New Years Day-Roxborough

New Year's Day- Roxborough State Park, 16x20, oil on panel

So Here We Go Again. I had just decided to not do anymore 'before and afters' on my blog. Afterall, I consider myself a 'professional.' Professional artists don't make mistakes of such an egregious nature. Of do they? I know this artist does.

2 or 3 years ago version

But then last night I had a call from a dear friend of mine. She is also an artist and I value her input and her eye. As we were talking she mentioned how helpful she found my 'before and after' posts. That they contain valuable information. Jeez Louise. Now what? I laughingly told her how I had just vowed to do no more of those as I spent the last week or so excitedly redoing paintings I found to be flawed in one way or another. Some of them I wasn't even sure what it was that bothered me but I just knew they were  not for public consumption. I was telling how much fun it was to all of a sudden 'see' with such clarity what was wrong in a number of these 'face to the wall' paintings.

Here is one such failure. The bottom one was done from a photograph (yes, you read that correctly. A 3.4 x 5' photograph to be precise). This scene is from before digital cameras if you can even remember back that far. I came across it as I was culling my old morgue file. Before throwing this photograph away I decided to paint it. From a photograph. Like I used to. How we did that is so hard to fathom these days.

Let me start with the fact that the shadows are not united in form. Add to that the fact that the grasses are so bright against the purple and are not reading as they should; that some of those plants are in fact, in the shadows. If I remember correctly, I was in a hurry when I painted the original. Looking back I do see that the photograph is brighter like the original version is. So at least I got that right. That dark bullseye purple shadow in the middle did nothing but detract from the whole, drawing your eye right to it. How did I miss that?

In the new version my first step was to change the sky color. I darkened it down a wee bit in value and put some violet in it. Then on to unite that shadow shape and tone down the purple, adding value and temperature shifts within the shadow. Adding a variety of plants-they are not all grasses! In the plants I added greens and cooler yellows and some deep reds as well as keeping some of the oranges and warmer yellows. I remember that originally I wanted the deer to blend in to the scenery and now on this version I want them to stand out. Even though it is not overall as bright and sunny as the original, I believe the new toned down version reads better overall. And if I did not show the original you would not know the difference. It is always a crap shoot redoing a painting. Always someone who prefers the old vs the new. But though I may still decide to brighten it up and add more warmth to it I am much happier with it now.

The Path Less Taken

I am back! It has been awhile. It isn't that I haven't been painting. It is that I have been unable to believe that anything is finished...is that being stuck? Or is it just that I have been too distracted with other projects that this area of my life has suffered? If I am honest, it is both. It has been a summer of electricians, contractors, energy auditors and getting roommates. In all honesty, that is enough to keep anyone very busy.
Here is a painting I did last week; another one from my series from my trip to Milos, an island in the Aegean where I went this past Spring. This little seaside path to the sea is in Pollonia.

My son said he really liked it but he wants to see where the path leads. So I may just do a companion piece, but my thought is it leads to the sea and we all have our ideas about what that looks like. That being said, I must admit that the Aegean Sea is like no other I have encountered!

For me it is more about the journey than the destination. It is a sunny day with the threat of a cleansing rain, the island is abloom with spring flowers, and the sea beckons.

After adding the photo above, the image seemed too light. Some of that is from the lighting conditions when I took the photo. But it made me think it wasn't dramatic enough. I put the painting back on my easel this morning and redid the sky as I wanted the piece to have real feeling to it. The only other thing I did to it was to redo the dark hedges along the the horizon line. I wanted them to read more of a unit. Other than those changes the rest is the same. The photo below is darker, taken inside at my easel but is truer to the original than the washed out image above.

Looking for a Title, 12x16, oil on linen panel. Available. Contact me for information

After wrapping this up I blocked in the companion piece. It is the same size, same surface but I am going for a more abstracted landscape approach. Let's see if I can pull it off. I am happy with it so far. Here it is:

Roughed in companion piece

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

Feral Cats of Milos

Milos Resident, oil, 20x20 Available

It was a new experience for me to be around so many feral cats while on the island of Milos. They were everywhere. Literally and figuratively. You heard the random cat fight but overall they seemed to mind their own business and leave you alone. Unless you were eating. Then they would sit ever so quietly and watch you. They rarely fought at the table, believe it or not. They seemed to know that there would be enough for all or nothing for any of them. The couple sitting at this table did not feed the ever hopeful cats. Here is but one example:

Here is another typical scene and yes this cat is On the table; her mother would not allow her near "her table." :

So, to honor all the beautiful wild cats of Milos, I painted this portrait. It may not be the last but I started with this one because the cat on the white wall reminded me of John Singer Sargent's paintings from Capri. He had dancers among the white walls but I had cats.

If anyone has an idea for a title for this painting, I would love to hear from you.

Painting the Figure

Sunday evening as I was preparing dinner a friend called me to tell me that the instructor of a week long figure workshop she had signed up for had just let her it was okay for me to substitute for her the first two days of the workshop. My friend was not able to take the whole week off from work. I offered to fill in for her if she wanted me to keep her abreast of what was going on and take notes for her. I offered because my friend spoke so highly of this instructor and she keeps inviting me to join her in these workshops, so here was an opportunity for me to get a feel for what she was saying. We had spoken about it a few weeks ago so when she called Sunday night I had quite forgotten about the whole thing. And the class started Monday morning.

I was able to make it work into my schedule although this week was not a prime time for me to be taking two full days away. What swayed me to go was the opportunity to paint from a model. I have not done that in years and years. Here is the portrait from Monday.

9x12 head study in oil

The instructor had us do a monochrome portrait in the morning. In the afternoon you could finish the portrait continuing with monochrome (5 values using burnt umber and white) or add temperature. I worked on top of my monochrome portrait adding temperature (not color). You can still see just the value on her collar bones and shoulders where I did not quite finish painting over the morning study. All things considered, I was happy with this portrait. Painting from life is a whole different ballgame. I really enjoyed the exercises. The model had such good bone structure too.

Tuesday we did another head study adding color. I wiped that one off as it was fine but nothing I cared to keep. In the afternoon we were to stay with temperature and value alone or add color. I added color. Her skin was so fun to paint. I would have like to have been able to 'finish' this piece but I was happy enough with it as is, until I dropped it on my garage floor face down when I was unloading the car. I had not photographed it yet, so here it is dried grass and all.

12x16 figure study in oil

An artist friend I had seen at the Summer Art Market a few weeks ago invited me to join her at the Arts Students League of Denver to paint long pose uninstructed. This little exercise was just the thing to get me to want to go to just paint from life and be among other artists.