Clear Wine Bottle Still Life

Keeping in the theme of staying out of my comfort zone I started this still life the other day when my power was off. I was of two minds. Start abstractly but bring it around to a more finished completed painting or try and stop before I get too involved in it.

I grabbed a wiped off painted panel that still had the previous image on it, as you can see the tree in the off centered bottle. The roof line and buildings are still coming through. It was about at this stage that I decided to try to keep some of those elements. My hesitation was that I did not retain any of the under painted image on the left side. But somehow it doesn't bother me. Every time I walked by my easel I was just liking it more and more. I can't tell you how hard it was for me to just stop.

Here is where I ended up.  It was a fun exercise.

untitled at this point, 14x18, oil on linen panel

inspired by another artist's blog post

A blog post from Oil Painters of America came into my inbox the other day and the title caught my eye so I did open and read it. The title was Becoming a Better Realist Painter thru Abstraction or something close to that. I do believe that to be true but I wanted to see what this artist, Larry Moore, said about it. I found his article very well thought out and pertinent. Since I have not been at my own easel much this summer I decided to start doing some of his exercises to get the juices flowing. I started with the continuous line drawing. It has been a very long time since I played with that. Here are my attempts. The first two were with a sharpie pen, hence the spots on the following pages before I switched to pencil. His examples were more simplistic landscapes and I chose flowers in my garden. Flowers with one line is a challenge to be sure but it was a great exercise. The last one is of African Violets of which I had hoped to get some of the leaves in but I could not figure out without lifting the pencil. It is easy to paint yourself into a corner if you don't think it thru ahead of time and that is part of the challenge. As I wrote this I now realize a way to have done that but my logical mind got in the way. I just didn't figure that out until now...just do it! Go through the flowers or whatever it takes. That is part of the abstraction and letting go to see what happens. Happy shapes!

The next day I decided to play with abstract in oil. Here is my first go, where I painted over a plein air painting. It is not finished yet but you get the idea. The inspiration for this is from a photo a friend of mine from the 6th Grade when we lived in Orleans, France posted on FaceBook a few years ago. It was her father's collection of the different toilet papers from his jaunts into local toilettes. Who would have thought to do that? Pure Genius. I actually laughed out loud when I saw the photo as I remember all the different colors and textures most of those textures have never touched most American bottoms I can tell you that for a fact. Those shiny brownish ones were more like waxed paper than not. This is not something one forgets. I still have the horror of having to use what we called a "turkish" toilet and essentially consisted of a hole in the ground with two pads either side of the hole for your feet and only the shiny waxy toilet paper. One square at a time. I would say the average size was 4x4 or so. And no door. I could look outside to the parking lot. Not fun for a 10 year old girl. So who thought an abstract could bring back such fond memories? I always wanted to paint that memory she sparked. I still want to add some layers to it to see if I can pull of the translucent aspect of the waxier papers. The pink and blue were more like thin paper towels. None of these came on a roll.
on that note I will close for today...

oh what to name you? 12x9, oil

Depot Art Gallery

A week ago Monday I juried the "Summer Sizzle" show for the Littleton Art Guild that opened Friday July 13th. I am relatively new to being a juror. This is my third or fourth time being asked to jury a local show. I do enjoy it although I won't say it is easy. Some decisions are easier than others, of course. Each venue I have been asked to jury has a different process. I am not sure if I am just getting more used to it or that the people I worked with for this show were just easier to work with, but it seemed to go very smoothly and for that, I am grateful. I was also asked to give a few words for each of the pieces I rejected when I juried the show. I wasn't sure what that was about until I went into the room where they were all gathered and then it made sense. Of course those not accepted would like to know why. It is a good study in how to be gentle yet firm in your reasoning. The woman writing the comments down on a sticky note thought I was fair and succinct.

At the reception for the opening I was asked to come and give the awards and a few words about my choices. This wasn't difficult except for the fact that seeing the work hung on the walls gives one a whole new perspective versus jurying them as the line the floor along the walls! I saw some of the pieces I gave consideration to but then put aside; I began to second guess myself. Luckily, a number of members came up to me right away to thank me for such a great show. That it looked wonderful and they were pleased with my choices. Phew!

summer sizzle from two different perspectives

I was in a very equitable mood when I juried this show. I could have been a lot more harsh in my decisions to make a tighter show overall. But I instead asked how much room did they have to hang the show. IE about how many pieces could they hang in the space. I then asked how many roughly had been submitted. I then took out the the ones that I felt were not as good as they could be or did not fit the theme well enough. If there were obviously multiple pieces submitted by any one person I tried to keep at least one for the show even if the artist wasn't particularly up to snuff. I did reject more than the number I needed to, but not as many as I would normally have.

Picking "best of show" is so relative. The piece I thought was best of show really did not fit the theme of the show well in my opinion so I had to let it go. I could not even give it honorable mention and be fair to those whose work did fit the theme. In my words on my choices I made a point of saying why I thought it fit the theme and then said a few words as to why I picked it specifically for an award. Rarely is there an artist except the one who wins, who thinks the Best of Show is really that. I picked the painting above for the following reasons: It was well done perspective wise; It fit the show theme; it had a unique perspective and subject matter; it was fun and did not take itself too seriously. And it has good movement to it.

What a delightful portrait of a datura in sun-baked earth