Spontaneity

Here's a little plein air I did a couple of weeks ago, before our most recent beach trip. This view is just around the corner from me. It shows another side of the Bellevue neighborhood; a little less neat-as-a-pin, and a little more unkempt and funky, but still with that spontaneous burst of color.

"Splash of Color" Oil on Multimedia Artboard, 6x8"

The Crape Myrtles are still hanging on.  I hope I can get out a few more times to paint before they fade completely.

There are some benefits to time limits, but I think one of the biggest challenges to working with them is deciding how much of it to commit to R&D (research and development) and how much to commit to production end product. Of course with art, there is plenty of overlap, but I still consider my plein air painting time R&D. That doesn't mean that many aren't "frame worthy", but they are small and spontaneous and not all of them are completed statements. This is good because it allows me a certain freedom in my approach, with less deliberation and concern for the end result and more for the process and just really studying light effects, color temperature, values, and textures.

However, studio paintings are still paramount to my work, and at some point I need to get  some larger pieces done,  no matter how much the great outdoors may call me.  My goal with all of this is to see how well I can carry over the spontaneity and that feeling of the light from my field work into a more complete statement with my larger studio pieces. In terms of subject matter, they may not always seem to relate all that much, but for me the two disciplines are very interdependent.

Shopping local

As the title of my blog might imply, one of my passions is to travel and paint the beautiful places I've been. But home commitments these days often don't allow me the time needed to go farther afield for scouting subjects and painting them. Instead of lamenting this fact (which I admit I did for a while) I have decided that if I don't find some options for painting close by I will not get very far with my work (or my sanity!) So I've started shopping local. I really only have a few mornings to myself so I need to get in and out of a place pretty quickly in order to pick up my daughter on time from preschool. The Lewis Ginter Botanical Gardens are close by, and they are a lovely option, as is Bryan Park. But there really are a lot of interesting subjects even closer to my home, in my Bellevue neighborhood and even my very  own gardens.

There are a couple of challenges to my place. First of all, I live in an urban neighborhood. While we have tons of gardeners here and lots of green space we also have small lots and lots of large trees. So you have to get used to painting close in, and you're not going to get many sweeping vistas around here, which is the kind of subject matter that I have been most attracted to since I first took up landscape painting.

Secondly, aside from a very brief (but lovely) appearance of sunlight in the early, early morning, a good part of my back yard in particular remains in shadow until about 10:30 or 11 a.m. That means that the most interesting play of light and shadow only makes a presence for an hour, or at most an hour and a half tops,  before the shadows shrink up and burn off at high noon.

On the other hand, having planted every shrub and flower,  I know my garden intimately and  have had plenty of time to observe how the light comes over each bed. So I can set up my easel where I want it, walk back to the studio to do some work there, and then return to my plein air setup at the optimal time when the light is just right. I can work in this way all they way until the time I need to pick up my daughter from preschool (a 5-minute commute), and then just throw my gear into the studio right before I leave to get her. This was my approach for the little plein air below. It's not a big painting, but I still needed to finish this up in two different sessions due to the lighting situation mentioned above:

"The Curved Bed" Oil on Canvas, 10x10" Contact me to purchase!

At home we call this bed "The Bump Out", but I thought  that would be a weird title for a painting. At present there is still a sense of order, but in summer it's a lot more colorful, but also a lot more chaotic. ( I really tend to crowd my gardens terribly. This is a bad habit but I'm trying to get better, and not be so afraid to pull things out, give plants away, or just toss them if need be.) The summer flowers are beautiful, but  I like it at this time of year too because you can still see the "bones" and underlying form before the wildness ensues.

Studies

I'm baaaack. And I'm kicking off my return to blogging with a new Varenna study. I actually hesitate to call this a study, given the amount of time it took. I guess a month away from painting has left me feeling a litle rusty and slow! In any case, this painting will serve as a preliminary study for a larger piece.

Varenna Study Oil on canvas, 6"x9" Contact me for more info.

We have had rounds of winter sickness followed by school closings due to snow, so with my foray back into painting being twarted quite a bit, I had the thought to develop a number of small scale studies of some larger painting ideas that  I've been wanting to tackle. I'll be painting some of these to scale up to my larger sizes. For example this 6x9" piece will scale up to 24x36".

I've painted various views of this harbor a few times now, which you can see here,  here, and here. I guess you can tell I am enamored with this particular view of this  lovely Italian lake town! This composition emphasizes the strong horizontal of the walled town jutting out onto the lake, contrasted by the verticals of the buildings and tall cypresses.

While I almost always sketch out my composition on paper before I tackle a canvas, I usually leave the painted study for when I am out in the field painting from life. In fact, I have painted lots of studies and lots of larger scale studio pieces and quite a bit in between. Not all small paintings warrant a big statement, but I haven't been all that great about developing my viable studies into larger, more fleshed out studio concepts.  My schedule has been so sporadic for such a long time now, and with not much chance of an end in sight, I really feel like I need to have a more methodical  approach to my work habits. I am hoping that by tightening up my studio practices a bit, I might find more equilibrium when I do get a chance to enter the studio, and I will waste less time and feel less at a loss about what I am going to tackle next.

