focus and time

After weeks of focusing on the business of writing and adjusting the proportion of time allotted to writing vs painting, followed by a bout of bronchitis, I am at last free to paint. Today I began in a small way working on the fine details of the Lamott Tomato, the salt and the balsamic.
I have three works still on easel that needs looking after - the Priests Laundry , one of the first cloud paintings and the Met. And I just finished the drawing of the Venetian Laundry. All drawn and no color put together yet. So much pleasure in anticipation.

Tomorrow I paint. And the next day and the next.

A few breaks to visit the roses, to a riot of bloom. Also on the calendar- a visit to the theater, a friend's engagement party.

sea sand sky

Another layer on the reflection in the saturated sand, and the haze on the horizon, the lowest line of clouds in the distance. Deepened another layer of blues over the sky - radiant violet really helped here.

motion and stillness

Added another layer to the clouds and sky, and worked on the surface of the water. I loved adding the sky's broken reflection, bouncing off each angle of the surface of the waves.

The reflection off the saturated sand is still crude, but I don't doubt I can get it where I want it to be. Pondering the inclusion of more cloud in the upper right corner. I may just add some semi transluscent wisps.
I am drawn to the opposites - the crisp precision of the foam at the edge of the tide, the blurred melting refection on the sand, the stillness of the earth, the restlessness of the water. The invisible wind pushing the great towers of cloud.

Here's a closer look at the waves.

Isle of Palm

Here's the beginning. I painted the sea yesterday and the sky today. Trying to figure out the best way to render the there/not there edges of clouds. It's from a photo I took on the Isle of Palm last spring. What I loved was the way the sky reflected in the saturated sand.

I'm working on this using three reference photos. I love that it shows three of the four elements - earth, air, water - and the fourth, fire, is implied by the light.

It's only the first layer, but I think it's going to break the cloud jinx.

Here's a peek at the Venice Laundry series. Possibly a dip or triptych. When there was a sunny day, all the laundry came flying out the windows, strung in swags, like bunting over the canals. When I saw this I realized it was the laundry of a priest. And no, I haven't painted the clothesline in yet. That will be the last thing I do. There is plenty yet to work on, like the iron grillwork over the green door and the bricks next to the window. But I love the mix of textures and the neutral palette. And I'd hope the clergy will wash their laundry and hang it out to dry. The church's dirty laundry has been in the public eye enough.

In the sometimes shells, sometimes peanuts way that life has, two people came by my house for a studio visit and left saying they were heading straight to my gallery to commission a painting. They liked another one of the Venice laundry series (one that I haven't started yet, with laundry strung at different levels, all the way down the canal). It looks like prayer flags to me.
They were delightfully enthusiastic about my work and, especially heartening to me, loved the dawn sky painting.

Still painting, though every day is prettier than the day before

Here's the last version of the tomatoes. More refining to come, especially around the lettering and the salt and pepper, but it's close.

Here's a somewhat blurry and blue-ish (shot late in the day when the light was almost gone) photo of the Met painting. I've added the background chair, more layers to the tile and worked on Washington. The pasta is slowly coming into focus. I'll probably do the glass next. Much, much more to do here.
I'm going to go running in the morning - definitely need to keep those endorphins rolling in. And yes, I did work in the yard today, if you can call admiring the bells on the snowflake flowers and the butter yellow of the minidaffodils and the leaves busting out of the climbing hydrangea 'work.'

Presidents and Tomatoes II

Here's the Met, with the olives and tomatoes popped in, and the first layer on the portrait of Washington that's on the cover of the paper museum guide. Here's a close of that detail. It's still splotchy and vague, but it's 'lying down' on the page which is a big deal for me.



Another round on the tomatoes, this time the balsamic label. I had fun with that because I didn't paint the letters. I painted the dark shapes around them. Of course I'll paint the words too, in due course, but there is something magical about painting dark curves and angles and having letters appear.

Presidents and Tomatoes

Good painting morning, so I thought I'd upload two that are on the easel so you can see the progress. First, the tomatoes. This week I added the place for the lettering (on the left side of the book cover (the book title is like the place in a church where they post they hymn numbers) and refined the tomato surfaces and plate edge. When it's drier I'll work on the balsamic label and intensify the salt and pepper. The author's name goes in big letters across the top. I'm thinking about putting my name on the balsamic label.


And this is what I was just working on - a lunch I had at the Metropolitan Museum of Art in NYC. This is really early in the painting - I don't even have all the white of the canvas covered yet - but you can see where it's going. Today I added the red caran d'ache pencil and it really pops. I'll wait until I've got one layer of paint on everything before I decide whether to dull it. Gave the sketchbook another layer of blues, filled in the fork and the salt and pepper. Yesterday I started the pasta. The spaces have olives and sun-dried tomatoes in them, dark rich colors, so I'll wait for the pasta to dry before I go in again there. Maybe work on George's face next or the glass reflectins. I've got another chair to add behind the table, and am thinking about dimming the tile floor with several layers of glazes.

Three runs, no outs, no errors

About tomatoes - one day I may tire of them. But not yet.
There are very southern. Someday I'll try to paint a tomato sandwich on white bread. Done properly, you have to eat them dripping over the sink. And my daddy always planted tomatoes in the garden when I was growing up. That and hearing crackly baseball play-by-plays on the radio reminds me of him.

Meanwhile I’ve worked on the Priest's Laundry. I painted two doors, the upper story windows with curtains, and canal level windows with bars (also mesh - got to keep those wharf rats out). The remaining white canvas is a bit of the brick wall, the guard rail of a bridge (the one I'm standing on to take photo) and the laundry. It's going to have to be dry as a bone around the laundry before I do it so I can lift any errors or wobbles with turp without erasing the background.

