Love of Three Pomegranites???

9 x 11 pastel on mat board

I've decided to play again with still life, after buying a pomegranite for a dish I never made and decided to paint instead! I'm using liquid acrylic, as I have in other still life, in order to set some base color that I want to show through, and I'm using soft pastels to layer color. I like the juxtaposition of saturated color in the fruit and lightly applied layers in the background. I haven't paid as much attention to color as I might, and I see a potential series of many more pomegranite pictures to come! Hey, at least they aren't pears!!!

Owl's Head Reflections

20 x 16 pastel on board

This is one of my first house and water scenes from Maine, painted in September. We were in Owl's Head on a very foggy Sunday morning in early July and I loved the buildings next to a small pond. I've changed them quite a bit to fit into a vertical format. I think they almost have a fairy tale quality to them! The painting wasn't working until I let the fir in the center go off the picture plane. Then I was pleased!

This area is very close to the town where Sarah Orne Jewett wrote Country of the Pointed Firs,

one of my all time favorite books. I thought about this a lot and the quiet beauty of her story as I was painting the trees in this and other paintings from Maine.

Still Life???

My painting "Shore Houses," which I earlier posted to this blog, just won the award for "Best Still Life" at the Maryland Pastel Society's Shades of Pastel Show! The juror, Richard McKinley, explained that he considers still life to be about planes and reflected light, while landscape is about light on natural objects, and thus he considers this to be a still life!

I was, of course, honored to get the award, but also found it very ironic, given my "problems" with creating still life paintings!!!

When giving the award, Richard said this could be considered a portrait, a landscape, or a still life. Whatever you call it, I DO love the interplay of defined planes with the natural forms of trees and shrubs and that is what I am concentrating on now. I'm also focusing, to some extent, on houses that are related in some way to water. I have been enjoying painting houses from our trip to Maine and will share some soon, I promise!

House in Glen Echo

I've been neglecting my blog! But that's because the weather has been great, and I'm inspired once again, and I've been painting. Here are two versions of a picture done last week on scene in the beautiful community of Glen Echo. The picture on the left was taken as I finished it on the easel and I'm afraid is a little too washed out. The picture on the right was taken after I made some changes to it back in the studio.

The challenge of this picture was the screen porch with wooden slats. The light was hitting the slats and parts were in shadow, part in light. There was also a great fire hydrant in front, that I liked a lot. I had a few too many competing interests!

I've been reading the book Mastering Composition by Ian Roberts (North Light, 2008), which I highly recommend. Included with the book is a DVD where he shows a number of paintings where he changes the color intensity in various parts of the picture to show how it would distract from the center of interest.

Thinking about this, I realized that the bright, light green that I had used on the slats was distracting from the hydrant in the foreground and the window at top. I decided to leave the upper window trim in the green, but changed the slats to a light violet, and the light on the hydrant from violet to green. What a difference! The house immediately receded where I wanted it to, while still reading as a house in light and shadow. I probably still have competing centers of interest, but I think that the reds of the crepe myrtle bring the eye immediately to the top windows.

This isn't a great painting, but I thought it would be fun to share!

Jean

Pond Light, 12 x 16 pastel on board

I went back to my neighborhood pond this morning to paint for the first time since spring of 2008. I did a lot of paintings here last year, then grew tired of it.

But today I went back and it was all fresh and new and quite different! There are new tall bushes with light green flowers, and the warm, humid light of early morning was quite lovely.

A number of people stopped to say that they were pleased that someone was painting there because it is such a lovely spot!

I recently purchased the book Mastering Composition by Ian Roberts and I spent a lot of time on this painting thinking about the compostion. I opened up the foreground to allow the eye in to the water, then up to the opening in the grasses, then along a distant light green path to the building and trees in the upper left corner.

I also worked hard at keeping things simple! This sounds strange, but I know that I normally overdo my trees, rather than getting the right shapes and values to begin with.

It was a great morning and I hope to spend more time outside this fall and sharing on this blog!

Painting in the Rockies

I'm back from a wonderful week painting in the Colorado Rockies and giving my second workshop of the summer. The weather was very nice, the students were great! A big thanks to Margie and Glen Patterson in Allenspark for all they did to make this a great experience. But painting in an area with little humidity or "atmosphere" had its challenges for an East Coast painter. Still, it was hard to beat the wonderful feeling of standing outside looking at the mountains, trees, and wildflowers and trying to capture them in pastel.

Now it's back to work. My class at Montgomery College starts on Monday with an almost full class--the largest ever. So I'm going to have to really work hard to keep up with everyone. But I enjoy this type of challenge.

Doing the two workshops this summer really reinforced my feelings that teaching is what gives me the most joy. I loved both workshops and all the people in them. And I look forward to having six new people in my class at MC. I love pastel and I love sharing that joy with others.

