Weekend Open Studio

Long Barn Oil Painting In Progress

10 x 28 inches

 

Spent the weekend supporting Glassfest here in Corning.  It was windy and cold, so not as many people as last year --- but I really enjoyed opening my doors to the public. 

I painted while people browsed. 

Here's what I was working on --- an elongated panel--- fairly big --10 x 28 inches --- of a barn with the focal point being the light hitting the silo.  I am using a palette of warm and cool browns, oranges, reds and yellows.  I've started to add color --- the green in the foreground --- but I am moving slowly and using thin layers to see what effects I can create. 

It was fun to meet so many nice new people.  And to chat with friends who stopped by to say "hi."  I appreciated the interest and enthusiasm.

B

"Pansies" Oil Painting

"Pansies"

6x6 Oil on Panel

Available

 

Took a photo before I left my studio today of this painting of pansies I just finished.  It's small  --- 6 x 6 inches --- so I have to pin it to a piece of foam core to be able to fit in on to my easel. 

I was excited to see these pansies survived the winter, so I decided to paint them now, while I am able to take a close look at their colors.

Still wet but done

 

BHB

"Moon" Oil Painting

"Moon"

12 x 9 Oil on Panel

Available

Now that our house projects are mostly over, I am looking forward to painting this summer.  I have been gesso-ing surfaces in anticipation of a prolific period.  We'll see if my optimism pans out!  In total, I have 26 Masonite panels and 6 stretched canvases ready for painting, in a variety of sizes from small (6x6) to quite large (30x40). 

The "Moon" painting is one of the "winter" paintings I finished up last week.  Like the "Apple on the Windowsill," I painted it from a black and white film photograph taken years ago.   It's a view from our front porch through the trees.  The moon was irresistible that night.

I enjoyed making up the colors and figuring out how to use "dashes" as paint strokes to create a sense of broken moonlight.   

B

"Cool over Dark, Warm over LIght" Lesson

After - Warm over Light --the background receded and enhanced the flowers

After re-reading Tom Buechner's book, How I Paint, I decided to repaint the background of this painting to test what he says:

"All colors look cool over dark, even red and yellow:  all colors look warm over light, even blue.  It is the secret of the old masters, maybe the most important thing in this book."

Before - background was cool blues, purples, pinks and somewhat chalky

 

I don't think I did it correctly, but what I did do definitely helped the painting.  I will continue to experiment with this principle until I really understand it well. 

 

B 

 



 

 

"Golden Day" Oil Painting

"Golden Day"

16 x 20 Oil on Panel

Donated to the Fund for Women

I am donating this recent painting to the Fund for Women for their fundraiser on May 21.  I enjoyed painting the clouds and experimenting with the bright yellow underpainting to achieve the feeling of a sunny summer day.

B

"Apple on Windowsill" Oil Painting

"Apple on Windowsill"

8x10 Oil on Panel
Available

Haven't posted in a while because we have been consumed with home improvement projects for the last 12 weeks.  Haven't had much time to paint. 

Needed something I could do in a limited amount of time, so I pulled out this painting to finish.  I thought it would be fun to look at it in its various stages. 

I painted it from a black and white film photo I took when we were in Portree, on the Isle of Skye, in Scotland in 2003.  It was Fall and the bed and breakfast where we were staying gave us apples upon arrival.

I remember getting my camera out because I was excited by the patch of light being created on the windowsill.  The light was beautiful there, especially in the late afternoon. 

Monochromatic underpainting

 

Fast forward to 2011 and I am looking for something I want to paint.   Could I capture the feeling of the apple basking in the sun in the patch of light using the black and white photo and memory?  In retrospect, it isn't a great composition.  But I am the kind of person who want to finish what I start, so I kept trying. 

Adding color

I couldn't remember what kind of apple it was, so I bought a few apples and tried creating a Granny Smith.  The painting became too cool.

Then I tried creating a McIntosh with a stem.  And warming it up.  It became discordant.  So, put it away for months.  I painted it blue again, but forgot to take a photo of it. 

Here's what I did last month and popped it into a frame after working on it. Getting closer to what I remember it looking like, including the glow on the windowsill. 

And here's how it looks finished and signed, after warming the curtains and the shelf, and putting a highlight on the stem.  The photo makes it look a little yellower than it looks in person (iPad photos seem to make colors more saturated), but it still represents the piece. 

Now I just need to come up with a title. 

B
 

New Work: Going Bigger & More Colorful

In Progress -- Drying in the Studio Window

24 x 32 Oil on Panel

I've started some new paintings.  This is the first -- which is drying in the window of the studio.  It's bolder. It may be hard to tell at this point, but it is a floral arrangement on a table in front of a window in our kitchen. 

This is the gold frame for it.  And how it looked before I worked on it yesterday.  

 

And it's larger -- 24 x 32  --- when compared to my usual work.   It was one of my goals for this year --- to paint bigger.

