Sunset Reflection

Sunset Reflection - 30 x 40 oil
Available at Hildt Galleries, Chicago
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I've had the opportunity to work on some larger paintings these last few weeks. Its been a treat. Unfortunately, this image doesn't do the painting justice- the subtlety of the glazes in the foreground and changes in color temperature just don't register. Anyway, working large has been a goal of mine for several years but this is the first real opportunity I have had to paint this large in quite a while. It presents a whole new set of challenges , but I'm hooked! Now I'm dreaming of 48 x 60 or 60 x 90!

A New Art Blog

My friend Jane Fulton has recently started a blog. Jane lives and paints in Laguna Beach (tough duty,eh?). She is a dedicated plein air painter and I think you'll agree that her little beach paintings are wonderful. Click on over and take a look.

When Worlds Collide

As some of you might know, I practiced law for many years before becoming a full time artist. A couple of months ago I got an email asking if I would do an interview for the alumni magazine of my law school alma mater. I was a bit baffled about why they wanted to profile someone who wasn't practicing law anymore but the Communications Director assured me he thought it would make an interesting profile. Hmmmm. So, I agreed, and then sort of forgot about it until an old law school friend emailed me today to say the article was out. I think its well done, really and does a pretty good job of explaining how I got from Point A (law school) to Point B (full time artist), although that transition was a lot bumpier than described.

The article isn't on the web, although it will be eventually. Here it is, if anyone's interested in reading it. If you click on it, it should be big enough to read.

Art & Critique Feature

I am happy to say that a feature on my work appears today on Elijah Shifrin's Art & Critique here. Thank you Elijah!

Afterglow

Afterglow - oil on canvas 24 x 30
Available at Hildt Galleries, Chicago

Here is the second painting of the "pair". I had planned to post them side by side but Blogger doesn't seem to want to let me do that. But, hopefully, they do read as complements to one another, as intended.

Twilight Field

Twilight Field - Oil on canvas 24 x 30
Available at Hildt Galleries, Chicago

Here 's one of several larger pieces I have been working on over the last few weeks. The gallery asked me to do a "pair" of paintings- which I have never really tried to do before. The idea is that these two pieces would be somewhat similar, complement one another and be framed the same- they could be sold as a pair or individually. Sounds simple, right? Well, it turned out to be much more difficult than I anticipated. Unlike a diptych where the same composition flows from one canvas to the other, these images needed to be separate and distinct, yet enough alike to "hang together". I decided to use generally the same point of view and thus horizon line to help hold the two images together, as well as similar color harmonies. The second piece is not quite finished but I'll post it in a few days.

Evening Sky

Evening Sky
10 x 10 Oil on panel
Please contact me if interested in this piece

The last few weeks I have been hit or miss, mostly miss, in my posting schedule. There are lots of good reasons- trying to get a group of larger pieces completed for my Chicago gallery and some personal stuff- but do feel guilty when I let it slide.

I've been having a problem lately with varnish. It seems like every time I varnish a painting I end up with lots of little bumps and debris on the surface that I didn't see before I varnished. I haven't changed varnish- I use Gamvar made by Gamblin- but I have changed my painting methods quite a bit and I've started using gessoed panels in addition to canvas. So I figured there was some technical voodoo at work. I went to the Studio Notes on the Gamblin web site for help. This is a great resource for painters- lots of technical information. I read their article on varnishing and then sent an email off with questions. Within 24 hours, as promised, I received a helpful email from Scott, who helped me pinpoint the problem (dust!) and gave some suggestions as to how to prevent or fix the problem. So today my husband constructed a little canopy under which my paintings reside while the glaze or varnish layers are drying- it was either that or build a new studio which is not in the same building as his shop. The canopy seemed like an easier solution. In addition to strictly technical advice, Studio Notes also has an interesting article comparing direct and indirect painting methods and the art historical context for those methods.

April Moonrise

April Moonrise
Oil on panel 20 x 24
Available at Hildt Galleries, Chicago

A couple of weeks ago there was a spectacular moonrise. I did a small painting of it but wasn't really satisfied. So I made a few adjustments for this larger piece and I think I captured that brief moment when the sun has set in the west, the moon is rising and night is falling.

Bogata Hay Barn

Bogata Hay Barn 6 x 6 oil on panel
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I'm working on some larger pieces so I haven't had much to post. Hopefully, a few of those will be post ready this week.
The other thing that has been a major distraction this past week is that one of our dogs (we have 5) has gone blind very suddenly. My little Sophie is the oldest of our pack- she is almost 13 but my husband and I call her the Dorian Grey of dogs- she has always looked like a perpetual puppy. Internet research and trips to the vet leave us without hope that she will regain her sight and another eventually fatal condition was also found. We are, needless to say, very sad.

Green

Spring
Oil 16 x 16
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The weather this week has been absolutely wonderful- mild, slightly breezy, sunny and everything is ....green...very green. Landscape painters will all tell you that green is the toughest color to get a handle on, the one most easily and often abused. Some respond by just not going there at all, and others go too far. I decided to celebrate spring by pulling out a color called cadmium green. Its made by Gamblin and its just the sort of color that would make you think of Wolf Kahn, not Deborah Paris. But its spring, and I'm celebrating.

