Lyrical Beauties!

"Lyrical Beauties"

20x16 oil on stretched linen

It's 11:00 pm and I JUST finished this painting and thought I might as well post it now, who needs sleep right??  Each year I do what ever it takes to paint my peonies who's lives are oh so short!  With my last weekend's plein air workshop and my peonies deciding to open while I was off teaching, by the time I got to paint them they were getting pretty droopy. However, their heavy droopiness provided a nice "lyrical" composition for me, hence it's name "Lyrical Beauties!"  I did photograph process of this piece but will post that at a later time.  For now, I hope you enjoy my latest piece!  

3 Day Plein Air Workshop

I spent the weekend teaching the first half of my annual 3 day plein air workshop.  This is a consecutive workshop with the second half in August.  We start in June by building on our foundation skills of plein air painting.  The students then have the chance to apply the skills during summer and continue on in August.  It's a very beneficial way to teach and for students to apply what they're learned and hone in on those skills, then come back and move further.  The progress I see is truly remarkable!  The group was a hard working bunch of painters!  I was fun to see all their growth in such a short period of time.  Below is one of my demos and pictures of the gang painting.  

Thanks to all those who attended, I had a great time!

"Sunday Serenity"

8x10 oil on linen panel -sold-

This is my demo from Sunday morning.  

We decided Sunday Serenity would be the perfect title for this painting!

Here's most of the 'gang', 16 total watching my Sunday morning demo.  It was a bit chilly, 53 degrees, so we were all pretty layered in attempt to keep the damp chill out.  They (weather peeps) kept promising sun but we didn't see much of that all weekend, at least we dodged the rain!

Here's the gang working hard on value structure!

A peek over Doug and Angie's should of what we were painting.  Lake Elmo Park Reserve is really a perfect place to paint!  

Painting Spring!

Spring has arrived a bit slow here in Minnesota this year, but it's here and there's way too much to paint!  The Crab Apple trees have already come and gone, the lilacs are going crazy and the green is electric!  This new green of spring for the most part is a bit tough to paint and can be somewhat unpleasing to end up with, however it is what it is and the fact that it's green and not white is a very good thing!  Last week I spent the week painting outside on location at the farm where I grew up.  The little stream piece was done in about an hour and a half in the evening.  I stood on the bridge crossing over the water looking North.  I had my daughter and my dog along with so there were a few distractions but it's life and the fact I was painting 'from life' it seemed pretty fitting!  The added bonus to bringing along a 12 year old and a 6 month old black lab puppy is there is no time to spare!  It forces one to put it down and put it down right!  

Lilacs, gotta love 'em!  And 'gotta paint 'em FAST'!  They don't stay perky for long once cut.  I did this piece in one full day and decided to be finished.  My goal was to use natural light so it would be a bit softer and cooler than the controlled warm lighting I often use in my still lifes.  I like that the shadows are so warm and soft.  There are lots of little temperature notes in the whites that I'm afraid is difficult to view their subtleties due to my horrible photography skills.  The tiny little notes of differences are quite beautiful in their purity.  These delicate degrees of differences are what drive and inspire me to paint flowers from life. It's absolutely incredible the colors that exist!   

"Fresh Cut Lilacs"

14x14 oil on linen panel

"Stream In Spring"

10x8 oil on linen panel

Paint The Hills Of Tuscany With Kami Polzin

Who Wants To Go To Italy?!!!!  Raise your hand!!!

I will be returning to Tuscany Italy in May of 2012 to teach a workshop and mentoring program in
May of 2012. 
For details and registration info visit the link below.  I can't wait to paint the hills of Tuscany again! 

http://www.ilchiostro.com/index.php?action=workshop-details&item=200

Blue Hydrangeas

"Blue Hydrangeas"

16x20 oil on linen

This is my latest studio piece just finished a few days ago.  It was so refreshing to paint live hydrangeas  this time of year around here!  I grow hydrangeas in my garden at home but they're not ready until mid summer to paint so this was a real treat to be able to paint one of my favorite flowers in the first week of May.  I found a potted plant of Endless Summer Hydrangeas in the garden center at Home Depot a few weeks ago that were in FULL beautiful bloom and thought they'd be perfect for painting and better yet after painting I can put the plant in the ground and paint them again and again!  

I painting a lot of flowers from life, and I have to say for ME hydrangeas and peonies (lilacs too) are some of the most difficult flower to paint.  I think it's because each flower has thousands of little petals in each head which makes it easy to get overwhelmed by the 'millions' of sweet little petals in this flower.  I find it crucial when painting these to keep the lights and darks separate and only paint the darks compared to the light, not what the darks look like when you look INTO the darks.  The darks have to be painted in relation to the lights to pull off the correct value and temperature relationship to achieve the saturation of the lights.  

In composing this painting, I was thinking about all the texture in the flowers and the play of the soft elegance of the round glass vase.  I like how it almost disappears into the background.  And then the few little crisp notes in the 3 little fallen petals on the table top!  

Harmony Side by Side!

"In The Meadow"

24x24 oil on linen

"A Walk In The Queen Anne's Lace"

24x24 oil on linen

It all started with a few little panels, some paint, and an idea which led me to paint these 2 @ 24x24s, that as I see it belong together, side by side!

 Sometimes I seriously wonder, 'where do paintings come from?'  It really is a mystery, a beautiful one, but a mystery just the same.  I think that's what I especially love about the landscape, it's the little bit of unknown and all the beautiful layers of depth and subtlety that are provided for us.  I recently read a quote that said something like this . . .  "don't be humble, you're not that great".  Kind of makes me laugh at the truth of that statement but I can't think of a better word for the way I feel standing in Nature than 'humbled' each and EVERY SINGLE time! It's kind of like being a "Mom":) 

  The two paintings above are my take on all the feelings that I have in response to Nature at this point.  

They are my quiet take on the peacefulness I feel and respect I have of the Natural world.  

Early Spring Bunch

"Early Spring Bunch"

14x11 oil on linen panel

It's been a busy couple of weeks in and around the studio!  Since my last post, I've taught several classes and have been painting as much as possible in between.  Last weekend I was down in Zumbrota Minnesota at Crossings Art Center teaching a 2 day color temperature workshop using the still life as our resource to study from.  It was seriously a dedicated group of painters.  I've said it before, and I'm sure will say it again, but it's SO inspiring and rewarding to work with such great people and also to watch their growth and discoveries with their painting!  We painted from fresh flower arrangements like this one I painted here.  Only this piece I did at my studio a couple of days before the workshop to get my head where it needed to be.  (I also did a full demo at the workshop that I will post later.)  

Hope you enjoy the piece!