Paintings Thoughts and Process ©Jennifer E Young
I'd like to extend my sincerest thanks to everyone who has bid on my online auctions! If you haven't checked them out in a few days, I have added several more original paintings to my auction site, with subjects ranging from beach to farm to garden. I plan to wrap up this online sale in a couple of weeks, so if you have been planning to bid on one of these paintings now is the time. Here's what's currently on the auction block:
Subscribers will have already read that I am running some online auctions as part of a fall sale. What's new in this post is that I have created a page on my permanent website dedicated to my auctions and special offers, which will provide a quick and easy way to view both my auctions and any other promotional sales I might be offering at a given time. I've just listed two new auctions this week and will be adding more in the weeks ahead, so be sure to bookmark the page and check back often!
It is good to be back to painting again. It has felt like such a long time since I have been able to stand at the easel and wipe all the cares away and just focus on art. Maybe for this reason, this painting came together fairly fluidly. This piece was inspired by a challenge from Gallery Flux, to create works for their upcoming show all about SNOW! So I thought I would experiment with a few different compositions in this theme in hopes that I'd have some good candidates to offer up for the show, and oh what fun it was! I painted from reference photos I took last winter in my neighborhood, which has its share of beautiful stately and Victorian homes.
"Victorian Winter", Oil on linen, 20x24" ©Jennifer E. Young
And now that I have you hankering for some hot chocolate, I carry you back to summer again, with a new online auction. This plein air painting is a little larger than my prior auction listings; it's an 8x10" piece on linen-mounted MDF panel, with an opening bid of just $200. I painted this little gazebo on the dunes just in front of the beach house where my family has been staying the last several summers in Kill Devil Hills on the Outer Banks of North Carolina. I love the way the light hits the dunes right around dinner time, when the sun gets lower and the shadows get nice and long.
"Dune Shadows" Oil on linen, 8x10". SOLD!
In a short time, I will begin listing some new online holiday art auctions, so I thought I would give a heads-up to those of you who are interested in purchasing my art at an excellent price just in time for the season of giving. :-) These will be mostly plein air studies in small sizes, ready for you to frame. If this interests you head on over to my auction site and register in advance so you will be all ready to place your bid when the auctions first becomes available. I should be up and running in just another week or so, so don't miss out!
I completed this painting (or so I thought) a short time before we left for our annual summer trek to the beach. I really liked it, for the most part. And having considered it finished, I stuck it up on my studio wall before our trip. After our return though, I started looking at it with fresh eyes. Some things that tugged on me before were now really starting to become more bothersome. But I decided to let it marinate a while longer as I was distracted with other projects.
Finally, I decided that while I liked the overall mood in this piece, I did not like the little closed umbrella to the left of my grouping of sunbathers. It kept pulling my eye away from where I wanted to go, and it was sort of an ambiguous object sitting there. Still I wanted something near that spot that would perhaps pull the painting together a little better. So I began flipping through my trip photos for some ideas and inspiration, and came across a snap of a little boy digging intently in the sand. I sketched it out quickly in a nearby notebook and set to work.
There wasn't a lot of built up texture where the umbrella was, so I only had to scrape it down just a little bit with a razor. Then I proceeded with a little "oiling out" (in this case with just a little gambol and solvent free fluid) to help the new paint layer adhere to the older but still very fresh under layer. Here is the revised painting with the little boy. I also brightened the sky a bit more as it was feeling a bit intense and heavy.
"Surfside", Oil on linen, 20x24" ©Jennifer E Young
Here's a detail of the figures:
"Surfside" (Detail) ©Jennifer E Young
I don't know about you, but I like this much better, and I find it finally worthy of celebrating with a frame and a signature. :)
Art gallery of European and American landscape and still life oil paintings by Virginia artist Jennifer E. Young. Jennifer's plein air and studio paintings celebrate her love of color and the natural world. Her work has been exhibited and collected internationally.
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