Manarola, a Goal

On the easel:

Manarola, Cinque Terre, 8X10 acrylic

An Italian friend gave me some pictures of this area. The other day I was doing my "Gallery sit" and they asked us to bring something to paint while we were there, so it seemed the time was right to start on this one. It's in acrylic, and recently I've been working in oils. Forgot how fast they dry! The Masterson sta-wet palette is wonderful for this, but I forgot and just plopped some "Gray Matters" paper palettes in the case and headed off. I should have used the sta-wet feature!! Fortunately I had a little spray bottle and kept moistening the paints.

This was odd because I started at the bottom of the picture. Perhaps I got entranced by the road system hanging off the cliffs and the reflections in the water.
Putting a lot of water and a little paint worked well to wash in some of the colors intended for certain areas. To keep them straight.

Medieval and Earlier Manuscripts

Medieval and Earlier Manuscripts
Wow, Look what I found on the web! I was looking for examples of Or Nue embroidery and heard there was a fairly recent (2010) discovery of a piece at Durham Cathedral. There was also this link to the British Library's Digitized Manuscripts files. These include the Gospel of St Cuthbert, the oldest extant European book! It was buried with him. We know how long something like that lasts, but anyway. It is still nearly pristine, unlike other manuscripts that have been "disassembled" or butchered, usually through greedy collectors and art thieves. The British Library bought it from Durham Cathedral, so it has a good chance of surviving.
The above is (I think) a picture of it. It was attached to the article, but not identified, so I am assuming it's the same book.

Landscapes, etc

One of the City Galleries is going to have a show soon focusing on landscapes and variety, mostly in style, I think. So my juices got to going, and I lost track of time the other day, but the result was this:

Hot City acrylic 8X10

 It's only 8X10 but I am excessively pleased with myself. Lets say it's an "impressionist/abstract." Don't know what else to call it. It's an image that sort of popped into my head and I thought I'd try it. The next thing I knew it was about four hours later. I'd missed a few things I was supposed to do. Gotta watch that. Yesterday I did a little additional highlighting and added a little more color. I just signed it (before I took the picture) and in looking for a dark mahagony frame I thought would look good, found this one. I'm not sure where I got this frame, it isn't my type at all, but I must have been directed to it, because it fits the picture in size and style.

Then there is this one, now an orphan:

Winter of The Seasons - acrylic 12X16

This goes with Autumn (Yosemite) and Spring (Weed Cabin) and they are all framed alike. The problem is that Autumn and Spring have disappeared. It looks like they were taken from my car. They were framed in the same Barnwood frames (Cheap Joe's) and would have looked pretty good together.

This is an old friend:

Square bottle - watercolor 12X16

 This is finally framed. But to my chagrin, I broke the glass! I'm hoping Michael's or someone carries the right size in stock. Otherwise I'll have to get it cut to fit.

These two are much older, they've been sort of on semi-permanent lend to a friend who loves fuschia:

Fuschia I 5X7 watercolor

Fuschia II 5X7 watercolor

Sorry about the plastic covers, they've been on the wall a while. They are both matted in ivory and a narrow band of gold. Most of that got cropped out.

More excuses:

Cousin Red - oil 6X8

It's actually "Cousin Red had too much," but I shortened it. Then I ate the pears. MMMM.

Somehow I picked up some sparkles in the photo, In painting it I probably missed the medium and used turpentine to thin the paint. Not thinking, bad.

This last is too fuzzy. I must have gotten too close with the camera and not used the little "Flower" icon for close up.

Inferno Beneath - 5X7?

Well, there was this documentary on TV about the volcanoes on the Big Island.

How do you make ripples in black. Something to think about.

Love to all, and don't let your paint dry out, unless it's watercolor!

Happy Easter!

Gift Lilly, watercolor 4X8

Have a Happy Easter everyone!

Peace for the world, and for those would needed proof.

Odds and ends from sketch books

America's Cup Trials, 3X5" watercolor

 Last summer we had the America's Cup trials in preparation for the real thing. It was too scenic to pass up! Had to watch it live on local TV to actually see anything. They had boats in the water broadcasting the action.

America's Cup Trials, San Francisco Bay, 3X5 watercolor

This is the truely pocket sized Moleskin watercolor book. It is so cool! It's wonderful quality paper, a sturdy cover with rounded corners, an elastic strap to hold it closed, and a pocket inside for whatever. I highly recommend these to keep with you at all times to get those snapshots of moments.

Oh, come on cat! In or Out!, 3X6" pen and ink

Who with cats hasn't been through this. Have you ever tried to convince a cat that you CANNOT MAKE THE RAIN STOP! Then they give you that look.

