Open Art Studio Show is Over for 2010

At the top of the staircase I placed this large oil painting, painted from a beautiful bouquet, my birthday gift. It was an introduction to the upstairs gallery and a complete change from the water, rocks and skies of downstairs Falls painting exhibit. I think the transition was effective. Guests stopped on the top step to look at it, then walked the hall left and right to look at other paintings.

Next year, I will create a display of the flowers downstairs, as I only used a few of them anywhere this year. There were many Fall landscapes en plein air in the studio and I was pleased to see them all together. I'll probably emphasize bridges somewhere too. I surprised myself at how many different bridge paintings are here.

After I picked up the cookies and paperwork from the open art studio event, I went out for a quick errand. Returning, the ceiling spotlight still shone on this painting, giving it an eerie glow it deserves, I could see it from the road.

There is a difference in the right and left sides that is only evident with a careful introspective observation, it is bright and optimistic on the right, fading on the left.

Perhaps I will put it in the living room near the window. I always felt it belonged over a breakfront or a server, to appear as a bouquet placed on that piece of furniture.

If you missed this sunny and busy show weekend, I'll be back next year, or call for an appointment anytime.

It's a Lot Like Life, oil 28x22 2010

2010 Open Art Studio

Next week will be my 3rd annual open art studio, Friday & Saturday 11-5. Saw a friend who purchased my Great Lakes gardens picture (September 2010 calendar image) last year at the open house & told him about next week. I thought his head would fly off when he whipped it around to say-'What! That was a year ago?'

Time flies when we are having fun.

This oil painting has been on and off my easel all year. I started it because of an earlier pink flower painted in pastel from a similar view-the back. It was called 'Looking Back on a Decade' because the painting coincided with one of those landmark birthdays.

What! That was TEN years ago!!

Just another Decade, oil 20x16 2010

Picture Postcard!

Summer is TOO busy-but so much fun. We go to many gallery openings that include our work or to see artworks by others, but this was a particularly special show. My painting was selected for the postcard, and you can see both sides here.

The opening was spectacular-and crowded-and the work submitted under the theme 'Garden Mystique' was varied & interesting. Doreen DeBoth at Artsphere Studio & Gallery hangs this show to coincide with the Buffalo Garden Walk. Each year it is better and more inclusive of art forms, so I am doubly pleased to have been selected to grace the invitation. Marcus had openings across the street at Gallery 464 and Blink, so Amherst Street was hopping happy with art, music & people.

Shadow on the Pulpit, oil on canvas 30x15 2008 [Postcard]

Not just a pretty picture

This is quite big for a bouquet & took 3 months on & off my easel. It started as a flat presentation & gradually developed depth & light. I visualize it over/behind someone's buffet or server, or perhaps in an entrance hall, acting like a huge bouquet on the table it is hung above.

The light & fresh life is on the right & the flowers there reach into the brightness, while the other side has a bit of wilting, past their prime. Little bits stretch to get out of the jumbled interior, struggling with the confusion of stems, leaves & flowers.

I appreciated the story telling quality as I painted, giving life & portraying death in what appears to be just a still life of cut flowers. The lights & darks symbolize a relationship. It will be easy to live with, hard to inspect.

I think it is not done. But almost finished.

More or Less Like Life 28x22 oil 2009-2010

Still waiting for these orchids to bloom

Now that winter is official with the solstice, I am thinking about the Botanical Gardens in South Buffalo. Last winter I was able to go only twice to the weekly Thursday paint outs. Both times, I spent more time walking around admiring the gardens & new layouts than I did painting.

This is a branch of Cymbidium or Dendrobium orchids, before opening. There were plenty of fantastic open examples, but I had hoped to come back in a week to see these blossoms open & paint a pair of pictures. It began as a plein air, but I continued to work on it in the studio for several long sessions, the depth represents the distance I feel from the Botanical Garden when I cannot go back to paint regularly. The closed blooms symbolize a promise of something special.

This is an expressive & dramatic painting in my studio, I feel fortunate to be able to paint like this.

Not Orchids Yet, oil 11x14, 2009

Albright Knox Art Gallery Issue 2 pub.

