Soft Charcoal and white pastel on Canson Mi Tientes paper. 
I put together the pieces of light and shadow, looking and drawing, looking and adjusting, until the puzzle was complete, and to my surprise…before me was Lousie!
Capturing Vincent
My easel and wonderful model Vincent.
3/4 Study of Wesley
I have the privelidge of taking a three day portrait workshop with Judy Carducci this week. Watching her bring life to a portrait is amazing. Light and shadow, lost and found lines, warm and cool tones stroke by stroke create life and dimension where formerly there was just a sheet of paper. It better than watching a symphony or play, it is nothing short of remarkable. The structure of the workshop is simple, watch Judy do a demo from a model in the morning, and then paint (or draw) a portrait of that model in the afternoon.
I understand color, I can paint landscapes, so I should be able to translate that to the figure….right? I have had an overconfidence problem my whole life. When I was 8 years old, I watched Olympic diving on TV, and made big plans to awe everyone the next time I was in a pool. My thought process: my ability to do gymnastics + my ability to swim = Olympic diving. After smacking the water and driving it up my nose a couple of times, I was humbled. Perhaps my ability to swim and aptitude for acrobatics might make it easier for me to LEARN to dive, but it did not replace a lifetime of training and practice. And so, after watching magic take place on Judy’s paper all morning, I was reluctant to go to the easel myself, I knew about people who made things look easy.
Then, Judy said something that buoyed me forward, “it is better to fail miserably, than to have lost an opportunity by not trying, or produce a weak outcome because you were timid.” Fail miserably, well, that, I was confident I could master. So I set off…standing at my easel with a 19″x26″ piece of canson paper, and a stick of vine charcoal. I was going to capture a likeness through light and shadow and lost and found lines, or fail miserably trying. So I boldly attempted to capture the gesture, and then it was a process of erasing and correcting, over and over again. All you have to do is wipe vine charcoal off with a chamois and it gone, so it is a wonderful medium for landscape artists who are giving Olympic diving a try. After 3 hours of 30 min. posing sessions, and comments and suggestions from Judy’s skillful eye I captured Wesley:
Cactus Rose
Swinging Sisters
I painted this in a dizzy flurry of color, as if I had just jumped off the swing myself.
Beach Boys
This painting started as a memory: the last morning of a great week at the beach with my family. It was cold, we carried a thermos of coffee and hot chocolate down to the ocean to watch the sun rise. We walked, and sipped, and enjoyed the cool sand beneath our feet. I love the way my boys often lean into each other when they walk.
Of course, like any good Labradors, or my children in this case, they did not stay out of the water. I packed up this memory with the kids wet and sandy sweatshirts and pajamas. Now months later, my memory finally found its way to my easel (fortunately my husband is better at unpacking than I am, he dealt with the wet clothes the midnight we came home).
Prickly Pear
Prickly Pear Cactus
Prickly pear cactus,
Yellow blossoms in the wild.
Beauty, shelter, food.
Haiku by Juan Olivarez
Golden Grass
I love to lay down and get lost in tall prairie grass. This painting is all about the glow of the grass, and the painting is quite yellow even though it photographed much more neutral.
20″x16″ acrylic on canvas
Garden Squash
After painting these beauties…we enjoyed them for dinner, I cooked them using Dorie Greenspan’s recipe from her cookbook, “Around My French Table”: Pumpkin Stuffed with everything good
This short NPR interview with Dorie will inspire you to cook this recipe too!
Black-eyed Susan
Black-eyed Susan
Who is this, so tall and slender
Like a graceful maiden fair,
By the roadside in the sunshine
With her locks of yellow hair?
See you how she leans and listens
To the west wind wand’ring by
As the sun god calls and woos her
Stands the bashful maiden shy?
Must I tell you in her splendor
Her quaint old-fashioned name?
Would you know her when you meet her
With her tawny yellow mane?
Arthur Bernstein (May 9,1953 / New York, New York)
paintandsimple 