A Peach of a Peach

I have to admit that I love this little painting. It was a happy accident that the fabric I had matched some of the colors in the peach so well. I wish it reproduced better so the subtle variations of color would be more obvious. I'm not sure what the shadows on the edges are about as they are not on the image that I uploaded.

One of the great things I have learned recently is that everything out there is a potential subject. It seems obvious but I was so focused on landscapes that I really didn't look at other possible ideas for paintings. Now I know that I don't have to go anywhere but to my studio to make a painting that challenges me and gives me genuine pleasure...and that is such a gift. Having said that, I am really ready to tackle another landscape and hope to get one well underway tomorrow.

Red on Red

Painting Grapes and Green Pears got me interested in working with a low contrast in color and value between the background and the subject. The almost purple red of the Delicious apple absorbed light except in the spots where it was reflecting directly the light source. The closest area of continuity was in the shadow where the dark red of the apple blends almost seamlessly into the red highlights in the background shadow. I enjoyed working with this idea and will be doing more such paintings.

Meanwhile, this has been a "paintless" week given an extremely busy schedule, some problems created by a worker at my house (yet to be resolved) and some cyclical health problems that came back with a roar. Giving tours to 4th graders at the art museum is a wonderful and meaningful activity that I will continue but it does eat into my time.

I did spend an afternoon at the State Capitol in OKC looking at Sue Clancy's show - a wonderful and delightful time. Sue is a talented and skilled artist, a very smart person with great humor and wonderfully pithy ways to interpret our daily language into images that tickle our fancy, sometimes provoking outright/outloud laughter while pricking our conscience. Her work reminds us of the joys in life and language while gently prodding us to pay attention and to speak out. You can see Sue's work on her web site at http://home.telepath.com/~artist/.

Today, I am cleaning house and will make time to get back into my studio to make something, anything to get me junp-started again before the coming week takes off in a flurry of activity.

Green Pears and Grapes

My first still life paintings had a background that was a contrasting color to the fruit. Richard Mckown suggested I try painting green pears against a green background. That was surprisingly difficult and fun at the same time. I am doing a few more of these small color-on-color paintings before moving on to larger formats. I love the way each painting gives you a new challenge or problem to solve. The process can never get old as long as we keep trying new things.

This is true in all aspects of life - getting stale is definitely not a goal - or even an option. I had a session with an energy worker this morning and she once again urged me to write my stories. Somehow this seems to be something beyond my abilities but once again I decided that I would use this blog to present in a coherent way those "musings" that I included in my url. Today, those thoughts are on energy - how it affects us and how we can have an effect on it. Given the current political season and all the smearing that is going on, I have been righteously indignant and angry quite a bit of the time. What I had forgotten was the reality that the energy created by my negative thoughts was feeding the very energies that were creating the negative thoughts in me. That energy cycle is real and it is much too easy to get caught up in it. So, I am now focusing on Obama and Biden and the positive benefits they will bring to the system. By focusing on those values, ideals and principles that have meaning to me, I will be contributing to the energy that is nurturing them and the good in all of us.

And this brings me back to painting - the energy I am feeling at any given time moves through me into the painting I am making. This is reminder to me - if I am unable to deal with some aspect of my work, I need to look inside me for the problem rather then trying to find it in the work itself. Lessons learned and relearned are the cycle of my life!

White Sue

This is the first of four paintings Richard McKown is making of me. Being a model is an amazing experience - the collaborative nature of the process was stronger than I ever could have imagined. It is wonderful to watch the work progress through the evening and from one session to the next. We pretty much work two nights per week - three hours per night. Lots of conversation relating to art - with breaks at the computer looking up and discussing other artists' paintings. No one could be a better mentor to me and I am so appreciative of his guidance.

I have a few more small paintings to post but plan to start some larger ones, which will take more time. Depending on how they go, I may post some paintings-in-progress so you can see how I work. Meanwhile Richard has started on a second painting of me. The pose is similar but the colors - lavender on lavender with gold - are in the same value range so there will not be the hgh contrast. It will be fun to see how it develops.

I made this painting one morning standing on a dock at Lake Thunderbird. The morning clouds move slowly across the sky, gradually losing ground to the sun and dissipating as you watch. The challenge for me was to capture that sense of movement and impermanence. I hope to do a lot more painting outside once the pollen counts have dropped enough that I can be out for long periods without being affected. Meanwhile there are lots of subjects for me to paint and I am working on those this weekend.

Clouds #2

Most of us have looked for faces or animals while watching clouds float by on a lazy day. That's not what I was doing or trying to replicate when I made this painting, but looking at it several days later I saw a woman's face. Then my cousin emailed asking if I had seen the woman's face and the man's. That really caught me by surprise but when I looked again, there he was. It is really surprising what you can do without any awareness of it.

I am struggling now with another cloud painting. I was trying to tie the clouds to the ground and have ended up painting the Sandia Mountains as much as the clouds - suddenly I have a small landscape which was not my intention at all. So, now I have to figure out what I want to do to finish that painting - that's my goal for the morning.