Look Away

"Look Away" another piece from my "headgear" series. when I finish twenty or more of these I plan to make a small limited edition book.

Mam'selle

Once again it has been a while but here is a painting from my Headgear series, a small group of paintings of people in hats. I have always loved the Napoleonic period of "headgear" so I have a few portraits of people in bicorn hats.

Woodworking Video

Here is a video of a pretty cool project my husband is working on for our  dear friend and a true lover of the arts Liz Gilbert. That's little red Zipper getting into the act! Enjoy!

Bringing Them Home

Bringing Them Home  oil on linen 24x36

One looking back to what was and one looking forward to what will hopefully be a much better life. A painting dedicated to those wonderful creatures, the rescued greyhound

Win This Painting

                            

Win this painting and help rescue a greyhound! I have donated this painting for a raffle to the Greyhound Friends of New Jersey to help raise funds for their Prison Foster Program.

If you have any interest in the raffle you can go to the GFNJ website here.If you scroll down you will see the piece and you can download the raffle forms and mail it in with a check to:

GFNJ

PO Box 4416

Cherry Hill, NJ

08034

                                                

Women Painting Women

The show, Women Painting Women at Robert Lange Studios/Gallery was a success. I am so sorry I could not make it but there is a video walk through of the show for all to watch here.

My two little pieces are at the very beginning. There was a tremendous amount of fabulous work by fifty women artists from around the country.Enjoy!

Wow! Has it been that long????

I guess it has! I have been busy, busy, busy. I don't know how people are able to blog as often as they do because I just don't seem to have the time!

Well, I have a few new paintings and two of the pieces will be featured in a group show "Women Painting Women" at the Robert Lange Studios/Gallery in Charleston, South Carolina. The two pieces are:

Ali's Back

12x12 o/l

Just Another Day

12x12 o/l w/ white gold leaf

This next painting is also of my wonderful model Alison.

I have used her over the years and she is just the best. Ali is a dancer, and a young actress in the theater. She knows how to give the attitude you are looking for!

Ali's Home Again

20x20 o/l

Hope this post turned out alright. I am a bit rusty!

The Head of Bob aka Dutchboy

A very good friend of my husband and I who lives in New Mexico. He has one of the greatest faces to paint and I finally got around to painting it. Not only a great face but one of the greatest people we know! So sorry we are so far away!

This is an oil on linen, 12x12.

A Sister's Path

A Sister's Path   

20x20 oil on linen   

I always start a figure piece by making sure the face is going to work. That is always the hardest part and since my work has very little else then the figure, it has to be a face that is going to grab you, keep you interested and wondering just what is going on.

I can't say how one paints emotion in a face.I think that it is just something that happens through the artists own unconscious ability.

I used in this painting burnt sienna, yellow ochre, cobalt blue, some cadmium red, a blue/grey and cremintz white for the face and hair. Actually I used all those colors plus raw umber for the rest of the piece too.

A painting for all of you with sisters! I am a sister to three brothers but I have none myself and always wondered what it would be like.

Little Davy

                                        

This is one of my mother's little brothers back in what was probably 1955. It is 9x9 and an oil on linen mounted on board.

I plan on doing more of Davy, who is now David, because he was such a strange looking little boy that I just have to paint him for my series of old family movies.

I think it was the glasses that made him look so strange when he was young. He was probably about four here and had these coke bottle glasses that were always crooked or taped up where they had broken. Anyway, he is a treasure trove of work waiting to happen! By the way he did grow up to be a good looking man!

As with most of my other paintings my palette was limited. This time I used yellow ochre, burnt umber, burnt sienna cobalt blue and a touch of cad red medium plus black and white.

The painting always seems to go much faster when you are working on a hard surface even though you are still painting on linen. I also tend to get a little more detail oriented when working on the board.

This series is a bit of a change for me. It is forcing me to put other things in my paintings beside the figure or an animal which I really don't like to do. I love other artist's work that can incorporate all kinds of things in a painting but it always feels unnatural for me to do it. My eye is always seeing less is more in my paintings or maybe I could be just plain lazy!

Now for something completely different....

The Goddess in Green

Sold

This painting is  12x16, oil on linen and  mounted on a board. This is my "breather" painting from the series I am working on. I really need to do a piece or two in between three or four paintings from a series. One, I would get very bored if I did not break it up that way and two, it is great to come back to the series with fresh eyes.

I have entered a prussian blue mode. As with the last few paintings from my series, this piece was painted with mostly prussian blue, yellow ochre, raw umber, burnt sienna and yellow ochre with a little bit of titanium white.

I used bits of stenciling and scumbling for the background and let some of the stencil carry onto the dress. I also intentionally left her dress and arms flat so that it contrasts nicely with the scumbled background  

The World in Black and White.......