I'm pleased to say that my work is included in the annual Plein Air Texas show which is put on by the Outdoor Painters Society. The exhibit includes about 50 artists and opens today at Southwest Gallery in Dallas, Texas.

Greenhouse Gallery show

Twilight at Scatter Creek Oil 15 x 18


This weekend, April 12, is the opening of the Greenhouse Gallery Salon International show in San Antonio. This painting and one other were accepted into the show. A small study for this piece was one of the first things I posted when I first started this blog back in September last year.

Panels & Palettes

The Pool at Dusk
Oil 20 x 30


After my last post (thanking everyone who responded), I got several emails this past week from people wanting to know what I had discovered on my quest to reproduce the Magic Panel. I got a huge amount of information and some differences of opinion, all of which I appreciate immensely. Right now I am doing my own little R&D project by testing out three different gessos (Artisan, Utrecht, and Art Boards) and Gamblin Ground on hardboard, gatorboard and birch. The plan is to make a bunch of different panels with different grounds and supports, paint on them, then report back.

I've also had several emails over the last few months asking about my palette. I talked a little about that and my technique for doing under paintings followed by layers of transparent color here. When I started to paint again about 18 years ago (yikes!), I started with a limited palette because that's what my teacher and mentor, Ned Jacob, used. I stuck with it for a long time and I'm glad I did. Limited palettes are great for teaching you how to mix color and making you focus on the components of color (value, temperature and chroma). As time went by, I modified the limited palette to suit my needs, but pretty much stayed with primaries, ivory black and white. Last year, when I started working in a more indirect manner, using glazes and scumbling, I knew that I needed to address opacity vs transparency, something I'd not ever really thought much about.

I started out by working with the transparent colors that are well known and obvious- ivory black, burnt sienna, sap green, ultramarine blue. I also already had a color called Shale by Vasari on my palette which is a rich warm transparent dark with a violet undertone. An artist friend suggested I try Indian Yellow - and that was all it took- I was hooked. Wow! what a color! Where had it been all my life!! What other colors had I been ignoring?!?

A little research quickly led me to Gamblin. I was already using some of their products (Gamsol, primarily) so I checked out their line of transparent colors. Now many are in my paint box- transparent orange (every bit as wonderful as it sounds), transparent earth yellow, transparent earth red, ultramarine violet, brown pink (delicious!), hansa yellow light, terre verte, olive green and indanthrone blue. I've also added naples yellow, which is opaque, but mixes beautifully with many of these transparent colors.

So that is how I went from three colors to a "joy ride in a paint box"( as Churchill once famously said) .

The Magic Panel & A New Gallery

Sunset Pool; Oil 20 x 24
Available at Hildt Galleries, Chicago
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Thanks to everyone who commented or emailed me about making painting panels. I really appreciate all the good information I received. I also tracked down the artist who made the one I found in my studio - which we now refer to as the magic panel -and got her "recipe" for silky smooth panels on birch plywood. So I am making panels this weekend and also plan to try a couple of the commercially prepared ones recommended by several of you who contacted me.

I'm happy to say I am now represented by Hildt Galleries in Chicago. They sell 19th and early 20th century art as well as represent a small group of contemporary artists.

Angus Grazing at Dusk

Angus Grazing at Dusk 8 x 8 oil
Please contact me if interested in this piece

This image has been floating around in my head ever since the drive back from Amarillo almost a month ago. I figure if its still there in my head, I'd better go ahead and paint it.

A Spring Evening

A Spring Evening oil on board 10 x 10
Available at Hildt Galleries, Chicago

In this piece I'm jumping the gun a bit, meteorologically speaking. Most of the trees around here are still bare but there are a few tantalizing glimpses of spring- flowering trees, daffodils and iris and longer, warmer days. And besides, a girl can dream, can't she?

The big news, at least for me, with this piece is that I painted it on gessoed plywood board instead of canvas. I have pretty much always painted on canvas. When I first began to explore painting in a more indirect way- under painting, glazes, etc- I read a lot about how glazes work better on a smooth surface. I resisted that for a couple of reasons-the main one being that I didn't think I could use the dry brush technique I like to use in my under paintings as effectively without some drag from my painting surface. Another being fear. So when I found this silky smooth board in my studio the other day, I'm not sure why I decided to try it. But boy, am I glad I did! I loved painting on this surface and while it certainly made the paint behave a bit differently, I really loved the way it took glazes. The paint just seemed to float on top of the surface making this lovely atmospheric envelope. Now the problem is I have no idea where this board came from! I'm pretty sure it was handmade, not commercially prepared. So, Steve (my husband) and I have been experimenting this week with gessoed masonite. I found some good information on line about preparing these boards, but I still have lots of questions - like how many coats of gesso, do you need to sand in between or just at the end, whether or not you need to seal them in some way so they are not too absorbent and what to do about larger pieces. So if any of you out there have answers to these questions, I'd love to hear from you!