February 15, 2020

Square Dance    Oil  stick on panel    24″ x 24″

 

We Meet Again    Oil Stick on panel    12″ x 12″

I Thought I Knew What I Was Doing…Ha!

I thought I was deleting drafts, but deftly deleted posts instead. Wondering where in the cosmos they are wandering and hoping they are happy.  So, for the past few weeks I’ve been doing  fall clean-up…raking leaves, pulling the last (hopefully) of the weeds, harvesting the last of the veggies, planting daffodils and (of course) unpacking sweaters… and, most importantly, trying to find my raincoat.    This hasn’t left much time for painting.  And after deleting who knows how many posts, I appear even to myself to be busier than I actually am.   So, here are two small acrylic paintings, now that I’m again ready to wave those paintbrushes around and face the easel.

 

Catching the Blues   20″x16″   Acrylic & graphite on board

 

Rain Dancing On The Roof   20″x16″  Acrylic & paper collage on board

 

Trying to Catch Up!

Having discovered a year’s worth of posts in my drafts (which I can’t figure out how to now delete!) I thought I’d go back in time, just a bit, and prove that I haven’t spent a year binging on Netflix.  For a couple of months I became enamored with grids…did them in watercolor, did them in acrylics, did them in pencil…just loved me some gridding!

Watercolor   11″x15″

 

Watercolor 11″ x 15″

 

Acrylic  20″ x 16″

And a painting that lost it’s grid….

Acrylic 48′ X 24″

 

 

 

My Summer Vacation

Not only do I not know where this summer went, I’m not sure exactly where I put this past year.  If you happen to find it please let me know where it is and if I had a good time.  Alas, wherever last year went, it went too fast.

Most of this past summer I spent my studio time with acrylics, forgetting that I had a watercolor class to teach when summer ended, and avoiding oils all together.  August found me in a panic and preparing madly for my 2 classes…and having some rip snortin’ anxiety dreams until I finally had my first two weeks planned out.  Here are a few of the paintings from the past year (just discovered that my blogs from last summer are still sitting in “drafts.”  Bletch!  I guess that’s where some of last year went….

 

 

 

 

Can’t Keep A Good Still Life Down

Bottle With Three Oranges

Watercolor & Watercolor Crayon on Yupo   20″ x 28″

 

Ball, Bottle, Box

Acrylic on Paper   11″ x 15″

Summer Paintings

Still Life (Red And Green)   Acrylic on Board

 

Still Life With Peach  Walnut Ink  and Gouache   25″ x 11″

 

Small Landscape  Acrylic on Canvas  20″ x 16″

 

 

Silence

Silence

Acrylic on canvas   48″ x 48″

Visiting Acrylics For Awhile

Needing the feel of paint stuck to my fingernails again, I pulled out the acrylics and my big glass palette.  This painting is 48″ x 24″ on a gessoed panel.

I prepared three panels, thinking that I would paint a triptych but decided I liked the panels standing on their own.  Mostly green for this panel, but had lovely time using iridescent white, a paint I’ve never used before but will certainly incorporate in a painting or two in the future.

Debating with myself about where to go with the third panel.  Yellow?  Blue?  Purple?  I’m leaning towards black because there were a few sunny days that shocked my rain-soaked system, but nothing has firmed up yet in my art brain…except thinking I will have to add those dotty dots for continuity.

2018 And All Is Watercolor

It seems that I’m spending both more time and less time in the studio these days.  More time because I have two classes to prep for, and less time because…I have two classes to prep for.  Sheesh!

Three small watercolors (11″ x 15″) and still working with (oh boy!) grids

 

Lot’s Wife

I’ve always admired abstract artists who can go to their studios, grab a brush and a canvas, and leap in to painting.  Whether it is laziness, creative terror or lack of imagination I usually need a jumping point.  It can be as simple as a cloud formation, irritation with the current political situation, or a phrase that tickles my fancy.  The poem Lot’s Wife by Anna Akhmatova had been tucked in the back of my mind for some time, when I pulled it out and jumped for this watercolor.

Lot’s Wife

 

Anna Akhmatova

 

And the just man trailed God’s shining agent,
over a black mountain, in his giant track,
while a restless voice kept harrying his woman:
“It’s not too late, you can still look back

at the red towers of your native Sodom,
the square where once you sang, the spinning-shed,
at the empty windows set in the tall house
where sons and daughters blessed your marriage-bed.”

A single glance: a sudden dart of pain
stitching her eyes before she made a sound . . .
Her body flaked into transparent salt,
and her swift legs rooted to the ground.

Who will grieve for this woman? Does she not seem
too insignificant for our concern?
Yet in my heart I never will deny her,
who suffered death because she chose to turn.

From Poems of Akhmatova, by Anna Akhmatova and translated by Stanley Kunitz and Max Hayward. Published by Little, Brown & Co. © 1973 by Stanley Kunitz and Max Hayward. Granted by permission of Darhansoff & Verrill Literary Agency. All rights reserved.