Seasons

The habit of breaking up one's colour to make it brilliant dates from further back than Impressionism - Couture advocates it in a little book called 'Causeries d'Atelier' written about 1860 - it is part of the technique of Impressionism but used for quite a different reason. 

John Singer Sargent

Perspective

One may have a blazing hearth in one's soul and yet no one ever came to sit by it. Passers-by see only a wisp of smoke from the chimney and continue on their way. 

Vincent Van Gogh

People, more people

I have a request for a painting of the dancing at Garner State Park. There's a famously iconic oak tree in front of the pavilion. The sun sinks, the music starts.

Finished painting for sale, also prints

Avoiding overpainting

I'm the queen of overapinting, the mistress of myopia. I just watched a video on how to improve one's oil paint technique-- although my preferred medium is acrylic. And dang, I've been approaching it all wrong! Never mind. I can correct henceforth. 

Never mind that my people are all elongated like giraffes. At least they don't look Neanderthal. 

My husband looked yesrpterday and asked, "Are they naked?" No, no, that's the under painting! They will be fully clothed when finished.

Her goes the redo of my other River picture. I need to soften the sharp edges ands broaden the strokes. 

Try again

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I was really unhappy with my first rendition of dancers, so let's start this party over. Dang!  Those sheep are just weird and the people are stiff.  I like the happy little leaves, though.  

Summer

I'm starting this one. Eventually, there will be a boy swinging into the river. 

The painting below if of a sign for Neal's Dining Room in Concan.  A friend wants some pictures of Neal's due to all the fun they've had there. 

You can see more of this wonderful place HERE  

Hill Country Paint

West of San Antonio, the Texas Hill Country skips and spreads. Over those mountains and hills, bluebonnets come in the spring.  Goats, sheep, deer, cows, and occasional buffalo dot the hills. More and more, exotic deer, lavender, and grapes join the customary peach and pecan orchards.

The Frio, Comal, and Guadalupe Rivers run through the hills. All these features beckon travelers. 

I get many requests for river paintings. 

I have an unusual request for a buffalo painting.  

I have a less-usual request for a painting of the traditional Gardner Park Dance. So, here's the beginnings!  

Some parts of the Hill Country are dusty and desert-like, scattered with prickly pear and scrubby vegetation.  It's all wildly beautiful.

Tea pots

Have you ever tried Bengal Spice tea with coconut cream? If not, why not? 

I recommend brewing it in a paisley teapot. Or pouring it into a paisley cup. I'll post pics of all my pots soon. 

This has been a long, crazy day at school. Teachers are frazzled getting in final grades. Case managers are urging students to get their assignments submitted. Painting, tonight, is out of the question. So I brew some tea, finish dishes, then begin taking pics of my collection. 

Then I naturally want to sketch or paint the pot. 

There is something domestic and comforting about antique teapots. 

I think about cast iron stoves and crocheted doilies, dainty teacups, and petite fours. 

My grandmother's best dishes and Mom's rose China. 

A student asked me today whether I paint daily. No, just on the calmest days of my life. A still life of nostalgic kitchenware might be very calming. 

Just add goats

I'm working on a painting designed to take me to the Hill Country of Texas.  Picture April, before it's so stinking hot that you want to sit in the AC and never venture out.  The bluebonnets are parading around like Southern bells aware of their charm.  Even goats look endearing in all that vivid blue! 

I've barely painted in their outlines, but I'll be adding horns, highlights, the whole works. 

And I have a request for buffalo. So behold the buffalo taking shape!  

Painting over the long haul

TI've gotten back into painting in the last 4-5 years.  It has been quite an episode, and I've gleaned wisdom from the process.

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Here are some of the lessons: 

*It's more important to paint frequently than to set aside days or weeks to paint. 

Who really has hours a day to paint?  Or do any beloved hobby? Most of us snatch moments in between work, fixing meals, cleaning house, and connecting with family.  Daily life is not an obstacle but a vehicle for art.  Our lives lend reality to painting. 

If I put my paint brush down for weeks on end, my skills will degrade.  

Keeping a small paint corner set up helps. Painting daily for 15-60 minutes keeps me sharp and focused. 

If I can't paint, I sketch in a notepad or color.  But as important as frequent painting is, knowing the motivation for putting color on canvas is crucial. 

(Notice the addition of rocks and shadows.)

*Find the Motivation

Painting is the best therapy for my busy, overwhelmed, creative mind. 
I have a challenging job and a busy life full of family and friends.  So many days, I don't even stop to breathe. 