The other thing that was reinforced was my love of painting outside. The cool, wet spring kept me inside for most of the time that I would normally do plein air. But now it is late summer and the days are warm and the light is soft. It's a lovely time to go out to paint and I've finally had the time to get back to it.

And speaking of joy--I treated myself to the complete set of 400 Schminke pastels! I've been wanting this set for a long time and now it is here, sitting on my counter. And today, I began working with them and they are really wonderful.

Workshop in Marion, MA

I'm back from five weeks in Massachusetts and Maine. I'm happy to report that my show and workshop went very well. I had nine students at a three-day event and got to paint outside two of the three days and just escape a massive storm on the third! It's been VERY rainy in the Northeast. But I found, not surprisingly, that the participants were much more interested in learning how to work with pastel than in plein air painting. Still, we got to paint at Marion Harbor on the second day, and at the lovely home of one of our participants in Wareham, MA on the third (pictured here). I found my first workshop experience to be thoroughly enjoyable and now look forward to my next in Colorado in August.

Aside from demos, I didn't do a lot of painting. I'm finding that I'm wanting to change but not sure how! I spent a lot of time in Maine looking at art and saw several artists' work that really inspired me. What I admired most was the simplicity of shapes, interesting use of color, and strong drawing skills in those with buildings. I'm hoping to use my many photos from Maine as reference to explore my love of New England architecture. It's something that has deep meaning for me. I

Moose River 16 x 12 pastel on board








This has been a busy spring with little time to paint! I've been in Albuquerque for the biennial pastel convention and more recently in the Adirondacks, receiving two awards from the Northeast Pastel Society. In preparation for my upcoming workshop in Massachusetts, I decided to paint the same scene three times: on Wallis Belgian mist, Art Spectrum Supertooth, and gatorfoam with AS liquid primer (my favorite surface). The last came out the best and I've included it here.

On Saturday I'll be leaving for Massachusetts and Maine and will be away for five weeks! I hope to get some painting done and lots of material for new paintings for the upcoming year. I'll be having a show and doing a workshop and celebrating my mother's 90th birthday. So a busy, and hopefully, productive time.

Back to Landscape

Shore Houses 20 x 16 pastel on board

I just did this picture as a potential submission for an article in an art journal. I took photos of each stage and was pleased with the way it came out. It's been raining and lousy lately, so I decided to take the opportunity to work in the studio from photos. This is a picture from my recent trip to Mattapoisett, MA. I really liked the pattern of trees, a lovely swirl of dark with strong lights juxtaposed. I also decided to keep the bottom unfinished, something I try to do, most of the time unsuccessfully! I think it worked this time.

I've been busy getting ready for my upcoming show in Marion, MA (June 26-July 22). I just published my first book! It will be listed on a special page of my website, once my husband gets the next update done. It's really exciting to see yourself in print!

Boats at Dock

Boats at Dock 9.5 x 12 pastel on paper








It's been a long time since I've posted. I was away in Massachusetts, but that's not really the reason. I think I'm in a slump! I haven't done anything lately that I've felt really good about! I did this painting of boats on Cape Cod as a demo for my college class and I think it's the closet thing to a successful "still life" that I've done lately. It's going to be in my upcoming show in Massachusetts. I did it on Wallis paper and loved playing with the colors. Used my new set of Richeson hard pastels as well and enjoyed them.

The Gardener 16 x 12 pastel on board

I'm posting this image of my stepfather, Everett Eldridge. I painted the picture yesterday and learned in the evening that he died during the day. We were expecting him to go, but it was meaningful to me to be painting him for the first time on the day that he died. The picture is of him in his beloved garden, after getting out of the hospital and nursing home in 2006. Before retiring, he was a boat builder. He was a life-time resident of Mattapoisett--a true Yankee! He and my mother were married in 1975 after both had lost their spouses several years prior. It was a wonderful marriage and we will all miss him.

The Turquoise Ball

The Turquoise Ball

8 x 6 pastel on board

$100 (unframed, incl. shipping)

And now for something completely different. My husband and I went to see cherry blossoms in Bethesda yesterday. I took all the obligatory pictures (which I almost never paint), but then saw this little boy with his bright orange shirt and large turquoise ball. I haven't tried to paint a child in a long time--almost never. So this was a challenge but also fun. It's all about color and light and value and shape, but it helps if you give him 5 fingers (which I didn't at first).