SOLD

And with only about five stations plus a sign off with the national anthem at about 12AM. Oh, how things have changed!
I do have to say, that it was kind of nice having the broadcasting day end at a certain time. The world was quiet just for a few hours.

This piece is 10x10 oil on linen. I used Prussian blue, raw umber, yellow ochre and a little bit of cadmium red. My black was Mars Black and the white was Titanium.

I also used a very light yellow from Vasari Paints for the highlights. I love their paints it is just so loaded with pigment !

The ground was an oil primer and I put a transparent wash of ochre and black over that. I roughed in the composition with raw umber and started painting when that dried.

Waiting for Miss Nancy

SOLD

When I was  very little girl I use to love to watch Romper Room which was hosted by "Miss Nancy".

One of the things I always insisted on was that I had to get all dressed up like the other little girls on the show.

Of Course this was very annoying to my mother.  Changing my clothes a couple of times a day was a chore but I had to have everything just so.

Oh..... how she longed for those days when I turned thirteen and only wanted to wear jeans loaded with patches and run around barefoot.

(How 'bout that TV!)

Waiting for Miss Nancy 10x10  oil on linen

SOLD

Not to happy about holding those flowers! It was one picture after another that day and I just about had it.

One More Time 10x10 oil on linen

It's about Time

It's about time I post something! The past six months have been difficult to get any painting done. We had lost our beloved dog, Degas, who I still mourn, and I lost my studio space.

I had to work at home which is not a great thing for me to do. There are always too many distractions. My husband works out of the home, there is laundry piling up, dishes in the sink, people stopping by, dinner to make, etc. I try to imagine Picasso leaving the easel, going past the bathroom and seeing the laundry flowing out of the basket and thinking "I better go wash those". You know that didn't happen. There was always a Mrs. Picasso or mistress around somewhere.

So a dear friend of mine ( I am making a plug for her book on marriage here ) offered me a space in a warehouse that she was renovating for her husband's East Asian importing business, Two Buttons and the Lovin' Oven, a very fabulous and funky restaurant(there are some photos of their new and old locations).

Well, as with most construction it took about six months longer then it was suppose to.  But....it is finally finished and  I moved in here a couple of weeks ago .It is just lovely and I am getting down to business! I will be posting pieces frequently.

I have started a series of pieces based on my early life. My mother had sent me DVD's of our old home movies spanning three decades and there is just so much great material in them that it will keep me busy for a while.

One of the hardest things about these DVD's, is to look at family members( parents, brothers, cousins, aunts, etc.) as  babies, children and young adults, all these happy bubbly beings, not knowing what life had in store for them and for quite a number of them, life has not been so wonderful.

So I will post works from this series as well as "breather" paintings over the next few months and hope you will enjoy them!

The first two are:

Little Red 1 and Little Red 2
9x12 oil on linen

The New Brood

My husband and I really did it this time. We so missed not having that extra heartbeat in a room. That little creature that loved you unconditionally. That constant shadow who followed you from room to room, well.....if you love dogs you know what I mean.

So we decided to do something we wanted to do for a long time, rescue a greyhound.

Enter "Kiowa Sunbeam", who is now our wonderful girl Kai!

We wanted Kai to have a companion(we always had a few dogs at a time) and we wanted to find a male terrier mix so I hit Petfinder. com for weeks until I found this little guy, Dutch. There was only one problem. Dutch was in Arkansas and we were in New Jersey.

So I have a friend who was born and raised in Arkansas and with the help of another friend's great on gas Toyota , we decided to make a mad dash halfway across the country to his parents home in the northern part of Arkansas.

As we drove out to Arkansas we stopped at just about every TJ Maxx we could find. My friend Shea has a justifiable addiction to these Belgium chocolates that are only available at TJ Maxx during the Christmas season. If you loooove chocolate you know it had to be done!

Now, little Dutch (he was actually called Hutch at this point) was in the south western part of the state. My friend Shea, has a friend Martha, who was not that far from Dutch's location. Martha was going to be heading up to the Ozarks (nearer to where Shea's parents live) and offered to pick up Dutch and drop him off to us. It saved us about another 6 hours of driving, so we thrilled. In hindsight though, we could of found a few more TJ Maxx's but the car was already so loaded down with the stuff I don't think we would have had room for the dog and one more piece.

On the day we were to meet Martha, we had quite a few hours to kill before our rendezvous so my friend Shea takes me to the most incredible natural wonder in the world, the Blanchard Springs Caverns. I highly recommend seeing these caverns if you ever get to the Ozarks. I can not even describe this other worldly experience. Amazing!

Being the artists that we are we had to stop in this art center in the Ozarks and take a look at some of the wonderful handcrafted items from the local artists. Well while we were there Martha calls to let us know she had Dutch and would see us in a few hours but that there was a problem.

