Spring Weather Arrives

It finally got warm enough for me to get outside and paint. I need 50 degrees or better and I like it to be 60. I am a wuss, I know. This wisteria is growing up the side of a tree. The back lit shrubs were brilliantly lit. No wind, lots of shade, steady light and lots of birds flying around. My host furnished a glass of wine and all was well in the world for a couple hours. A perfect day to be outside painting.

12" x 16" oil on canvas

Old Barn, Plein Air

I prefer to paint outdoors when I have the opportunity in the summer. I painted this plein air piece on a warm morning in July last week. The farm has been in the Fry family for generations. When I paint I aim for a "mood" more than a photographic image. The painting should tell the viewer a little bit about how I felt when I viewed the subject.

I was feeling really relaxed and on my game that day, so maybe some of that comes through. It was a perfect morning for plein air and that always cheers me too.

11" x 14"

Turn of the Century Barn

Garden Path

Garden Path

9" x 12" oil on linen

A small plein air painting with a natural composition that I painted on my trip to the Irish Hills.

Lauryn

Here is the final version of Lauryn, my 14 year old model. She has wonderful dark eyes and I am pleased with the way it turned out.

Lauryn 11" x 14" oil on linen

Saturday model at Hyter Group

Jennifer

11" x 14"

oil on linen

Jennifer posed for our portrait group when she was eight months pregnant. I decided to just do a portrait but quite a few of the artists showed the baby bump and did a full-figure piece.
I love painting redheads-- or "gingers" as they're now known- courtesy of the TV show "Glee", I guess. Somehow I ended up with a good position too; I was right in front of the model. That never happens. Great model and fun to paint.

Interesting Backgrounds

When I finished this painting the background was empty: nothing there but a blue wash. Sometimes I will leave it like that and add a background later. The expression on the model's face reminded me of something and at first I couldn't think what. Then it hit me! Da Vinci's Mona Lisa was sitting in a similar position, with similar hair. I decided to add a background resembling the one in the Mona Lisa, a landscape heavily obscured by the presence of humidity. I stuck with my own color scheme, a mostly analogous piece with blues and violets. I think it adds to the 'story' and changes the painting from a posed portrait to a painting of a woman  who is actually living somewhere. Or maybe I'm just hoping it does that.

9" x 12" oil on linen

Modern Mona Lisa

Gangster in a Fedora Hat?

Derrick posed for the Hyter Group in a green hat and he was posed in front of a green backdrop. I was not there the day they posed him or I might have asked why. Anyway-- too much green so I changed the color of his hat to maroon and I like the effect much better. A green hat will always be associated with Robin Hood in my mind. I think he looks a bit like a gangster in this painting.

9" x 12"

oil on linen

Margaret Thatcher

This is my version of Margaret Thatcher, the iconic British Prime Minister who passed away April 7. While I wasn't particularly fond of her brand of politics (union-busting and trickle down economics), I did admire her strength as a leader. There was no shortage of good photographs to use as a reference so I chose three and created a composite of her, while knocking a few years off. This is one way to avoid violating a copyright. Mrs. Thatcher was a woman of faith, and that's another quality I admire about her.

9" x 12" oil on linen

Fruit Basket Art

A friend dropped off a basket full of fruit, nuts and other great snacks before Christmas. I hadn't painted anything in almost a week because Christmas does kind of push you out of the studio and into the kitchen, so I welcomed the opportunity to paint what was left of the basket today.

Just three pieces of fruit but I was inspired. OK, I am more easily inspired than most people, I will admit to that. I just need some colorful objects and a bright light. This time I took a picture of the set-up because I'm teaching another painting workshop next month, I don't think you can ever overemphasize how much better things look when you paint from life. The visual below will prove it to the students: a picture of the actual boring looking fruit and my representation of what they really look like. (At least to me... :) )

Ho Ho Ho

Art is fun. I can honestly say that because I believe it with all my heart. In the beginning, when you are learning color theory, perspective and composition, it sometimes seems more like work. But later, after you've put in thousands of hours and gained some confidence -- that's when your efforts pay off. I wouldn't have been doing it this long if I didn't enjoy it so much.

Oil painting is the most fun for me. I have tried all the other mediums. Watercolor (mistakes are not easily fixed), pastels (lovely results but I don't care for all that dust- and framing is expensive), acrylics (easy to work with but the colors dry different colors and the texture is similar to plastic in most cases). So I stay with what I know and love- and that is the infinitely correctable medium known as oil paint. I make a lot of mistakes and when you cover up a mistake in oils you have the option of scraping to remove or just painting over it. I use both methods. Sometimes the paintovers and the scrapings create very cool pieces of art, that would not have been possible without the initial "mistake". I am spontaneous and this medium is designed for people like me.

My friend Martin came into my office the other day and I asked him if he ever played Santa Claus because he was perfect for it. He said that he had been playing the jolly old elf for years, but this year for health reasons he had to take a break. He was very accommodating when I asked him if I could take a picture of him and paint a Santa. Martin was wearing a flannel shirt and no hat, so a lot of this painting was imaginative.

So here is my seasonal contribution for this blog. I usually try to do at least one. Maybe Martin will show up on my Christmas cards next year. This is my idea of fun-- creating an original piece of art from something ordinary.

11" x 14" oil on canvas

My Favorite Birds

Cardinals are my favorite birds. I guess because they are so beautiful and also because the father takes care of his offspring. My husband's favorite baseball team is the St. Louis Cardinals and the cardinal is the official bird of our home state: Ohio. They are also fun to paint.

