Finished (and I mean it this time) Flower Stand

Beach Road Flower Stand, oil, 20x24

On the way to the town beach - on Neck Road - there's this flower stand in the Summer with a blue umbrella.  The person who arranges it really has a good eye for design, as well as a green thumb.  Just wanted to paint the vibrant grass and the shaded flowers with the blue umbrella.  Oh, the stone wall was fun, too, and sorry about the glare there.  This painting is done in Happy Colors, and almost looks like it was done in acrylic.  I believe I suffer from MSD (Multiple Style Disorder), an affliction of emerging ;) artists, when they roam from style to style - sometimes very realistic, sometimes impressionistic, sometimes contemporary...  Whatever the painting calls for, is what I say!

Thunderheads From the South, 20x24

I wanted to keep this loose, but was intrigued by the flat reflection of the curved shape in the water.  This was going to be submitted to the South Shore Art Center's juried show last week, but it's a Windsor Newton canvas, and it wouldn't fit into the standard frame.  This time, I was not AT the framers (where I could pay $25 extra for them to shave some of the inner frame off) so I tried to hammer it in to the frame.  Let me save you the $$ - that does not work.  I completely shattered a nice $60 frame.  Now I have no frame and had to put something else in to the show.  I'm hopeful, but not really - I get into this show about 1 in 4 times.  

Our Scraggly Tulip Garden, 12x12 Acrylic

When I went to Holland to paint, about one year ago, I bought what I thought would be enough bulbs to make a spectacular tulip garden - over 100 bulbs!  The pictures, and live samples were huge, hardy and vibrant.  Easy to grow!  Well, we planted them (and by this I mean Tim planted them where I wanted them) and look at the pathetic examples of tulipkind!  Tim's chalking it up to young bulbs, but I don't know.  We did everything we were supposed to do, and our tulips bought in the US are gorgeous - in other spots.  I didn't want to mix them because I'd forgotten what the Dutch ones were supposed to look like and didn't know if they'd look good together!  Also, they were scheduled to bloom consecutively - but they all bloomed at once.  And they were supposed to be different heights, but they are all pretty much the same!  Oh, well, they're still better than NO tulips! :)

Tug On The Sakonnet, 12x12 Oil

This is a larger piece I did from the little one done last Summer.  I like the looseness of the island in the background, as well and the more defined island in the foreground.  Believe it or not, there was little drawing on the tug, I was channelling Ken Auster in the finishing of this painting, taking his advice to "Reward people for looking at your painting".

Orphan's Day Out, 12x12 Oil

This one is a nostalgic image of my mother and her twin sister (Alternate name: Patsy and Mickey, but I wanted to save that for another painting I'm doing) on an outing.  They got some time away from the orphanage during the summer, and they both treasured that time.  I THINK I'm done with this.  As usual, the hardest part was my mother's face - which I had to make a random face.  I wonder if I'll ever actually be able to paint her.  She's been gone now 12 years.  Does it ever get easy?

Breakfast in Bed, oil 12x12

He's bringing her breakfast (or, since birds get up at the crack of dawn and this was about 10 a.m. it was probably lunch).  I have every hope that it's because she's getting heavy with eggs, not because she's sick.  The foreground is much more purple IRL.

Gild and Lilies, 24x24 acrylic

More flowers.  These gorgeous lilies were from Tim, the vase was a Christmas present from our daughter, Molly.  My favorite color, and glass to boot.  I made the window sash behind them gold, just because I felt it would give the painting a little pizzaz.

Ranunculus in a Mexican Vase, oil 12x16

This vase is so great.  Another Mexican souvenir (apparently I only managed to buy stuff for myself this time :0).  These cheerful orange, yellow & white ranunculus flowers are perfect colors for it.  Flowers are so hard.  I think you have to ignore what their shapes really are and just paint what they FEEL like.  Well, to me, today, this is what they felt like.

Crazy Harry, 6x12 oil

I did some sketching of my orange boy, Harry, the other day in the garden.  At the studio on Sunday, this showed up on a canvas - how'd that happen?  I like the playfulness of this, and it's definitely not 'serious', but I love the bull's-eye on Harry's side - it's really there!

Tiverton Getty, 14x18 acrylic

SOLD
This started as a plein air piece from last Summer. It's been kicking around, and I liked it and I didn't, you know? So today when I got in from my outdoor session at Grinell's Beach I 'warmed up' inside by playing what I call 'Doll Hospital' - I grab a painting that just isn't 'right', and perform surgery on it - working the color, correcting the drawing - whatever it needs. This one needed lighter lights and a kick in the color dept. Now I like it. Too bad the people who owned the gas station last summer are gone - these were their trucks in the painting!

For The Birds...

I've been sketching birds, from life and from photos (mine and 'found' photos).  I like to study them as they're sitting, eating or just hanging out.  It seems to me they have a very complicated system of communication.  I have great empathy for them, and contrary to many people, find them 'lucky' and 'good omens' rather than the reverse. 

