"Moonlight Chairs" a la Hopper

"Moonlight Chairs" 12 x 12" oil on canvas $750

Obviously I've not spent much time with this blog after the big computer blitz in September.

Does that mean I have been painting? Actually, yes, but mostly on canvases I started some time ago and now need to finish. Dennis and I have a show together in January at Clatsop Community College in Astoria so I no longer have the luxury of just thinking about finishing these paintings.
I will post them as they are finished but I'm guessing that won't be until after Christmas. Someone asked me once when I decided a painting was finished and I said "When I run out of time." meaning the show deadline. And then, if I get them back after the show, the answer is "When someone else owns them." This is one of the things I really like about painting as opposed to ceramic sculpture: if I still have the canvas I can keep working on it.

This summer my two faithful students and I postponed the last two scheduled classes and we made them up this fall. To stretch us all a bit I suggested that we each do a painting in the style of an artist of our choosing.

Tana decided to do a copy of a Cezanne and was surprised at how much she liked a looser approach which she applied to her own subject during the next class.

That's my painting in the style of Edward Hopper in the background, far right. The finished piece is at the top of this blog and will be on the announcement card for the January show. With little editing, this is the scene we see when we leave our studio at night and head to the house. If the lights are on it glows like a lantern and the scene inside is something Hopper would have appreciated, I'm sure.

Adrienne chose to emulate van Gogh and got to understand a bit better why using only small, repetitive brush strokes can produce a squirmy can o' worms. Taking a digital black and white photo helped her see how all the values had blended into mid-range. Look at the difference after the second class! She'd want you to know it is not finished...( in case anyone thinks you know her, this IS Adrienne King, scream-queen star of the original Friday the 13th movie which I never saw, and never intend to see.)

On-Line Studio Sale

More Than Memory 30" x 30" oil on canvas $2300

Whoo-eee! Am I sick of my computer screen, or what? We decided to cancel the Studio Sale we usually have in Portland every year and put everything into an on-line sale instead.

330+ images and 21 pages later all my paintings, prints, drawings, & monoprints and all my husband, Dennis Meiners', ceramic sculpture and pottery is available on our web page.
People are reporting back that they have had a really good time browsing through the pages. The painting above is in the sale along with others that have never been on this blog and all my in-stock giclee prints are 20% off. Check it out!

I can't tell you how I am looking forward to being a painter again instead of a marketer, but it's all part of the game.

Painting with Sophie

"Penny on the Porch"

My 9 year old grandniece Sophie, who I painted at Christmas playing her violin, is visiting for a few days and today we spent part of the afternoon painting. Sophie was a great student, working from a sketch she had made earlier of our dog Penny and creating a composition with flowerpots on our back porch. When she started this painting she commented that everything was a dark color and lightened the blue bed to make the black shape of the dog really stand out. Pretty smart, huh?
In the studio together, I looked around and decided that she was by far the most interesting thing I could paint so here's the oil sketch- as far as I got.


Now it's time to go make homemade pasta together and find some ripe tomatoes and basil in the garden to go with it.
Dennis and I are going to a wedding at the coast and will be gone for a few days. More when I return.

Star Gulch Ranch

'Star Gulch Ranch" 16" x12" oil on canvas $199

Three posts ago I showed you a painting done at Terry Miura's plein air workshop and said I would post another when I finished it. Here it is. I'm noticing a zig-zag composition appearing in all these latest paintings. Do you see it?

Oregon Coast at Smith River

Oregon Coast at Smith River 16" x 12" oil on canvas $250

We have been back for a few days and the contrast between the cool, overcast coast and the sunny, hot weather here makes me feel like summer has finally arrived. We've even harvested a few ripe tomatoes! After such a cool spring and early summer we were beginning to wonder if it would ever get toasty here, like it usually does. The folks at the coast said their summer lasted about two weeks and fresh tomatoes never cross their minds.