I chose the subject because I was interested in the shadow under the flowers and using the square tabletop to create space.  Now I am kind of hooked on making the vibrant colors work.  It it starts to fall apart I can always use it as underpainting.  That's the beauty of oils. 

B

"Three Fruits" Still Life

"Three Fruits"

8 x 10 Oil on Panel

 

This is the last of the still lifes to post.  And it is the most difficult to accurately photograph.  It really depends what light it is in.  This photo makes it look too vibrant even though  it is taken in natural light on a cloudy day.  In person, it looks more like the bottom photograph. 

 

It may have to do with the underpainting which is a very bright rose pink.  You can see it showing through the background on the upper left.  And in areas under the pear. 

 

To me, it is interesting that it is the same color underpainting as "Snapdragons" which I posted yesterday, and they came out so differently. 

At the beginning this is how it looked, if you recall.  I painted if from a black and white photo so I had to make up the colors. 

Here is how it looked for most of the winter.  I put it in this "old master's" type frame and had it hanging in my studio, and would work on the apple from time to time. 

Last week, I tweaked the apple and put it in the simpler black frame  -- the one I used for "The Barletts". 

So, that's it for the still lifes --- I have finished them all and put them in frames.  I am now working on three large panels -- a 24x28, a 30x40 and 32x40. 

B 

"Snapdragons" Oil Painting

"Snapdragons"

10 x 8 Oil on Panel

Finished this painting on Monday.  It is softer than some of the others --- probably because I let the edges drift away and made up passages instead of trying to be exact.  This is the painting that was supposed to be a throw away --- just play --- the ground I used was slick and wouldn't hold paint at the beginning -- but I am glad I stuck with it.  I've grown attached to it.  Feels like we have been through a lot together. 

B

Anemones II Oil Painting

"Anemones II"

14 x 10 Oil on Panel
SOLD

I popped this painting into a frame to see if it looks finished.  I want it to be.  It isn't quite dry, but I hope the anemones (windflowers) look like they are dangling but graceful now.  On Monday, I worked at separating the blossoms so that you can see them individually and I made the open faced one the crispest, and brightest , so that it would be the focal point.

B

Tom Buechner's list of "Why I Paint"

 

From Tom Buechner's book, How I Paint, he says in the chapter Why I Paint, he made this list of what painting means to him:

• being alone with myself
• being part of an enormous family of painters, living and dead
• being amazed by reality
• seeing how strong or weak I can be
• seeing the evidence of passing time
• just seeing
• facing infinite possibilities
• mastering a medium or failing to do so
• showing and telling
• bringing pleasure, making money
• thinking
• transcending myself(very rarely)
• plus I get to travel, paint with friends, visit museums and buy art books as legitimate business expenses!

Still wish he was around so we could go up to his studio to paint with him as Lin and I were doing on Wednesdays.

B

 

 

"Heather Basket" Oil Painting

Untitled

10 x 8 Oil on Panel
SOLD

I let the charcoal drawing show through in parts of the basket.  Not sure if it was the best decision, but I am putting this one in a frame and moving on to something else.   Working on a title for it.  Suggestions welcome. 

B

"The Bartletts" in a new frame

"The Bartletts"

10 x 8 Oil on Panel

 

Tweaked The Barletts and put them in a new frame, to provide more contrast. 

B

Sunflower in Art Glass Vase Painting

Untitled

12 x 9 Oil on Panel

 

I have been toying with this painting for months --- and I have decided to stop. Will order a frame now. And work on a title for it. Suggestions?
B

Acrobats Still LIfe Oil Painting

"Acrobats"

10 x 8 Oil on Panel

Here's how the apples painting turned out in the end.

B

Anemones I - Still Life Oil Painting

Anemones I

Oil on Panel 10 x 8

 

This week I am putting all my household and genealogy projects on hold, in order to give myself time to focus on painting and photography. 

Thought I'd start by posting the work which I have completed.  This is a still life of anemones (wildflowers) from our garden last fall, in a vase that I bought from a fellow vendor, during my jewelry selling days.  I used to trade jewelry for pottery, and have some nice pieces as a result. 

Although it's not really coming across, I am trying to find ways to personalize what I paint.  And to think about it from the perspective of the viewer. 

B

Winston Churchill was a Painter

 

Did you know Winston Churchill was a painter?  I didn't until I ran across his little book, Painting as a Pastime,  last week in a used bookstore. 

He wrote the book -- it's really just an essay --- to describe the joy he derives from painting and why it came into his life at a time when he needed it most --- as an escape from the pressures of his life as a civil servant.  It was written in 1932. 

I came across his words just at the right time.  I needed to remember why I love to paint ---and to forget all the politics and pressure that come along with showing what you paint.  Here are excerpts from his book which struck a chord with me. 

