storm clouds on the horizon

i started this a few days ago, my mood may have actually matched this palette then. Too many unfinished threads lying around in my head. But as per usual, the only place i found solace was in my studio with my supplies calling me to come play. We were teased with one day of warm weather, and then the rains came down again, BUT my mood has changed for a few reasons. I got good news about both sons, and except for this damn head cold all is relatively calm..For me that is. For most people my life seems full of drama, but i guess its all i know. The good news is little by little we learn how much we dont know, and how glorious learning something new can be.

and like my pastels nestling in their corn meal bed right now, i feel surrounded by good, and will come out shinier in the long run.....

are figures my first love? i dunno

this friday an exhibit called "The Strength of Women" is opening in Berkeley Heights, NJ and i am honored to be one of the artists selected to show their stuff. Even tho i have spent most of the past two years learning and enjoying the landscape, it was my figures that they wanted. Each artist will show her own vision of/for women but here are some of my paintings that will be hanging in the lobby of the Summit Medical Group Complex for the next few months. come and visit if you can....

time to change up the ole palette?

i knew things were hovering around boring and safe, when i spied my laundry pile on the chair, and realized it was the same color as most of my recent paintings...lots of lavendery blues, a few citron-y greens and a pink thrown in for good measure....
add into the mix the arrival of a 74 degree day, and out with the old, in with the new.
just to really test myself i pulled together a dozen colors i dont use, aka orange, coral, yellow, ochre, salmon, pink, and put away everything else. At this point i think im on pastelmat and not wallis, but who knows.

so heres my pink palette (adios snow scenes) even tho the pic is way orange--- its really  a tad tamer.

my 100 list, thank you maryann, stefanie and of course, casey

My friend Maryann, a prolific artist in her own right, posted about this exercise on Casey Klahns Blog, The Colorist...so, as per usual, I took up the challenge too. Maybe its another way of avoiding painting, or paperwork, or cleaning, or...but hey, it got me thinking, so its all good. Heres my list, in no order except for the way they fell out of my brain. You should do your own.

100 Things I Love About Art

1.        Boxes of Broken Pastels

2.       The smell of pantone markers

3.       My Synaestesia reactions to color

4.       Museums

5.       Art books

6.       Learning from other artists

7.       Talking to other artists

8.       Framing

9.       Gallery visits

10.    Old masters

11.      New masters

12.     Photoshop

13.     Complimentary colors

14.    Learning a new technique

15.     Wolf Khan

16.     Stan Sperlak

17.     Degas’ ballerinas

18.     The desire to learn a new medium

19.    Hands on learning

20.   Listening to the silence while painting

21.     Plein air experiences

22.    Color theory

23.    Warm colors

24.   Cool colors

25.    Memories of sold paintings

26.    A new box of crayola crayons

27.    Answering questions about my art

28.    Feeling proud of artists, myself included

29.   New pastels

30.   Glassine

31.     Pastel mat

32.    Wallis

33.    Mentors

34.   Flowers

35.    Faces

36.    Drawing hands

37.    Learning about sky colors

38.    Breathe

39.   Graphic art

40.   Loutrec

41.    The Frick Museum

42.   The Temple of Dendur atrium

43.   Traveling art shows

44.   Artist discounts

45.   Joining art organizations

46.   The way colors smell

47.   Egon Schiele

48.   Underpainting

49.   Large canvasses

50.   Thumbnail sketches

51.     Value studies

52.    Owning the complete set of grey pantones in HS

53.    Lunch breaks

54.   Painting upside down

55.    “blocks of color only!!”

56.    Sepia series

57.    Ribbons

58.    Karen Appleton

59.   Cleaning my boxes

60.   Fruit studies

61.     Postcards

62.    Exhibit booklets

63.    Egyptian cuneiform art

64.   Micrography

65.    Seashore paintings

66.    Scale

67.    Fabric folds

68.    Hard edges

69.   Mist over the water

70.   Quotes posted by MD

71.     Clear glass

72.    Museum glass

73.    Perspective

74.   Traveling sets of paints

75.    Light as shadow

76.    Negative spaces

77.    Photographing my artwork

78.    Re-thinking

79.   John Singer Sargeant

80.   Helen Frankenthaler

81.     Moonlight colors

82.    Discovering marshes

83.    Sketching

84.   New sketchbooks

85.    Art supply stores

86.    My new studio space

87.    Being serious

88.    Dealing with the business side correctly

89.   Blogging

90.   Edward Hopper

91.    Changing palettes

92.   Seeing brush strokes

93.   Texture

94.   Realism

95.   Pointelism

96.   Seurat

97.   Business cards

98.   Wooden sturdy easels

99.   The smell of paint

100.Working daily, or at least wanting to

reflections

this must be why they are called WORKshops....

so i hauled my phobic self to Cape May CH this past weekend, thinking "you can do this"...and trying to figure out what was more anxiety provoking, painting in a "Master Class" or making the three hour drive myself...uh the drive it turned out..
Would my 10 year old car that pulls to the left make it there? Would my lack of directional skills get me lost even tho the GSP is a straight road? Would i psyche myself out, stop at a rest stop and "rest"?...
yes, no, and no.


Stan Sperlak was extremely generous in his talent, time, patience, and food. My tour of the 37 acre farm was the AHA moment of how he can be inspired by the same views day in and day out. His sense of humour about all things personal and professional put me at ease. Well, my version of ease anyway. The other painters all brought their own talents and fears. For the most part it was a nice group of people. It was an intense 48 hours, painting and/or learning from 8am to 8pm with occasional breaks. It will take quite a while to absorb the weekend, and get what i learned from brain to hand.

Above is the 20 minute pastel of Rose, a beautiful woman; Im trying to get more comfortable with my Terry Ludwigs.

This is my landscape of Terry Ludwigs, then sprayed with alcohol and reworked.

I also did a scene with a barn in it, realizing i never did structures before, that was weird.

so i worked really hard and learned a lot.  Hopefully my next workshop will be soon

still much to figure out

this study has been annoying me since i did it, thought it was that i was tired after all day of painting, but then i did what ive been doing lately,,, i thought about the painting in my mind while i was falling asleep and then i start to see it the way i want to change it. i realized that even tho i saw both her shoulders while painting, it visually was wrong. and that even tho i saw her ears and earrings while she sat, it still felt wrong, so i went back and reworked that whole right side of "her", and it makes more sense, and should it ever become a painting, at least i know that the shoulders are where i want them now...