Scott's House

My nephew Scott and his girlfriend Tara just became proud homeowners last week. In fact the closing occurred on Scott's 30th birthday. What a birthday present. 😀 I decided to paint their house as a gift, but the real estate listing showed the house in winter snow. So then I checked it out on google earth, and used the springy image there as my reference photo. This is acrylic, my fairly standard 8x10.!

Cape May Morning

Thanks to my friend Leslie for inviting me to her studio, helping me get out of the rut I've been in. I actually did TWO paintings at her studio, both smallish 8x10 acrylics. This is the first of them, done from a reference photo I took some years back of the beach shortly after sunrise in Cape May, New Jersey.

Garrett Mountain in Winter

Last night was the last art class of my 4-week session, and we were supposed to paint a winter scene this time. Sort of funny as some of the students are Florida natives, and one admitted she'd only seen snow about three times in her life. I've seen it plenty of times though, LOL. This is from a photo I took up in New Jersey at Garrett Mountain. I tried so hard to vary my background hills, and now that I see the finished product they just look like three identical lumps! Anyway, as per Lyn's instructions, I didn't use any white at all in this painting.

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.

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.

Year of the Rabbit

We're having nasty weather again! I bet art classes will be cancelled tomorrow, based on the weather reports - which will be the third week in a row. I do miss painting with other people. But I decided I would do something on my own since I'm housebound.

My daughter-in-law's parents invited me to their house Saturday evening to celebrate Chinese New Year. Alas, I can't go, as I'm already committed to my annual choir winter party for that same date. My usual social calendar - nothing for months on end, and then several things for the same date. :-)

Anyway, I understand it's the year of the rabbit this year, so I decided I would paint a rabbit, and ended up with this painting, which is an amalgam of two photos I took last summer at the Morris Canal Park in Clifton, NJ.

Glen Ridge Congregational Church in Winter

Winter's coming, LOL. I had such fun painting the church I go to a couple weeks ago that I felt like I wanted to paint it again from a different angle, and found this photo I had taken a few years ago when we had a big blizzard and I took a brief walk around to see how things looked in town. The church looked lovely in the snow, so I decided that would make a great painting too. This was done on 9x12 Art Spectrum.

Glen Ridge Congregational Church

Glen Ridge Congregational Church is the church I grew up in since childhood, and where I currently still sing in the choir, and act as Secretary of the Church Council. They are having a big fundraiser event next month, and have asked parishioners and others to donate items to be auctioned off. I was asked if I could donate a painting, and I found one I decided to donate. But then I got the idea that it might be a very cool idea to also donate a painting of the church itself.

So this morning I did this painting of the church. I'm pretty happy with how it turned out, and it's already been professionally framed. Talk about service! I dropped it off this morning with Ray at Livingston Gallery and he called back this afternoon to say it was finished already. Wow, great prices and great service too. :-)

Anyway, this is my typical 9x12, done on white Wallis, various pastels, but quite a number of them Unisons and Terry Ludwigs.

Beth's House

This is another of my mini-paintings, sized 4x6 inches. I did a bunch of these as gifts at Christmas time, and found it was rather fun doing a tiny painting. Tomorrow I am going out with 2 friends to celebrate the birthday of one of them, so I made this little portrait of her house to give her as a gift. I was out of practice with "tiny" but it was still fun once I got into the swing of it.

The Little Red Lighthouse and the Great Gray Bridge

My subject line is the title of a children's book written in 1942 about the Jeffrey's Hook Light, a small red lighthouse at the foot of the massive George Washington Bridge.

Although I've lived in New Jersey most of my life I never even knew about this little lighthouse until five years ago, when I happened to go with my sister and brother-in-law and their kids to the park that runs along the Palisades near the bridge. There I saw the Little Red Lighthouse for the first time, and thought both how cute and incongruous it looked.

Then, when I was trying to think of another lighthouse to paint for my series that will be in the art show next month, I thought of it. My time is short. I had no time to go down to the Jersey shore and capture photos of Twin Lights, or Barnegat Light, or any other NJ shore lighthouses, but I figured I had time to drive up to the bridge and get a photo of the little light to use as a painting reference.

So that's what I did yesterday morning before the Pastel Society of New Jersey's spring meeting. I drove north along the river, following the road that takes you underneath the GW Bridge, and stopped at a couple spots along the way to take photos of the lighthouse. I finally chose one for a reference, and painted this morning while I was on call for an upgrade at work.

That's it. I now have five lighthouse paintings that can go in the show - but I have more lighthouses I want to paint now that I've gotten the lighthouse bug. :-)

Sandy Hook Light

I had fun doing the Hog Island Light last week, even if from a distance. And I have always been fascinated by lighthouses. Two weeks ago I was down at New Jersey's Sandy Hook, and took several photos of the lighthouse there. Since I had lighthouses on my mind I decided I wanted to use one of them as a reference also.

Lighthouses are pretty popular, and maybe I can do a lighthouse series. Actually I realize I've already done a few counting the small Hog Island Light from last week. I've also done Maine's West Quoddy Head Light, and the light at Cape Jourimain, New Brunswick. That's four already - I've already almost got a series going here. I wish I had another lighthouse I could do. I'll have to look through my old photos. I may have one somewhere of the light at NC's Cape Lookout, or I could always go down to the Jersey shore to get some reference photos of "Old Barney" or Barnegat Light.