Sorting through magazines, I discovered my own painting published in the Albright Knox Art Gallery's quarterly magazine AKNOW. This photo was taken at the opening of the Collector's Gallery Area Artist show last year. My close view of an orange tulip called 'Not Letting it Go' is on the easel. It was kept at the museum for a year & was displayed near the gift shop and also rented for a few months by a corporate client.

Sadly, the regional artists collection is ending soon due to economic woes. I call it a classic 'trickle down economy' effect. I have been proud to be selected to have work at the Albright Knox every year since I was first invited to participate.

We all need to continue to support local arts as they struggle to get beyond budget deficits and dwindling corporate support. This year, I will move my own membership to a higher tier as I appreciate & use the museum so often.

Pure serendipity day

Everyone in our neighborhood decided to yard sale the same weekend, so I carted out the odds & ends I had been saving on purpose. After the initial flurry of checking arrangements & price tags on the driveway on Saturday, I set up an easel & painted part of the porch from under my sun umbrella. I was totally into the picture, but people kept handing me money instead of walking off with the goodies. After two days, I packed my car with leftovers & donated them to the Hiawatha Manor in Niagara Falls, NY. When I returned, I collected some more useful things & put them away for the next yard sale event.

 This was the ultimate multi-tasking experience, because I was able to clean under the basement stairs & some of the garage, chat with neighbors, paint my pansies & clematis before the blooms were done & also spend a lovely Saturday out front.

NoEarlybirds, pastel 11.5 x 15.5  2009

Outdoors can become studio work

The angular trees & shallow water are two of my favorite painting subjects at Burchfield Art & Nature Center. I was the Niagara Frontier Plein Air Painters  host there last month, but was distracted by a variety of impending responsibilities when it came time to choose a subject. I knew that the open paths & misty morning distance would make great subjects, but they weren't fitting into my temporary  melancholia. I settled close to a big patch of daffs & drew until I became intrigued by this composition & started to paint it. However, the mood prevailed & I transported a dull unfinished plein air in the car while I ran errands & completed tasks. The next week, I reviewed the sad drying painting & pulled it onto my easel in the studio. Fresh eyes saw potential & I reworked the flowers, enlarging the petals, adding distance & additional flowers & stems until I was satisfied. It took a lot longer than I expected & nothing of the original plein air remains-except the memory.  It would have been easy to overwork it.

Our spring was pretty, that day was lovely, & these are the only daffodils still around. The moral of the story is that it isn't always easy to paint, even when I want to. Lucky me, this moody nonsense rarely happens.

Late Yellow Daffodils, oil 14x11 2009

Return to Texas

Fascinated by the Bottlebrush tree, I had to go back to Texas to see it in full bloom this year.

Well, no, actually we went to visit Robin, Jeremy & the Houston Museum of Art [great Afghanistan treasures show], and I used their front door sidelights as a frame & tried the annual Bottlebrush painting from a chair indoors. I was only a few feet away, but it was seen through the glass.

Next, I sat out on the back deck bench & caught shadows of light on the path & fence. I was in full shade myself & just relished the heat as the day warmed up. Little lizards watched from the ferns nearby. Unfortunately, I had to place my palette on the left side & reach over myself. Every time I do that I say 'never again!'-it is a workout for my right shoulder so I tend to paint the bristles dry.

Spring Geranium 11x14 oil 2009

Bottlebrush 2009 7x5

Jerry & Larry Bell

Larry Bell may have been the best friend I ever had, but I didn't know it at the time. He was just always there for a laugh or some empathy. He had lots of friends wherever he went, one of those people that everyone just likes. 8 years ago he passed away as we prepared to close Niagara Falls High School where our friendship blossomed. I will miss him forever as well as our frequent phone calls catching up with every detail & event long after he retired. He helped me to have fun at work & to relax about what I could not change.

It hit me when his twin, Jerry, passed away this Fall that the two brothers had made indelible marks on so many of us, from the people-clients & students- they worked for to their coworkers & friends. As I left the funeral home, Ron Concilla gave me this rose, more than a bud, but not fully open. It was on my counter for a few days when I realized that the rose would never fully open-it was frozen in time forever young, just like the Bells. I painted it then but it took a long time to go back to the canvas & complete my requiem for them.