Well, nothing informs like experience, and since these small ones can presumably be completed in a fraction of the time, (ahem!) I thought it was worthwhile to have a go at a few of them, done, specifically with larger paintings in mind. I will also mine some of my other small works, in particular the plein air pieces I've done, as I think a number of them have potential for further development. I have worked from a number of them here and there, but I think there is more potential (especially in my James River series) and it could be something fun to do during these cold winter months when I'm not getting outside.

The artist/parent conundrum

Well, it's finally happened. This week we sent our baby off to preschool. Right now it's only two half days a week, but still it has been a week of mixed emotions. It's hard to send her out into the world without me nearby, but on the other hand, I can enter my studio for a few precious, blissful hours without interruption. Ahhh! Once we get into a groove, (and get past the tears that come with each parting) we should be able to arrange a schedule where Dad takes her to school on his way to work, while Mom starts painting and doesn't have to stop for 4 or 5 hours. Heck, I may even be able to take my easel outdoors this fall and actually do some plein air painting! It feels like its been a long road to get to this point, both in terms of health and time to work. And yet, I look at my daughter and marvel at how quickly she has grown. She's only two, but she's definitely not a baby any more.

In my next post I will share with you a new painting I've gotten under way during this momentous week. But before I get back to the "art" part of my art blog, I just want to put a shout out to all of those artist moms and dads out there who may struggle to find a balance between being a dedicated primary caregiver to a child and being a creative artist dedicated to their craft.

First of all, hats off to you! It is a tough balancing act. If I had any advice to give to anyone who is struggling to find the time and energy to do creative work while also being the primary caregiver to a child, it would be this: Lower your expectations and don't give up.

Now that may not sound very inspirational, but hear me out. After I had my daughter, I fully expected to get back to my painting in full swing after about 6 months or so. But when my health took a nose dive, it was all I could do most days to parent my daughter and give her some Q.T., and get hot meals on the table (after which point I promptly collapsed in a heap). And on top of feeling really physically awful most days over the past 2 years, I made myself feel worse by being horribly disappointed in my inability to develop a routine of steady work. (What was wrong with me? I "should" be able to do this! ) Had I been gentler and adjusted my expectations to allow for my situation, I would have saved myself a lot of frustration and emotional angst, and perhaps even possibly hastened my recovery. (Not to mention that feeling rotten about yourself isn't exactly an environment for creative bursts of energy, either).

On the second point, don't give up; sooner or later you will find a groove with yourself and your family. It may be a groove that will need constant tweaking, but some sense of rythm WILL happen. It may not happen as quickly as you want, but one day you will blink and your once tiny, helpless infant will be playing quietly by herself here and there (in between running around tearing the house down ;-) ). Gasps for air will give way to moments of breathing space and then at some point actual stretches of uninterrupted time.

Thankfully I seem to be finding my way out of the worst of the health issues now and am actually sleeping again and feeling a lot better. But nothing is like it was b.b. (before baby). I don't have the flexibilty of time and freedom that I used to have. Now I am the one who has to be flexible, and I have to manufacture stretches of time by getting up extra early to make it happen. Any blogs I do write are usually done via my mobile, written piecemeal in short bursts. But with the right attitude and a little bit of creative scheduling, it is happening, and for that I am extremely grateful!

When my daughter was an infant, I would again and again be told this same phrase by veteran parents: "It goes by fast." And it does. When you are in the trenches dealing with colic and diapers and nursing and zero sleep and no time to shower, you might not think so. But it really does. So enjoy the moments with your child and appreciate the moments you can find to feed the Art Spirit. Nurture both as best you can and you may find them growing stronger and more vibrant with each passing day.

 

"Happy Faces", by 2 year old Eva

From the ashes a fire shall be woken

Have you ever had a project that illicted a phrase something like, "I can't wait till this  @!% thing is over!" ? Well, that was my thought every time I showed up at the easel over these past few weeks (WEEKS!) to work on the Venice painting I posted about eons ago in my last blog. Awesome way to inspire creativity, eh? For some reason though, I couldn't let it go. I don't quite know why. It was like slowing down to look at an accident when you really didn't want to . Okay, that's a bit melodramatic.  Maybe more like continuing to watch a bad movie because you'd already invested so much time in it. Makes no sense, but  I guess I kept hoping that by overworking an already bad painting I would somehow be vindicated in the end.

Well, as you can imagine, it did not, in fact, end well. The painting was, I felt, dreadfully bad. And to add insult to injury, I had just spent multiple sessions of my precious new painting schedule (more about that in a minute) completely devoted to trying to fix  a mess that I should have trashed after the 2nd session. It was pretty demoralizing and I still don't know why I put myself through it. The only thing I can come up with is that I am incredibly stubborn. And I think when I am tired or stressed, I must be moreso (ask the husband). I think I was out to prove that I could, at long last, finish SOMEthing (the effect of which took me about as far away from creative joy as I care to go.)

So no, I will not be sharing that painting here. It went promptly from the easel  into the trash and I wasn't about to photograph the ghastly thing. But something good has come from it, I think. It taught me more about surrender (a hard lesson I thought I'd "gotten" given the personal challenges of the past couple of years) and it revealed pretty much every one of my artistic weaknesses in a single painting, (now that's an accomplishment! ;) ) so it gave me a very clear picture of what kinds of things I need to seriously work on.