When we left here the air was full of smoke from all the forest fires so we welcomed the clean air from the ocean and felt blessed that the usual wind was not whipping up the sand. I was able to set up my easel, at the top of the path leading to the beach from our motel, and peacefully paint all morning without fear of the wind upsetting everything... or shifting shadows, or sun glare on my wet canvas! I was struck by how vibrant the yellow flowers were on such a gray day and so they became the "star" of my composition. Below are a few shots of the painting's progression which show how I had to mute things down all around the yellow in order to get it to "pop".

OK. enough computer time! I'm off to a "hot day" task of mucking out our pond before the water lilies are suffocated.

Ashland Sky

"Ashland Sky" 41/2" x 61/2" oil on paper, matted $98

A few nights ago we drove the 50 minutes it takes us to get to Ashland to attend the opening of a friend's show. She was in Terry's plein air workshop this summer and it was fun to see a group of her landscapes together.

The sun began to set while we were in town, turning the sky into a riot of purple and orange against a mild blue background. Both Dennis and I stopped at this wall and commented on what a bold image it made; I kept it in my head until the next day and did this little painting from memory. I guess this one would classify as a city-scape.

We are going to the beach for a few days so I will share what I do there when we return.

Back to Painting!

"Applegate River at Star Gulch" 9"x12" oil on canvas $125

It's been over two months since you have heard from me, but it has not been two months since I've painted. In June Terry Miura came to our studios at HUMMINGBIRD to present a plein air oil painting workshop and I participated as a student. I'm not really interested in becoming a landscape painter per se, but I often use landscape in my work and was happy to get some instruction on how to do it better. We live in such a beautiful place it's hard to resist wanting to paint what you see, and painting outdoors is very fun and challenging- almost a sport in some ways. Terry wrote a complete run-down on the workshop so I won't go into it here (Thanks Terry!), but a great time was had by all and I did three paintings. The first I sold without photographing it, the above is the second and I'll post the third as soon as the glaze dries.

More about what has been occupying my time in posts to come.

Beach Fires & Unconsciousness

Hello out there-
I said "you may not hear from me for a while" and it has been over a month!

The show in Portland went well and we came home to the joy of spring gardening and the sorrow of having to deal with a rental property we own and need to sell. It's been inhabited by too many animals whose owners were unconscious to the damage being done. As we have been cleaning and mowing and trying to decide how to best present this property, I have been thinking a lot about unconsciousness -- ours, the renter's, our property manager's, the country's, the world's. There is plenty of time to ruminate when you are swabbing the decks, but Eckhart Tolle's A New Earth has been helping me make some sense of it.

"Beach Fires" 6x8" oil on canvas SOLD

It's not a new theme for me. Last fall I made this painting of people on the beach enjoying a little campfire, oblivious of the raging wildfire that is about to descend on them. I think this image has power and intend to do a larger painting from it, where it will be easier to see the people on the beach and I can really get into swabbing all the color around.

If you, or anyone you know, might be interested in a lovely 3 acre piece of land in the country but close to stores, school, etc. , with an optional fixer-upper double-wide mobile, click here.

At the Window

"At the Window" 8" x 6" oil on canvas SOLD Thanks, A.M.

My daughter shot the photo below, in the bathroom mirror of our motel room, on the last trip we took together. She likes the work of Edward Hopper and maybe saw something of his mood in me standing at the window. Someone once commented that my work reminded them of Hopper (those paintings are on my web site, not on this blog), which I considered a supreme compliment, and Rachel's photo inspired me to move that way once again. I include it to show once more how a painting can come from photo without copying it.


My husband, Dennis Meiners, and I are getting ready to participate in our 25th year at Ceramic Showcase in Portland April 25-27. Dennis won Best of Show at this big event last year so his Falling Horse sculptural teapot graces all this year's publicity for the show. Since I no long make ceramic sculpture I show my paintings as canvas giclee prints mounted on ceramic plates which form their frames. Sounds pretty hokey, but they are not and my collectors really like them. Every year I resist doing this a little more. Truthfully, there's not much I'd rather do than just paint (and sell them so I can make more).

