OK. So, the leeks turned out well, aaaannnndddd ~~~~ I got sassy & decided to paint some portobello mushrooms the next day.
Bad idea! There’s not much ‘there’ there. Dull colors & shapes, arranged (by me) in an overly simplistic composition. Certain artists could make a good painting out of such drab components (Morandi?), but my first effort at ‘shrooms falls short.
I was so pumped up after Wendy Artin’s workshop that, after a day of R&R, I pulled out my paints and a couple of elderly leeks from the fridge and painted another watercolor in the manner we had been practicing during the workshop. Here it is.
Leeks at Home. Watercolor on Paper.
I was tickled that it turned out nicely. Maybe I’ll have to do more!
On the last day, Wendy brought in some a bag of asparagus and I snagged three with which to wrestle.
Asparagus 1. Watercolor on Paper.
Asparagus 2. Watercolor on Paper.
Sorry sorry sorry, y’all! My last blog entry contained paintings of two full length nudes, neither of which was ‘out of bounds’ (IMHO). So, I was aghast when I checked to see if Facebook had re-posted it and found that the images had been sliced and diced in an unexpected manner (to say the least). I hope you clicked over to my blog to get a better sense of the overall paintings!
In any event, here’s a ‘palette cleanser’! It’s one of the radishes I painted during the Saturday afternoon session of my Wendy Artin workshop, followed by one of Wendy’s gorgeous still life watercolors — also of radishes.
Radish 1. Watercolor on Paper.
Wendy’s radishes — again, quite a difference:
Radishes, 2001, watercolor on cotton Khadi paper, 11″ x 12″
This past weekend I spent two grueling days knee-deep in watercolor. Wendy Artin, a fabulous artist and lovely person, was our instructor, at Glen Kessler’s Compass Atelier. Talk about ‘alla prima’ painting! She dives right in – no rough sketch, no gesture drawing, no nothing — just her eye, her paint & her brush to guide her relentlessly down the sheet of paper. Her tonal nudes, in which she paints ONLY the ‘shadow shapes’ yet leaves you believing the whole body, are exquisite. Her colorful fruits & veggies are more fully rendered, but are also beautiful & light.
Here’s one of her nudes:
And one of mine — a half hour pose during the workshop (quite a difference, yes??:
I was VERY happy to be able to switch to vegetables in the afternoons!
Last week I taught a one day iPad art workshop to a number of local artists in Lafayette LA and then attended a three-day workshop in watercolor journaling held by Don Getz and organized by my sister Ceci. Another sister, Mercedes, participated in much of the fun, including the iPad session. Since I was so close to home, Ceci and I swung over to Biloxi afterward to visit our dad and his wife and more brothers and sisters.
As for making art while out-of-town, I didn’t paint while teaching. And it was so cold and windy during the plein air workshop that I didn’t do anything of note then either. In fact, after a couple of watercolor/ink drawings, I resorted to my iPad to get something — anything — down before my hands went numb. Though everything is unfinished, I’ll show you the state of play (along with a few photos of what we were memorializing) so you can get a flavor for the beauty of Cajun country. Teaser: we painted the St. John Cathedral Oak, the third largest live oak in the country.
I’ve been distracted lately by a major house re-org, urged on by my selected ‘completion reward’: revamping my office area to include a nice, sunny area for painting. Yum. In the meantime, I’ve been teaching an iPad class and preparing for a trip to Lafayette, LA to teach a one-day iPad workshop and attend a four-day watercolor journaling workshop. More on that later.
I’ve done a few new iPad pieces over the last couple of months. Here they are:
Admiring Make Piece Pretties
Trainspotting
My husband and I are just back from a lovely Christmas in California. We visited with family in Oakland, Lincoln and Healdsburg before returning to Oakland for a final visit with grandboy Max and his parents.
Here are the two iPad images I made to use as Christmas cards, followed by another image for those of a different religious tradition or for use as New Year card.
The Baby
I have to give ‘The Baby’ top billing — though I was inspired to paint this rendition of a statue after painting the two statues below. (I fondly think of this vignette, based on an antique shop window I saw in New York, as ‘Two Marys and the Baby’.)
Two Marys and the Baby
And this cheerful sunflower may be just what we need to banish all wintry gloom and guide us into thoughts of the New Year and new Spring coming around the bend. I hope each of you is enjoying this special time of year. All my best!
Sunflower
In memoriam.
Remembering those lost in Sandy Hook. An iPad painting, based on a photograph of our beautiful Mississippi Gulf Coast, by my niece, Bridgette O’Keefe Lovelace.
I’ve been painting up a storm on my trusty iPad lately. I had been planning to try to sell some high quality, archival prints of some images, along with greeting card prints of other paintings, over the holiday season. Bronchitis intervened. So no marketing, but plenty of satisfaction from all of the new iPad art. I’ll share them with you over the next few days.
Here are a couple:
pitcher and pals
round eggplant – never saw one before!