Off On Another Adventure

This week I visited Phyllis Adams in Truro at a wonderful 'cottage' just a few houses up from Edward Hopper's house on a huge bluff overlooking the Bay.

Here's a painting of the cottage we stayed at:

Denise Zompa and Trish Hurley were there for the whole week, too - so much fun! This was an amazing 60's 'cottage', a real party house with it's own place in the Art History of Cape Cod.  I think the room I had to myself could have slept 7, and all together I think the house could have comfortably fit 20 or so.  First night there a storm rolled over the bay (didn't touch us)  and we all painted it, here's mine:

and in the afternoon visited Provincetown, and gallery hopped, then painted at Days Cottages (see my Daily Blog for that painting).  This morning we had a terrific breakfast at the Wicked Oyster (see happy faces below), and I headed home, refreshed and renewed!

AWOL

OK, so I went to NYC last week, and while I didn't get to gallery hopping (do you really want to know the details of a day spent recovering a cell phone left in a cab?) I DID get to 'visit' the Statue of Liberty!  Back to painting now!

Portsmouth Art Guild Figure Show

SOLD

I have been 'quiet' for a while, and want to explain. Spring is the time when there are hosts of juried competitions, as well as some applications to juried art associations. I've been really busy submitting, and have been dealing with, well, the agony of defeat. ;) I know, everybody has their ups and downs, and truly, I'm one of those people who don't want to belong to any organization that would let me in! More on that later.
The Portsmouth Art Guild took two of my paintings, above, into their juried show. One, you'll probably see on my Daily Painting Blog, the Skaters, the other is, well, different for me. It came after a particularly stinging rejection of all my pieces into a show I really wanted to get into. It's called "The Rejected Artist" and I took inspiration from Courbet (yes, Courbet the realist) and his "Desperate Man" painting. I took my canvas and my acrylic palette into the bathroom and set up in front of the mirror, tried to strike a similar pose to 'Desperate Man', dried my tears (I'm an easy crier) and let it all hang out. DAMN it! I SHOULD have gotten in to that show! GRRRR..... I'll show them! AUUGGGHHHH!!" etc. Oh, yeah, the next week I got rejected from an art association for membership, so I have plenty of 'models' for my crazy artist paintings.... but truly, you win some and you lose some.... can't let the losing be the emphasis of your life, right?

Another Amazing Sunset, 11x14 oil

Here in my little piece of heaven, the sky is glorious almost every night.  Every day is different, and after a whole day of churning, heavy clouds the sunset arrived pure and cloudless.  At my side of the broken stone bridge (hence the 'Stonebridge Studio') a lone fisherman stood patiently waiting for a bluefish to grab his line.  Yellow, lavender, azure... ahhhh...  I tried to be loose, yet blocky, simplifying once again, to emphasize the purity of the design...

You know, I've been struggling with quite a few rejections in terms of my art this past month.  I have to say that initially I get miffed (OK, gut-wrenchingly so..) but now I think I'm just freer to try new things, and listen on the wind for my own voice, and maybe I'll get it right soon.  And there are just enough good things happening (like I got the piece called 'Everybody knows Everybody' below into the Cape Cod Art Association National Juried Show) to keep me going.  So I'll continue to prepare for my show in Marshfield (more on that later) at the end of June, and continue to try new ways of looking at color and design.  All in all I can not complain - life is good.

Dramatic Sky, Hingham Harbor, 12x12 Oil

So today looked like it might be a washout, but I was so very inspired by Rich Bowman's new work on his website, that I HAD to paint the dramatic skies today.  And since I had to drive up to Quincy to Tim's office anyway, I swung by Hingham because the Harbor is so pretty, and I thought the sky might be 'big' there.  And it was.  So I had to work quickly, but this is what I got in about 2 hours.  Tried doing mostly 2 directions (vert & horizontal) in my brushwork, and simplified, simplified, simplified....

Perfect Day..Sun, Sand & Sox on the Radio, 11x14 oil

I sketched this lounger last summer at the beach.  The game was on, his Dunkin Donuts iced coffee nearby... he got a little more sun than he probably should have.  I like the way everything was compartmentalized....

1st of the Irises, Acrylic, 16x20

Coffee in the garden led to a beautiful sight this morning - the first group of irises, bearded, I believe they are called, were all in bloom.  Before the sun even hit them I had my paints out, and Tim took this photo of me digging in to the painting  - don't you love the chain link fence?  It KIND of keeps the cats in (when we're there, anyway) and it gives us a sort of boundry because we are in a triangle of streets - all 3 side have people walking by, zooming by, and always interested in what we're doing in the yard!  

This painting was fast and loose, and I was channeling Ros Farbush.