Guana River

I have had almost no time for pastels since moving to Florida, but this past week I began taking a 4-week class with Lyn Asselta at the St. Augustine Art Association.  This is what I did in class on Thursday night. I'm not totally happy with it - the heron under the bush to the right bothers me. I added him to balance the ducks down on the shore line, but he looks terribly ugly to me, and badly proportioned compared to the bush. I'll probably end up brushing him out, or replacing him with another duck.

But I totally adore the GTM Reserve Guana River center which is where my reference photo was taken, so it was fun trying to incorporate that area into a painting, using some of Lyn's suggestions in class.

Stinker One

LOL. I was doing some straightening up in my studio room this morning and came across some acrylic paints. Since it was sort of a quiet day I decided I might try to use one and paint a painting! Silly me. My mom used to try to get me to work with oils, acrylics and watercolors when I was young (as that was what she used) and I hated all of them. Hated fine arts in general until I discovered pastels and fell in love!

But I gave it a try, and ended up hating the result as much as I've always hated the pastels and oils I tried. I found my wrists could not hold steady when holding a brush. I hated not being able to go in there with my fingers. I hated the result. But it was all a learning experience so I might try it again anyway. I have nowhere to go but up. :-)

At any rate, this was done on an 8x10 canvas, and is my back yard.

First Coast Pastel Society

Today was the first meeting of our newly formed First Coast Pastel Society.  It's great to be part of a new pastel society here in my new home. The mission of the new society is:
"To promote the use of soft pastel within the FCPS membership and the community at large as an important and continually evolving fine art medium."

Our moving force and first President is Lyn Asselta, PSA and she's been a real dynamo at getting the group off the ground. We has 15 attendees at our first meeting, which I thought was a pretty good turnout, and we had a great time watching Richard Lundgren, PSA, demo how he prepares his own surfaces for painting upon gatorboard.

Canvas Rugs

For some time it has seemed to me that in this Internet age just about anything you could possibly want would be available somewhere in the world. Small niche markets that might have withered and died could revive and flourish with the economies of scale offered by reaching out to a worldwide market. 


But I have come up against a brick wall after hours and hours of googling, to find that apparently it just ain't so.


One thing I miss in my new home is area rugs. I love area rugs, especially oriental design. I had a few in my old home, but except for one they all had to be tossed in the trash when I headed south. The reason? I have one sweet elderly cat who I've owned since kittenhood, who in the last few years began *peeing* on every carpet in sight. I couldn't get them clean, had to throw out a few, replaced them with cheap carpet remnants. Those got peed on and had to be thrown out also. She's been to the vet multiple times and had multiple tests, and they can't find a thing wrong with her, and finally concluded it must be "emotional" .

So I got musing on my childhood and recalled what I had seen often back then - LINOLEUM area rugs, often in lovely oriental or floral designs. What a perfect idea that would be. Linoleum is made from natural materials so considered to be rather a "green" product. I found online articles about linoleum making a big trendy comeback in home decorating because of this. I was sure someone would have jumped into this niche market. 

But alas it seems not so. At least not that I can find, and I have googled and googled. I did find someone who agreed with me, though: Author Jane Powell, who wrote a book called "Linoleum". In a 2009 interview she said: 

 "I'm pathetically grateful to anyone who is a fan of the linoleum book—apparently it was ahead of its time. Probably my favorite vintage pattern is the linoleum oriental rug—I'd probably have one in my dining room if they still made them! All the beauty of an oriental rug with no need to worry about spilled red wine or cat barf [NOTE: or cat pee] —what's not to like?...I think there is somewhat of a resurgence, but it's based more on linoleum's "green" qualities—it's non-toxic and made from renewable resources, and gets you a few points towards LEED certification. No one seems inclined toward making the fabulous patterns again. I always joke that if I ever win the lottery I will open a linoleum factory." 

Dear Jane, I hope you will the lottery. I want those fabulous old patterns too. I'm so used to being able to get just about anything I could ever want at the touch of a computer key. It's an odd feeling to know exactly what I want and find it doesn't exist anywhere. 

The best I could find was *canvas* rugs. Beautiful works such as those at: http://canvasworksfloorcloths.com which are lovely but *way* out of my price range. Even their "blanks" to  create your own are way out of my price range, But in general that seems to be the way I must go. I've bought canvas and gesso and acrylic clear coat. I tried out an 18x18-inch sample, which I've posted above (the rug I plan to make will be round). Now I just have to decide what sort of patterns and paints I will use on the canvas. 

