Irish Fishing Boats - Howth

Howth Harbor, 16x12, oil on linen panel

As seems to be my modus operandi these days, a bunch of paintings I have been working on were wrapped up this past weekend after a month of nothing to report. So many are 'in progress.' This little guy started out last August at a workshop I attended as a study for a bigger painting. I did a very simple block in to see if how the shapes would work. I have not gotten to a larger version since then so I opted instead to finish the block in. It was a lot of detail for such a small work in my mind, so I had to do work on it in bite size pieces. I started first to correct the drawing, which was not off by much, thankfully. I then started from the top and worked my way down. It took about a month of working in stages to finish it not being in any kind of hurry and enjoying the leisurely pace.

I liked this image for the composition and for the repetitive shapes and colors. The reds and oranges move you through the painting and the gray brown harbor walls frames it nicely keeping the eye moving.

Howth is out on a spit of land that juts out north of Dublin called Howth Head. The train took about a half hour to get there from the city. We had a lovely lunch on the harbor listening to the sea gulls and watching the boats coming and going. Howth  has a large hillside which we walked up and found a wonderful view of the harbor from a church ruin. The clouds had rolled in by then and as you can see below, gave a very moody image with the church and the bare trees. It was two years ago I was there this month. Howth has a great hiking trail that runs around the hill the abbey is on which gives you views of the Irish Sea. FYI, we did not see many tourists, yet I found the town very picturesque. It was a bright but overcast day and we were blessed with a rainbow as we took the train back to Dublin early that evening.

Unloading the boat

Fish chowder and fresh Irish bread

St Mary's Abbey, Howth

Writing this post reminds me of how many great images I have from the afternoon spend walking around this town.

The Anshutz Collection at the Broadmoor

Two weeks ago I was in Colorado Springs to judge high school students in DECA, a marketing education student organization for Career and Technical Education. It was two day commitment plus reading the proposals ahead of time. I was given Sports and Entertainment Promotion Plan. I am not a sports fan so this was not the best pick for me, but 4 women and 1 man were the judges for this event on Sunday afternoon. We judged the presentations of the 11 or so teams whose written plan we had already reviewed. Fine. The next day, all the events were moved to the WEST building on the Broadmoor campus. Now this is when my eyes were filled with delight. The West building houses some amazing pieces from the Anschutz collection. The paintings are spread around the hallways and in sitting areas. I have picked two Fechins and two Blumenscheins here. But also represented were Birger Sandzen, Maynard Dixon, Remington, Victor Higgins and many more. There were a couple of Maxfield Parishe's and  Bierstadt's in the main building as well. Worth a side trip if you are in the Springs.

detail from Fechin still life. Have you ever seen such onions? Masterful.

another detail from Blumenschein if my memory serves.

another Fechin detail

Blumenschein

Cherry Blossom Promenade

Cherry Blossom Promenade, 36x36, oil on linen

To be a harbinger of Spring, here is one of the latest to come off my easel. I have been working on this large for me painting since last spring. It was a struggle to get it to 'read' correctly. Originally, I was trying to imitate Tom Thompson and the way he could make the woods of Canada have such wonderful patterns within them. I managed to do that with the cherry blossoms but I could never get that to work with the cast shadows so in essence the painting looked like two separate ideas. I finally had to paint over that which I liked and was attached to doing to get the painting to have a cohesive and connected feel, which ultimately is what I was going for in the first place. Sometimes we artists can be stubborn in holding on to something which is holding us back from achieving where we want to go. What can I say? I finally saw what I needed to and got the ship righted and on course

One of the things I like about this scene is not only the promenade of blooming trees but the figures. It shows a cross section of people and one would think I had placed them there to add to the composition the placement is so perfect. You can't see the last grouping in this image as they blend in with the trees but there is a 6th  grouping in between the trees that are to the upper right of the rabbi's hat.

This scene is at the Brooklyn Botanic Gardens. It was quite by chance I was in NY in April for the Cherry Blossoms. I had come to see the Sargent watercolor show at the Brooklyn Art Museum and my cousin had gone with me. When we left the museum she wanted to go to the Botanic Gardens which was right next door to the Museum. So glad we did. A lovely oasis in the city and what a welcome to be outside in it.

Books to recommend

Today being a snow day for me from work and a perfect reading day, I want to share with you two books I recently read. Both by the same author, B.A.Shapiro. I read "the Art Forger" first. I remember trying to read this book a few years ago but could not get into it. Then one day recently I was walking my dog in the neighborhood and stopped to check out a neighbor's "Little Free Library" box and there it was again, so I decided to give it another chance. This time the book grabbed me. It is fiction based on real events used as a spring board to create this interesting story of a young artist trying to make her way but to support herself, paints reproductions of famous Degas paintings for a commercial enterprise. The real event that this story uses is the 1990 heist of 13 paintings from the Isabella Stewart Gardner Museum in Boston. None of the paintings have yet to be recovered. In the story, the young woman is brought a painting to copy. It is supposed to be a Degas that she recognizes as being one of the paintings stolen in this heist. I don't want to give the story away but she obviously has a moral dilemma on her hands. This author goes into some detail on the tools used and how someone, a forger perhaps?, goes about replicating old paintings. I found this part particularly fascinating. The story is well told, well documented, and I highly recommend it to those who like art, history and just a plan good contemporary story.

