Wipeout

It's been a rather frustrating and frantically busy week.  Between a karate tournament, a soccer game and gearing up for the summer shows, I haven't had much time for painting.  And when I was able to carve out a bit of time, it really didn't work out so well.  "Wipers", or sometimes oil painters call them "scrapers", are a part of the process.  These are paintings that just don't come together and get wiped or scraped off.   It happened to me twice this week.

The first was a large pastel that has been sitting for awhile as I hoped to be able to salvage it.  But it never really felt right and I finally admitted it and wiped it clean.  The second was a smaller pastel that wasn't right from the beginning.  It didn't take much convincing to wipe that one off.

I'm finding that the more painting I do, the more willing I've become to admit defeat.  It's a hard thing to get past "I can fix this" but I'm getting more comfortable with the idea that it's okay to fail.   Looking back over the past year's pieces, I can see that I'm making progress, slowing getting better.  A step or two backwards is frustrating but at the same time it can be liberating as I know a step or two forward is just behind that paint rag.

Maple Syrup Ewer

Two summers ago my husband, who is an archaeologist, excavated a maple sugar furnace dating to 1840-1860.  It inspired him to try making our own syrup, so he tromped through our woods to locate a small stand of sugar maple trees and built his own furnace (in the front yard of course) out of cinder blocks.  That winter we collected about 60 gallons of sap and boiled it down to 1 1/2 gallons of syrup.  It worked out so well we did it again this year, and I even made about 1 1/2 cups of maple sugar.  It's a lot of work, but worth it.

The only problem we had was the lack of proper serving ware.  Then a friend pointed me in the direction of Joy Bridy.  Joy throws wonderful stoneware pottery in practical shapes meant to be used, including bottles, mugs, storage vessels and even bird feeders.  They are then wood fired, giving them interesting and unique coloring.

She had some long necked ewers that worked perfectly for pouring maple syrup, as well as being lovely to look at.  When not in use, ours sits on display on a kitchen shelf.   This spring as the sun started filtering through the window, the interesting shadows cast on the ewer caught my eye.  This painting of it came together in one very satisfactory 3 hour sitting earlier this week.

Plectrums and Lemons

Plectrums, for those who don't know, are guitar picks.  Their presence in this painting is due to a conversation with a friend.  Another friend sent me few to use as reference when I got stuck trying to figure out how to make them look like something other than blobs of blue paint.  Sometimes a painting is a cooperative effort!   I love how the picks add an unexpected bit of whimsey to an otherwise straight forward still life.  They are also an excellent excuse to use my favorite blues.

A step forward

A few years ago I painted a pastel of oranges in a black bowl that I thought turned out pretty well.  As I was recently searching for ideas to paint, I decided to try it again in oil.  This is the result.  I hung it on my wall to dry a bit with every intention of doing more work.  But the longer it hung, the more I liked it, and the more worried I got about messing it up.  Hard as it was, I decided to just leave it be; artists never seem to be completely happy with their own work.  There are little faults here and there that could be fixed, but maybe I'm the only one who sees them.

I've been looking at a lot of other people's work, trying to figure out how to make mine better.  Finally I realized what was missing - I need to pay more attention to the lighting.  I've been told this already, but it seems to have taken about six months before it finally sunk in.  I feel like this particular piece is a big step forward for me.

This oil, along with a pastel (Spider Plant) will be in the Spring Fling show in Sidney, Ohio next month.

Finding the potential

Sometimes it takes awhile for a piece to come to its potential.  Back in December I started an oil painting of a pitcher and large plate on an unusually sized canvas.  There was a time when I bought a number of these, thinking it would be an interesting challenge, but gave that up when I found the biggest challenge was framing them.  This is the last of those canvases.

I had thought it finished in December, so I signed it and hung it on my wall.  It didn't take long to realize it wasn't right - the plate looked flat, the background was boring, and pitcher's opening was off.  But it hung there for several months, nagging at me to fix it every time I sat down to dinner.  Earlier this month I finally pulled it off the wall and got to work.  It took awhile to get the adjustments right, but now I feel like I can look at it without getting annoyed with myself.  Until I notice sometime else wrong with it.  An artist's work is never really done.

The pitcher and plate were both wedding gifts, given by two different people who had never met, yet their gifts complimented each other quite well.  Lemonade and birthday cakes have been served many times from these two pieces.

Pastel Workshop

This weekend I was lucky enough to participate in my first pastel workshop, sponsored by the Greenville Art Guild.  This was my first formal instruction in pastel, and I was pretty excited about it. The instructor was Thelma Frame, a well know artist from eastern Indiana.  I had actually signed up for a pastel workshop with her last spring at the Richmond Art Museum, but it was cancelled due to lack of interest.

It's actually been a source of frustration for me, as pastel specific workshops and classes seem to be few and far between.  Most of what I have found has been several states away and/or beyond my limited budget, which is why I was so happy to find this one.

It turned out to be an excellent experience.  There were about 16 people there, all from the area, and Thelma seemed  to know most of them.  She demonstrated her technique for a bit, then walked around offering advise.   I chose a picture from the stack she had brought, and set to work with the limited 
colors I had brought.  The instruction she gave me was pretty minimal, mostly "keep going".  At the end she showed my piece to the few remaining participants, who invited me to join the Art Guild and take a class.  I feel pretty encouraged by it all, and hopefully have made a new set of connections.  I was also pretty impressed by the quality of work I saw on other people's easels.  I think this will be a good group to join.  A special thanks to Sandy for hosting the workshop in her remarkable house, Selena for the delicious lunch, and of course Thelma for her insight.

Here is the result of the day's work.  I touched it up a bit once I got home, but it really didn't need a lot.  It is on 12x9 slate blue Colourfix paper.

Shaded Lane, 9x12 pastel, copyright 2010

SOLD!

Monument Valley revised

With the purchase of new tube oils, I decided to go back to the Monument Valley painting and do some touch ups.  I don't usually do a lot of touch up work, especially in oils, as it can be difficult to match the new work to the older. That really wasn't a concern this time as I reworked the entire painting.  Using a brush allows for greater detail as well as a wider color range than oil sticks, which are really too clumsy to use on a small painting.  I was also able to emphasize the highlights and shadows a bit more to hopefully increase the drama of an already dramatic setting.  I may have gone a bit overboard in the sky with my favorite blue, but for some reason the skies in Monument Valley and the southwest in general are a much more saturated shade of blue than they are in the midwest.  I'm not sure if it the dryness of the air or the increase in elevation, but trying to capture that is a temptation I'm finding hard to resist.