Terra Cotta Pot and Turquoise Vases

Terra cotta pot and turquoise vases

16 x 12 pastel on board

It's been a busy time with not enough time for painting. During the week that I began this blog I also bought a piano, which arrived last Friday. So I've had a pleasant diversion from painting. I finally got to do a still life on Sunday that I'm sharing. I wanted to contrast the opaqueness of the terra cotta and turquoise pots with the clear glass vase. When I put a spot light on it I got a beautiful stream of light from the vase. I used the counter top to produce bands of mid tone and darker color. I used a black backdrop, but quickly went away from black into other colors. I like the pureness of black, but find it to be a real challenge.

I took this photo in bright sunlight and it shows every little bump of the pastel and the texture of the board.

Morandi

Bath Bottles

10 x 8 pastel on La Carte paper

Yesterday my husband and I went to the Phillips Gallery to see the show of still lifes by Giorgio Morandi (1890-1964). These paintings are REALLY still. For years, he painted the same bottles over and over, getting more and more simplified in his use of shapes and values. I have to admit that we both preferred his earlier work where there were more values differences and use of color.

Interestingly, my mentor had compared my painting "Antietam Barns" with Morandi's still life. So I was particularly interested in the show. Several years ago I did this still life, which I'm calling "Bath Bottles" as these are some of the many bottles that line my tub that I look at every day. I find that this painting reminds me more of Morandi.

Morandi was a very quiet, reclusive man who rarely went anywhere. This quietness is so evident in his paintings. (I was interested to note that Janet Napolitano also visited the exhibit yesterday, according to the Post. I guess she needs some of this quiet.) Today I looked at the still life paintings of oil painter Nancy Switzer . Her paintings of butter bars really reminded me of Morandi, but with more life and verve. I love her rich application of paint. Her work also reminds me of Wayne Thiebaud's wonderful cakes, where he has virtually frosted them with paint.

What all of this says to me is how personal still life can be and how much it reflects us as individuals. Will this be true of me? I don't know, but it will be fun to explore.

Another still life

The Red Pot
12 x 16
pastel on board









Here is the second still life that I painted recently. This one is a pot by Liz Lescault (also in my gallery), which normally sits on my living room table.

In doing these still life paintings, I've asked myself why it is that I'm usually not very interesting in the genre, while these have been so much fun. I think what I dislike is the obviously arranged groupings of pots and vegetables and who knows what else (skulls seem to be in fashion). They seem articifial and dull to me. Thus, I prefer to paint a single object, perhaps as one might come across it. By limiting the objects, I can also think about the background in terms of design elements.

I also have no desire to paint it perfectly, but instead want it to be painterly and exciting. Perhaps I want my still life to be less still? Using my textured boards and the acrylic underpainting allows for more depth and vibrancy.

For me, the master of still life (and painting in general) has always been Richard Schmid (http://www.richardschmid.com/). Yes, his objects and flowers are arranged on a table top, but they tend to be haphazardly placed with objects and flower petals moving every which way. Many artists have followed his example and there are now many examples of this form of still life. So I don't want to copy them (nor do I have Schmid's skill, needless to say). But I love his approach to beautifully crafted form, mixed with loose brush strokes and disappearing edges.

Among pastel artists, I really admire the work of Deborah Beys (www.abendgallery.com/html_artists/bays_deborah/bays.htm) who uses rich darks and lights in her work.

I want my pieces to have excitement and interesting color and design. Aside from that, I'm not sure. But it will be fun to explore.

Scenes From a Life

Bowl With Lemons

12 x 16

Pastel on board

Welcome to my blog, something I've thought about for a long time and finally decided to act on. I took a workshop last week with the inspiring figurative pastelist, Margaret Dyer, and I credit her for getting me going.

I want this blog to be something that is fun for me and for my viewers. Several years ago, I went into a gallery in Aspen, CO and showed my website to the owner. He loved my landscapes, but told me "you're no still life painter." I believed him. Now, however, I want to end those foolish restrictions on what I paint. Last week, I realized that I can still draw a decent figure, and recently I have been exploring still life. Thus, my blog is a way of giving myself permission to paint whatever I want. My principal interest is in creating pictures with strong compositions, interesting shapes and great color.

It's also a way of celebrating the joys of everyday life and trying to hold on a little to the days and years that seem to be speeding by. I believe that we are all here to make the most of our lives, in whatever way we are most able. For me, it is painting, teaching, and playing the piano. And I do love to give the occasional dinner party. So, who knows what might end up in this blog as it develops over time.

To begin, I'm posting a still life I did recently of a favorite bowl with lemons. The bowl was created by Scottie Allen, a member of my Bethesda gallery and good friend.

For those interested in the technical details: my current methods involve using gatorfoam with two coats of Art Spectrum colourfix liquid primer. I begin with a charcoal drawing, which I make into a wash with an old brush. Then I apply washes of liquid acrylic to provide interesting tones of warms and cools, darks and lights. I work then with nothing but soft pastels, leaving some areas of the underpainting showing, as I wish.

I hope you enjoy.