Shadows of  Two Lights-Remember the Bells oil 2009 24x12

Family Justice Center, Buffalo NY

One's pastel, the other is oil, both were painted on location with the Fairweather Paletteers at Thursday paint outs. They were donated to the first juried art show & auction to benefit the Family Justice Center of Erie County. The benefit was held at Asbury Hall [Ani DeFranco's The Church] last Tuesday & I am pleased to say that my two paintings were among the sold ones at the end of the night. It was a lovely affair, wine & food, live music & a lot of excellent artwork on display. Burchfield's Future Trees, although purchased, will remain at the FJC offices until May 2009.

Burchfield's Future Trees,  pastel 8x10 2006

[Buffalo] Botanic Garden Orchids, oil 20x16 2007

Summer Street Project

1. Developing the perspective and selecting the light for this Summer Street painting turned out to be the easy part.

2. My photo references were in brilliant sunlight with dappled shadows from tall trees in neighboring yards, so I established the lights & darks & placed the various plants and objects.

3. Starting to paint the assorted plants, I faced a real challenge-green. My first view of this house, several weeks ago at the Buffalo Garden Walk, I exclaimed about the front of the house-the green of the house & the Hydrangea leaves coordinated to emphasize the flowers. Now that I was painting the greens, I wanted to find differences. Kitty had used blues & light green leaves in her garden, but the light on the building had already created a variety of greens for background. I love a challenge, but this one took a while to work out!

4. Thank goodness for flowers! Notice the white lilies & the begonias on the porch rail, the blue hosta.

I continue to wonder if it is harder to grow & maintain a garden, or to paint it--as my own has overgrown in this sunny-& rainy-summer as I painted in the studio upstairs.

Chasing the Sun on Summer Street, oil 11x14 2008

Bursting Bud

Lifted from the Perry, NY website-with permission, of course, this is the rose bursting out of it's borders at the Perry Chalk Festival July 12.

Click on the link above to see more images from the festival.

Plein air rain out success

Sometimes a painting chooses itself. A few fresh cut carnations sat in the studio for several weeks. After removing some spent stems & replacing the vase I realized there was a composition in front of me, similar to the April calendar picture [a few posts below]. The next day's plan to paint plein air was rained out so I was able to spend the day sketching & structuring the canvas; the foreground was nearly complete in a full day's studio work. Waiting until night to capture the reflections & complete the layout, I was able to mull over the differences in the two pictures, besides the obvious ones of shape & surface. The Primula was painted when the sun was down by 6, I had to wait for dark until after 9 to work on this one. Both flowers sat on my work table for a long time before they 'spoke' to me. It all goes back to 'paint what you know'.

Considering the daylight background, I could have used the leaf greens of outdoors for a very different painting, and someday I will. The most fun with this picture-the challenge to paint the glass vase & the black stones I use for stability.

Carnation Reflections, 24x12 oil, 2008

NACC opening preview

The Garden Gallery at the NACC is ready for my "Rushing Summer: A Private Wintergarden" artist reception on Friday February 8, 2008 from 7-9 pm. Thanks to the innovative layout by Carl Schifano, the artwork is hung 'salon style' to give the viewer the opportunity to see some work close up and others from a distance. The tall ceilings and lush atmosphere created by color & nature are a warm contrast to the snow outside. For this show, the gallery plants were moved to the triple doors area where they thrive on the lengthening daylight and fresh air. In answer to several questions and the perception of the Buffalo News reviewer, the 'private wintergarden' part of my show title is a reference to the Niagara Falls Wintergarden' s former life as a greenhouse. I frequently walked the paths and sat while children played 'stage' in the concert area by the pond. It was an especially lovely place in the winter, no matter the weather, one would be transported by the green tropical trees, the flowers, giant ferns and lucky resident birds. Everyone always smiled in the Wintergarden, even if just passing through. This is one of architect Cesar Pelli's most exciting buildings. It was designed by him with the Rainbow center in 1975. Many of his buildings are designed with glass skin & they are especially beautiful at night. Perhaps we can reconstruct the feeling of a lush wintergarden by gathering Friday night!