It also made me feel incredibly free, relieved, and happy to be staring at a blank canvas again. And this painting, I will share...as it is it so far after about 2 sessions:

Regarding my new schedule, due to my need for sustained energy to care for a very active toddler at home, I have determined that mornings are by far my best time of day (by nightfall I am pretty much toast). So I have arranged to get up before the rooster crows, and get out in the studio for 2 hours before the husband leaves for work at 8:30 (whereupon I toss off the artist apron, superhero-style, and assume the role of full-on mommy!)

At present, I can only do this 3 days a week due to schedules, etc., but it gives me 6 hours of dedicated painting time, plus maybe a few more (if I play my cards right) on the weekend. Other than the fact that it is very hard  sometimes to be getting up so early, it so far it seems to be working okay. It's nothing like the vast swaths of luxurious time I had before my daughter, but there is a structure in place now, to in the very least, start developing some positive new artistic habits again. Hopefully with regular work habits  it will also mean I can get back to blogging regularly too! But first things first...

Little things

My painting (and posting) has been so sporadic lately that there are times when I am tempted to just announce a summer hiatus once and for all. At least this way, (I say to myself) I can engage myself fully in mothering an already active baby (who is soon to be an even more active toddler) and I won't have this anxious, "torn between two worlds" feeling when I can't make it to the easel (or produce anything noteworthy when I do). But the hubby doesn't think this is a good idea, and doubts I'd be happy with not painting at all, if even for a couple of months. He's probably right, but that still leaves me with trying to figure out how to enjoy the time I have in these two seemingly opposing life roles, without the anxiety I sometimes have that I am not doing well enough at either one. So I was taking my baby out for a stroller ride not long ago, and ran into a neighbor, who is also a mother, and happens to be a very fine artist. We have exchanged pleasantries a few times, but this was our first actual introduction and chat. We spent a good deal of time talking about the ups and downs of being both a working artist and a mother . We talked about finding the time and the peace of mind to be fully engaged in both roles, and perhaps most importantly, to enjoy the process along the way. I asked her if she felt that her work had changed as a result of having had a child.

"Oh yes!" she replied, "For quite a while I had to paint a lot smaller. "

This may sound like a punchline, but in fact, it makes a lot of sense. Before the baby, I had become accustomed to painting small in the field and using my studio work to develop my ideas and studies into larger scale works. As a landscape painter, my feeling was, why paint small landscapes inside if I can paint the same small scale from life?

But at present, plein air opportunities have been few and far between, so often it is studio work or no work at all.  While I never really paint HUGE, I have struggled with my studio sessions, as they are both shorter in length and spread farther apart. Often enough I have found myself spending a good deal of a studio session just trying to get the painting opened up enough to start working on it again...just in time to clean up!

So, it makes sense, for the next little while, to try and work on a few small things. They may not all be landscapes, (and who knows? They may not all be oil paintings) but at least I will still be doing something.

So that is my commitment to you, dear reader. I will do something instead of nothing. And furthermore, I will post it here often enough so that you know I am still alive. How's that for an inspirational statement of purpose? Sorry, but this is the best I can do right now. ;-)

Even if it's just a little thing, it will hopefully keep the creative juices flowing, and perhaps make it easier to develop some skills that need brushing up, or to experiment with various designs, compositional choices and different color palettes. In the very least, I will get the satisfaction of having finished something!

"Evening Light, Tuscany" Oil on linen, 6x12" Click here for more info, or just contact me to purchase.

Top ten reasons to paint your back yard garden

1. You can paint it better than it actually looks (a few more roses here, a few less weeds there...)
2. Unlike a public garden, you likely won't get taken unawares by the sprinkler system.
3. You are intimately familiar with how the light travels through the garden at different times of the day.
4. You are intimately familiar with the location of the latrine (and more than likely it will be free and fairly clean.)
5. You can leave all of your gear set up during breaks (and probably won't need to get someone to watch your stuff as you break for the above mentioned latrine.)
6. You can do your part to reduce the carbon footprint (no need to drive anywhere.)
7. Forgetting to pack an important supply is easily remedied.
8. Plenty of opportunity to take weeding and pruning breaks (okay, this might not be such a good thing for your painting, but your garden will love it.)
9. You won't look like a crazy lady wandering through the park staring at trees, with luggage, a big floppy hat, and a compass. (You'll just look like a crazy neighbor wandering around her yard with luggage, a big floppy hat, and a compass.)
10. The reception to the wireless baby monitor extends just to the edge of your yard!

"Under the Limelight" Oil on board, 8x6" Contact me to purchase.

This little painting is kind of a cross between a still life and a plein air painting. The Japanese lantern sits at the corner of my garden under the limelight hydrangea (hence the title.) Since the hydrangea isn't yet in bloom, I've punched up the corner with some potted geraniums.

Back to Tuscany; Vineyard W.I.P.

