A Moment To Remember

" Paige And Her New Guitar"

11x14 on Masonite Panel

Home with a cold the past couple of days, I decided to do a sketch of my daughter with her new guitar she got for Christmas. (please ignore my poor photography of this sketch, I just wanted to get it posted quick) I'm currently in between large studio landscape pieces and have been finding it quite freeing to do something completely different between studio pieces. This sketch was done from a photo I took in the corner of our kitchen on Christmas morning. It is SO Paige! She's wearing her favorite old blue t-shirt (that I've tried to throw away with no luck), playing her new guitar, and her hair a great morning mess. (I don't think she ever actually brushed it that day) :) These are all the things I love about my daughter, it's who she is. She's so uniquely spirited and creatively driven. THAT'S what I wanted to get in the painting! Doing this piece was surprisingly interesting with how emotionally connected I felt to her spirit. I felt a huge sense of pride in her just being who she is on her own and the person she is becoming.

I asked her what she thought of the painting and she said "the walls look like they need more paint". I said, "I like the rawness of it!" "Thanks though Paige" :)

"The Journey"

24x30 Oil On Linen

This is the studio piece I did off the study posted below. I had a very clear idea of the mood I wanted to achieve in this painting. That can be a good thing or a bad thing for a painter. . . . I learned a long time ago that each painting tells YOU what it wants to be and sometimes visions get in the way, each painting has to be 'their own' right? - and the study is information and inspiration! I laid this entire painting in, in a day. Felt good about it, came back the next day, thought a lot, painted a little. Got mad at the painting, put it away, came back SEVERAL more days and finally got it. I spent more TIME the last 5% of the painting THINKING than painting.

I knew instantly when seeing the place that this would be a piece I'd like to do larger. This place was like heaven on earth. The trees completely full of personality, the road a possible journey to take you where you wanted to be and the soy beans golden richness along the way. The thing that struck me the most was the texture of these beans. I truly wanted to get their character with paint! That part was really fun!

A New Year!

"Farm Study"

Oil On Linen 8x10

This is my field study I used to do a larger studio piece. I knew instantly when driving up this road along that gorgeous soy bean field that this was the piece I was going to do in a larger scale. I loved the sense of infinity this roads implies. I'm really drawn to places with a little unknown around the corner. This was very moody, wet fall day. The trees seemed very full of mood and personality the way they gracefully drooped with richness. The two days before it rained non stop. As we were packing up to head home after three days of rain, the sun came out.

Happy Holidays!

"A Path For A Poet"

Oil On Linen 11x14

This is a piece I did for a friend who, you guessed it, is a Poet! He and his friend go on a 50 mile hike each summer along the North Shore in Northern Minnesota. It was important to him to have this painting done as a surprise for his hiking pal as a gift. It was fun to play with all the textures in the grasses and the depth of the darks.

Happy Holidays!

Well, the last time I checked in was November. Time does fly! December always seems to just zip by with all the holiday excitement. It's such a magical time with kids!
It's been a busy month in the studio finishing up classes for the semester and finishing a couple studio pieces I've been working on for a while now. I love this time of year for fresh starts and new goals ahead for my painting! January is now one of my favorite months. I seem to get quite a bit of painting done and am REALLY looking forward to it!

A Full Week of Teaching!

- Plein Air Workshop at Arcola Mills June 2008-

I like this photo, I think it's funny. I made everyone line up to do a study of a white building in light. We don't 'normally' stand in such an orderly fashion! The funny thing is that inside was big 'executive' board meeting going on inside, I wonder what they were thinking. . . .

It's snowing here in Minnesota and absolutely beautiful outside. This week was full of teaching! Monday and Tuesday I taught my regular weekly classes and Thursday and Friday I held a 2 day Still Life workshop. I am completely and fully inspired and impressed with the art spirit of the painters in the studio for those two days. There truly is an uplifting spirit being around others with the same passion as you. As a painter we spend much time alone at the easel, of coarse. I love my time alone with my paints and brushes but I am SO incredibly grateful to be able to share what I know so far in this journey as a painter with other inspiring artists. Painters are wonderful people to be around and as much as they say I give to them, I feel they give me more, it's an amazing circle of great inspiring energy. So here's to the people in my two day class for doing a great job and truly being there to become better painters, not just to 'make pretty pictures'! :)

Okay, so I know this is no longer summer. However, after the recent studio workshops, I was inspired to share photos of the 5 day summer 'plein air' workshop I teach every June on the St Croix at Arcola Mills.

Fall's Last Hydrangeas

"Fall's Last Hydrangeas"

Oil On Linen 20x16

Thankfully, I cut this bunch just 2 days before our first hard frost. I especially love the rich colors of the plants at the very end of their season. These are cut from the same bunch I did the last hydrangea piece from. Amazing how the color changes! I absolutely loved the warmth and color vibration these were radiating and wanted to capture that warmth in the light of the painting. I like this cool blue vase and it was a nice contrast to all the warmth. My students are wondering how many more times I could possibly paint the same vase. . :)

I'm having a hard time breaking free from it (as I'm sure you can see in my other still life work:) - truth is, I just really like it! I may venture onto something new in the next piece. . . .

we'll see. . . . . . I do actually have others. . .

These are clearly not the easiest flower in the world to paint, maybe that's why I like to try? When painting these I was trying to keep in mind the underlying structure of the flower mass and am constantly asking myself if it's in light or in dark and then get the average masses in right away before I begin to note the temperature changes within the mass - color, that's the fun part! This helps me to not get overwhelmed by all the billions of little petals. This painting went pretty well besides the exception of fighting the C12 single primed linen, I don't like the single, it just seems to suck up all the paint! Back to double!

Here's what's going on in the studio right now:

I'm always so torn between being outside painting in the early fall or working on a still life piece in the studio. I try to work back and forth between landscape and still life. It seems to keep me on my toes for sure. Currently I'm working on a 30x24 landscape piece in the studio from a study done a few weeks ago. It's about 94% finished. . . . . I need to get away from it for a few days before I can make any 'rational' decisions on it.

"Summer Hydrangeas" 20x16 Oil On Linen © 2008

How can you not paint the end of the summer's Hydrangeas? I could hardly resist my hydrangeas in the back yard. Hard to believe I've waited this many years to take the time to paint them. I promise myself every year that 'this year I'll paint them'. So I finally did. SO beautiful, and SO much more challenging than I (again) anticipated. The idea, to paint the millions of little petals without painting each little petal!

"Co-op Vegetables" 12x16 Oil On Linen Panel © 2008

My painting Co-op Vegetables was recently juried into the Oil Painters of America Eastern Regional show. The show opens Friday Oct 17 through Saturday November 15 at Richland Fine Art in Nashville Tennessee. The painting was one of the featured pieces in the October 2008 issue of American Art Collector magazine in an article about the show.

 

"Arrangement In Italian Pitcher" 20x16 Oil On Linen Panel © 2008