Alas it's not going to look anything like the lovely oriental-pattern linoleum rug I have in mind, but I guess it's the best I can do for now, or the best I can think of! 

Birdhouse ornament

The Art Guild of Orange Park  had its annual holiday party this past Tuesday night  - a fun pot luck dinner, one of my favorite things! We were all supposed to bring a homemade Christmas tree ornament too. I was totally stumped on this, but ended up buying a small plain wooden birdhouse at Michael's and then painting it and decorating it with ribbon and bows and decoupage birds, trees and holly.

Spring Park Gazebo plein air

I had such fun at my pastel plein air outing yesterday. But as the morning wore on it began to cloud up, and as noontime approached there were even a few drops of rain being felt. Not very good for painting! But there was a nice large gazebo in the middle of the park so we all gathered up our pastels and chairs and easels and boards and lunches, and came into the gazebo to eat then continue painting.

I had done pretty much all I thought I might with my first painting, so I decided to start a second one, and trying to incorporate the gazebo itself seemed like a fun idea. Though the light was so dark in the gazebo that it was hard to see what I was actually doing. And it's hard to attempt architectural details when you have no rulers or straight-edges and it's all done freehand. But it was still fun to try, and fun to be with a bunch of other artists.

This one, just like yesterday's, was done on my usual 9x12 art spectrum, various pastels.

Spring Park plein air

I don't do much plein air painting. It's usually too hot or too cold or too buggy or too "something" for me. But today we had our first planned outing of the newly-formed First Coast Pastel Society. I have to give lots of thanks to Lyn Asselta for getting this group off the ground, and for organizing this plein air paint out. We had about 7-8 people participate. We met at Spring Park in Green Cove Springs, just an easy 10-15 minutes from my own house, though some folks traveled over an hour to get there. But it was lots of fun! The morning was sunny and lovely, but as the day went on it clouded up, got chilly, and then started to rain. We all ended up inside a large gazebo, and then the rain started blowing in sideways with the wind! It was almost 2:30 PM by then so we called it a day. But I managed to get this painting done in the morning while the sun was still out.

Introducting my grandson

Life in Florida is still so busy! But I hope to get more time for art soon. I'm very excited to be a part of the startup of a new pastel society called the First Coast Pastel Society, which is for our area of Florida. We are planning our first group event this coming Saturday, a plein air paint-out. So maybe I'll get some work done then!

In the meantime my 2-year-old grandson spent the day with me yesterday and we wanted to paint! So I got our a couple bottles of tempera fingerpaint I had bought a couple weeks ago and we painted. I love his a lot and figured it deserved a blog post. :-)

This is the only sort of painting I've been doing lately. I just moved to Florida last week, after leaving my home of 30 years in New Jersey. Quite a change! But my son and his family moved down here a year ago, and I really wanted to be closer to them, and could no longer afford to stay in my home in NJ anymore either, having been forcibly retired from my job last year.

So I bought a cute little house in Florida in the Jacksonville area. It's on a small pond, has 4 bedrooms, a living/dining ell, den with fireplace... I enjoy sitting in the kitchen in the morning, drinking my coffee, and looking out at the pond. I've already had a couple visits from a great egret.

With 4 bedrooms I even plan to make one an art studio! Yay. The only thing I dislike about the house is the color all the walls are painted. The whole house is done up in a color I would call something like "baby poop brown". A dark and depressing color. Actually if it was the same color but about three shades lighter I'd be fine with it. But I find the color dark and heavy - something belonging in an old gothic mansion in England.

So I'm trying to get some paintijng done before my furniture arrives. The first room done is the "John" room - the room I'm fixing up for my grandson's visit. I've also finished the art studio, and gotten a first coat on the guest bedroom and part of the living/dining area. Today I plan to finish the guest room and do the master bedroom.

My art supplies are all on the moving truck. It will be fun to set up my art studio when the truck finally arrives, which is scheduled, so far, for either tomorrow or Wednesday.

Garrett Mountain

Last night was a bittersweet night at my art class - my last class before I move to Florida this coming Tuesday. It was fun though, and for the first time in months everyone was there. I decided I needed to paint a New Jersey scene, so I did this one of Garrett Mountain in the late autumn, taken last year when I was there on a birding expedition, one of my favorite birding spots in the area. Done on 9x12 Art Spectrum paper as usual.

