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It's been one of those weeks where art time got hijacked by real world events, but I have done a few more watercolors I haven't posted here. The sun is finally out in the PNW, so maybe I'll get to sketch from life. These were done during the two week stretch of mostly rain, so from photos I snapped during the breaks on my walks. It's cosy to sit inside during the rain and do a little painting.
I also did one small holiday bazaar up here in Washington. It was tiny but fun, and I got a visit from Santa (see below). I will also say that the homemade cookies were the best eats ever at any show I've done, and that alone made the day worthwhile.
I also did one small holiday bazaar up here in Washington. It was tiny but fun, and I got a visit from Santa (see below). I will also say that the homemade cookies were the best eats ever at any show I've done, and that alone made the day worthwhile.
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I'm enjoying playing with watercolors without training wheels. I've never worked without putting some lines down first. Sometimes I get done and wish the composition were a little more balanced (there's no switching things around once the paint is down), but I think the energy and freshness are a good trade off. As I wrote yesterday, it's good to have these vacation spaces to experiment without feeling that a show is looming. I'm having tea on my worktable with a view of the mountains, listening to the radio, and playing with paint today. It's a good morning.
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The beautiful thing about having my main show up (and please go see it at Eclectic Eye until January 2nd if you’re in Memphis!) is that I’m now free to experiment a bit and see what new things I can try since the pressure of producing exhibitionable art on a deadline is past. Which is not to say I don’t love painting with a purpose and creating a body of work for a show. But I love do also love the freedom of vacation painting.
I’m back in Washington, as you may be able to tell from the scenery. It’s been a quiet start to vacation as I continue to soldier through a cold, but I’ve gotten to sit under a blanket and read a lot. I’m in the middle of a book on Georgia O’Keefe and Alfred Stieglitz, and it’s made me go look up her early watercolor work from the teens, which is stunning. I also looked a bit at John Marin’s watercolors. Both are free and impressionistic and do not involve the use of line. I have a couple of friends who have recently been painting first in watercolor and adding lines only later, if at all. I’ve never painted this way with watercolors, and even in my oils, I lay out the basic composition in chalk before diving in.
I’m back in Washington, as you may be able to tell from the scenery. It’s been a quiet start to vacation as I continue to soldier through a cold, but I’ve gotten to sit under a blanket and read a lot. I’m in the middle of a book on Georgia O’Keefe and Alfred Stieglitz, and it’s made me go look up her early watercolor work from the teens, which is stunning. I also looked a bit at John Marin’s watercolors. Both are free and impressionistic and do not involve the use of line. I have a couple of friends who have recently been painting first in watercolor and adding lines only later, if at all. I’ve never painted this way with watercolors, and even in my oils, I lay out the basic composition in chalk before diving in.
I've been trying to relax in my life lately and be a little bit less of a workaholic. I also think it's good for me to go through periods where I work quickly and loosely. Printmaking is so exacting that I can carry that tightnessback into my painting as well. I find that there’s a sweet spot at the center of the spectrum between too tight and being too sloppy, and what I tend to do is swing back and forth across that line, over correcting one way or the other in almost every piece. It’s the classic Goldilocks search for “just right.”
When I started watercolors, I was afraid of doing “little old lady” watercolors, and I felt that the presence of a strong line made them more sketchy and vibrant and energetic, as well as giving them a different feel from the old fashioned, very precise watercolors. I have mostly stayed with that style, though my lines have often gone from black pen to lighter inks to pencil. But O’Keefe’s simple and vibrant watercolors use no lines at all and simply sing. So after looking up that work of hers, I decided to try a few of my own. I can’t ever get as ascetic and spare and reduced as her gorgeous work. I’m simply too much of a detail painter. But it’s been freeing to use to lines and all and just play with paint. Here are the first four. It’s raining today, as it has been for most of my visit, this being Washington in the late fall. So I’m working from some photos I took on the one beautiful day I got to go out and take a gentle walk (while still fighting a cold). Perhaps if the weather breaks again and I feel better, I can do some on site painting as well.
When I started watercolors, I was afraid of doing “little old lady” watercolors, and I felt that the presence of a strong line made them more sketchy and vibrant and energetic, as well as giving them a different feel from the old fashioned, very precise watercolors. I have mostly stayed with that style, though my lines have often gone from black pen to lighter inks to pencil. But O’Keefe’s simple and vibrant watercolors use no lines at all and simply sing. So after looking up that work of hers, I decided to try a few of my own. I can’t ever get as ascetic and spare and reduced as her gorgeous work. I’m simply too much of a detail painter. But it’s been freeing to use to lines and all and just play with paint. Here are the first four. It’s raining today, as it has been for most of my visit, this being Washington in the late fall. So I’m working from some photos I took on the one beautiful day I got to go out and take a gentle walk (while still fighting a cold). Perhaps if the weather breaks again and I feel better, I can do some on site painting as well.
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Here is a sneak preview of my Skyward show that opens next Friday night, November 3rd, from 6-8pm at Eclectic Eye (242 S. Cooper in Memphis). I'll have more than these, but I decided to put up the first batch on my website today.
I've been doing massive amounts of computer work the last few days, which is never as much fun as making art, but I did manage most of a new, small painting for the show next week as well. I've been working to get more serious about an email list. I've always collected them on my paper mailings lists at shows, but I have a printing press I'm in love with, so I haven't been that serious about using email. However, all of the book publishing/marketing emails I've been listening to lately (I'm thinking ahead to the Mr. Darcy book while I paint for the fall show) have really emphasized the importance of an email newsletter. So I've decided to join the 21st Century and dive in, at least occasionally, when I have shows or other important news.
