two crops

I see my magnolia tree will soon be flowering--always a huge event for me. I love the flowers' large waxy petals and the structure of the center. The way the petals curve and droop is so elegant and the shadows they create are great to paint. I get to use my favorite colors--blue and all the colors analagous to blue.
The flowers last so briefly, which makes them all the more looked forward to.
I pulled out this watercolor from last year; I thought it was overworked and put it away in my flat file. Today I came upon it and thought, maybe if it was cropped ...?

I haven't forgotten my stargazers and started a painting of them today on a piece of Arches paper torn off a roll I bought ages ago and stuck in a closet. I wanted to see if the paper was still usable.
The roll is huge--52.5 inches x 10 yards! I'd never be able to afford it now. For someone like me, who rarely works larger than 7x11 and thinks a full sheet represents a gigantic, daunting commitment, the question is what to do with a piece of paper 52.5 inches wide. I suspect the answer will be: divide it. Right now I'm envisioning a row of paintings, say of lilies or magnolias, like a comic strip.
Before doing anything though I'll need to measure, cut, and flatten!! strips from the roll. The paper curls so aggressively it's unwieldy!

monday class

After a two-week break in our Monday classes we were back today to try a simple still life. I brought my stargazer lilies, which had been trampled on in the car by my dog, Itchy; they were looking a little droopy.
Marie wanted us to do small value studies, trying to find a new composition each time. I found it difficult to come up with variations and, as usual, to use the full range of values.
It was a good exercise. When I took a Chinese brush painting class, we ground our ink prior to beginning to paint, which was not only practical, but acted as a kind of centering, a way of moving the brain somewhere else.

(11x15)
After the studies, there were only 20 minutes left in class to play around with some color. (11x15)

stargazers

I picked up some stargazer lilies at the market yesterday morning, but was too intimidated to paint them. So yesterday went by with no painting.
This afternoon I thought I should try to get past this block with a drawing. I remembered reading in a book about painting flowers that you should really study the flower first: note the width of the stems and shapes of the leaves and how they're attached to the stem ... so I worked on noticing those things in the sketch above. I was a great icebreaker.
And I moved on to the first of what I hope will be a week of stargazer lily paintings.

(10x13)

ATC 2nd day

I have my next drapery study all set up, and I'm looking forward to painting it, but I didn't have enough time today to devote to it. So, instead, two more ATCs (artist trading cards).
I had planned to paint flowers on all 12 sheets, but I think I'll do flowers only on the smoother sheets (5) and save the reamining textured papers (7) for landscapes.

ATCs

Awhile back Sharon sent me a pack of ATCs (artist trading cards) with assorted surfaces, like bristol and canvas-textured, which is especially nice as I like to try different surfaces. I decided to paint a different flower on each one and started today with these.

(2.5x3.5 each)

An ice sculpture hanging from my bayberry bush (and endangering anyone who ventures up my front steps).

cape may point trio

A trio for 3/3: These are done--that is to say, I can't think of anything to add or subtract.
No doubt I'll paint them again, though. I like the shapes and the shadows provide the strong values I have trouble adding on my own.

edm 44

March 2 is the birthday of both my brother Dan and Peter's sister Penny. They're both 44, so I figured I'd choose "44" as my first Everyday Matters drawing. It turned out to be "draw an animal."
EDM was started by Danny Gregory and is a weekly challenge to draw/paint some everyday item. You can jump in anywhere. View a list of past challenges here.
Artists post their drawing to the EDM Superblog and also to the EDM FlickR group.

I've decided I'm going to try to do some EDMs and practice my drawing skills.
Later in the day I downloaded some photos from a memory disk I haven't used in awhile and found this photo of Nanda lying on the deck looking up at me.

porter copies

I feel like I've been trying too hard the last few days, a bad mindset where nothing good can happen. My antidote: I try to jar my brain into a different way of seeing by copying the work of an artist who has what I'm currently hoping to bring into my painting.
Here, it's Fairfield Porter, his soft focus and simplicity.

cape may point

(10x14 sheet)
I'll be exhibiting my paintings in the local library May 09 and have been planning to do eight new paintings for the show: four of the wildlife management area in town and four of the park in Cape May Point, featuring the WWII bunker and the ruins of the old lighthouse (which I think aren't there anymore).

I painted this one first, yesterday, nearly to completion, and worked on the bottom two today. Seeing how these two are coming, I think I'll have to go back and start over with the first one, using stronger washes.

