9"x7" oil

I like this painting because of the composition.  The dark shadows are like an object in itself.  I mixed purple with a very dark blue to get this color, but on the monitor it looks black.  When I showed my husband, he commented, "Oh it's your mom."  He is right, it does look like her, but she wasn't my model.  It was from a drawing class I taught.  I photographed this lady from a balcony, looking below to her.  I am not completely satisfied with the skin quality or tones, so I will probably go back in and rework them when it dries a bit.  I am scrambling to get everything together for a big art fair this weekend, so I my not paint every day, or like this one, it might be a bit rushed.

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Contemplating Shapes of Fear

6.5"x8.5" oil

The painting these three are looking at is called "Shapes of Fear" by Maynard Dixon.  It is a very powerful piece in the Smithsonian American Art Museum.  It is an interesting idea...fear having a shape.  This painting is a bit tighter than I generally do, but overall I like it a lot.  It is funny when people talk about my work as something they can't imagine doing because they "can't draw a straight line."  It is funny, because I think that drawing or painting a straight line is really hard!  Painting a flower is not easy, but it is forgiving.  Architecture is loaded with those irritating straight lines.

I am getting ready for my first art fair next weekend (Art in the Park).  It is a ton of work!!! I have a much better appreciation for those artists, like my friend Ann McFarren, who actually make a living doing art fairs.  This painting will be shown there if it is dry enough to take. 

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Familiar Stroll

6.5"x8.5"  oil

This image came from a post by Leslie Saeta who is currently traveling in Italy.  She is posting images for painters to work from and I chose this one because it reminds me of places I have been, curving side streets with high contrast light and shadow.  I may go back in and add some darker shadows to the yellowish building.  I tend to not get values dark enough.  Tell me what you think.

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Clouds I

I plan to do more clouds so this is clouds #1!  It is inspired by an actual place...the sky over Lake Monona from the Olrich Botanical Gardens in Madison, WI.  But really, it is about the clouds. We had a sky very similar to this one today so I studied it and wrote out a plan for painting it....and I have to say, I really love the results!  It is more impressionistic than usually do, and I softened a lot of edges which I seldom do, but I love how it turned out.  You can see the texture of the painting in this photo, which in person, really works!  I hope you like it too!

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Companions

7"x7" oil

The top one was inspired by the bottom one!

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Friendly Conversation

8"x10" oil

Finally I got into a few hours of oil painting again.  I finished this piece and tweaked several others I was never happy with.  All in all, it was a good session and this piece worked out alright. I am feeling the need for a painting sabbatical....paid leave away to just paint.  Ah, that would be lovely.  In the meantime I will have to just carve out some time and do it here with all the distractions.  Well...off to the next thing....

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A Good Place to Live 3"x5" watercolor

It has been over 2 weeks since I last posted!  I am feeling very negligent about my blog, but I have been busy traveling, and teaching, and as a result, doing little watercolor paintings and drawings instead of oil paintings.  I will get those going again, but I have really had fun with these.  This one is a house portrait.  I couldn't decide which angle to get all the fun things in and have it look like the house.  They spend a lot of time in the evenings drinking wine pool side, they have some lovely colors in their gardens out front, and the mountain sticks up behind, but each of those features can only be seen at different locations, so I combined the suggestion of them all with an entry-way view.  I have a bunch of little watercolors to photograph so I think I will do that while I warm up to oils again tomorrow.  I am teaching a painting (acrylic) class tonight.  I really am enjoying the teaching, but it takes a lot of preparation.  I am also getting ready for my first art fair.

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Not a Whisper

5"x7" oil

This is not a new painting but one that really speaks to today.  We have had a really long bout of rainy weather, with a small break yesterday.  It was cool and there was a slight breeze this morning, with hope that it would dry a bit, but alas, the air is still and there is the promise of coming thunderstorms which could be quite severe.  They tell us that Friday, Saturday and Sunday will be sunny, and of course hope springs eternal.  The flooding is pervasive and our crystal clear rivers are muddied with silt...still, it is a gorgeous landscape.  I am working on an artist's journal for my class this Friday.  It is really fun!  I have kept sketchbooks and journals over the years, but I never actually planned one out the way I am doing this one.  I will post photos as I complete pages.  Today is Wednesday; something tells me I won't be done by Friday!  But, I love new projects!

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Negative Space10"x12"

10"x12" charcoal

Camping....I used to love it.  That is all I have to say.  I have been teaching drawing at the Middlebury Studio School and this was my demo for drawing using just negative spaces to define the shape.  It is a challenging exercise and one of those that is really good to do occasionally.

Fireworks

6"x6" acrylic

Happy Fourth of July! I am camping and won't post again until next week.  This was a fun experiment that didn't work out exactly as I had planned, but it still looks cool!