I think I will just make a deal with you readers (and, for that matter, with myself) to stop making lofty statements like, "I'm finally getting a regular schedule!" because something (like a 9 month-old cutting new teeth or reaching new milestones, for instance!) always seems to come up right afterwards. Still, I know I am fortunate to be able to do anything art-related at all, and  I have finally worked out my compositional pencil sketch for the next studio painting that  I thought I'd at least share. (Incidentally, I just want to say thank you to those of you who have sent me such nice, encouraging comments lately. I am glad to know that these W.I.P.s offer some interest. It's a format that works well for me in that it keeps me posting regularly here on the blog, so I will try to stick to it at least for a while.) This is again a scene of the visually dramatic area in Tuscany known as La Crete.

These little sketches are definitely not meant to be any kind of finished drawings, but with all the stops and starts in studio time nowadays, I am finding them really helpful. They help me to determine whether the composition will work , what I need to  edit out and include, how I might create interest with line,  light and shadow, etc. Though more detailed, they serve a similar purpose to the thumbnail sketches I have used from time to time while plein air painting.

Watercolorists know this approach well, but until recently it has typically not been my way with my studio oils. It takes a little bit more time when some days all I want to do is just dive right on into painting and get ON with it already! But with little sleep and even less free time, it's helped me to feel less disjointed and to backtrack less when I am standing in front of the easel, bleary-eyed with a cuppa jo, trying to get my brain to start.

In case you can't tell what this is to be, it's a vineyard in the fore with a small outbuilding in the middle ground and a little Tuscan hamlet in the distance. What interested me most about this scene is the movement of line from front to back. There is a lot of information in this scene, (maybe too much? We'll see...) and not much sky at all to speak of, so I feel that in order to make my present plan work I should use a canvas of at least 24x30". Well, that's a whole lot of writing for such a simple little sketch, but what can I say? Baby girl has napped well this morning. :-)

Resurrection of a W.I.P

I've been doing a little Spring cleaning lately and came across a few unfinished canvases tucked away. Why I never finished them, I don't know (I look back at my former self a little jealously now when I think of all of the time I had to paint!) But at least a couple of these lost souls seem worth the attempt. Except for some paint and a little more time, what have I got to lose? I decided to work on this painting of the Tuscan hillside first, since the whole canvas  was pretty far along and just needed to be fleshed out a little more.

 

Looking back through my blog archives, I actually posted this as a W.I.P. back in October of '09 (!) According to this post, I was suffering from shoulder tendonitis at the time. I guess between that and whatever else I had going on at the time, this canvas fell out of sight, and subsequently out of mind...until now.

When I first worked on this painting, I used an alkyd medium to speed the drying. So I've started in again by using some of the medium to "oil out" the areas that I want to work on. I've altered the composition slightly by elongating the shadows (it's a dusk scene) and also by simplifying the road in the foreground. It seemed to be moving too fast around the bend and leading me right out of the canvas, so I altered that area slightly by extending the shrubs to slow this movement down. I'm also toning down the yellow in the hillside because the foreground shrubs are meant to be yellow broom, and I want a different color behind them to contrast. As a result,  I'm laying in a lot more of that terra cotta earth so prevalent in this region. We will see how this goes...  A lot more work needs to be done to the hillside, the olive trees, and their shadows, and I may need to add some of the greens back. But for the moment I'm liking the predominately warm tones. I'm working more on this painting this afternoon, so  if all goes well, I hope to post a conclusion by  Friday.

A Painting Completed (at last)

Happy New Year everyone!  Ok, so I know I am a tad behind, but this is my life right now!

"Wildflowers in the Grove" (Tuscany) Oil on Linen, 20x24"

This is one of a few paintings I had gotten to a point of 80 to 90% complete and then set aside for- like- ever! Even though baby E. is now 6 months old, sleep is still the most precious commodity at our house. Yes, I know--excuses, excuses! But I never knew what a challenge this life-change would be on creative work. So hats off to creative people everywhere who still manage to "do their thing" with a baby at home! (And while I'm at it, any tips?)

I had to finally table the Venice painting I'd been working on in my prior post (before Christmas- ack!) I'll come back to it at some point soon, but progress was really slow and it got to the point where I had looked at it for so long that I couldn't "see" it any more. So for my own mental health, and to feel like I can still complete *something* in my life every now and then, I did the old switcharoo and returned to one of my favorite subjects- Tuscany in springtime. 

Hubby and I discovered this olive grove strewn with wildflowers on a well-remembered drive one day in the beautiful Val d'Orcia. It does my spirit good to meditate on that day of abundant sunshine, especially when we are in the midst of a mostly gray, soggy winter here in Virginia.

October Maples

When I woke up the other morning it was so stunning outside that I decided to leave the studio for a bit and do some plein air painting in my Bellevue neighborhood. Dave and I passed these gorgeous maples on Newport Drive during our walk in the 'hood the previous evening and I made a mental note to check them out again in the morning :

"October Maples" Oil on Linen, 9x12" For more information, contact me!

This is not the greatest of photos, so I will try and re-shoot this tomorrow morning when the lighting is better.  There are some areas where I might've wanted more refinement, but I am going to sit with this a bit and see how I feel about it when I can look at it with fresh eyes.

