Nassau Harbor

It's been weeks since I have been able to get to my art work, but tonight I finally got to to class again for the first time in over a month. I'm just home from a cruise to the Bahamas which is how I managed to miss two classes, LOL. I was hoping to get a bunch of great reference photos to be able to do a Bahamas series of paintings, but for various reasons didn't get many at all. Mainly as I was only in Nassau and I was hoping for more landscapey type shots, not city shots. But our trip to Half Moon Cay, where I had hoped to get the nature shots, got cancelled because of problems with the ship.

But I have a small number of photos that *might* make paintings, so I could still have a small series I suppose. This is the first one I tried to work with. The water truly was that amazing blue color you see in all the travel literature. I loved it.

This was done on a 9x12 sheet of Wallis paper - various pastels.

The Wine-dark Sea

It was back to art class last week after a few weeks' break. I have not been feeling inspired lately, too busy with dealing with my upcoming job loss, and trying to get my house on the market. I think all my paintings, frames and art supplies will have to go into storage to reduce the "clutter". And I could hardly imagine what I wanted to paint last night, but finally chose a photo with the above scene, taken back in 1994 when I went on a trip to Greece. This shows the pathway to the beach at a hotel outside of Patras that we stayed at for a couple days, right on the edge of the Ionian Sea.

This was done on Wallis paper, an unusual support for me, as I find it too "toothy" for the most part, a real pastel-eater. But I had some remaining sheets from a 9x12 pad and figured I might as well use one.

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.

Views of Fort Macon

These are two more small 3 1/2 x 5 paintings. Both are different scenes from Fort Macon Sate Park, near where my dad and sister live in North Carolina. These were part of my Christmas present series, and were done for my nephew and brother-in-law who live here in NJ.

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. :-)

How's the Water?

It was back to class last night after a couple weeks off, and I finished up my penguin picture. I was not totally happy with my progress when I posted it last time, but a number of minor modifications made me feel better about it, and this is the finished deal. As usual it's on 9x12 Art Spectrum paper.

But since I still had plenty of class time left I needed to start a new painting, but I was prepared for that and even knew what I wanted to paint. The other day I was hanging out on the street corner waiting for a bus home, and I thought the scene with rush-hour traffic and city lights looked pretty cool. My new HTC Hero cellphone has a 5 megapixel camera built in, so I took it out and snapped a shot. I was pretty happy with how the shot turned out, so I decided I wanted to try to paint the scene.

This is a bit bigger than most of my paintings have been - a 12x16 size instead of 9x12 - and a bit more intricate, so may take me longer than my usual 1 classday to complete. :-) But I got a good start on it, so am showing a preview below of how far I have gotten so far.

Maritime Miniatures

I'm still experimenting with the small 3 1/2 by 5 inch paintings, as they seem like a perfect size to give as a gift to people. After all, art is so subjective, and who wants to do a huge or even mid-sized painting for someone as a gift, only to see that they are merely being polite in accepting it!

But with these small ones you can put them just about anywhere. I've branched out into doing Canadian scenes again and show below here the three new scenes I did. One of them is photographed showing the small pre-cut mat I bought for each of them. It dresses them up nicely and makes them look like real paintings. LOL.

These three minis are also scenes that I did previously as larger paintings, so you can compare the minis with the "big sisters" by going here, or here, or here.

Highland Games

Since painting my sister's house, and my brother-in-law's boat, I thought it would be fun to paint a small mini-picture for each member of their family as a Christmas gift. One thing nice about a painting that is only 3 1/2 by 5 inches - if they hate it they don't have to try to give it prominent houseroom! And if they like it they should still find a way to display it, even if their home is small.

So I had to think what I would paint for my niece and nephews. Paige, my niece, was up in Canada this summer with me and her mom. On July 1, Canada Day, we went to the Highland Games in Pugwash, Nova Scotia. We saw the parade and watched the drummers and pipers, and ate lobster rolls - but we had the most fun watching the heavyweight Highland games - brawny young men in kilts throwing a variety of large objects. :-)

Paige had a great time watching them, so I did this painting for her, to remind her of this summer. Now I just have to think what I will do for my two nephews! It's much harder to think what I should paint for them.

Boston Whaler

I'm still on a mini-painting kick, doing paintings that are only 3 1/5 by 5 inches. It's an very interesting experience. I'm not sure what I'm learning from it, but it has definitely pushed me out of my comfort zone.