A Vase of Flowers by Winston Churchill

"Everyone knows the feelings with which one stands shivering on a spring-board, the shock when a friendly foe steals up behind and hurls you into the flood, and the ardent glow which thrills you as you emerge breathless from the plunge."

The Blue Room, Trent Park, exhibited at The Royal Academy, 1948

"Just to paint is great fun.  The colours are lovely to look at and delicious to squeeze out.  Matching them, however crudely, with what you see is fascinating and absolutely absorbing.  Try it if you have not done so, before  you die.  As one slowly begins to escape from the difficulties of choosing the right colours and laying them on in the right places and in the right way, wider considerations come into view.  One begins to see, for instance, that painting a picture is like fighting a battle; and trying to paint a picture is, I suppose, like trying to fight a battle.  It is, if anything, more exciting than fighting it successfully.  But the principle is the same.  It is the same kind of problem as unfolding a long, sustained, interlocked argument."

The Goldfish Pond at Chartwell, exhibited at The Royal Academy, 1948

"And I had lived for over forty years without ever noticing any of them [colors and details in the landscape] except in a general way, as one might look at a crowd and say, 'what a lot of people!"" 

 "I think this heightened sense of observation of Nature is one of the chief delights that  have come to me through trying to paint." 

St. Jean, Cap Ferrat

 

"The whole world is open with all its treasure.  The simplest objects have their beauty.  Every garden presents innumerable fascinating problems.  Every land, every parish, has its own tale to tell.  And there are many lands differing from each other in countless ways, and each presenting variants of colour, light, form and definition.  Obviously, then, armed with a paint-box, one cannot be bored, one cannot be left at a loose end, one cannot "have several days on one's hands."  Good gracious!  what there is to admire and how little time there is to see it in!"

"One cannot go back day after day without the picture getting stale.  the painter must choose between a rapid impression, fresh and warm and living, but probably deserving only of a short life, and that cold, profound, intense effort of memory, knowledge and will-power, prolonged perhaps for weeks, from which a masterpiece can alone result.  It is much better not to fret too much about the latter.  Leave to the master of art trained by a lifetime of devotion the wonderful process of picture-building and creation.  Go out into the sunlight and be happy with what  you see. "

"Even if you cannot portray it as you see it, you feel it, you know it, and you admire it for ever....The painter wanders and loiters contentedly from place to place, always on the look out for some brilliant butterfly of a picture which can be caught and set up and carried safely home." 

  --- Winston Churchill

Field of Cows Landscape Oil Painting

Field of Cows

8 x 10 Oil on Panel

Available

Well, I didn't get the still lifes done as hoped by Dec 15. (I don't know why I put the pressure on myself, in retrospect.  Do artificial deadlines ever really work?) So, I still have to finish those.

But, I did make this little painting--- as an experiment---which I think turned out pretty well.  Unlike the still lifes, I decided to "attack"   the painting, and get it done in only one session, do or die.  AND, I painted it from a photo on my iPad, which kept going to sleep on me.  I was forced to paint quickly-- with bigger shapes ---with less detail.  The panel was toned a medium green underneath, which really helped.

I had watched a video recommended by a friend where the artist used the word "attack" about 10 times in his description about how he worked.  He really pushes himself to finish a passage completely in one session.  But he also lets himself have a couple of attempts at it, scraping down what may not be working, if necessary.

Attacking your painting sounded too aggressive when I first heard it, but now I understand how valuable it can be to get it all out, get it all down, quickly, while you are on a roll. 

B

"Shells" Oil Painting - Revisited

"Shells"

approx.  14 x 17"  Oil on Panel

Available

 

One of the benefits of having a studio on Market Street is the amount of wall space I have.  I can put my work up and look at it at various stages. 

This painting was getting on my nerves after I saw it in the light of my new studio.  I could see lots of imperfections in the surface and the colors looked dull. 

The board I used to paint on wasn't masonite.  It was some other board I had cut at the Building Company to fit this non-standard frame.  Seemed like a fine idea at the time, but in retrospect, it was too crude.  The surface wasn't smooth enough; plus, it absorbed too much gesso and sucked up my paint. 

Before

 

So, I decided to sand off all of the blemishes and repaint everything except the shells.  I just boosted their highlights a little. The biggest change I made was to add interest to the background, using purples and teals, to make it more atmospheric. I think it looks better now.  There are still some bumps in the surface but the colors are more vibrant and the contrast is better. 

B

"Snowbound" Painting

"Snowbound"

16 x 20 Painting

SOLD

 

I am very happy that " Snowbound" has found a new home.  It was the first painting I made with eye make-up so it is special to me.  Both warm and cool grays give it depth, and a sepia look.  I used water and brushes to apply the pigment on watercolor paper.  It was then matted and framed.  Completed size is 16 x 20. 

 

 

The other make-up painting I made also sold, so I now I am without any make-up paintings in my studio.  I am hoping to try my hand at it again after the new year.

B