If you'd like to receive an occasional newsletter, please sign up here:
I've been doing massive amounts of computer work the last few days, which is never as much fun as making art, but I did manage most of a new, small painting for the show next week as well. I've been working to get more serious about an email list. I've always collected them on my paper mailings lists at shows, but I have a printing press I'm in love with, so I haven't been that serious about using email. However, all of the book publishing/marketing emails I've been listening to lately (I'm thinking ahead to the Mr. Darcy book while I paint for the fall show) have really emphasized the importance of an email newsletter. So I've decided to join the 21st Century and dive in, at least occasionally, when I have shows or other important news.
If you'd like to receive an occasional newsletter, please sign up here:
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I always seems to do self portraits in Paris. I walk a lot on my own and think, and self portraits seem to be an instinctive part of my self examination process. I did several watercolor ones while I was there, but I had the idea for this one near the end of the trip and took a few photos to help me do it in oils when I got home. My November show is called "Skyward" (a collaboration with Melissa Bridgman), and I decided it would be neat to have a figural piece or two as well as just landscapes. I've been enjoying oils on paper tremendously since I got home.
I took some photos as I painted, as I have been remembering to do lately, so here's the behind the scenes peek.
I took some photos as I painted, as I have been remembering to do lately, so here's the behind the scenes peek.
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I got home and had a frenzy of painting, but I haven't been keeping up here. Here is my favorite sky so far, a view from the place where I stay in Paris. I've also got two that are partly done but not fully finished yet below.
I'm hoping to get back and balance these two and start a couple of more I have banging around inside my skull here soon. It's been funny to have all these images I want to paint duking it out in there to see who gets out onto the paper next. It's lovely and creative feeling, and I'm grateful not to be in a place of artist block. Now I need to stop working on a few other things (like the calendar) and get back to my easel.
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I had a couple of quiet days on my own at the end of my Paris trip. Some of that, of course, was packing madly, because I acquired too many art books plus a framed print plus a little bit of breakable tea crockery, so it was more challenging than usual.
I knew I would be coming home to working hard on my fall shows, so I gave myself permission to really have a little bit of vacation --- sleeping in and lingering over tea in the beautiful apartment I stay in and going to the Musee d'Orsay to sit with my favorite pieces. I also had tea a couple of afternoons in Le Lithographe, the cafe just across from my building there. I'd been wanting to paint inside (usually I would sit out on the sidewalk to watch Paris go by) where there was a lovely tiled Art Deco piece next to the bar. I painted it small the first day, and since I'm thinking about Art Deco ornamentation a good bit at the moment (thanks to one of the art books I bought), I went back and painted a second time with more detail.
I knew I would be coming home to working hard on my fall shows, so I gave myself permission to really have a little bit of vacation --- sleeping in and lingering over tea in the beautiful apartment I stay in and going to the Musee d'Orsay to sit with my favorite pieces. I also had tea a couple of afternoons in Le Lithographe, the cafe just across from my building there. I'd been wanting to paint inside (usually I would sit out on the sidewalk to watch Paris go by) where there was a lovely tiled Art Deco piece next to the bar. I painted it small the first day, and since I'm thinking about Art Deco ornamentation a good bit at the moment (thanks to one of the art books I bought), I went back and painted a second time with more detail.
I also did a couple of more sketches in the Orsay. They move their paintings around a lot and swap things out. One of my favorite Odilon Redon pieces was gone (one of my favorite pieces period there), but this double panel was new to me this year, so I sketched it. As was the Vuillard, who painted a woman sketching with that hallmark "sketch face," as a friend of mine calls it.
One other thing I did was got myself one last cup of Angelina's hot chocolate and carried it into the Tuileries to sit and drink and (apparently) sketch. It was a lovely send off from a city I love and hope to return to next year.
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I've been taking some day trips out of Paris lately and went back to Chartres, where I hadn't been in five years, since my first time in France. It was good to be there again and to think of the changes in my life since I first had my feet on the labyrinth. It's also a lovely town, and I got a pot of tea and sketched the two very different towers after coming out of the church. I didn't paint any of the gorgeous Medieval glass, but it is an amazing part of the visit.
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My friend Jill and I went to Giverny her last day here. I hadn't been before, and it was stunning. My dad has been telling me I needed to get there, and I'm glad I did. It's always powerful to stand in the spaces artists you admire have painted in, and seeing Monet's home so beautifully intact gave me a further feeling for the man. One tremendous surprise was his collection of Japanese prints hung all over the house. The Impressionists were the first group of painters who had access to the exquisite woodblock prints of Hiroshige and his contemporaries, and it made a huge impact on their art. Getting to see the specific prints Monet lived with and was inspired by was enormous for me.
We didn't have a huge amount of time, and it got flooded with people as the morning went on, but I did have to do just one sketch of the beautiful colors he used in his home. I now want a yellow kitchen. I'm adding in some of my photos too, just to show the beauty of the place.
We didn't have a huge amount of time, and it got flooded with people as the morning went on, but I did have to do just one sketch of the beautiful colors he used in his home. I now want a yellow kitchen. I'm adding in some of my photos too, just to show the beauty of the place.
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I spent a week up north in the first apartment I ever came to here with my usual cat sitting gig. It was great to be back in that neighborhood again, and I did a bit of painting to celebrate that time. A couple of more self portraits (including a slightly meta sketch at right of the one above plus my Paris teapot and a second hand rose my friend Rene gave me that had been left in his tip box while he busked. Amazingly it perked up when I got it home and in water. I also painted the view out the window and Dusty, the resident cat.
Dusty is a pretty active cat, so I could only manage a brief kind of gesture sketch. She's got many more lovely stripes than I managed to capture, but I'm also trying not to overwork pieces here. I get too caught up in details sometimes, and drawings lose their energy. I'm trying to use my Paris sketches as a time of correction back in the other direction, even if some of them end up very impressionistic indeed.