The second book just came out and is called "The Muralist." Again, based on true events with a fictitious main character. This time the story takes place in and around 1940 in NYC with world famous artists part of the fictionalized story. The fictional main character is a Jewish French woman born and mostly raised in the USA. She is working for the WPA painting murals with Lee Krasner (before she became well known as an abstract expressionist) and included among their friends are Willem deKoenig, Marc Rothko, and Jackson Pollock. Being Jewish and having family in France the main character of course is very concerned about what is going on in Europe. In this story she becomes the missing link from the art that went on before, to the leap to the purely American art form, abstract expressionism. She and Lee Krasner are both studying with Hans Hoffmann and the author goes into what impact he had on both women. I had never heard of Hans Hoffmann before but I must admit I was quite inspired by the authors description of his 'push-pull' theory. Again there are myriad threads in this story which made it for me a fascinating read. Number one, I will read just about anything on WWII and this book delves into the politics of the time and focuses on those politicians who would keep the refugees out. I learned that one particular man, Samuel Breckenridge Long, who single-handedly kept 100's of thousands of Jewish refugees from entering the US and most certainly sent the majority to their death. A timely moral dilemma with what is currently going on with the Middle East. Again, B.A. Shapiro weaves history, art, and a love story together to make an enchanting tale that weeks later I am still cogitating on.

As an encore, I decided to add a third book that I read years ago but is one of those stories that just sticks with you. A little secret about me is that I apprenticed in a bookbinder/book restoration studio for almost two years so I also like stories about books. "People of the Book-a Novel" by Geraldine Brooks is one of the more intriguing stories about a book I have read. I am including the book review from Amazon on this one as I am a bit foggy on the details. I just remember that it follows the book through all its owners over the centuries by the clues left behind in the book. Again, it shows my love of history, art and the human soul.

"Inspired by a true story, People of the Book is a novel of sweeping historical grandeur and intimate emotional intensity by an acclaimed and beloved author. Called "a tour de force"by the San Francisco Chronicle, this ambitious, electrifying work traces the harrowing journey of the famed Sarajevo Haggadah, a beautifully illuminated Hebrew manuscript created in fifteenth-century Spain. When it falls to Hanna Heath, an Australian rare-book expert, to conserve this priceless work, the series of tiny artifacts she discovers in its ancient binding-an insect wing fragment, wine stains, salt crystals, a white hair-only begin to unlock its deep mysteries and unexpectedly plunges Hanna into the intrigues of fine art forgers and ultra-nationalist fanatics."

Marsh Wren

Marsh Wren, 8x10, oil on panel, available

Last month I thought I might participate in the 30 paintings in 30 days again this January. With that in mind I went online to morguefile to look for some interesting but not too involved royalty free photos. I had heard about this website but this was my first visit. I pulled a bunch off to be ready but then decided against doing the 30 day challenge. BUT that doesn't mean I won't play around with what I found or go back to visit again when I get tired of my own morgue file.

I liked this image for the little birds intensity and to play with keeping the background loose and somewhat abstracted. The block in was fast and fun and then I would add detail to the bird from time to time over the past few weeks. I did this painting with the thought of donating to a raffle for the Governor's show. They asked participating artists to consider donating a painting but that doesn't mean what you offer will be accepted for the raffle.

I am enjoying doing these smaller pieces while working on the bigger paintings; it helps break up the monotony and keeps things fresh. And then there is that feeling of accomplishment, too.

Another repurposed painting-Wynetka Farm

Block in for Wynetka Farm, 12x9 oil

I saw a friend of mine was painting this image. I was taken by the simple shapes and the obvious light and shadow on the white house with red roofs so I asked her if she would mind sharing it with mes as I would like to paint it too. She was willing. Wasn't that nice of her? She is painting it in a much larger format. I just wanted to do a small sketch. I did this initial quick sketch in an hour or so, using the Douglas County plein air painting below as the substrate. That is what I consider a failed attempt at abstracting the landscape. My husband came in after I put this up to look at it and said how much he liked it! Then I didn't want to touch it again for awhile. Don't mess with success right?

Wynekta Farm, oil

But this weekend I decided to finish it and not be distracted by a positive comment. I did try to leave some of the original painting coming through but not so much that it was overly distracting. You can see some of the rhythms still showing through. I quite like the finished product for a small diversion from the bigger pieces I have been doing recently. Feels good to feel finished without spending months on it.

Underpainting, Douglas County Plein air from 2009

The cliffs along Half Moon Bay

A few years ago I was in Half Moon Bay, California to spend Easter with Richard's niece. Richard and his brother and I spent the morning walking along the cliffs and then back via the beach. My brother-in-law is still on the cliffs as he did not join us on the beach walk. That would be him scanning the horizon.

Cliffs-Half Moon Bay, 24x24, oil

I know this is somewhat of a 'gutsy' composition. Not only does it slash the square into almost two identical shapes, but the cliffs fade off the canvas! I have the bird soaring to act like a period to stop the viewer as well as the hills in the distance to go back into rather than off to the left.  The figures in the foreground also help to anchor the viewer in the composition. So the thought was the viewer would start with the figure (my brother-in-law) go off towards the left, see the bird, drop down to the figure and come back across the beach.

My aim was to keep each large shape in one value group yet keep those shapes interesting. So, sky, cliffs and beach. As a graphic designer I want to make each shape a flat color so this is my continuing struggle to add interest with texture (paint quality), subtle value shifts and layering of paint. Layering paint sounds so easy but for me it is not. I want to cover the previous layer, every speck of it! Sand is a particular favorite of mine to practice using texture and value shifts. There is so much blue (reflected sky after all) in that sand with some rose and ocher too.