10″x8″ pastel on sanded paper.
This painting was a demo for a women’s group my mom has been part of since I was a little girl. After I painted the demo, they all got their hands dirty and discovered the artist inside of them. It was special for me to listen to their conversations formed by a lifetime of friendship.
Making our Way Through The Storm
There is something exhilarating about forging through a storm under an umbrella with a friend, or spouse, or sibling, or child. You blindly press forward afraid to release the umbrella, and knowing that by sharing it you are getting soaked to the bone. I am neither timid nor afraid of geological storms, but in an honest assessment of myself, have to admit that I am more than reluctant to face metaphorical ones. I don’t seem to trust that they will end, and sometimes the darkness is more than I feel like going into.
I am not experiencing a storm: metaphorical, or geological. I have been traveling and had time and willingness to paint. I realized that I had about the same amount of white paint, that if it were toothpaste, I could brush my teeth 3x. If you paint in oils you know white is the one color you must have. Failing to plan is planning to fail. So I planned a painting based on color: my puddle of mud left from an earlier painting, darks, and my 3 dabs of white. Circumstances brought about the storm; that happens sometimes.
Sunrise 6:38
The same way I pre choose a pallete in pastels to paint a sunrise in plein air, I think next time, I will premix some colors in oil. The race against time was harder than I expected, but the sunrise was nestled in a wonderful quiet, and much more beautiful than I have experienced in a long time.
Sunset 8:10pm
The World Is Too Much With Us
BY WILLIAM WORDSWORTH
The world is too much with us; late and soon,
Getting and spending, we lay waste our powers;—
Little we see in Nature that is ours;
We have given our hearts away, a sordid boon!
This Sea that bares her bosom to the moon;
The winds that will be howling at all hours,
And are up-gathered now like sleeping flowers;
For this, for everything, we are out of tune;
It moves us not. Great God! I’d rather be
A Pagan suckled in a creed outworn;
So might I, standing on this pleasant lea,
Have glimpses that would make me less forlorn;
Have sight of Proteus rising from the sea;
Or hear old Triton blow his wreathèd horn.
Gathering Yellow
The spring has been filled with wonderful moments at the soccer fields. I have loved watching all the games: from my daughter’s team which started the season running like a gaggle of ducks all together, to my sons who play such intense games I can’t sit down. We have frozen and burned up, nearly have been blown away by the wind, and in between, watched spring unfold all around us. We have made new friends and reconnected with old ones, and enjoyed many yummy picnics.
I planned on painting a picture of the kids playing soccer, but this little girl was next to us in an overgrown field during my son’s last game. She was singing softly and gathering yellow flowers. She was such a distraction, I loved watching her as much as the boys’ game (which was a close one). The wildflowers and purple satin dress won out, I will paint the soccer players next season.
P.s. thank you to all the moms who take their daughters to soccer games in full princess regalia.
Spirit of Youth
“April hath put a spirit of youth in everything. (Sonnet XCVIII)”
― William Shakespeare
8″x6″ oil on single oil primed Belgium linen. I bought a multipack of panels trying to decide which surface I like the best. The single primed linen really grabs the paint, it takes more paint to fill the tooth, which was perfect for this wet rainy painting.
Puddle Dancing
A rainy, dark scene seems appropriate for today, one with a bit of hope (only because I know how the story ends). So I painted a puddle dancer, a barefoot rain walker. I love the way the colors blended with my Portland grey underpainting. I also love the way this painting looks wet.
Green Creeping In
I love to watch little bits of green sneak into the winter world of brown and grey. Green comes into an uncertain time: warm, or bitter cold, windy, or calm as can be. I watched a breathtaking tulip tree blossom out to soon, and a cold snap froze every last flower she produced. On wobbly legs the first blooms and baby animals cautiously come into the world, and step by step the green returns.
Winter trees
Out of the bosom of the Air.
Out of the cloud-folds of her garments shaken,
Over the woodlands brown and bare,
Over the harvest-fields forsaken,
Silent and soft and slow
Descends the snow.
Even as our cloudy fancies take
Suddenly shape in some divine expression,
Even as the troubled heart doth make
In the white countenance confession,
The troubled sky reveals
The grief it feels
This is the poem of the air,
Slowly in silent syllables recorded;
This is the secret of despair,
Long in its cloudy bosom hoarded,
Now whispered and revealed
To wood and field.
Henry Wadsworth Longfellow (1807 – 1882) was an American poet.
Collaborative Art
Being a local artist in the community and having four children, I was of course asked to help come up with ideas for the auction at the Gala which raises funds for our school. It was fun to think of ideas that many children could work on bit by bit and produce something that someone would want to bid on. It was delightful and chaotic to work with the kids. All 4 canvases are 24″x30″. They were created with mixed media, and among the collage you can find: homework, math problems, rough draft essays, sheet music from band and choir.
