Gray Day

After spending an hour or more working on this; the commission piece that is taking its good old time reaching any sort of resolution, I switched over to a fast painting over an old painting. 

(a side note about the commission:  the buyer saw one of my smaller paintings (8 x 10) that is soft and moody.  She wants a larger work, about 42 x 36--soft and moody.  At this point, I'm beginning to get the softness, but its been a challenge to take what is so easy to capture in a small piece and bring it to a large format.  There are some compositional kinks I'm working on, and I'm struggling with the trees in front.)

Today was a Gray Day.  Rain, rain and more rain. 

The fast painting over the old painting is below. I plan to work some lighter grays into the sky. 

I like to paint Gray Days. I find it a good challenge to capture just the right colors for gray sky.

(my camera hasn't captured the colors with accuracy)

We were driving to a Christmas dinner at dusk. The white barns in sillouhette against the white sky were striking. After painting for several hours today, my seeing eyes were charged up. I wanted to turn the car around and go home to paint the white on white.

From Here to There (sketch to painting)

This summer I spent a few days with my sisters at the beach in Vermilion, Ohio on the shores of western Lake Erie.  I sketched a bit one afternoon, loving the variety of blues in the water.

For the last two weeks while "trying" to paint a commission piece--which isn't going so well--I started and finished the painting above.  I usually work on a couple of pieces at the same time, if a painting is too wet, I'll move to another.  It also keeps my energy for the paintings fresh.  This time I think I was using other paintings to avoid the commission, but also in hopes that I could take my enjoyment from the other works and infuse it into the commission.  So far its not working. ugh.  Fortunately there isn't a huge rush on the commission and I plan to get to it when I figure out what is blocking my creativity. (maybe I'll post a pic of what's happening so far)

So about the sketch and painting pictured here. In the painting I ended up turning Lake Erie into a landscape. Initially I had painted water, but I came back to the canvas a day or so after the water was in and it kindof morphed into landscape--which I know so much better than water--simply because I don't see the Lake on a daily basis, whereas I do study my little corner of the world everyday.
I painted a few pieces this summer which have a similar composition to the painting above.  I'm toying with the idea of painting a Horizon Line series.  I love the meshing of color, verging on abstraction; still landscape.

How can We Eat THIS?

My Pastry Chef daughter made this wonderful work of art for Thanksgiving dessert.   YUM! Beautiful!!!

Plus pie?  My not the pastry chef son  (although, he did work with me  as pie maker's assistant when I was a pie maker) is making two apple pies and I'm making two pumpkin pies.

Gluttons?  Yes!  Lots of people to help eat all the wonderfulness, yes! 

Happy Thanksgiving!

Twenty Minute Challenge and a Bonus Bald Eagle

Not such a clear picture of a Bald Eagle, but, I had to share it!  My neighbor and I have decided to walk every trail in every park in our local park district; no set time limit for the walks or for when we complete the venture.  It is serendepitous in plan, we go when we can, weather permitting.   The mild November weather lingered for our walk today.  As we emerged from the woods into a large open meadow, one bird flew by (Bald Eagle #1), a second followed.  The second Bald Eagle rode the thermals for a long time.  We lingered.

It seems I can't stop with the Twenty Minute Drawings.  I'm loving it!  Its great practice. The two shown here were done during AP Studio Art Class.  It was a quiet day, the students were working with such intensity that I was able to sit (for the most part uninterrupted) and finish in twenty minutes. The top piece is oil on watercolor paper and the bottom was done in my sketchbook using mixed media; prismacolor markers, watercolors and pencil.

I guess I'd better enter  The Twenty Minute Challenge soon.

Peace on a Sunny Day

 

YES.       on this sun filled day.  easy to breathe peace.

peace

it doesn't mean to be in a place

where there is no noise, trouble or

hard work.  it means to be in the midst

of those things and still

be calm in your heart.----unknown

(unfortunately i don't remember the name of the artist who made the awesome hand, but her work was innovative, expressive and spoke to me.  the hand sits in front of my studio.  love her work!)

Twenty Minute Challenge

While visiting Arting Around in SOVA I read about The Twenty Minute Challenge that Katharine A. Cartwright has set up.  I found the concept intriquing, enough that I sat for 20 minutes in two different art classes and produced these sketches.  The students were busily engrossed with monoprinting, so I let them fly while I sat and worked.  It was great fun to do this.  My students were intriqued, they love to see their teacher draw and paint.  Also it was a great exercise.

I plan to enter the The Twenty Minute Challenge in the near future,  tomorrow if there is time in class, I'll paint a few acrylics.

Beginnings

the show in tremont this fall  led to a commission work.  the buyer is interested in a large work.  i started with some sketches, the first sketch was done this summer while sitting on the beach on Lake Erie.  i didn't choose the sketch for the commission piece but i plan to use the sketch in for a painting in the future.  i settled on the sketches done at a local park in here in geauga county.  i toned the canvas in purples, usually i tone in reds.  i thought this might lend an interesting effect.  i sketched the basic shapes in reds.  colors were then added in a broad, general way.  next week i'll work into the paintings further, softening the brushwork. 

the funny thing is, i don't intend to sell the buyer this painting; i don't think it's going in the direction she would like (weird how a painting assumes its' own identity)  i have another one started, which i'll post soon, that i think will suit her tastes.  right now its a poor sketch on canvas, i got so involved in this diptych that my art energy went solely into it, neglecting the other. often i work on two things or more simultaneously, in this case, the energy went where it needed to go!