The wildlife management area scenes are not coming along as I envisioned them! I drew four scenes and have started painting two of them, but I think I'll probably start over!

This composition is pretty weak; adding a slanting, slim tree trunk or two may help.

And below, a better scene, but the washes are so weak and the tree in the foreground so ungainly ... I think I'll have to begin again. Stronger, next time!

February VSD

(7x10)

This month's Virtual Sketch Date image, of Lake Louise in Banff.
I love this subject--of course, the blues, but mountain shapes are just so fundamentally appealing ... the repetition, the recession.

Links to artists participating in this month's VSD will appear on the VSD blog tomorrow. You can also view the paintings--all in one place!--in the Virtual Sketch Date group on FlickR. How cool is that?

After I finished the painting above, I was sorting through a pile of old paintings, five or more years old, and found this page. They were done without any drawing and I suspect they're copies--of Fairfield Porter probably, but maybe Hopper. I like the casual way they're painted and hope to try the Lake Louise scene again more in this vein.

(4x6 each)

paoli station

(7x10)
In October, when Robin and I were heading to Chicago, we went down to the train platform and there was this couple waiting for the train: another perfect ready-made subject.
I put off attempting to paint the scene mostly because--and this is usually the case with photos for me (but not when painting plein air)--there were things in the distant middle and background that I couldn't quite make out ... I didn't know what they were or if they were connected.
Not knowing what's back there has the benefit of keeping me from becoming overly focused on nonessentials, after all, it's about the couple waiting for the train.

But then the problem is how to treat that space. I made two decisions: to try to paint general shapes and to keep it neutral.
This is one of those rare paintings of mine that actually looks better from far away: the background ceases to be any kind of an issue and you can't see how I fudged the train tracks. I do wish I had been a bit more careful with the ties ... but it doesn't seem to matter so much if you're farther away.

ps I got an email from art supplier Dick Blick about an online workshop with Nita Leland; I followed the links to ArtistsNetwork.TV where you can view video previews by various art teachers and authors like Charles Reid and Linda Kemp. Here's a link to the Kemp preview where she demonstrates an exercise from her book.

asymmetry

(7x11)

Another design element from Marianne Brown's Watercolor by Design. I'm not quite sure this fits the bill, but I've been wanting to try painting this orchid before the blooms disappear.
I'm working my way through Brown's book; earlier elements were pyramid, vertical, and horizontal.

tryouts

(5x7)

(5x7)
Two quick (about 10-15 minutes each) tries at this month's Virtual Sketch Date image. I used Winsor blue (gs), because it's so cool, but I don't usually have it on my palette; it's very strong and staining too.
I like this subject--the strong shadow, the receding shapes, the reflection in the water. I'll probably do a couple more trying out different blues.



I haven't seen any of the films nominated for Academy Awards this year. Movies I want to see like Doubt, The Reader, Milk and Slumdog Millionaire don't make it down here; we're more likely to get Shrek 8 and Batman 12. So last night when The Visitor, with best actor nominee Richard Jenkins, came on Starz at midnight, I had to stay up to watch it. Jenkins must be one of those working actors who's in everything but who you never notice because he's so good; he was superb in this quiet movie about the expansiveness of the human heart.

thank you

(4x6)
Thank to everyone for the comments on my post about Nanda. Your thoughtfulness and kindness are very touching, and I appreciate it.

A busy weekend--dinner with my brother John for his birthday Saturday, Peter's brother's son's christening Sunday--now back home, where I expect to see Nanda in her favorite spots: in the patch of sun on the deck, curled up in a ball on the loveseat in the loft, and, of course, next to her food bowl. I think Smilla misses her; she seems to want more attention than usual--or maybe she's thinking that about me!
I'll miss her, but she had a good life and a good death too--not too soon, not too late.

my nanda-la

It's hard to be the one who decides, but yesterday was the day I had to have Nanda put to sleep. I wish she could have had one more day of lying in the sun, but it was time. She was nearly seventeen, and couldn't walk or eat too well, though she still purred just fine, which made it harder.
Yeats, Cleo, Carlos, and now Nanda-la: all the cats I moved into my house with are gone.
But I have my baby Smilla, only four!, who makes me laugh and is so solid and good to hold.

bridges and boats

(5x7)
Another version of the Seven Mile Bridge ...

(5x7)
And a cropped fishing boat picture--that is I cropped the reference photo; this is the entire painting!