The top image is from a sketch I call "Visiting Hours".  The pigeon on the right is injured in it's leg, and is unable to walk around and peck for food.  This was in San Miguel, and the children were relentless in making it fly instead of leaving it alone.  I had to leave myself, or get in an argument with the parents.  These other two pigeons stuck with this injured one, where ever it landed, and kept it company.  You can't tell me they don't understand what's going on.  

The bottom image is the one I dreamt about.  The Friday version I did at the studio was very stilted and the birds were all dead-on frontal.  The wings were very stiff.  In my sleep I painted them like this.  Thankfully Tim felt like walking the Bristol Bike Path today and we went over to my studio and I just dived in and re-worked it.  Maybe still not 'final' but definitely getting there.

Plein Air Falmouth, Marshfield and Norwell, MA

Yesterday (I have no idea why this is all underlines, and I can't undo it!) I was on Boston's South Shore for a 'blonde-ening' and I went early and painting this acrylic  painting of the marsh off rte 3A between Marshfield and Scituate.  Then after the hair appt I met up with my friend Nancy Colella and we painted the North River in Norwell, this time, I used oils.

Tuesday I went to the Veterans Cemetery in Bourne, MA and while I was there I stopped at Old Silver Beach in Falmouth.  It was unbelievable.  The water was aqua!  I don't like the composition, but you know what they say about a bad day of painting....

This Week's Figures, oil

I did go to a figure class this week - it's one of those drop-in... no instructors classes, and the model was good, so here's trying to keep the lessons at learned at Peggi Kroll Roberts workshop in mind...

Self Portraits

I'll give you a laugh today.  I've been doing self portraits for the past week - they're really difficult.  Honestly, I'm much better looking than this ;)

The last one is a work in progress, not done, but I thought I'd include it so you could see how I destroy these paintings slowly...

Featured Artist - Phyllis Adams (Block Dog Art)

Let's see how this photo looks, as I 'cut & pasted' it.  I'd like to introduce Phyllis Adams, a Tiverton artist and blogger, whose blog, Block Dog Art is a fun and adorable land of dogs of all kinds.  Phyllis is active as well on Etsy and Ebay, and to say she just started this a few months ago, has been very successful!  Check out her blog for some canine fun! 

A Cottage Called Al-Fred, 9x12 oil

SOLD

This little gem of a cottage is on Cape Cod, and my friends and I paint there a couple of times a year with my dear friend Joan Brancale, who is a fabulous painter. (She's been featured in magazines, and her art has been advertised in American Art Collector). This painting started out as a plein air painting, and I worked on it in the studio to fine tune it a little bit. I love the feeling of crispness of the air, when I look at it I can smell the salt water off to the left. I wanted to sit on those red adirondak chairs and watch the water!

Oh, and we were so curious as to the whole 'Al-Fred' sign - turns out that the couple is something like Aline and Fred, hence Al-Fred, :)

A Wild One

For me, this is a HUGE oil painting.  It's something like 30x36.  I painted it one morning on the road to the old studio, when I was passing a field just as the sun was about to rise over the trees at the back of this yellow field of grass.  Everything was on fire, and as soon as I got to the studio I set to work.  It's not quite finished, but I thought you'd like to see something a little different for me.

Glow At The Quarry, 20x24 Oil

This is finally finished.  It went through many phases, but it was done from a plein air sketch that I did just before sunset one night last summer.  It is a good thing for me to see often, because it reminds me of how blessed I am in this life.  I was painting at this spot where there are always people fishing (for food, not for relaxation).  There was this large Cambodian family there, and upon seeing me set up my paints, the grown up urged the many children to go watch the artist (and get out of their hair for a while).  Why does everyone do this?  I was a little annoyed, because many times I've had to babysit kids and I really didn't have much time to paint before the sunset.  Anyway the kids stayed for a while and asked a million questions which I tried to answer patiently.  They straggled off, all except one girl, 12 years old, who watched with such intensity, I thought, maybe she'd like to be an artist someday.  So I stopped and talked to her about her future.  Which turned out to be bleak.  In two years, at age 14, her parents were sending her to care for her aging grandparents and living in Cambodia.  When they pass away she has other older relatives that she's got to care for before she can come back.  She accepted it with aplomb, but refused to let herself hope for a wonderful future for herself.  Wow.  No more belly-aching from me.  I don't want to hear 'poor me' from any of my own children, either!

Cloud Dance, 20x24 Oil

Well, OK, this may look bizarre, but occasionally the little tufts of clouds seem to 'dance' down the river.  Here, one night at sunset, they caught the rosy colors cast into the sky, making them look like little flames.  No apologies.  If you can't believe it, you are welcome to visit my corner of the world and see it for yourself sometime. :)