One thing I realized from the timed exercise I mentioned in my previous post was just how long my plein air paintings look like absolutely nothing. In fact, a common occurrence with me lately is the feeling of a sinking heart as I look at the confusing mess that is my painting and wonder if I might be better off just scrapping the whole thing. Bleh!

But then I'll think something like, "Just work on it a little more and then you can quit if you want to." Only a few strokes later (if they are good strokes) I find myself excited again and some logic begins to emerge.  It's almost as if something switches in my brain (on or off? I don't know.)  Maybe I just let go of the outcome and relax enough that somehow I can see the scene before me not as an overload of "things", but as a rhythmic pattern of lights and darks, colors and shapes.

This is not to say that there aren't areas for inprovement in this painting. But at least I managed to get the impression of place down, which, based on how the painting progressed in the earlier stage, was quite a surpise to me.  I guess the moral of that story is not to give up too soon. Some paintings are indeed "false starts" and probably just doomed to fail. But then there are those that have potential and a solid start and just require more patience and relaxed focus. Bargain with yourself to just stick it out a little longer and see what happens. By doing so, you often have little to lose and much to gain.

Time and process

Well, for the most part, my resolve last week to get "back to painting" crumbled, as I found myself distracted by a number of other issues. I haven't been in the best command of the schedule I'd set up for myself, setting aside my painting time to do a million different errands and tend to personal issues as well. The tendinitis continues to bother me, too, which isn't helping my stick-to-itiveness.  In hindsight, in spite of my injuries, I  probably should have made myself stick as much as possible to the same schedule regardless of whether I'm actually "painting"-- filling the gaps with new art-related activities (like reading one of my gazillion art books!) In any event, I am starting again--finally-- with a color block-in which I'm including below:

Because of the shoulder/arm thing, I've had to make a few changes to the way I work so that I'm not in a huge amount of pain by the end of the day.  I've lowered my entire painting setup, paint for shorter intervals, and also set a timer when I am painting to go off every 30 minutes. It reminds me to stop and stretch and give my muscles a chance to release the locked position I tend to take when I'm hyper-focusing during painting.

Coincidentally, artist Robert Genn wrote an interesting little article last week in his twice-weekly newsltetter about the timed exercises he uses for  attention and focus, (which naturally caught my attention!)  In the article, Genn suggests that by imposing shorter time limits on a work session (in his example 37 minutes), one is required to come into sharp focus, thereby energizing mind and spirit (and often one's painting as well.) I don't think Genn is suggesting that one should always commit only 37 minutes to complete a painting! Rather, these are exercises to 'shake things up' and breathe new life and energy into old, comfy work habits.

It's a good idea. And it's one I've implemented myself (though  I used a kitchen timer rather than an elusive 37-minute hourglass.) While Genn required his students to complete small paintings in his timed exercises, I've also found that the practice works great for plein air and larger studio paintings when you want to track how long you spend working on each stage of the process.

For instance, in plein air painting, where the shifting light already imposes a certain time limitation, the amount of time you spend establishing your composition is important not only to the painting as a whole, but also because it will dictate how much time you have left for the block-in and finishing. So for a smallish painting, I might wish to limit myself to 15-20 minutes to lay in my composition- DING! And 40 minutes for a block-in-DING! That leaves another 30 minutes to (possibly) an hour to make changes, refine shapes and edges and finish before the light changes too drastically (DING! Brushes down.)

You can play around with division of time if you wish, but the result, as Genn suggests, is often that you learn to hone your focus and think better on your feet, without giving yourself the chance to "noodle around" endlessly or jump into detail  too early in the game. It helps in more ways too, than just keeping you on track. For some reason, the timer helps to address all of the canvas during each of the timed stages, thereby avoiding the tendency to  get lost in only working (or overworking) one section of the painting to the sacrifice of the others. I'm not sure why this is. Maybe it's just that using the timer stage-by-stage causes you to take a more deliberate, conscious approach at each stage, making the approach more methodical by breaking things down into digestible chunks.

While the timed-stages works particularly well for plein air painting (when time is truly of the essence,) I've found the same principal can also be worthwhile when applied in the studio, either by similarly timing myself at different stages in larger pieces, or, as Genn suggests, by (attempting to) finish an entire smaller piece in a short interval, as an exercise drill or a warm-up. So I thought I'd try it for the painting above, timing the initial compositional sketch and the color block-in at 15 and 40 minutes, respectively. I don't intend to finish this piece in just an additional hour. It's a 24x30" canvas and I certainly don't want it to look completely slapdash. On the other hand, I do hope to keep it as fresh as possible to re-energize myself now that I'm getting back to work.

Of course, anything can be annoying if taken to the extreme, but I can see how using the timer periodically can serve a useful purpose. It also provides good insight for me about my process, and just how much time I am spending therein.

Post- Paint Annapolis

Sorry to say, my blog has suffered a bit from benign neglect since I left for my travels a few weeks ago. Rain and 30 mile/hr wind consumed most of our beach vacation, so while it was still beautiful, there was no chance of painting boats or coastal motifs before the Paint Annapolis competition that followed just a week later. Paint Annapolis itself was fun and enlightening, but since I am still dealing with shoulder tendinitis and pain, it was physically stressful and pretty exhausting. For the first two days, it seemed that I had brought the crappy weather I'd had at the beach right along with me up to the Annapolis event. The weather did turn beautiful during the last portion, but I think I kind of "blew myself out" trying to get something interesting down early on while the weather was gray and the light exceedingly flat.