He's Home

7"x9" oil

My nephew is home from his tour in Afghanistan and we are thrilled as you can imagine.  I decided to hang the flag everyday he was gone to remind me to think of him and the other young men in danger for our country.  Then I planned to paint it when he got home, so I am really happy to post this one.  This is the side of our house where we have a little porch, bench and wood pile with a lovely crab apple tree to host lots of birds.  Today is also my husbands birthday so he is going to celebrate by taking off work and golfing with one of our sons.

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A Savory Day

5"x5" oil

More garlic.  I love these carnival squash.  They are really fun to paint.  Onions offer a unique challenge too, even though they are perfectly round, their skins reflect so many beautiful and warm hues.  It is very easy to make an onion look like an orange.  This still life makes me feel sunny and warm, which is not what the weather has been bringing.  We are surrounded in every shade of gray that exists and loads of water to-boot.  Generally the weather doesn't get me down.  Days like this remind me of school days when it seemed like the sun never quite got up.  I would be lulled into day dreams by the patterns made by water dripping down the huge old windows of Madison Elementary School.  We had really old desks with initials etched into them and places for ink wells. Even though we didn't get to go outside on days like this because the mud puddles were just too tempting, I liked them because we would frequently get to paint!

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Reflections

Reflections 5"x5" oil

I think I have finally come up with a pretty good method for photographing my work...yeah!  I am currently in love with garlic.  I have always loved garlic for its culinary deliciousness and medicinal uses, but now I am studying it for its aesthetic contributions.  Although this looks like 2 bulbs, it actually is one with a reflection in a mirror.  I decided to leave out the mirror reference and just go with the two bulbs.  I worked hard on creating interesting grays in this, something I struggle with.  It is also a different size.  Sometimes it is so soothing to paint a very simple but beautiful piece of our world!  Funny thing is, right after I finished this we went out to eat at a new (for us) restaurant and there were 2 framed watercolors above our table of garlic...very lovely.  I couldn't read the name f the artist.

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The Winds Went Singing By

16"x20"  acrylic

The poetic title of this piece is from an Emily Dickinson poem about the clover blossom.  I painted this with my fellow artists Mary Crowley and Rae Newell.  We were all inspired by the same image, and Rae and I had very similar compositions, but each of our styles are quite different.  Mary's ended up being beautiful pastel colors in a swirling, Van Gogh-like background and Rae's had a soft brownish background with her signature "out of focus" background.  I thought the literary reference of them dancing in the wind was appropriate, hence, my title.  Can you hear the bee buzzing over them?

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Crossings

This painting is mostly in mid-values.  High contrast paintings have more drama so this was a challenge.  It was a bright, cloud filled day, so the shadows are almost non-existent. My darks are kind of scattered, and I am not sure it works very well.  What do you think?

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Quintessetial

6"x6" oil

I felt like this landscape saved me!  I haven't painted a new painting in a while because I have been framing, making new panels and getting ready for a show.  I have revised a few and touched up several, but after a bit, I always feel insecure about whether I still can do this.  I think this image is more yellow than the painting.  It was dark and raining out so I photographed it in artificial light.  Maybe I will rephotograph it tomorrow.  Landscapes are pretty stress free as paintings go so this was a good warm up for me.  I tried to do a floral painting but it was awful and I wiped it off.  I have been doing a lot of drawing lately as I am teaching a few drawing classes in July.  Now I need to transition back into painting.

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Johar

5"x7" oil

This is Johar.  I met her at a coffee shop where she worked in Washington DC.  I was on my own visiting galleries and taking photos like a crazed tourist when I decided I needed a sit-down and cup of coffee.  Johar was my server and I was not only captivated by her beauty and interesting hair, but by her presence...her genuine sweetness.  This was a quick portrait, but I really wanted to capture her spirit, and her image.  It worked and I got to mix some of my new brilliant blue paint into the skin tones.  New paint....it really is like having a new color crayon!  I am going to email this to Johar, because she was gracious enough to let me photograph her.  I am trying really hard to understand the differences between what you actually see and what a photograph offers.  It is a hard thing to get, but it is worth it for me because I really like painting from images I capture, especially when I am traveling.

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Hand Study

6"x6" oil

This was a great exercise to get me back in to painting.  It was offered as a DPW challenge by Claudia Hammer. I chose three values in different colors and a background color.  I painted on a panel that I had previously painted on and sanded down.  The colors were pretty dark originally so even with the sanding, it showed through and gave variation to the background which I blocked in first, thus removing the distraction.  I started with the lightest light (Jaune Brilliant) then the darkest color in the hands (Alizarian Crimson) and then used Cadmium Orange for the mid-value.  I mixed a bit to come up with the suggestion of the sleeve.  I deliberately tried to keep it loose and simple.

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