My Hog Island Light painting is the post immediate prior to this one of course. To see my other lighthouse paintings please go here and here.

Rush Hour

I'm finally getting back into the swing of things from an art standpoint. I've been working on this one in dribs and drabs for a few weeks, on and off. But tonight I finally buckled down and got it as done as it will probably get. I loved the reference photo I used for this one.

It was just one of those lucky circumstances for me. I had left my office down in Newark, NJ, and was standing on the street corner in the twilight waiting to catch my bus home. There was still a faint glow in the sky, the streets were wet from rain earlier in the day, and the lights were just starting to come up. So I took out my cell phone and snapped a shot of the scene with the cell phone camera - and that was what I used as a reference paint this painting.

It's on my usual art spectrum paper, but a little larger than most of the paintings I have been working on lately, a 12 x 16.

More small Christmas houses

I had a slowish afternoon today - at least until I started getting phone calls from work! But during the lull I painted two more of little 3 1/2 x 5 house portraits. I always thought I hated to work really tiny, but this little portraits are fun to do and a real challenge.

Fuzzy Little Buck

Darn the photo of this one. This is another of the small 3 1/2 by 5 inch paintings I am doing as a Christmas gift - a picture of "Little Buck", a young deer we used to see often at Rifle Camp Park. He was very distinctive looking, and you could pick him out of any crowd of deer.

I took three photos of him to make sure I got a good shot, and then framed and wrapped the painting. It was not until after that that I found *all three* of the photos I took were out of focus! I've never had that happen before. Grrr, can't retake, so this is the best of the three.

Winter Moon

The other night as I was getting ready to head out in my car, I was struck by the beauty of the full moon shining down on the street. Of course I didn't have my camera, but my new cell phone has a 5 megapixel camera built-in, and I always have my phone! So I took it out and tried to capture a picture of the moon. I was pretty happy with how it turned out, so decided to try to turn it into a painting. I worked on this tonight but it's just a quicky - only about 30-40 minutes spent on it. The photo didn't have a lot of detail to work with so I was more than just some "blobs" in the photo to translate into the painting. :-)

Karen's House

Tonight I'm going to my friend Karen's birthday party. It's being held at her church and she specifically asked for no gifts, saying if anyone felt obliged to bring something they could bring food for the Food Pantry.

So I have some food to bring, but wanted to give her something anyway, even if small. So today I painted this portrait of her house. But I really meant it when I said I wanted something small. I mean she might hate it after all, LOL. And if it was too big she would be stuck with this big thing she didn't even want. So this portrait is only 4 x 6 inches. I'm not used to working tiny, so this was a real challenge to try to capture an image in such a small area.

The Secret Garden

Last year I was in a show at the Bedminster Public Library. I missed the opening reception so went out with a friend on the following Saturday to look at the paintings. On the way home we took an alternate route, and ended up passing by the Leonard J. Buck Garden. Neither of us had ever even heard of it though we have lived in this area for years! So we decided to stop in. It was sort of a gray day, and we were the only visitors there, which gave it a secret and secluded air. The small pool in the central part of the garden seemed especially like a small and hidden retreat. I took some photos and had long thought of using one as a reference, and tonight suddenly seemed like the night.

I'll have a couple more pictures in a show at the same library next month. Perhaps I'll have to visit the garden again and see how it looks in autumn.

Meadowlands

I think I've mentioned here before that birding is another of my hobbies. I'm not obsessive about it, and most of my birding is done just watching birds from my own home, counting birds at the feeders in my yard for Cornell University's "Project Feeder Watch". But I do enjoy seeing other birds when I can, and adding to my Life List, such as it is! When I saw that Snowy Owls had been seen wintering in New Jersey's Meadowlands I had a buring desire to go see them. 

So last weekend my sister accompanied me to go on the quest of the Snowy Owls. With the help of other birders we did spot the owl - quite tricky as his camoflage was wonderful, and after watching him a while we decided to go a little further down the road to the marvelous Meadowlands Environment Center to see if we could also spot the rare Eurasian Teal who was said to be wintering there as well. 

With that goal accomplished we strolled back along the waterfront path, and happened to catch sight of a most glorious sunset. I had to snap several photos of it. And then I decided I needed to turn the photos into a painting, so that is the subject of my painting above, done my my new favorite of 9x12 Art Spectrum Colourfix paper, the rose grey color. 

And as a special added bonus, here is a photo below that I took of the Snowy Owl. When I went home to add him to my list I found that he was actually bird number 100 on my Life List, so that made him even more special.

Golden afternoon

I'm not sure about this one yet, might need some more work. But I have less time down here in NC than I thought I would, so I squeezed in about 45 minutes last night after Thanksgiving dinner,  and tried one more from a photo. This is from a photo I took at the Ship Inn, in Milford, NJ, where I had gone to have a meal with my son. It's a restaurant we all enjoy, even though it's quite a ride to get there, but the ride is half the fun. We love to get a window table were we can look out at the stream and watch the ducks.