The previous paragraph makes it sound like I didn't enjoy myself at all, but that was not the case! In fact, while I didn't come home with any prizes, I still received a lot of reward. My early struggles notwithstanding, the city of Annapolis is charming. I had a lovely host for the event, and everyone I encountered in the event organization, and even in the town at large, was warm and friendly. AND I'm delighted to say that I sold a study right from the easel!  :-)  I also found myself among some incredibly talented painters and it was truly inspiring to see so much fine work being produced by my contemporaries. Almost all of the artists were friendly, uplifting, and inclusive, making the atmosphere feel more like a (highly motivated) community than a competition.  So much so, in fact, that by the time it was all over with, in spite of my exhaustion, I was actually sad to see it end.

"A Banner Day", Oil on linen, 12x12"

As a painter, I also I learned a lot. I learned that if it isn't happening, don't force it. I learned that if the light is truly uninteresting, you're better off sleeping in a day or two and staying up at night to paint nocturnes!  I learned that in the overwhelm of an unfamiliar environment, I'd be much better off painting simple studies successfully than failing at capturing a very complicated scene. I learned that even in the anxiety of knowing you only have 3 days to paint,  you really do have to pace yourself, take care of yourself, be kind to yourself, and give your mind and body enough time to rest and relax. And I learned that all of the things I thought I knew can so easily fall by the wayside in this thing called "competition".

As is usually the case with me, I learned much of this more through error than through trial. In a way, the lessons I learned at the competition are only larger-than-life versions of the lessons I learn all the time through the act of plein air painting. These paintings can be like mini thrills-of-victory or agonies-of-defeat, though often they fall somewhere in between. Much is made of the victories (and with good reason) but for the painter who is fortunate enough to recognize it, they all hold value. The value lies in what you take away from it.

p.s. The painting posted was painted during the sunny portion of the event. It's from the quick draw called "Dueling Brushes". Please contact me for purchase inquiries. I posted about this event also last year and you can read my account here.

The Cook's Garden

Lately I'm wanting to try my hand at a bit more architecture, so I figured there'd be no simpler place to start than in my own back yard. I painted this piece en plein air right in front of my studio:

"The Cook's Garden" Oil on Linen, 16x12" Click here for purchasing information!

The view is of our back door that leads into the kitchen. I love to cook, so I am a bit of an herb nut and have a small potted garden filled with herbs and flowers along our back steps leading up to the kitchen. In summer it is so nice (and convenient) to step outside and grab some handfuls for a salad, marinade or other dish. I started most of the potted herbs from seeds and have many different kinds of basil (I kind of went a little overboard with that one!) plus thyme, lemon balm, and parsley all within reach. Climbing up a small mounted trellis are super sweet "Sun Gold" cherry tomatoes given to me by our friend Al--a favorite snack at our house (the tomatoes, not Al!) The little pot sitting at the very top of the trellis is catnip, which had to be mounted up high to be "rationed out" to the kitties in order to keep it from being annihilated in one sitting.

The light only stays put in this spot for a short time, so I started this painting one morning and put the finishing touches to it on the next. It's something I rarely do, but since I have the convenience of living at the site, it worked out okay. This one took me a bit longer to resolve than many of my other outdoor paintings. Mostly I prefer to try to finish everything en plein air alla prima. Not only is it a hassle (and not always possible) to have to return to the same spot with the exact timing and weather conditions, but it is often hard to recapture the same mood and feelings and thought processes about a place if I spread the work out over consecutive days. But this is the view I see from my desk as I work on my computer (in fact, I'm looking at it right now!) and it has become so imprinted in my mind that I don't think the painting has suffered from the interruption.

Ahh, oops, ah-ha, and ouch!

I have one more work to share today from the group I'll be taking to North Carolina for the "All Things French" show next week. This was done alla prima. More fun with light and shadow, and lots of paint! Ah, it's been such fun revisiting these lovely places through the act of painting them.

"Coleurs dus Sud" Oil on linen, 20x24"

For this painting and the last one I posted, I experimented with an interesting double primary palette- Titanium white, Cad Yellow Pale, Golden Ochre (Rembrandt) , Organic Vermillion (Daniel Smith), Quinacridone Rose, Ultramarine Blue, and Manganese Blue (Old Holland).  I must say it was a lot of fun playing with these different colors. The gold ochre is dangerously lovely, and the organic vermillion was nice change up from cad. red light. In fact, it's similar, but the tinting strength isn't quite as strong so in some ways it was easier to use.

I went with this palette for a couple of reasons, but the key word is "economy". First it's an economy of time. The increasing pain in my arms was making it difficult to spend an inordinate amount of time mixing certain colors, even though I've learned enough about color mixing to know how to acheive most of what I need. I almost never use any color directly from the tube any way, but it helped to have a premixed earth, for the buildings for instance, and when such warmth in the scene predominates.