This is one I did tonight of my brother-in-law Chad's Boston Whaler, parked in the back yard of the house in the previous painting. :-)

Amy's House

I had such fun painting my friend Karen's house yesterday that I decided to keep trying again. Gosh I don't know how people do these miniatures. This one today is of my sister Amy's house, a lovely early 20th century home in coastal North Carolina. It's even smaller than yesterday's painting - only 3 1/2 inches by 5. Phew.

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.

Penguins in Progress

We were talking in art class last week about art shows with "themes". A couple women had been doing bird paintings, and we talked about maybe do a show that was all bird paintings. And someone said that the Turtle Back Zoo had an art gallery, and maybe we could have a show there. We all smiled at the idea and said we would have to paint pictures of birds and/or animals.

That got me thinking, and I realized I have have a lot of photos actually taken at the Turtle Back Zoo itself, and maybe some would make some nice reference photos. This is one I took a few years ago of the penguins at the zoo. Who doesn't love a penguin? LOL. The penguins at the zoo are African Penguins. I always get a chuckle out of that as if one conjures up a mental image of "African Wildlife" it is not generally penguins that come to mind. :-)

I call this Penguins in Progress and I don't think I'm actually done with it yet. I'm still not satisfied with the background, and not sure I'm fully satisfied with the penguins themselves. But this is the point I reached last night so decided to post it anyway - and will see where I go from here.

The Rookery

This part Saturday I had a busy day - from 9 AM until almost 7 PM receiving for the Pastel Society of New Jersey's juried art show, and then helping to hang the show. I entered my painting 'The Old Farm Pantry' which I was pretty happy with, and I was so bummed that it got juried out of the show. :-(

I brought it to art class tonight to ask for a critique from Christina to see what was wrong with it, but she liked it! Said she thought it was a charming painting with nothing at all wrong with it and could not see why it had been kicked out of the show, and told me not to give up on it as she liked it a lot. . Why couldn't the judge have liked it also?

Of the 6 of us working at the PSNJ show on Saturday, 3 of us had our paintings rejected! Maybe working at the show is unlucky, LOL.

Anyway it was fun and refreshing to get back to art class tonight, and I worked on this painting which is taken from a reference photo I took at the Great Gaspe Pifflefest in 2005. This was just past the Perce Rock on our way to the Ile de Bonaventure. Bonaventure is home to an incredibly vast breeding colony of Northern Gannets, but on the way there, all along Perce Rock itself, there were dozens and dozens of cormorant. I loved it there!

Cape Breton Glow

I haven't had time to do any art work for a while, but I always miss it when I'm away from it too long, so finally got back to it tonight. I found this old photograph from a camping trip to Nova Scotia's Cape Breton Island many years ago and I loved the colors in it, so decided to use it as a reference for painting.

Green Gables

Green Gables National Historic Site is on Prince Edward Island, Canada was owned by relatives of author Lucy Maud Montgomery, and the house was said to be the inspiration for the farmhouse in her classic novel Anne of Green Gables. The Cavendish coastline is stunning, and any visitor to PEI needs to make a stop at "Anne land" to pay homage to the island's most famous fictional resident. This home is fixed up inside as it was the Green Gables home of Anne, Matthew and Marilla, and is always fun to see again though it's been many years since I was last there, and took this photo which I have used as a reference.

Fort Beausejour II

I have used Fort Beausejour as a the subject of a painting before. It's located in Aulac, New Brunswick, Canada and overlooks the Tantramar Marshes on the edge of the Chicnecto Basin, which is an arm of the great Bay of Fundy. I'm drawn by it's lonely location up on a hill, surrounded by the marshes, and with the waters of the Bay of Fundy in the distance. I always get a thrill standing on the tops of the high earthworks looking out at the misty water in the distance. So tonight I decided to try painting it again.

Though really my mind is still on John Henry, my new baby grandson - one week old yesterday. I am having baby withdrawal as I have not seen him since Wednesday. One woman in my art class was trying to paint a portrait of her grandson, and another woman was trying to figure out how to get a photo of *her* grandson so she could try to paint him, and it really put me in "grandma" mode. But I still had fun with Fort Beausejour and adding another painting to my Canadian series.

