What happened?

I know, it’s been absolutely forever since I last posted. So much has happened, too much, to thoroughly catch you up. So I’ll just jump in here and now with what prompts me to reach out today.

I have finally begun posting my paintings on-line, for sale. You can reach them through this link. The host, Daily Paintworks, is a collective of artists. I’ve admired so many of “their” artists, it seems a natural fit. If you would like to purchase anything, payment is handled through Paypal.

I’ve taken this step after years of prompting from many of you suggesting such access. I was initially reluctant, not feeling my work was good enough and that managing a website would be complicated and time consuming when all I wanted to do was paint so I could get better and someone might actually want to buy the work. Daily Paintworks is pretty easy. Feel free to give me feedback!

I’ve been painting, and painting and painting. I took an amazing workshop in January with Doug Fryer which gave me more tools with which to play. Doug introduced wide palette knife application of pre-mixed paint, tapping the color onto the fabric-covered board with skill and abandon, leading to unexpected and exciting results. Though much of my recent work has become more “real”, I continue to strive toward abstraction. I have more confidence I will break down that hurdle.

Another update, I have dropped, almost entirely, off Facebook and begun posting my work on Instagram.

Finally, I’ll post some recent work!

Eucs Again

Pirouette

Winter Along 395

Low Spot

Mountain Weather

Head in the clouds? unfinished

Step by Step

This painting has been quite a process.

It all started more than a month ago with the blog post below. I knew it would make a good painting but needed to be fleshed out. I decided to add more horses but didn’t want them to distract too much from the trees so wanted them quite small. These quick studies helped me know how to tackle the horses.

Next, I tackled the larger format 16 x 20 inch board, painting the elements in loosely allowing for changes. The foreground horse was added to improve the composition, pulled from my imagination so a bit more of struggle than the others. When the lights came onto the trunks of the trees, everything changed! I am so happy with the results of a more methodical approach to my work. I already know what I will tackle next!

Beyond the Opening

I’ve been itching to paint after all the attention on the show. I was able to paint on a property with an amazing view at the top of Sonoma Mountain. The sketch I did quickly, plein air. It cried to be done in a wider format. I’m tackling a slight change of course by leaving more portions of the work unresolved but hopefully interesting through color or marks, shapes or simply the contrast with the more distinct parts of the piece.

I also wanted to add a touch of conceptualism to the studio painting by indicating a change in season, turning the lush green to dry, golden brown. We have had a wet spring and the grasses are still juicy, in fact it’s been drizzling all day. But green turns golden in a week, given the right conditions. It’s the soft browns with dark green round oak shapes that defines the California landscape for me. This painting seems to be one of anticipation.

Wow! Such a fabulous turn-out at the opening of my Spring Painting Show at Bump Cellars. I was overwhelmed. And to have sold so many on top of the praise. Such a boost to my confidence, I am most grateful to you all. Thank you!

Spring Painting Show

My spring show is about the be hung. All the paintings are framed and carefully placed in my car, ready for transport. There are more than 50 paintings, mostly plein air, for sale or previously sold and invited to come back to round out the collection. I’m have a bag of tools, tags, postcards, business cards, wire and rulers, plus two helpers to advise, schlep and support and everything will get organized and displayed, lit and polished. There are details enough to muddle my life, and I’m almost there! Phew!

The show opens Friday at Bump Cellars in Sonoma. The reception is 6-8 pm. The art will hang for the month of April.

The walls in my home are now open. They have been displaying my work as it accumulates. The open walls are teasing me because I know, pretty soon, I can start some new work. And I can’t wait!  Getting a show ready, at least for me, has taken weeks away from the creative side. No wonder I’m muddled!

Please come see the show if you have a chance. It’s my best work to date.

Hello again, Art Lovers!

I’ve been painting with total focus on “improvement” without the distraction of chatting about it. After joining a semester-long night painting class for the past number of months, new supplies and techniques are being tried out and incorporated into my toolbox. I believe my selfish attention has been paying off. This painting came surprisingly quickly, just 2 sessions. And, more importantly, I’m happy with it.

I have also been getting ready for a show in at Bump Cellars in Sonoma during the month of April.

I look forward to posting good paintings much more often! Thanks for your continuing support.

New Chapter

Hi everyone. I’ve been gearing up to take a class. We have just finished our second week. I couldn’t be more excited about what I’m learning. I feel like a beginner again, being exposed to lots of new material already.