Second, it's an economy of money. I mentioned before that I have a lot of art supplies that kind of fell by the wayside once I discovered some preferred methods and materials, but now I'm starting to revisit those supplies to try and economize where I can. All of the paints and substrates are archival, quality materials, but I do have some far-out tubes of colors--some dating back to before I started painting landscapes!

The paint department at the Lowe's hardware store near our house has something they call the "oops bin". These are mixed paints of specialty colors that presumably didn't come out as expected. I guess you could say that I have my own "oops bins".  After limiting myself to nothing much larger than a double primary palette for years (without much variation), I think it's time to mine some of these strange old friends. Maybe the "oops" will even lead to some ah-ha's along the way!

p.s. I think I'm narrowing down what the problem in my arms might be. Unfortunately it's not limited to just my arms and hands, but radiates from my neck and shoulders all the way down both sides. It's taken a couple of days to write this post, so suffice it to say that my blogging will slow down a bit for a while. (I know I said that before but I really mean it this time!)  Sadly, I will probably have to take a brief rest from painting too. And gardening. I'm typically not too good at "resting" so let's hope I don't go nuts in the interim!

"The Brook"- A plein air adventure in Bryan Park

Last week I took another early morning stab at painting in Bryan Park. Since I had already done a couple of plein air paintings at the park of Young's Pond, (which you can see here and here) I decided this time to tackle the shady brook that feeds it:

"The Brook" Oil on birch panel, 12x9" Contact me for purchasing info!

Even though everything seemed to be lining up for me when I launched into this painting, I did have a couple of unanticipated challenges. At the time I was dealing with "umbrella issues", so after hassling with it for about 10 minutes to no avail, I gave up and just tried to position myself so that my painting and palette would be shaded from the sun. Sometimes it's hard to anticipate this, but I keep a compass handy for that reason, and I figured I would have at least an hour before the sun would overtake me.

But then there was "Billy" (not his real name.) Let me preface by saying that Billy was an incredibly kind and gentle soul, and exceedingly complimentary. But Billy liked to chat. A lot. And ask lots of questions. I love meeting people, and I am always blown away by how lovely people are when I'm out painting, complimenting my work as they stop briefly to take a look. But I find it pretty much impossible to chat for extended periods and stay "in the zone" when I am painting.

At the same time,  I have yet to figure out how to express this to someone without feeling like I am being a big jerk. My husband's advice is matter-of-fact- "Tell them you are W-O-R-K-I-N-G." This seems so simple and rational until I am in a real life situation. I guess I just hate to be rude, and it feels so ungracious when someone is being so genuinely enthusiastic. But really, Dave's right. This is my work, and it's up to me to respect it and value my time, regardless of whether any one else thinks to do so.

As it was, I was a total wimp and did not tell him anything close to that--at most, merely *hinting* that, "Well, ahem! I'd better get to this thing and focus, ha-ha!" (which apparently was a bit too subtle for dear Bill). The end result was that it took me far longer than I wanted to take, and all too quickly I lost my beautiful shade.

When I got back to the studio, I had the inevitible but still unpleasant surprise of seeing a resulting painting far darker than I thought it was when I was on site, due to the sun's glare (what I call "retina burn"). I did about 20 minutes of rework from memory to lighten it up in places, and I think I've still managed to maintain the feeling of the light and the place.

The odd thing is that even though I seem more often than not to have to deal with the pitfalls (and pratfalls) of painting on location, there is still something about it that leaves some part of me feeling exhilarated. There's a clarity to it; a feeling of losing myself and being in fully the moment, even alongside the sunburn and bugs and chatterboxes. So I'll return. And hopefully next time I do so it will be with a working umbrella AND a backbone!  ;-)

Important/ Not Urgent (a long post on the long view)

"Tuscan Patchwork", Oil, 6x8"

Not much painting this week. After briefly traveling to Texas for a long weekend celebrating my mom's birthday (happy 80th Mom!) I returned to spend the week FINALLY tackling the mountain of paperwork I've had on my "to-do" list for some time.

I used to think I was pretty organized in my art business, but lately I feel like I am forever playing "catch up". There was a time during my studio move when I was literally operating out of boxes. But I'm all set up now and I really can't blame my floundering on the move any more. The only explanation I really have to offer is that during my little break from the routine I'd set up for myself, I developed the bad habit of....well....not having a routine!

"White Road in Val d'Orcia", Oil, 6x8"

I recall a conversation I had some time ago with a gallery owner. I was admiring the work of a fellow artist in the gallery and commenting on how much this artist's work had grown and matured. The gallery owner agreed. They were good paintings, and popular with collectors too. If only they could get the artist to give them more work!

As it turned out, the artist had just recently changed from being a part-time painter with a day job to being an artist full-time. Only, this person was anything but, watching movies, surfing the net--doing most anything rather than painting. According to the gallery owner, ironically, once given the luxury of unlimited time, the artist's productivity plummeted. I could understand this.

So many artists I know can so easily get into the habit of working toward deadlines. But when no deadline looms, (no shows, openings, classes or other projects on the horizon) their commitment (and often their work) can languish. I'm sure all working artists with kids and/or day-jobs everywhere are playing the world's tiniest violin in sympathy! But there is something to be said for having externally imposed time limits.