Soo...you may not hear from me for a while. We will return on April 29 and I will head for the garden, which will need much attention.

Green Stockings

"Green Stockings" Oil on Masonite panel 15.5 x 12" $185

This is the other half of the painting homework I mentioned yesterday. After the specific parameters for the first painting I asked them to ignore everything we had been studying and just go wild; to make the same painting again, but from the gut rather than the head. The above is what I did. I always do my own assignments so I can better understand the challenges my students face. I chose to do this on the back side of the Masonite panel which is very rough. Click on the image to see the texture better.

Peeping Tom

"Peeping Tom" 15.5 x 12" Oil on Masonite panel $185
SOLD- Thanks, J.E.

I'm disappointed that my camera can't seem to capture the correct yellows in this painting and it is too big to scan here at home, sooo... I'll have to re-post it later.

This was an assignment I gave my painting class: to compose a painting using a figure, a table and one other element, paying attention to the distribution of lights and darks and using a complimentary color scheme (meaning colors across from each other on the color wheel). I came up with this example of complimentary yellow and purple and of taking an unusual viewpoint, under the table. Then my imagination just took over.

There was a second part to the assignment which I will post tomorrow...

The Good Red Road

"The Good Red Road" 9 x12" oil on mahogany panel
SOLD- Thanks, N.W.

I liked this painting when I started it some months ago, but it was set aside. The inspiration came from a hawk that was reappearing every day on our property to the point that I finally consulted my Medicine Cards to see if there was a message we might be ignoring. The Hawk card talked of getting your nose out of the daily grind and taking an overview of your walk on The Good Red Road of life here on Earth. We heeded the message and the hawk went on his way.

When I came back to the painting the figure was standing in such a way that it looked like something was being pulled. A red wagon popped into my head-I've been think a lot lately about how much Stuff we all have.

It's been over a week since I last posted a painting, but that only means I have not been doing the small "daily" paintings, opting instead to do studies and stretch canvases for a couple large ones. I can see where this size thing will fluctuate- I'm getting a little tired of the small brushes and feel like getting my arm into action. I'm debating whether or not to share the process of creating a big painting with you. Having others looking over my shoulder has both pros and cons. We'll see.

Cropping Cherries

"Pitchers with Cherry Trio" 12 x 12" oil on Masonite panel $125

I set up this still life (without the cherries) for my students to practice painting glass, metal, ceramic and drapery. It was tough! and I struggled right along with them. Later, I decided to see if I could make it into something more by adding the cherries for some pizazz, but the composition was still floating in a sea of blue; I felt it needed to be cropped down to a smaller size. Fortunately, since it is painted on panel, I have the option of doing that. I thought you might be interested in the thought process:

Here's the original.










A little too tight..









maybe this is better?










What if I crop a cherry for more tension...









and add some air to the top?



This is what I decided on, but I won't be able to cut it down until it is totally dry so ...


if you like one of the other versions better and want to buy this painting cropped (or not) the way you like it, just let me know.

How's that for interactive art?

Blog use #2 - comments link

I have received a lot of emails from people who are enjoying the blog, and that really helps me stick with painting daily, but many have had problems subscribing or commenting.

On the phone just now, I went through the process of leaving a comment with someone who has valiantly been trying to use the comment link with no luck. We finally figured out that those who opened my blog and tried to use it within the first few days of it's existence probably have the site in their computer's cache, and I mistakenly had the comments function blocked those first days.

If you can't leave comments either, try accessing the blog here: http://leslieleeart.blogspot.com and see if you can post a comment on this fresh page (see the side bar on How to Make Comment). If you can, then your cache is the problem.