Another Baby Quilt

While up in Canada this past week I finished up another baby quilt I was working on, for the son of the fellow who was our caretaker for many years. He is the same age as my son, and they played together as kids when we would go up to Canada. Kevin's little boy Keaton is 7 months old and I've been wanting to get this quilt to him. This was a challenge, made from odds and ends and scraps as so much of my fabric was away in storage. The cat in the middle is a single piece of printed fabric, and it seemed appropriate since Kevin and his wife are fond of their cats. I just needed to find other fabrics in the right colors that I could use to expand upon the central cat. I was pretty lucky in finding scraps that incorporated the right colors, though the quilt still wound up a good bit smaller than the one I made for my grandson.

But I did get it finished while I was up there, and left it with Kevin's mom to get to him.

On the Beach

LOL, I guess I took my art teacher's advice to heart, when she suggested to me that maybe I should work on a series of beach-related paintings. I love the beach so not hard to take that advice for sure! So this is one I did last night, on my usual 9x12 art spectrum colourfix paper.

Man o' War

I love coastal North Carolina where my sister lives. I love going for long walks along the beach at Fort Macon. One day when we were walking there we came across a whole bunch of dead Portuguese Men o' War on the beach. My sister warned me not to go near them, and said that even days after their death they could sting dreadfully. So I kept my distance! But they were such a gorgeous and delicate blue color that I had to photograph them, and knew I would have to paint them too.

Christina, my art teacher, says I should do more beach scenes like this, and that they would probably be popular in Florida. :-)

Done on my usual 9x12 Art Spectrum Colourfix paper.

Afternoon in the Kitchen

It's funny how much the original photo I used for a reference appeals to me. In fact I actually painted this scene earlier here nearly two years ago. But for some reason I still had the picture on my mind, and came across the original reference photo yesterday, so I decided I would try another version of the picture.

Hopefully now that I've done it twice I'll have it out of my system, LOL. But just for information, here is the original photo I took which inspired me to do two paintings.

Key West Light

Well, here's one more painting for my lighthouse series, as well as my Florida series. I saw this lighthouse in Key West back in May, when Key West was the first stop of the cruise I was on. I loved my day in Key West, and also enjoyed finding a new lighthouse to photograph and later to paint. As in my painting of the Portland Head Light I used no white pastel at all in painting a totally white lighthouse. :-)

This was done on my usual 9 x 12 Art Spectrum.

Turkey Trot

Rifle Camp Park, in Woodland Park, NJ, is another one of my favorite birding spots. I almost never go there without seeing wild turkeys, and I've probably taken dozens of photos of the turkeys over the years. I've long thought I'd enjoy painting them some time if I ever got a photo that I felt did them justive. But I took a photo last fall that I thought might be just the one, and that was my reference for this painting I did last night. Although the turkeys are common you don't often see the toms strutting their stuff, with tail feathers on display, so that made this one especially fun, As usual done on my 9x12 Art Spectrum.

Meadowlands - Saw Mill Creek

Today I'm back in my native New Jersey. New Jersey has so many gorgeous spots. It's a shame not to capture some of them also. This is done from a photo I took last March while on an organized birdwalk at the Richard DeKorte Park in Lyndhurst, NJ, with the Bergen County Audubon Society.

What is great about going on the organized walks is that you get to see places not open to the general public on a day-to-day basis. On this particular walk we went out onto the Saw Mill Creek Trail, which is normally kept locked out. As you can see from the official report of the trip we had a big crowd, and saw a lot of wonderful birds, including a horned grebe, which was a life bird for me. It's amazing I managed to get some photos with no people in them, LOL.

Photo of horned grebe.

Grassy Waters

Back in May I went on a cruise from Fort Lauderdale, Florida. I'd been visiting my son and his family in Jacksonville, and drove down from there to catch the cruise. Well one of my hobbies, in addition to painting, is bird watching. Being in southern Florida might well give me the chance to see birds I'd be unlikely to see in my more northerly climes, so I googled for spots to look for birds that were along my route. I found a newspaper article that detailed several good places for bird watching in south Florida. I knew I could not visit all of them, or even most of them, and many were way out of my way. But I decided to make a visit to Grassy Waters Preserve as it was on my direct route and appeared to be pretty close to I-95.

Perhaps the other spots are just as lovely, but Grassy Waters was an absolute gem. I don't see how I could have picked a better spot. Just a mile or two inland from glossy West Palm Beach is this marvelous habitat like a mini Everglades. I spent over an hour there walking the trails, taking photos, watching the birds. It was so marvelous that I stopped there for another hour on my way home from the cruise also.