About 20 minutes before Martha arrived at the Bailey Family Special Needs Animal Rescue Dutch's brother Starski was returned to the rescue center. He had been adopted a week earlier and the family decided they did not want him. My husband had really liked Starski and we had inquired about him before Dutch, well you know where this is going by now.

I could not say yes, "bring him too", without talking to my husband first. I called him over and over on his cell phone and could not reach him. I called people that might know where he was (most likely on his job site) and left messages to please have him call me. Martha had to leave in a very short time so she would not have to be driving through the night. I needed to make a decision and I was also thinking "two puppies, we would have to be out of our minds". We are!

My husband got back to me in the nick of time. Here is Milo formerly known as Starski. We just had to have the little guy!

This was quite a trip. The first thing we had to do when we got into Arkansas, at about 7 pm, was to pull into a dark bank parking lot and change into black clothes to go to a viewing of Shea's sister's father-in-law, at the local funeral parlor. Shea never met the man and I certainly did not know him or anyone else. We were also the only two people dressed in black looking like we were going to a NY art opening compared to all the jeans and cowboy type shirts. Was kind of surreal. The mourners were the happiest nicest bunch of people you ever wanted to meet. Did not feel like any family viewing I've been to back east.

There were so many little quirky episodes on this trip that we should have been filming it all. Since I am not the best writer I will spare you all from any further details.

Just enjoy these photos of our new family because we are enjoying them immensely!

Happy Holidays from "The Wild Thing"

"The Wild Thing " 5x7 pencil on gessoed linen mounted on board

I am back and I want to wish everyone a wonderful Holiday Season and a better New Year for all!

Happy Halloween

 Is all that we see or seem but a dream within a dream

                                      Edgar Allen Poe

Degas 1997-2009

"When the Man woke up he said,
'What is Wild Dog doing here?'
And the Woman said,
'His name is not Wild Dog any more,
but the First Friend,
because he will be our friend
for always and always and always.'"
- Rudyard Kipling

Their is so much to say when you lose your very best friend and not enough words to say it. I think Rudyard Kipling said it well for my husband and I.

Big Blue

Big Blue   oil on linen   20x30

I always wanted to do a horse painting and here is the first one!

Mother and Son

Mother  oil on linen   8x8
Son  oil on linen 8x8

This  mother and son  were out on a cold  NYC day. Of course you wouldn't know they were in NY because I decided to not place them in Manhattan. I was more interested in them, as oppose to the city. There was something isolated about the two even though they were together. I thought they would work well out on what looks like an icy lake in Minnesota.

Top Hat , a Dreamer and time to Surrender

This piece is "Surrender ",  20"x 20" oil on linen. It is based on a musician I knew at what seems like a  lifetime ago. It was at the point when he finally decided to let the dream go. He never did become that "star" but I hear through the grapevine that he invented some board game and made a ton of money. Go figure!

This piece "Dreamer" is pencil on mylar mounted on a board with an oil color wash. Well the title says it all.

Here is a small painting from a series of pieces I am working on involving a top hat. This piece is 8"x8"  oil on linen and is titled of course,  Top Hat. 

A Loooooong Time

Lilly of the Fields

I have been busy, busy, busy but I feel like I am not getting enough done. Painting has been going slowly. I have always been able to "whip 'em out" but for some reason it is not moving along as quickly as I would like it to but I am determined and will get through this.

Anyway... here is a piece I did about a month ago to loosen up and have some fun,

"Lilly of the Fields." I love goats! Never owned one but I love them just the same.

A dear friend of mine, (who is a best selling and inspirational author, that you must go here to listen to her talk about nurturing creativity on TED.com) stopped by and when she saw this goat painting , I thought she was going to cry .

"Lilly" she shrieked "it's my goat Lilly!"

Liz, grew up on a Christmas tree farm and had a number of goats and apparently this goat looked just like her all time favorite love, Lilly. Needless to say , I titled this goat painting Lilly of the Fields and it is now on her wall and not mine!

Enjoy it and I will be posting more soon and don't forget to go to TED (which is a fabulous site) and listen to Liz's talk!

Something Different

Tara
Leah

While I am busy painting and finishing up my garden I thought I would post a couple of my photographs. These are photos which I  take of my models and use as compositional references for my paintings. These  lovely ladies will be in some of my new paintings soon. I will post more later! 

Na-a-ay-Sayers

 naysayer:  one who denies, refuses, opposes, or is skeptical or cynical about something..... and in my point of view, when a naysayer screws up, instead of taking responsibility for their actions they would rather find a scapegoat!

Been a While

This is a much better and accurate image of  "Madame". It was tough photographing it because of the high contrasts in the piece. Looks much better for sure!

 " Madame" oil on linen 6x6

" Lila" oil on linen 6x6

                      "Envy" oil on linen -SOLD

Well it has been a while and I finally have been able to get back to work! I am a little rusty but hopefully I will get back up to speed!

