Giving Thanks

Work in Progress

Sunset Stream 30 x30

Here is one of the pieces I am working on now. The under painting was posted here. Now, the sky has been laid in and an initial color glazed over the foreground. Still many painting sessions to go on this one.

Yesterday I spent a good portion of the day writing and sending my holiday studio newsletter. After it went out I received a number of emails and a few phone calls from other artists and collectors. One conversation in particular reminded me of the power of art to connect perfect strangers and made me grateful for my role in that process. I had never spoken with this person-let's call him Bill- before, but he is a regular reader of my blog. He told me a bit about himself and his passion for collecting art. His tastes and his collection cover a wide range - he clearly just loves art.

Its easy in an economy such as this one to let the question "will this sell?", or worse, "what can I paint that will sell?", creep into the studio. Talking with Bill yesterday, I was reminded of this quote from The Writing Life by Annie Dillard:

...the more literary the book-the more purely verbal, crafted sentence by sentence, the more imaginative, reasoned,and deep-the more likely people are to read it. The people who read are the people who like literature, after all...I cannot imagine a sorrier pursuit than struggling for years to write a book that attempts to appeal to people who do not read in the first place.

And so it is with painting. The more passion for your craft and your subject you put into your work, the more likely it is that people like Bill- people who love art- will find your work. Nothing you do can make someone who does not care about art -or about your kind of art, care about your work. But the people who do, are the ones with whom you have a bond, a shared passion and to whom you owe thanks and the responsibility to make the best work you are capable of. So, thank you Bill.

Holiday Studio Sale

The painting area in my studio -
definitely a work in progress

I'm having an online studio sale this holiday season. From the looks of my studio, you can probably guess why its best for me to do this virtually rather than in real life! One of my goals for this year was to get my studio finished- which means book shelves built in the study area (can't see that in this photo), storage space for supplies, frames, etc., paint the walls...the list goes on and on. As you can see from this photo, none of that has happened...yet. But hope springs eternal, so perhaps the combination of having a studio sale and the embarrassment of posting this photo will spur some action. Available work can be seen at Deborah Paris Fine Art. There are generous holiday discounts and payment plans are welcome!

Autumn Pond

Autumn Pond
10 x 8
click to see larger image

One of the things I really love is the change of seasons. Fall, in particular, seems more drawn out here than in other places I have lived. The crisp halcyon days of indian summer have slipped way to the almost brittle melancholy of late autumn. The crunching sound of dry leaves underfoot follows me on every walk. The landscape has opened up again, bare trees revealing corners of woods that have been hidden from view all summer. Right before my eyes, the landscape is reinventing itself.

Technical Difficulties

For some reason I am not able to download images from my digital camera to the computer. Keep getting some error message about a power surge on the port, so I am hoping its a problem with the USB cable, as the port seems to be working otherwise. Got a new cable ordered today, and since it will be a while before it gets out here to the boonies, I am posting a piece I painted last year at the Telluride show.

Aspen Nights
14 x 18 2007
Private Collection

As regular readers of this blog know, I am a big fan of nocturnes. Love to paint them, look at them, and stand outside and gaze at the real thing. An artist friend of mine says I am a Neo-Romantic. Is there such a thing?

The Season Turns

Right before sunset yesterday a front came through. I woke during the night to the sound of rain. This morning it was a bit cooler, but still mild. But, I could feel that the season of bright autumn days was giving way to something else. Bare trees now mix in with the rusts and ochres and trees in the distance look more violet. The grass has stopped growing and everything looks more spare, stripped down. Out on the road, windswept with leaves, it felt a bit desolate, like every living thing was turning inward, preparing for the rigors of winter.

I stayed in the studio most of the day and worked on several larger pieces. This is the latest on the 48 x 60. I've worked on the trees a bit more, repainted the sky and glazed over the edges of the trees again. I've had to wait several days between each session, not only to let the glazes dry, but also to "oil out" in between. Oiling out is an old term, used in the 19th century, to describe the process for bringing the colors and values back to their original state. When oil paint dries , the darks will dry a bit lighter and the lights a bit darker. So before you start again, its necessary to use a bit of medium over the surface to regain the saturation, color and value. There are still several more painting sessions to be done to complete this.


I've also been working on two other under paintings. I finished this 30 x 30 yesterday and a 36 x 30 today. It was a good day in the studio.

Leaf Peeping

Indian Summer II
10 x 20
Please contact me if interested in this piece

Our beautiful fall weather continues. The leaves are just spectacular this year- much more so than they were last year (our first fall here). We don't have that sort of over the top Vermont kind of color- its more a full range of rich ochres, rust, copper, with the occasional screaming red maple thrown in. So, I've been out leaf peeping up and down our road every afternoon, hither and yon, over hill and dale...you get the idea.

A New Site

Over the last couple of months I realized that new readers to the blog (or even old ones!) might not want to scroll through all the archives to find work that is available through my studio. So, today I've launched a new site- Deborah Paris Fine Art- which has only those pieces that are available for purchase through my studio. It includes small pieces (6 x 6) up to larger studio works (30 x 40). The paintings are available for sale either framed or unframed. I haven't got all the images up yet, and I'll be updating it regularly.