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.

Cloudy Skies, Sunny Flowers

"Marigolds" 8x6" oil on canvas $98

The February Tease of warm weather continued for our weekend in Portland, but we woke to clouds this morning and forecasts of temperatures in the 20's again. One of my personal goals is to rise above the weather, to find the sun within myself when it is gloomy outside; today I failed
miserably.
These sunny Marigolds graced our large veggie garden last summer and the old camp coffee pot made a nice foil for their vibrant color. Flowers are fun to paint. Perhaps tomorrow I will have a go at Dennis' gift of red carnations which I found all over the house and studio on Valentine's Day morning.

Sunny Days

Little Applegate Oak 8x6" oil on canvas $96

The weather for the last few days has been bright and sunny - the typical February Tease. We have been eating lunch out on our deck and reveling in the warmth. I makes me want to get in the garden but we often have frost in April so I have learned to be patient. Maybe I'll plant some peas next week. It's such a joy to be outside and we live in such a beautiful place that I yearn to be a good landscape painter. It's hard to do well, but maybe with this new "daily" painting routine I will paint plein air more often and get better at it. The above was an attempt to catch a wonderful old oak in it's full glory last fall.

We will be away for a couple of days, so I will post again on Monday.

Here's a zero calorie Valentine- Enjoy!

"Wine and A Rose" 8x6" oil on canvas SOLD

Girl with the Heart Earring

"Tracy" 10x8" oil on canvas $125- SOLD Thanks, L.B.

I started this painting of a friend at least two years ago and it's been bouncing around my studio looking forlorn ever since. She is now married and has a baby so I don't see her much, but we had dinner together recently and I was once again stuck by her beauty and those amber eyes. So yesterday I finished the painting. The heart earring is a nod to Valentine's Day, but I have something else for Feb 14-you'll see!

I sold a painting out of my studio a while back, but realized at the last minute it was not signed. "Oh, just put your name on it quick so I can take it." said The Buyer, and The Painter said "Sorry, it's not that easy. I'll bring it to you tomorrow." The Buyer was very perplexed, but I explained that the signature on a painting affects the whole composition and sometimes I sign a painting a half-dozen times before I think it looks OK. This portrait is a case in point; I feel like the signature in the lower right keeps the yellow band from just flowing off the bottom. As you can see in the earlier version, there was a dark shape there which I thought was distracting- my name seems to be enough.

Amaryllis

"Amaryllis" 6 x8 oil on canvas SOLD

This amazing amaryllis opened about a week ago and every day I have wanted to paint it. Nice of it to be so patient; cut flowers loose their flush just a couple of hours after you bring them in. I really liked the back-lighting from the window and did my best to capture that. I was fighting a sloppy canvas preparation the whole time, trying to deal with brush strokes in the white I'd painted over a previous image. Good that these lessons come home in a small format! I've just stretched a couple of large canvases and will very careful not to make that mistake.






I was concentrating on not drawing with the paint, but instead finding the forms and values, seeing the abstract shapes which eventually start to look like something. My inner referee kept shouting STOP! STOP! I hope I did in time. I left the time stamps on so you could see how long each phase took. If you click to the enlargements you can see: 2 hours start to finish. About an hour longer than I'd intended to spend...

Thinking Back..

"Me at 30" 6x8 oil on canvas $96

All this talk about weddings has got me thinking back to what I was doing when I was my daughter's age. This summer I cleared out an old trunk and found some photos, including the one from which I did this painting. I think I was thirty that year.

Poems and Paintings

Last night we went into Ashland to meet friends for Thai food and a poetry reading by Robert Pinsky which was very entertaining and thought provoking. I remembered to take my pocket sketch book and did a little pen drawing of the women sitting in front of us while we waited for the program to begin. Maybe you think I would always do this, since I am an artist, but truthfully, I feel like I am just starting to get into the swing of being a 2-D artist instead of making sculpture. A 20+ year way of thinking is hard to adjust, but I'm enjoying seeing the shift.
The last poetry reading we attended was by Ted Kooser and hearing him read the poem below resulted in the little picture after it.