Gallery visitor, 2X4" pen and ink

Last summer I did my turn in the city gallery, and this was one of the visitors that came in that day. It's a high traffic spot, so there were all sorts of interesting people, but some just move too fast.

Bistro, 4X5,

Gnarled Tree, 4X5

House on the Park, 4X6

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Hmm, I was trying to line three up, side by side. Sigh. Defeated. Well, it was a lovely day in Pleasanton last summer.

Tyko Drum performance 4X6

 This was a fundraiser for the city gallery and there was art and performance all evening. This group was well choreographed and very exciting. I caught a few of their poses and moves, but you can't see the precision of them all doing these moves and drumming together. I hadn't been at a live Tyko performance for a long time, it was great!

Landcape practice

Ok, I guess I've got to get out more! I'm painting landscapes from photos and the weather is starting to get nice, no excuses. Well, lots of excuses, no good reasons.

Arizona Weather, oil, long and narrow

Well, that was pure laziness, I didn't get up and go measure it. It's about that high, and longer horizontally.
Anyway, working from a photo in an old Arizona Highways. Remember those? When I was a kid I never saw the point, we were in Arizona all the time. When I close my eyes I can remember the smell of rain on the way. (I am rather please with the cacti.)

Winter, acrylic

Nope, now it's too purple. The trees look like little soldiers, but sometimes they do and you have to give them variety. Next.

Glen/Loch 8X10 oil

This has been in the works for several days. The right side will get more texture in the grass and make the ledges more irregular. Etc. It's a loch in Scotland, and it was just too beautiful to not paint it.

The Road to Helms Deep, 8X10 oil

Todays work.
This is from a photo taken either by Forrest or Sara. They both take great pictures and it wasn't labelled. They live in NZ now and they climb everything that goes up. They also take spectacular photos.
The spot in the middle ground was on my camera, not the picture. It's still all pretty near medium value and light value, the darker values will give it more punch. The little green bits in the foreground are actually full grown trees! The scale on this one is amazing.

OK, ketchup (LOL) time!

Swan 4X5 watercolor

I did this a while ago, trouble is I cannot recall the source. It was a photo, I think. Apologies and gratitude to whoever took the picture, I can't remember. (Embarassing.)

Last Flight 5X8

What a day, this was done while watching the Last Flight of the Shuttle on live feed. It flew all around Sacramento, so I was able to find a local TV station's feed from that part of the flight, then later went back to the broadcast from the escorting jets. Wow, I wish I had a pilots license.

Lunch at Applebee's 4X5.5

This was another treat. I took myself to Applebee's for lunch and dragged my kit in with me. These were the ladies at the booth near me. The one never got off the phone. And yes, that upholstery really does look like that.

Don Edwards Regional Park plein air 5X7

This was another Friday. I left out the city scape that is tucked in between the marshes and the hills. Artist's License in hand, we can paint what we want, right?

Roses 8X8

Again, a mystery source. I may have been watching a painting show on PBS, but I don't remember! Sorry. It was good practice of a technique I should keep trying. It's dated 2011, so I barely remember the fact that it was I who painted it!

Japanese Fountain 8X8

This I remember! Yeah! It was last summer at my brother's house. We were sitting on a wooden porch swing and it was very shady. It was my plein air kit, so I had trouble with the values, all dark. Lots of mossy areas too. The red/orange spot was a leaf floating in the bowl. The weeping spruce is too regular, I need to mess it up a bit.

Good Grief.

Major screw up. First, cheap paper. I got carried away and I was using a sketch pad so it's all wrinkly. I finally had to give up because it got too wet and I couldn't do any more on it. Maybe I should have stopped long before this stage! It was a bleak scene as I was watching a documentary on PBS.
  Then, of course, I forgot all about rotating the picture! It seems my H-P Photo(not so)smart C4580 refuses to talk to my new (2011) laptop. It will grudgingly print, but it won't even recognize the scanning function. No help on line. I had to resurrect the old (2006?) PowerBook G4 laptop to scan these pictures, put them on a flash drive and dump them on to the new one. What's up with that? (*&^%+#@$!) Such language.
OK, I should be grateful I have both, and that I can do it at all.