When I paint, I can breathe.  The same is true of my other hobbies and loves--reading, cooking, travel.  When I pick up a paintbrush, I'm envisioning myself in that landscape--breathing the air, swimming in the water.  It makes a complete and total vacation for me--for the duration of the session!  

Then when I hang the work at school or in the house, I just have to look at the picture to recall that small holiday. Those who buy my paintings get that same vacation feeling!  

(partially done field of bluebonnets)

*When you paint, you must see. 

Painting is all about seeing, and seeing beyond the canvas and the photos.  Sight is different from vision. Just as reading is about imagining and inferring, painting infuses a scene with life. There's interpretation and emotion along with the images.  Otherwise, you could just take photos and print them on canvas--ta daaaa! A short cut. 

To really see, you need good light--literally!  Daylight is best, but in daylight, there is usually a lot of wind or heat.  I put a powerful lamp stand in my tiny studio so daylight is simulated when paint fever hits. 

To see, I need to cultivate vision.  I need to take some lessons from a master on this.  How to compose?  How to shade?  What is it that makes one photo or landscape breathtakingly balanced, while a similar piece is just a little off? 

I remember spotting a Van Gogh in a gallery full of exuberant expressionist art. It beckoned me.  The strokes were small and obsessive, colors were bold, and the composition compelling.  I knew what that small painting was from a great distance.  At the same time, I know his story, and that he was seldom satisfied and rarely marketable. That brings me to my final point: 

*Allow yourself to fail and to learn more every day. 

Have fun and enjoy the learning curve. 

Three Day Siege

Due to 20 inches of rain dumping on the Houston area in a single day, we are home for the third day in a row.  

We've played Star Wars in the Hallway and I've painted a little while doing a lab safely training online. My daughter the science teacher laughs at the thought of me being responsible for flammable chemicals. Of course, I'm painting trees.  I could do that blindfolded.  There is something so sensible yet romantic about the parade of leafy maples showing off their best dresses. 

I keep trying to paint this Portuguese fishing village.  The persepetive is tricky, because the viewer looks up at the hill and down at the water.  I've also never explored all the shapes and colors of small watercraft presented in the photo.  But I can picture sitting there fishing or swimming and hearing the lapping of waves.  In the photo, people cluster all along the sidewalk.  With so many dwellings together, I'm sue you can smell cooking, hear chatter, and see small children running around. 

I also took a moment to be appalled at the state of my flowerbeds. 

I love the contrast here.  The dusty Miller plants are quite pushy and crowding out all the others. 

More Inspiration

I brought coloring books, sketch pads, and pastels this time rather than my paints. But just look at these photos! I'll have to paint when we get home: 

Such drama! The play of light on water makes any ordinary scene a delight. 

Future projects

I'm sifting through vacation photos. Look at these gems that would paint well: 

Everywhere one looks in St. Augustine is regal architecture, a treasure of textures and light. We slowed to creep through a narrow alley and I took the above photo into someone's drawing room. Rain poured from the sky and speckled our car windows while gleaming yellow light shone warmly within. 

Here is a peek through arches at the Lightner museum. 

And oh, the sunsets! Look at that mother-of-pearl cloud behind the silhouettes do palm trees. 

What will J say?

I've been asked to paint a lot of different subjects.  Left to myself, I like calm waters, eerie trees, green fields.  However, everyone else has other visions of the perfect place and time, so I've painted golf courses, fanciful trees, bridges, paths, and oceans reflecting all types of water.

For the first time, a friend asked me to paint a relationship.  It was supposed to be a basic representation of earth and elements and attraction. As usual, it took a turn where it has become part paisley and part Dr. Seuss.  If this thing no longer represents her color scheme, I'll keep the crazy thing and start hers over.

As usual, I now both love and hate it and am a little obsessed by adding more curlicues to it. Got out of bed on Sunday morning at 4:30 AM to get back to it.

What do you think?  What will Jessica say?

Whimsy and reality

The painting below is one I did years ago and redid once I'd Lerner a little more about skies and hr ions. But these hills beg for dragons and princesses, shepherd s and dwarves. 

I'm not sure how the unicorns got onto these green Irish hills. 

Below is a sunset view of a Jamaican beach.  

Weekend projects

I love the mellow sunlit tones in this painting.  It hangs on my wall at school.  

This is a small unfinished project.  Soon, I'll try to polish it off.  

Textures and shadows

In my quest to get realism and playfulness on my canvas, I'm continuing the Door Series.,

I'm concluding that American doors are the most prosaic in the world. Let us turn elsewhere for inspiration!  Pinterest Page, Architextures