Neoteric Art Interview

I was interviewed by Norbert  Marszalek  for his really cool art site,  Neoteric Art.

There are a number of  great interviews and articles that are worth  checking out!

 

I have been doing a whole lot of painting lately but unfortunately, it has been walls and a very unusual library. My husband Michael, is a woodworker and he is making  a large "Dr. Suess" type library for a client. Very different indeed. Whimsical. He needed a  meticulous painter so I told him I would help.

I should be finished this week. Hurray!! Then back to the studio.

A Wondrous Life

Andrew Wyeth had been an artist that the public loved and the critics loved to hate.

I am on the "loved" side. If it wasn't for Andrew Wyeth I don't know if I would have found art.

When I was about five or six I was looking through a book my mother had about American artists. This was the only art book I can remember my family having at that time. I came upon an austere, somber painting of a cross with old white rags blowing in the wind against a barren landscape. I don't know why this painting moved me the way it did but it did . 

That painting was "The Scarecrow" by Andrew Wyeth and I have kept that book with me for decades.

I have been lucky to be only about an hour from the Brandywine River Museum that houses a wonderful collection of Andrew's, N.C's and Jamie Wyeth's (love their work too) works and I have gone to the museum often.

So today I was feeling melancholy as I drove around the countryside of Bucks county Pa. to pick up my eggs from a local farmer (I live along the Delaware River on the NJ side). The sky was sooooo grey , the forests tall and vacant and there were remnants of snow on the hills,  and I felt I was in a Wyeth painting.

He lived a long and enviable life. A  life consumed with the brush. We are so fortunate that the best part of him will be with us for lifetimes to come!

Happy Holidays!

Happy Holidays to all, no matter what religious celebration one holds dear to their heart! Even if you do not have any religious views, it is a time of year to reflect and have hope for a  better world. A time of year to get out and do something , no matter how small, to help those less fortunate and  to carry that spirit throughout the new year!

I am still in the process of moving into a new studio! I moved out of my old space and decided to work in my home studio for the winter to save a little money. I just got settled in when...... a great studio space in an old ceramic factory down the street became available.

Well it is so inexpensive ,$150- a month, I could not refuse it! That is about ten times less then what I was paying for a loft space in my small town . It is not anywhere near as "swank" as the loft but how could you refuse a decent space for a price like that!  This is New Jersey we are talking about, you couldn't find anything decent for less then $800!

I promised a few "symbolically tagged" artists I think you will enjoy. You may know these folks and if you do take another look!

Katy Schneider 

Stephen C. Layne

Justin Mortimer

Cheryl Taves

Paul Seaton

Benjamin Shamback

Cristina Cordova

Sangram Majumdar

Ray Donley

Philip Harris

Divine-SOLD

 I have been so very busy these past couple of weeks, moving out of my old studio into a new one and I have not been able to post. I see I have been tagged twice ! Thank-you and I am honored. I am having a hard time  finding folks to tag since every one I would tag has already been tagged . So I will "symbolically" tag some artists work which I think should be seen . Most of these artists are not involved  in the "blog" world as we know it.

I will  tag them in the next post as I am just starting my day and I need a little time to find the websites. You won't be disappointed!

Seven things about myself........unusual.

1-I am really bad at this because I am not very  clever, or have a natural ability when it comes to writing. I admire those who have the gift! (I am thinking Silvina)

2-I am a lot older then I think I am.

3-I own seventy different tubes of paint colors and use 3 or 4 at a time  plus black and white.

4-I very rarely if ever, paint on a white ground.  Sometimes a grey, teal , ochre and venetian red ground. Sometimes it is a wash, other times it is opaque.

5-  I do not draw on my canvas with charcoal or pencil when I start a piece. I will very loosely , sketch in with a brush. But I have been known to go into a piece with pencil lines during the process of painting or when a piece is near finished. I like the way that technique looks.

6- I have always loved abstract expressionism and painted abstracts for a number of years.

7-And last but not least I would probably kill for a really good piece of chocolate!

The little study above is -Divine  6x6   oil on linen   mounted on board

 

Well It's Been A While

The election is over and I can "get a life" again! I get myself too wrapped up in politics, especially when it comes to choosing  the president . Here are a few pieces  I've managed to complete. 

They are from top to bottom:

-Tango at Twelve   17x17   o/l -SOLD

This piece will be at Wally Workman Gallery  in Austin Texas, for the December  show "Twelve"

-Two    11x14  o/l-SOLD

A  study from the dancing series I have been sort of working on. I have a hard time with series. I tend to get bored quickly!

-Maggie's Boys- SOLD  24x36  o/l

Another from my red headed Maggie series. She is hanging out with a friend's goat, Whitey and Arthur the Westie.