The class has just begun painting after being introduced to the basics of canvas and linen, rabbit skin glue, oil primer applied with palette knife, beginning with imprimatura, a demonstration of scumbling, ala Mark Rothko, who will be our reference for the first assignment. The classroom is rich with paint and books, easels and big messy stainless steel sinks, ensconced with a skeleton model. My fellow students as varied as imagination can conjure. It smells good in there, like linseed oil. The outdoor enclosed patio has oak trees dripping, dappling light amid tables for applying ground, making ink, sanding, sawing (yes, there’s a table saw!) painting or just enjoying. There’s even a large room for “no solvent” painters. I’m right at home, soaking it all in.

I painted this today, just to go back to something familiar. The shallots and onions, drying under the broad old oak is quite a compelling subject. I don’t think I got the temperature of the highlight on the tree warm enough. But there are some areas which I really like. I may try it bigger, as this is just 6 x 6″. It was done over an older painting, some of which you can see as the background.

FYI: The class is given by a master painter and equally talented teacher, Chester Arnold through the College of Marin. It meets 7-10 pm, twice weekly until December. Oh boy!

Practice Seeing

I’ve painted these trees many times. Each time, I see them differently. They are patient and lovely and always exciting. I even see them from my kitchen window and watch the wind blow through their branches. As if they are waving.

Today, I was the second pass on this painting that I started last week and have only just gotten back to. I’m going to have to pick off some debris when it’s dry, it was windy out there, but I’m happy with it now.

I’m very excited to be signed up for a painting class at the College of Marin with Chester Arnold. Chester is a valuable resource, a painting teacher with amazing depth and thousands(?) of students in the bay area. And he’s a farmers’ market regular at our stand! I look forward to learning and sharing.

After the first pass…

Paul got me…

I got the pickles canned, then felt entitled to paint for the rest of the day!

Spring Hill Cows

Thursday I set aside the whole day to paint. (Hoping to make that a regular thing…) I headed toward Open Field Farm, west of Petaluma. Seth and Sarah generously offered their gorgeous setting and myriad of big animals, to my visual self. The car was loaded Wednesday. I packed a lunch and headed out by 10.

Before I even got there, I pulled over and painted an irresistible view. There were cows (youngsters) grazing and playing in the field, off in the distance. They shyly came to see what I was doing, then got bored and left me to my work. It was a beautiful day and the road was quiet and lovely.

Then, just as I had almost completely finished the painting except for the foreground pasture, they came back. How could I resist? I used a big brush with black paint, and laid them in as fast as possibly, not really thinking about the rest of the painting. It felt like I’d been thrown the proverbial Hot Potato.

When I got home, I really loved the painting with the sloppy cows and managed to figure out how to make them more believable.

And then I went to Open Field Farm and painting one of their barns.

And look what waits for me the next time I go! I feel so rich!

 

Mixing it up

My fascination with capturing moments; how the light hits something, how the colors work in harmony, there, right there or how the edges between shapes define what’s there. Deciding what is important to me in that glimpse and how to capture it in paint is my quest.

Yesterday I found myself driving through the valley in the drippy early morning and in a extravagantly fragrant rose garden in the late afternoon. I decided to do some quick gouache studies of my impressions, with aspirations of much bigger paintings.

I’m particularly happy with the vineyard painting. I have for various personal reasons stayed away from the endless vineyards in my backyard. But this time of year, they are “budding out” and I drove by an unpruned budding section. The long canes with their brilliant green leaves bobbed up and down with the breeze and it had to be considered!

Irresistible Clouds

Here in California, it’s not all that common to have a sky full of continually morphing playful shapes floating above, describing a wholly different experience outside. Maybe a little tease of rain? I just had to paint them. I packed up and got out into the wind. There is something about bracing oneself to the weather, working quickly, squinting, hearing birds, that often leads to a better painting. And, I always learn something.

Today I was thinking about an artist I admire, Quang Ho. His painting graces the current issue of Plein Air Magazine. In the article he discusses that a painter must have a concept for a painting before they start. I formally declared the concept for this painting was the similarity between the shapes made by the lights and darks which describe both the clouds and the hills, and to use paint to describe that fact. And then entirely forgot my concept as I worked to just get it down. Maybe next time I’ll keep the concept closer to the front of my brain…

The board I chose to paint on had much more tooth than I have been using, and it was fabulous! I was able to move that paint in new ways. Some areas were almost dry brushed on, really scumbled. I used my fingers and could work edges in new ways. Love the tactile approach, really working the paint into the surface. Because the surface was unique, the whole process felt new. I thought about a yoga practice I am watching that reminds one to enjoy being a beginner.

I so enjoy being a beginner.