Now I'm starting a third canvas - the paint is so wet on the other two that it just makes sense. This is the lunch at the Metropolitan Museum of Art in NYC last year. Did 90% of the drawing. Love the blues. Decided to swap out the yellow #2 pencil in the photo for the Caran D'ache red pencil my daughter bought me in Paris when she surprised me with the blue sketchbook. Finished the drawing in time to paint a bit more on the tomato - worked on the knife handle and bread. Then mixed the colors for the Met painting. Realized Gilbert's George Washington portrait on the museum guide is particularly appropriate to paint this year. Great colors to work with - all those luscious blues! And there's a tile floor that stretches away in the background, like a little Flemish nod.

Eat Pray Paint

Day before yesterday I started the priest's laundry painting. I'd forgotten how good it feels to create specificity and discreet texture. I painted until four and got three quarters done with the under-painting, which pleased me. Not that I'm going for speed. There will be many layers and glazings and tweaking of colors and edges to come. I got lost exploring the melting world of the luminists and feel I've come home.
It's drying a few days before I go back in with the inky color of the priest's clothes and the dark green and shadowed doors. Probably tomorrow.

Today I worked on the tomato painting. I guess I'll call it the Lamott tomato since one of her books of essays on faith is anchoring the left hand side. This moved fast too. I have learned more than I realize. It's still in the under-painting stage and until all the white of the canvas is covered up I won't be able to discern exactly how I'll push certain values.
Here's a work-in-progress photo. The bottles of olive oil and balsamic vinegar are in place, minus the complicated lettering of the vinegar label. Also untouched are the book, a cut-glass salt and pepper set, bread, a fork, tines down, on the plate and silver knife with a pearl handle.


I have taken next week off for vacation and hope to empty my mind of verbs and nouns and paint.

drawing, Venice

Another day of drawing, this time of a priest's laundry, strung over a wall with 20th century pvc and electrical wiring, and a carved medallion from 16th century, layers of flaking stucco over brick over stone. Some paste-on graffiti. Lace curtains. Stone and wood mantles. Clothespins.
The more I drew, the more I saw.

Not all work is visible to the eye

No new paintings to show, but lots of prep going on. I've been enlarging photo references so I can see detail, gridded two canvases and did a series of photos of tomatoes to include in my Table for One series. I want to get at least three paintings up and going to I can switch from one to another when they are wet or I am stumped about something and need time to think about them.

I gridded two canvases and completed a drawing of something that I hope is the first in a four part series. I'll draw the other - one of a possible trypdich - tomorrow. Though neither of these are food related images they will have the detailed realism, emotional atmosphere and autobiographical elements of my other work.

Feeling very optimistic about the clouds, though I'm aware they don't fit into the look or subject matter of my other works. That's the beauty part of being an artist - you don't have to be rational about everything you do. You can go where your heart pulls you.

Dawn sky

I've continued wrestling with the mackerel sky, I haven't given up, but I am in the weeds with it. I am missing something it needs. I've set it aside and returned to the first cloud painting, of a dawn. And To my surprise is was pure pleasure. So it isn't clouds per se, it's those particular mackeral clouds. With dawn, I had an entire day of painting bliss. Dawn isn't done - needs more layering, scumbling mostly, and more of the the atmosphere and the cloud vapor melting one into the other.


Meanwhile I've been juiced up with ideas and have been putting together references and canvases for a diptych of laundry hung on clothesline over canals, three more cloud paintings (storm at evening, morning over the sea and a dusk that glows with threads of light on the edges of the clouds), and the first of a four seasons still life in my garden.

Deciding on the size and type of canvas is something I grope towards. I know it when I see it, is my best method.

And there are two more in the Table for One series (at the Met in NYC and Table 1280 at the High - both museums) and two of coffee cups, gloves and postcards.

More than enough to keep me busy for a year. Better get started.

First place winner

"Venice, Tagliatelli” 12x16” oil

I entered three regional juried shows, for practice in putting my work out there and to get more exposure than is offered by a single yearly gallery show.

I was accepted by the 2008 Southeastern Regional Biennial Exhibition, sponsored by the Dunwoody Fine Art Association.
The show is called SIGHTS AND INSIGHTS, and runs March 1st – April 11th, 2008, with cash awards for the first, second and third place.

I learned yesterday that my "Venice, Tagliatelli” won first place.

They also asked permission to use an image of my work for their show card, which I gladly gave. I'm astounded to win the first show I've ever entered. I'm very grateful and encouraged and inspired.

The show will be hung at the Chastain Arts Center.
Chastain Park, 135 West Wieuca Road N.W.
Atlanta, Georgia 30342

dunwoodyfineart.org/Exhibits2.html

Mackerel skies

Back to the canvas and that mackerel sky. I'm realizing it's a marathon, not a sprint. Having fun exploring my new paints, trying out Radiant white, Caribbean blue and Payne's gray as part of my mix.
Though I am no where near done, I decided to post some 'in progress' photos. The bottom quarter is very undeveloped. There is no horizon in this work - no earth/trees - but the sunrise glow is part of the perspective. I've laid that in and will work the densely knitted together clouds over it. I added more shape and intensity to the blues and painted clouds on the top right, with the canvas sideways for awhile, which always helps me focus on what's right in front of my brush. One marker of progress on this beast is I wasn't completely lost every time I looked away to my reference and then looked back at the canvas. I'm starting to recognize the territory I've mapped.

I shot this photo in the afternoon. My rolling painting cart in on the far right of the frame and the messy coffee table that doubles as my desk is on the left. The chair behind the easel came in for the holidays, when my studio was cleared out for a party, and hasn't been toted out yet. That's my dog's bone on the floor by the easel.