a little bit about me….

"a little piece of me" 8"x10" pastel on Uart  $80

As I try to get myself noticed out there in the art world, I need to write a bio and an artist statement. It amazes me how hard this is for me to do.  It's all about WHY I do what I do. I worked on the bio last night and thought I would test it out here on my blog, so comments are welcome.

I grew up in Newtown, Connecticut and attended college at Chamberlayne Jr College and Massachusetts College of Art and Design in Boston, graduating in 1978 with a B.F.A. majoring in painting. My work career was in floral design and retail. After getting married and raising two children, I now live in Marietta, Georgia. Trained in the fine arts, I had the opportunity to experience many of the fine arts - drawing, painting, printmaking, sculpture, photography and all the different mediums. I love it all, but painting has always been my focus. Starting with oils in college, later on working in watercolor, I am now currently working with pastels. What is wonderful about these three mediums, is that you can combine them, using the thinned oil paint and watercolor as under paintings for the pastel! I am nature inspired, so most of my images come from nature ( ex. birds, flowers, landscapes). I sell my work privately and through local art shows.

Here is my watercolor underpainting for my Connecticut landscape

my feathered friends

5"x7" pastel on Sennelier LaCarte  $35

I really need to go out and do some plein air painting or at least get out and get some new landscape photos, but I have been busy during the day with other things. I try to paint everyday, so the last 2 nights, I have been in my studio painting birds. It's one of my favorite things to paint. I wish I could say the bird reference photos are mine , but they are from the internet, so I can't claim them. But it gives me good practice with painting the birds.

5"x7" pastel on Sennelier La Carte "wren" sold

I painted this little wren last night and sold it right away when I posted it. So off in the mail it went today.

5"x7" pastel on Sennelier LaCarte  $35

When I work on these bird pastels, I like to get some detail, not too much, but just just enough to suggest. So I pull out out my pastel pencils along with my Terry Ludwig pastels. I think I will be heading to the art store tomorrow to buy some more pastels pencils….. there are some colors I am missing……...

"pretty in pink"

"pretty in pink" 12"x14" pastel on Uart 500  $100

It's late….. I've been in my studio painting..... Wishing I had gone to the IAPS convention in New Mexico........Playing Pandora (Mumford and Sons Radio) and the time has just flown by! On one of my recent walks with my siberian Husky, Kobi,  I saw some beautiful oak leaf hydrangeas in  my neighbors garden. Usually the flowers are white, but these were pink! and so "pretty in pink"

I took several photos, they were just perfect. Yesterday I pulled out a piece of Uart and just went straight to drawing a quick sketch.

 

I didn't want to think too much about it, I just wanted to get down on paper what I had in my head. Then I pulled out my watercolors and did an underpainting, thinking it would be fun to let some of the underpainting show through the pastels.

  

I had to let the underpainting dry and block the paper, so I couldn't get back to painting it until tonight. I just wanted it to be loose and have fun with the pastels. I think I accomplished my task. I have lots of photos of the hydrangeas to work from so I can always do another painting. Tonight it was just about having fun!

"walk with me"

"walk with me" 11.5"x15.5" pastel on Sennelier LaCarte $125

I am really enjoying painting on the Sennelier LaCarte paper. I love the soft edges I can get with the pastel on this paper. There was one piece left in my pack, so I used it. I'm going to have to buy some more! I still had some photos from Gibbs Garden that I wanted to use for paintings. I did some black pen sketches.

my reference photo

my black pen sketch

There is a lot of green in this photo…… and the reflection……. I decided to use my plein air box to paint this. It is filled with Terry Ludwig's plein air landscape set and Marsha Savage"s southeast landscape set(also from Terry Ludwig). I love all the greens Marsha has in her set!

my plein air box

It was a challenge for me to paint this one. I worked on it off and on for a couple days. In order to make the greens work and have some excitement in the painting, I used more reds. The reflection is probably darker than it should be, but I think it is a good entry into the painting. 

So on to my next painting! 

composition

"shades of green" 11.5x15.5" on Sennelier LaCarte  $125

I worked on this painting most of yesterday and again this morning. I had posted it on my FB page, but something was not right with it. Here is the original post…..

original post

Something bothered me about the composition, so I let it sit over night and went back to my studio in the morning. There it was….. the problem…… the red leaf branch…… it was like a dagger in my painting!

reference photo

Here is my reference photo. It's from one of my trips to Gibbs Garden. I thought I did a decent job of composing the photo. I felt like I could take the viewer into the scene that I saw. The scene was very green and I knew I would have to add some compliments to the green to make the painting pop. But I literally copied in that branch of red leaves and it did not work! So I went back to the painting and brushed out some of the branch and added some more compliments to balance the branch of red leaves. 

A word about the paper I used…. the more I use the Sennelier paper, the more I like it. It already comes in colors, so I don't have to do an underpainting. It also takes quite a few layers of pastel with out spraying  a fixative. It gives the pastel a soft quality. I used mostly Terry Ludwig greens and Great American Richard McKinley landscape pastels

I hope you enjoy my painting!

"catching the breeze"

"catching the breeze" 8"x10" pastel on Uart 500  $60

I know, it's been a few weeks since I have blogged. It's about family. We took our annual family vacation at the beach. I took along my pastels and sketchbook, but this time at the beach ended up being all about family time. With two granddaughters under the age of 4, pulling out my pastels was not a good idea. We had perfect weather and I took a lot of photos. The rain came when we arrived back home, so I headed for my studio to paint from some photos. I was sitting in my beach chair with my camera and like the seagull in this painting, I was just catching the breeze!

5"x7" pastel study on uart

5"x7" pastel study on uart

5"x7" pastel study on uart

I started with these three studies…. I was feeling a little rusty since I had not painted in 2-3 weeks.  The studies allowed me to get back into the pastels, no worries about trying to have a perfect painting. That's one thing a vacation allows you to do ….RELAX! I took many photos of the seagulls and had to paint this pair. I love the colors of the beach homes, this was a view from our table one night out for dinner. I have never painted people…… I caught this photo of the 4 year old granddaughter, she really enjoyed the beach this year and did not want the vacation to end. I caught this photo of her gazing out at the ocean. I tried to just simplify the shapes, catch the light where it hit her body and suggest her likeness. I will gift this to her. 

So…. I'm back home and thinking about my next paintings. I hope you enjoy reading my blogs!

"thoughts of Van Gogh"

9"x12" pastel on Uart 500 "thoughts of Van Gogh"

When I go for my daily walks with my Siberian Husky, I always keep an eye out and my iPhone ready to take photos that I can use for paintings. In my neighborhood we have these beautiful cypress trees. Every time I walk by them I am reminded of Vincent Van Gogh and his paintings of the cypress trees.

paintings by Vincent Van Gogh

I am very fond of the artists from the Impressionistic era, and they are who attracted me to painting. I was very fortunate to have gone to Paris to see many of their works at the Orsay Museum.  So, for todays painting, I thought I would try my hand at painting those cypress trees.  I decided on an oil stain underpainting.

oil stain underpainting

paints used

You have to let it dry overnight, so I had done this yesterday. I like the way the paint drips and try not to cover them up too much with the pastel. Tomorrow I head back to Gibbs Garden and hope to come home with some new photos for painting and may try to do some small plein air studies while I am there.