Of course there are many possible reasons why artists don't create (such as emotional constraints brought on by fear, insecurity, depression, etc.) But when I had a day job, I was forced to carve out a finite amount of time in which to do my creative work, and looking back I am amazed at how productive I was. I remember being up until 2 a.m. painting, even after a full day of work at the bank, going to the gym, showering, and scraping together some dinner (I also remember being single then, and younger too!) Of course, I lamented not having more time to paint, but at the same time, my time limitations lit a fire under me to make the most of each window of opportunity.

But once I started working full time at my painting, I, too, languished for a time due to complete lack of structure and many, many distractions around the home studio. Being the ADD sort that has many other interests doesn't help!  What did finally help me was that I began to structure my business in such a way that it set exteral limitations and schedule requirements. But I may have overdone it a bit. I traveled a lot, I maintained a rigorous work schedule to supply work to the 8 galleries I was working with at the time. And when that wasn't enough busy-ness for me, I taught classes, maintained my website and blog, and eventually opened a studio-gallery with montly shows.

But here's the thing. Even though for a while, the money was good and the trips were fun, ultimately this "system" didn't work for me either. Everything was urgent and important, and constantly being in emergency mode was like going from zero to 100 with no brake in between. And you know what can happen when you speed along at 100 miles/hour? Crash. (Of course you can also crash going 20 miles/hour, but it doesn't hurt nearly as much.)

A part of me began to realize what I was doing, so I began eliminating again. Fewer galleries, fewer trips, and eventually letting go of the downtown space and again setting up a home studio. But what I hadn't realized (or had forgotten) was that eliminating  much of the externally imposed deadlines and obligations without creating an internal structure to replace it would leave me feeling more lost and disorganized than "free."

Many of you readers out there are probably familiar with Stephen Covey's book The 7 Habits of Highly Effective People. It's become a real classic in the business/success genre, and I'd heard his audio version many years ago but had rather forgotten about it until recently. My favorite part of the book is "Habit 3: Putting First Things First," which includes his famous "Time Management Matrix":

	Urgent	Not Urgent
Important	Quadrant I (crises, deadlines)	Quadrant II (planning, relationships, R&R)
Not Important	Quadrant III(interruptions, some calls, etc.)	Quadrant IV(trivia, busy work, time wasters)

According to Covey, Quadrant II is the place where "successful people" spend the bulk of their time. This Quadrant is filled with proactive things like planning and prevention, as well as growth activities like relationships and recreation (and many creative pursuits!) Instead, Quadrant I tends to be where most people spend their time (crises, deadlines, etc. --AKA emergency mode.) I don't think I'd be too far afield if I said that there are many artists who hang out in this quadrant. I've seen it in myself, and I have known many artists, both professionals and beginners who do not even work at all unless they have an external deadline to work toward (art exhibit, workshop, etc.)

Having externally motivated goals isn't always a bad thing. But, at least for me, it's dangerous if it becomes too much of a habit. In fact, some of us can get so addicted to emergencies (ahem!) that we tend to put off Quadrant II activities until they become Quadrant I activities. And then we get so freaked out and exhausted that we escape to Quadrant IV!

If you're still with me, I'll tell you what all of this Quadrant stuff has to do with art (or at least my art.) Pretty much every goal I have as an artist and as an individual has associated tasks that can ideally be categorized as a Quadrant II activities-- from health goals like proper diet, exercise and adequate sleep, to artistic goals like x number of plein air paintings/ week, and things like experimenting with different mediums, subject matter, or techniques. And if the tasks are managed properly from the get-go, they need never become "urgent" Quadrant I's.

Quadrant I stuff happens. Sometimes even in spite of their best efforts, people lose their jobs, get sick, or just plain forget to deal with things. But while not every emergency is predictable or preventable, I am fortunate to be able to say that, at least at this time, many of them are.  I can prevent stress by getting adequate sleep and exercise. I can prevent freaking out before a show or a workshop by planning and/or preparing for it with a calm and steady production flow in advance. I can position myself for success and future opportunities, even if right now business has slowed. For me, the most obvious path to keeping myself focused on important things before they become urgent, is to create a daily schedule that whittles away Quadrant I and includes as many Quadrant II actvities as possible. I've mentioned this before, but here's the key; you gotta stick to it! In short, it's called discipline. And the last time I checked, discipline requires commitment, not just saying "I'll try."

Ultimately the whole art/artist thing wreaks to high heaven of Quadrant II. I'd venture to say that even for those of us who depend on their art sales as their sole source of income, the vast majority of artists are doing their work first and foremost out of love for it. After all, if it were just about the cash, there are many more efficient ways of making more money in less time.

Will we die without being able to create our art? Will others die without being able to experience it? Well, in reality art doesn't have that kind of urgency. But if life is to be truly enjoyed, we have to move beyond merely surviving to thriving, which for me includes being uplifted, challenged, or inspired. That's the benefit of art, and in that way, it is so very important.

p.s. By the way...I did manage to eek out a couple of small Tuscany studies, playing with the idea of pattern. You can now see purchasing details for these and the other two small paintings mentioned in my previous post by clicking here.