Pancake Day and The Great Cinnamon Heart Hunt

Glass Heart on Lace - watercolor, 5X6

Actually, today is Shrove Tuesday. Which is the Tuesday before Ash Wednesday. (?)I first heard of this while living in Merry Old England. Suddenly there were all these adverts on telly about Pancake Day. They were for "Jiff", which confused me because here that's peanut butter. In England it is all things lemon. The Pancakes to which it refers are what we would call crepes. 
   Fortunately I was living with a group of wonderful elderly ladies that were a rich source of information on all things England. There is no better way to get to know a people and a country! I was full of questions and they were delighted to fill me in, we had great lunch time discussions. As a special treat Cook made pancakes for us for lunch!
   Shrove Tuesday is just before Lent, so to hold off temptation and not let anything spoil, this is the day all the rich stuff gets cooked and eaten. Hence Pancake Day. You make a stack of crepes, excuse me, pancakes, and get a bunch of lemons (this is what brought up the questions in the first place) and sugar. Castor or Superfine sugar is best. 
   Place a pancake flat on your plate, sprinkle it with sugar and then lemon juice to taste, roll and eat. Free style. Amazing! It really is delicious! Other popular toppings are berries with sugar or Golden Syrup. What's that? Well, it's not made from corn, so no Karo. It's similar to honey, but man made. It is a sugar syrup. So if you don't have a Cost Plus or other supplier of the unusual near by, use honey.
  Now for Valentine's Day. I'm going out after this to find those large cinnamon jelly hearts I love so much! After I've had my Pancake Day pancakes for lunch.
(Contented Sigh)

Vermeer

The Lacemaker-Vermeer, 6X6 graphite on paper

If you are unfamiliar with it, there is a wonderful Artist's Challenge Blog called Paint and Draw Together that offers fascinating challenges for artists to interpret. Right now it is issuing challenges to learn from the Masters, currently Vermeer's Lacemaker. It's free of charge, you accept the challenge and send the results per the simple instructions given in the upper left corner.

It's wonderful for artists because it is "rut prevention." I find myself sometimes painting the same thing over and over because when one sets up ones own still life, or paints plein air near home a "sameness" can creep in. It's natural because you are picking it out yourself. An Artist Challenge is chosen by another pair of eyes, another set of experiences. It can freshen your work no end! It's relative to getting a commission.

In the back of my mind I kept thinking I should do this one, but with Christmas and all...
But this morning I saw it again and realized time was wasting! Without preamble I grabbed a pencil out of the drawer and an old drawing pad, found a clean area on the back of another drawing, cleaned it up a bit and started in! I was too lazy, and too "into" drawing it to go get a pencil sharpener, but the dull pencil was a good challenge too!

I think my neighbor just moved out yesterday! Wow, am I oblivious or what? There was a small van there 2 days ago, but it's a bustling family and lot's of going and coming. But it finally dawned on me that there was an actual moving van there yesterday. Er, uh, did I miss a memo? Was it something I said? I was painting a lot yesterday on the other side of the house and not paying much attention. Now I feel bad. And embarrassed. And the painting isn't finished.

Here is what I've done so far:

Foggy day(?) 8X10, acrylic

Lots to do, rigging, reflections, shading, lots more, but it's a start. Sorry neighbors, I hope I see you again.

A Christmas Card

At the moment Jose Feliciano is singing "Have Yourself a Merry Christmas,"

Christmas in Arizona, #1, 5x7"acrylic

Navaho Christmas, Arizona, 5X7 acrylic

Grand Canyon Christmas, 5X7 acrylic

Most of my very early Christmases were spent in the desert, rather like around Bethlehem.
Some were in El Paso. El Paso has a really long history of luminarias. Phoenix is trying to adopt it, but I know where it started. It was established in El Paso way back, and by the 1950's planes landing at the El Paso airport on Christmas Eve always made a special pass over the city after dark because whole neighborhoods would be outlined in the little brown (yes BROWN, not white) paper bags, weighted with sand and a votive candle burning inside, spaced three feet apart outlining all sidewalks, roof lines and fences. The city would agree to turn out the electric street lights for the evening to get the right effect. It was breath taking!
Boy Scout troups would help their neighborhoods, especially the elderly people, to set them up and light them. All other Christmas illumination would be turned off for the evening. I wish I could show you all what it looked like for that one evening. Cars of families would tour all the streets with their headlights off to see it.

Why? Well to guide the Three Wise Men so they wouldn't get lost, of course! We combined customes very naturally there, there would be the Christmas Tree, and it is base was La Nacimiento, naturally. Of course it was best if your main nativity figures had a removeable baby Jesus, because he was to be added Christmas Eve in a special traditional way. However we did NOT wait until January 6th to open presents. There was no way!

Growing up during the Baby Boom years, the whole world was full of kids. The war was over, and the phrase "well, there was a war on," as an explanation for things began to fall out of use eventually.

Peace on Earth, "as it is in Heaven." It IS natural.