To get around this you can link to the blog directly from the email you get (if you have subscribed), which will be a fresh page with a functioning comment link. Or, you may force a refresh of the blog page by hitting the F5 key, or hold down the Shift key and hit the Refresh button in the browser toolbar. This will delete just this web page, and all files associated with it, and reload each again into cache.

I hope these last 2 posts help.

Thanks for sticking with me! Next time a painting-I promise!!
Leslie

P.S. the person I was helping did not realize you could enlarge the pictures by clicking on them. Did you?

A better way to subcribe to this blog

I have changed my subscription server to Google Groups instead of FeedBlitz after hearing about so many of you who could not access the sign-up. I really dislike the ugly box (which I may be able to change), but it seems to be doing a better job and I have more control as well. If you subscribe no one will have access to the list but me and you may unsubscribe at any time.

Big K Ranch

"Big K Ranch" 12x20" Oil on Canvas $250

Last weekend I had the pleasure of meeting my daughter for an overnight at the Big K Ranch in Elkton Oregon, which is about equidistant from here and Portland, where she lives. We both drove through rain the entire trip until we turned into the 5 mile driveway to the guest ranch house and were treated to that sparkley sunshine that comes through rain clouds in mid afternoon. We arrived within 5 minutes of each other and spent the rest of our time there marveling at the Oregon-ness of the place. I was so glad I brought my field easel and paints!

The sheep were not part of this composition when I chose the scene--they wandered in after they decided I was just a new lump on the land. Although most of the the painting was done on site, I did work on it after I got home, and when the green field was dry enough I stuck little pieces of white paper on it with wax and moved them around until I felt the "sheep" were where they should be. I don't really aspire to being a great landscape painter, but it sure is fun!

On that note, Terry Miura will be coming here to teach a plein air painting workshop June 6,7,8. give a shout if you are interested in attending. I will mention this again with more details.

Early Sky

"Early Sky" 12x9 "oil on canvas SOLD Thanks, A.M.

Last Friday I spent way too much time on the computer. I was disappointed that yet another day had gone by without painting, so after dinner, still feeling glum, I flipped through my photos filed under "landscapes" and this scene jumped out to serve my mood. The digital info says I took it in late October of '06... I so appreciate my digital camera and the computer into which I stash all this stuff! I also appreciated the small canvas I used that my daughter left behind years ago, which she had painted two tones of black, so all that spookiness was just waiting to be revealed with a few highlights. Magic. And not glum at all! I felt so much better when I went to bed.

Harvesting Pumpkins

"Harvesting Pumpkins" 6x8" oil on canvas SOLD

After almost two weeks of glorious spring weather and time in the garden, we are back to cold and rain. Somehow this fall scene of harvesting pumpkins seemed the right thing to post today. I have been busy working on larger paintings, which you will see eventually.

Red Ball

"Red Ball" 6x8" oil on canvas $98 SOLD, Thanks L.B.

Our friend Tom was house-sitting recently, and part of his job was to take the dog out every day for a game of fetch. Tom is not much of a dog-lover, but dutifully took the dog out and threw a ball for him. The dog just sat an looked at him for several tosses until it finally dawned on Tom that this is supposed to be FUN! On the next throw he was enthusiastic, and sure enough, the dog went right after it and they played together for quite awhile. Ah, teachers of Zen abound everywhere.
I wasn't thinking of that story when I did this painting, but that's undoubtedly where it came from.

Shasta Abbey

Last Friday I drove south a couple of hours to Shasta Abbey to attend a Beginners Meditation Retreat for "instruction in the practice of Serene Reflection Meditation, talks on basic Buddhist teachings and on the purpose of Buddhist training, and opportunities to put the Buddhist teachings into practice in daily life". I have been meditating (or attempting to) for years and felt some more in-depth guidance would be helpful, so I signed up and took my place among the other 30 or so retreat participants.