Dishwater

Slap of the screen door, flat knock
of my grandmother's boxy black shoes
on the wooden stoop, the hush and sweep 
of her knob-kneed, cotton-aproned stride 
out to the edge and then, toed in
with a furious twist and heave, 
a bridge that leaps from her hot red hands
and hangs there shining for fifty years
over the mystified chickens, 
over the swaying nettles, the ragweed,
the clay slope down to the creek, 
over the redwing blackbirds in the tops
of the willows, a glorious rainbow
with an empty dishpan swinging at one end.

"Dishwater" 6x8 oil on canvas
SOLD Thanks, J.E.

This was the 2nd version, the first was more of an illustration in that all the poem visuals were included making it about the poem, not a new piece of art. This painting was just accepted in a group show called "Home Sweet Home", at the Wiseman Gallery at Rogue Community College in Grants Pass. They also accepted a print of "Dinner Dance" which is a sweeter take on the whole making dinner, doing dishes theme. I have been ignoring possibilities to sell work in Grants Pass, but the scene there has changed over the years so perhaps this will be a start.
Must go paint, or ??...

My daughter is engaged!

Yesterday morning my daughter called to tell us she is engaged- officially, with a diamond ring even! We are thrilled! This has been a while in coming, as she and her sweetie have been together for about three years.
The painting swelled right up out of my heart an hour or two after she called. I did it quickly on a scrap of loose primed canvas. You can see the charcoal marks that will be the edge of the 6x8" canvas once it is stretched, but I share it here with the rough edges that sort of add to the euphoria. I wanted to paint her radiantly happy, and even though she may not choose to wear a white veil, it was my vision of her as a beautiful bride.

Remember Summer?

I know summer will come again, but we hope our wood stash lasts through these cold months.

"Cutting Lavender” 6×8 oil on canvas $96 SOLD- Thanks, L.B.

So here is a bit of sunshine and lovely scent just for a little relief. Lavender grows well during our hot, dry summers and every year there is a local cutting party where we can join our neighbors for a pot luck dinner and gather as much lavender as we wish, before they harvest for oil. I snapped a photo of our friend Amy and it became one of my daily paintings last November, which I am publishing now without any order except my whim. Enjoy!

A Snowy Winter

We are usually lucky to get one or two snowfalls a year, here in Southern Oregon, but this year the snow has come and gone and come and gone several times. When there’s more than an inch or two we don’t even try to get down our driveway which is depicted in this painting, which I did a couple days ago, after arising early and taking a long, meditative walk in the quiet, white world.

“The First of February” 12″X9″ Oil on Masonite $125

The paintings I am sharing with you in this blog are the result of short, enjoyable sessions where I just paint whatever strikes me. I have not done this much, as I usually feel the need to have a Big Idea painting going that will take me many weeks to complete and is destined for a scheduled show or our annual sale. Doing big paintings can get to be a slog, so the discovery of a small format has been very liberating! More doing and less thinking.

I'm not sure about this...

Back in November I came across something on the web that led me to search for daily paintings, and I was very inspired by what I found.

“Melons” 6×8 oil on canvas $96

Doing a painting a day is certainly nothing new. It’s no secret that the way to get better at painting is to paint often - as in, every day.

But what is new is that an artist nowadays can paint everyday and also exhibit everyday, via a blog or website.

I’m not sure about this idea. For one thing, time on the computer is not time painting. But unless you have a job other than making art, it’s important to make an effort to sell what you make, so I guess I’ll have a go at adding a blog to our web presence.

Besides, it might be sort of fun to share some of my ideas with you. I’ve been taking photos of paintings as they progress and from time to time I might include that process. I’ve also started a small painting class (and I can tell already that I will learn more by teaching than I might as a student) so perhaps some of that experience will show up here.

For the next few days I will post some of the daily paintings I did last November, and who knows? maybe I’ll get back in the swing of it…

Looks like it may snow again tonight.
Stay warm,
Leslie

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