It just seemed like a natural to paint a picture of the place, maybe more than one! So I did this painting last night, my usual 9x12 Art Spectrum, of the pond at entrance to the preserve. There are signs there warning of alligators, but though I looked hard for them on both trips I didn't see a single one.

But I did see several life birds there, including a pair of *snail kites* - a locally endangered species in south Florida, with only about 400 breeding pairs in the state, according to Wikipedia. I'm unlikely to travel to South America where it's more numerous, so getting to see one in Florida was a big thrill for me. A real coup for my life list. :-)

Sunflowers

I enjoy still lifes though I have not done them lately. But I didn't know what I wanted to do in art class last night. And it turned out Christina had had a workshop on florals at her studio over the weekend, and still had a bunch of floral still lifes set up around the studio. One of them was this vase of lovely big sunflowers, so I decided I'd try to paint them. Most of us in the class work from our own photos in the studio, but last night three of us decided to do floral still lifes. One of the other women did the sunflowers too. It will be interesting to see how hers turns out. Mine was done on my usual 9x12 Art Spectrum Colourfix paper.

Carolina Coast

This is just a quickie I worked on last night for the fun of it - a beach scene from Fort Macon, North Carolina. It's not exactly a polished painting by any means, but just a way to do something during the last 40 minutes of art class. It's actually a small piece, done on 6x9 inch scrap of sanded paper.

Carolina Moon

Last winter I stopped to visit my sister in North Carolina for a few days on my way to Florida for Christmas with my son and his family. My sister and I took a ride one day and went across the Neuse River on the Cherry Branch-Minnesott ferry. The sun was just setting and moon rising as we caught the ferry to head back home again and I couldn't help but try to get some photos of the beautiful colors of that hour of the day - and decided to try to use one for a reference.

The ferry ride was free then, which made it a fun outing. But I understand they are now going to start charging a stiff fee for the ferry ride, alas. :-(

Floridian Winter

My life has been so hectic lately between my art commitments, and trying to get ready to move to Florida. Yesterday I helped hang 50 paintings, including 10 of my own, for a group show, tomorrow I have to be there for the take-down of our PSNJ Member Show, then Saturday it's receiving and hanging for another PSNJ show. Not to mention I'm still trying to get a judge lined up for our juried show in November. Sheesh, hardly time for my own art.

But I got thinking about how I'll be moving to Florida in the near future, and yet I have not done one single Florida painting. I've plenty of New Jersey, some of North Carolina, some of Maine, a whole show's worth of the Canadian maritimes. But nothing from my upcoming new home, so I decided to remedy that last night.

So I did this painting, which is from a reference photo I took last year at Christmas time when I was visiting my son and his family. This was taken just about the apartment complex were my son and his family are living in Jacksonville Beach. On my usual 9x12 Art Spectrum.

Victoria-by-theSea lighthouse

Well here I am back to lighthouses and Atlantic Canada again. This light is in the Prince Edward Island town of Victoria-by-the-Sea. It's a charming little town on the shores of the Northumberland Strait. I enjoy the shops there, and just strolling the streets with their charming homes. It's well worth a visit if you get to PEI. This was done on my usual 9x12 Art Spectrum paper. Various pastels.

Red-tailed Hawk

Another one for my bird series. It's fun being able to combine my twin passions of birding and pastel art. I was down in Newark's Branch Brook Park a month or so ago, and was at a spot where I had seen goldfinches in the past, hoping to see some again. And what happened but this gorgeous re-tailed hawk came flying in and landed on the tree right next to me. I tried to be as quiet as I could while snapping picture after picture of him. What a beauty. He was there for a few minutes until a jogger came running along the path and scared him away. The jogger, head down, just kept on moving, and never never noticed the large lordly bird he had flushed. So I decided I had to paint the hawk's portrait.

Arete

My personal life has been so busy for the last few weeks that I have been away from art for a long time. But today I stopped in to see Alex Piccirillo at his life drawing class, and he let me sit in to do a makeup for the session that got cancelled for our last class. Our model, Arete, was a lovely young woman with the classic sort of profile you might expect to see on a Grecian urn. And I loved the red of her dress! It was fun getting dusty again - although the next month or two will be so crazy I'm not sure how much I'll get to it.

I'm in the process of moving to Florida, and have an offer in on a house down there. Assuming all goes through I'll have a room in the house that can be my art studio! That's pretty exciting in and of itself. I'll have to post pictures when I get there.