I have to say it was one of the more memorable experiences I am likely to have in my life. The monks were kind, instructive, funny, and very, very human. I got a chance to meditate in a Buddhist Temple, under the gaze of a huge golden Buddha, participate in services and ceremonies, practice "working meditation" (the goal, really), and eat in silence while gazing at the magnificence of Mt. Shasta. The dharma talks clarified and echoed my basic philosophy, which was affirming, and the possibility of approaching my painting with a clearer mind seems real. It might even spill over into the rest of my life! Many thanks to everyone at Shasta Abbey for their generosity.

This little painting is just a passing scene from the Monastery, which gives a tiny taste of the serenity there. I am more interested, however, in painting the pictorial metaphors that are popping up from the weekend. I have one started and will post it when it's finished. Undoubtedly there will be many more.

"Shasta Abbey" 8x6" oil on canvas $96
SOLD Thanks, J.E.

Sophie's Serenade

"Sophie's Serenade" 6x8' oil on canvas SOLD

Looking at the paintings I've posted this month you would never know my favorite subjects are people. The problem is getting a model and so photos are often used for reference. Here's the snap-shot I took of my grand-niece and used for this painting:

Often I will compose a painting and then take reference photos, or look up stuff on the 'net to get the specifics right. I seldom paint a photo in it's entirety, even if I took it, and never if I didn't.

Red Carnations

"Red Carnations" 8x6" oil on canvas SOLD

Last Wednesday I posted the roller coaster ride I took with these carnations, which started and ended with a blank canvas. Today I knew better what to do: a more careful composition, some glass for sparkle, a looser approach. I was pretty happy with how it came out this time. What do you think?

Unable to Make Comments?

I have had several people say they are unable to leave comments on my blog. Could you please attempt to make a comment on this post? If it doesn't work, or asks you to sign up for a Google account in order to leave a comment, I would really appreciate a brief email explaining what you experienced. I'm trying to figure out if it's a Blogger.com problem or ???
Thanks so much!
Leslie

Beach Retreat

"Beach Retreat" 6x8" oil on canvas SOLD Thanks, D.E.

Here's another group of friends that have been meeting for years- our Book Club. I carried this windy image in my head, after our once-a-year overnight retreat, and painted it as soon as I got home.

I think my best paintings are either very loose or very tight. In-between seems to not work as well.

Gathering

"The Gathering" 6 x 8" oil on canvas $96
SOLD Thanks J.E.

Today and for the last eight? nine? years, Dennis and I have been gathering with a group of friends nearly every month for a great pot-luck meal and some sort of activity, set by the hosting couple, where we always learn something new about each other. We have made raku pots, put mosaics on walls, written haiku, researched where our food came from, walked silent in the dark and shared our experience of it, watched provocative documentaries, and talked about everything from our favorite books to local ballot measures.

This painting was made after a Gathering at our house; there are usually twelve of us. It was interesting to me that everyone in the painting could be identified by the group. A few tiny brush-strokes can say so much; a good thing for this painter to remember.

Morning Mist

"Morning Mist" 8 x 6" oil on canvas SOLD

By now you have noticed that I am posting some paintings I did the same day and some that were done months ago, if the season depicted tells true. It feels a little funny to be showing these autumn paintings now, but October was the month I had time to do one every day. I was not ready to set up a blog and start posting then, it just felt premature, so here they are filling in on the days I don't get to paint.

Actually I did paint today! A dusty rose all over the walls of a friend's rental in Ashland. I am part of a group called WHOW (Women Helping Other Women) which is a labor bank where we trade time doing work parties. It's fun and efficient and I've been part of it for about 4 years.

Rollercoaster Morning

When you get on a roller coaster you go for a wild ride and end up back where you started. Ready? ... Go!

Did I say painting flowers is fun? The carnations were not the problem here, but my husband's little ceramic jug. His work is wonderful, but I have never been able to paint its high texture and matte finish. Ah well, there's always tomorrow.