John Henry redux

As mentioned in my previous post I took a workshop yesterday, spent the morning on landscape and the afternoon on portraiture. I decided to try a second portrait of John Henry and hoped that with help I might be able to do a better job. But I'm not so sure! This is what I came up with yesterday after working with the instructor. Still nowhere nearly as cute as the original photo! But a fun subject to practice on. And Cecile even gave me some good advice on how to correct the original portrait I tried so I tried to incorporate some of her suggestions and have replaced the original photo in the blog entry a few days back with the updated version, which I do think is better than the original.

Port Elgin

I took at art workshop today taught by David Garrison and his wife Cecile Houel. It was an all-day workshop at the home studio of my regular art teacher, Christina Debarry. It was a full day, with an outstanding lunch provided by Christina!

David taught landscape and Cecile taught portraits, and students were allowed to work with one or the other, or even both if time permitted. I was the only one who actually attempted both, but I wanted to make the most of my day. I started out with landscape in the morning, and did this picture of the little town of Port Elgin in New Brunswick, Canada near our summer home, so I guess this is another picture for my Canadian series. This was a lot of fun today, and I basically finished it off just before lunch, so in the afternoon I worked on a portrait.

John Henry

LOL, when I sent around pictures of my new grandson at work today one of my co-workers replied, "Now you don't have to keep fooling around with flowers and vases and pears." LOL. Not completely true since I'm *not* a portraitist, and I actually enjoy doing landscapes and still lifes. But I realized it was true, I did have a tiny subject now that I could practice on - and he's still too young to complain. :-)

So tonight I decided to try a portrait of my new 2-day-old grandson, using the photo from my previous blog entry as a reference. It was fun to try, but frustrating too, as he is clearly far cuter than I was able to make him appear. As I said, a portraitist I am not! But fun to keep trying. My biggest challenge is that I can often tell it's not quite "right" but have no idea what to do to fix it.

Corinthian Sunrise

Art has actually been rather far from my mind the last few days, as I knew the birth of my first grandson was imminent! Little John Henry finally made his appearance last night, at 6:18 PM on September 8. He's a big boy! 8 pounds 10.6 ounces, and 23 inches long, at birth. I took the day off from work and spent a few hours with him and his parents this afternoon.

But I left in mid-afternoon, and was able to get to my weekly art class tonight. I was too tired to tackle anything too complicated, and ended up choosing to do this picture of a sunrise that I took 15 years ago on a trip to Greece, when I was staying at a hotel right on the edge of the Gulf of Corinth, and got up early one morning to see the sun rise, and take a series of photos of it.

But the following picture is the one that is really consuming all my spare moments - a photo of little John Henry, my new grandson!

Kitchen Light

It's been a lovely Labor Day weekend here in New Jersey - just about perfect weather! I've had a great weekend even though still on tenterhooks waiting for my new grandson to arrive. But today I decided I wanted to paint a picture, so I chose a reference from a photo I took up at our farm in Canada.

I did this on a canvas board I bought at Jerry's - covered it with a leveling gesso to try to smooth the surface, then three coats of Art Spectrum primer. But I still *hated* it. Absolutely dreadful to work on, which may be why I'm less than thrilled with this. I may have to try it again on the regular Art Spectrum Colourfix paper.

Beach Holiday

Tonight is my usual art class night, but it was cancelled because Chris was tired from hanging our show this morning. But I couldn't *not* do something. I would miss having my weekly art session and really wish I had time to do it more often, except what would I do with all those paintings? My closet is overloaded with them as it is. :-)

But I have my easel set up at home, and I pulled out this photo which I took at a restaurant down in coastal North Carolina when I was visiting my family there. I just loved the brightly colored chairs against the brightly colored background. This was just a quickie, on 9x12 Art Spectrum Colourfix.

Little Deer Isle

After several lovely cool, gray and rainy days it has become hot and sunny again today, Grrrr. Oh well, almost September so I tell myself these hot days can't last! The coolth is sure to come soon. I'm still on "baby watch", waiting for my daughter-in-law to go into labor. She is three days past her due date now.

I'm feeling tired and sluglike and too hot to want to do anything, so I decided I would try to paint a picture today - something not too physically demanding. I chose a reference of a photo I took several years ago up in Maine - maybe a way to remind me of the lovely fresh cool air and the icy waters up there. Ah, to be there right now ....