9" x 12" oil on canvas

"Sitting Pretty"
SOLD

Portrait of Dave-- Finished

I am finished with Dave's portrait. Can;'t wait to see what he does with mine. I will explain a little about my process when I paint a portrait from a photo. It is very different from what I do when I paint from life. I prefer to paint form life because there is no guessing about what color something actually is or how a certain form turns, eye color etc. Plus it is really more like plein air painting, as you have a limited time period to capture what you see in front of you on canvas and I really enjoy plein air painting.

So when I do a portrait from a photo I try to encourage the person to give me a picture that flatters them and that actually says something about them. I am going to post the picture Dave initially gave me and that I rejected. Here it is beside the one that I eventually chose as a reference.



Again, the one I chose was not necessarily the one that had the best "portrait lighting", per the instructions at the beginning of the WC! thread. BUT it was one I thought made Dave look good and he seemed to be in his element and enjoying himself. He had told me he fixed boats and was on his way to work on one this past weekend. I asked him if he would mind getting some pictures of himself with the boats. That's the look I was interested in.

I think the pose with boats is much more "Dave", but I would be guessing because I don't really know him. Very well. At all.

This portrait was a lot of fun because I got to paint Dave's wispy hair and beard. It is the perfect kind of hair for a wet in wet technique, which is what I always use.

I increased the contrast in the original photo to make the lights and shadows easier to see. I did the umber underpainting and after I had all the values pretty close I did couple coats of color. You can see the umber color is still a big presence in the painting and it helps harmonize the other colors.

This is a limited palette painting. I used titanium white, yellow ochre, ivory black, raw umber, alizarin crimson, ultramarine blue, cadmium red light and cad yellow light.

The Albert family

I have been working on this painting for a couple weeks. It's a commissioned piece for a friend of Jamie Hurley's. Two years ago Jamie had me create a really illogical painting of her being rescued by her boyfriend, who was riding a white horse and being aided by a giant Michigan Wolverine. A dragon and a castle were also included in the mix. Later Jamie married her boyfriend and I like to think my painting had a lot to do with that. Perhaps not. :)

Anyway, that's how I came to do this painting, which is a lot more traditional and showcases the couple's lovely home and even more lovely child. Plus their two dogs....one of which is paying attention and the other which is not.

18" x 24" oil on canvas

Even a boat can be interesting if the light is right

I'll be the first to admit that I know next to nothing about boats or fishing or almost anything to do with water. I can swim. Period. I do like the way light reflects on water and I love old worn things though. There were three of these little rowboats on the shore of Lake Ocqueoc near our cabin. I think all of us painted them at one time or another. I walked down to the beach one morning (not really a beach- more of a boat launching area for which I do not know the name). I loved the early morning light and I got a late start so I had a two hour window to do this painting. The reason for the late start was I did another painting EARLIER that morning. This would be a record-breaking day for me, as I ended up painting four plein air pieces in one day.

This is my favorite painting from our trip to Lake Huron. It seems to capture the "feel" of the northern Michigan climate nicely. Or at least how I perceived it. Paintings are a little bit of shared history and the artist can't help making them personal. That's why everyone's paintings are different, even if they're painting the same thing. I've observed this many times when I set up a still life in a room full of students or go out with friends and paint the same thing and we all end up with completely different paintings. Everyone views a scene in a very personalized way. I think we're wired to do that. If we weren't all the movies ever made would be similar; clothing designers would be out of work and life would be incredibly boring.

So while some people might look at one of my paintings and say-- "Oh- that looks so real!" I've had a lot of people- mostly kids- say that, and yet, when you compare it to what is actually in front of me- it isn't. It is MY VERSION of what is real. I think you have to paint for a long time to really be able to wrap your mind around that concept.

11" x 14" oil on canvas

Another Look at a Previous Subject

As an artist, we realize there are numerous ways to present a picture or design of the image we want to share. A photographer has the option of changing f-stops and adjusting the white balance or shutter speed. A painter can easily move a tree, leave a figure out or even change the scene from fall to winter. It just takes a bit of thinking and the knowledge of how light changes as it falls on your subject.

I was recently asked to re-paint this scene of my friend Becca watering her plant. The client missed the opportunity to purchase the original because he waited too long. That one sold within a week of placing it in my on-line store. Initially, I refused, explaining to him that it's not very interesting to me to repaint a scene exactly as I have in the past and it's actually a bit boring. He then wrote me again a few weeks ago and asked if I might not reconsider. He had fallen in love with the image and he didn't want a print of the painting- he wanted an original. If I wanted to change some things and make it better that was OK with him.

So I agreed to do a "rework" under those conditions and I'm actually glad I did. This painting is the same size as the original: 11" x 14", but it differs in a few key ways. It is a cooler palette, with cobalt violet and ultramarine blue in the shadow areas instead of alizarin and ultramarine. I used a slightly cooler underpainting of asphaltum as well and the result is a quiet, harmonious painting with lovely golds and violets. I changed her arm so that she is pulling out a dead flower and raised her head slightly. The background is a made up assortment of interesting foliage that stays where it belongs-- in the background.

Becca Watering Plants

11" x 14"  sold

Popcorn and Woodchuck Hard Apple Cider

My favorite bottle of beer to paint because of the little woodchuck on the front label and also one that will be around for awhile simply because it tastes so bad. Who knew? I bought it for the cute little critter on the front. The popcorn popper is an antique and literally falling apart but it does the job and it makes awesome tasting popcorn-- nothing at all like the microwave kind.
11" x 14" oil on canvas

Zuni Girl Finished

I will probably wait until Thursday to list this one. She is a great contrast to the warm tones of the Blackfoot boy I painted last week. I want to do a series of ten Native American children, all from different tribes, all 11" x 14" in size. Each painting will have a different background but I want all of them to be outside.