At work in my studio

 

I responded to a "free" message on Facebook by artist Mark Davis and picked up a second easel. I have not yet painted on it, but I prepared a surface today. This is a 16 X 20" Speedball Art Board (not a canvas). I think I will enjoy experimenting with it. Photo above shows my messy studio. I am not a naturally neat person, but I do have some organization here. The front of this room is my office, the back is my studio.

This is a work in progress, for the theme "gathering" that I saw on Facebook. I remember this photo of the elk in Jasper.  They were all out there breakfasting and ignoring the tourists.  I am going to make this on the larger canvas above. I think I can be more careful with the drawing on a larger surface. I had difficulty with the elks in front of each other and even missed one small one on the right side.  It was good to do the smaller study first.  8 X 10, oil on canvas board.

And just for fun, a Great Tailed Grackle on an umbrella in Costa Rica.  The umbrella was striped, but I didn't like the way it came out in my painting so I just decided that red with go well with black and covered over the stripes (although you can still see them a bit through the paint.  8 X 10, oil on canvas board.

I did miss traveling during the pandemic, but enjoyed browsing through all my photos for inspiration.  I hope to go back to traveling next spring or summer. I'll be getting a booster shot at the end of this month and encourage others to get their shots too.  I would like everyone to be safe.

Birds and Costa Rica

Oil painting, 11" X 14". This is an anhinga bird drying its wings. I enjoyed my trip to Costa Rica several years ago and took lots of photos of birds and other animals.  The jungle is very colorful.
I spent most of this month on this painting and I'm calling it done now. It's time to move on to something else.

Despite being retired, I don't always find enough time for painting. I'm trying to do at least one painting each month this year.  I also accepted the position of treasurer of the local art association, Treasure Valley Artists Alliance.  I hope the other artists will keep me motivated to learn more about art. They are all doing interesting work.

Costa Rica

Lenticular cloud on Arenal

 

I decided to play with some of my photos from my Costa Rica trip a few years ago. This was an experiment with triadic colors, water mixable paints, 8" X 10". It is a view of a lenticular cloud on the Arenal Volcano. I did it more impressionistically.  If I decide to paint it more realistically, I will need to do a better job with my drawing and will probably use regular colors.

Boat Billed Heron

 

This one is a boat billed heron, also 8" X 10", but done in acrylic paint. I'm not putting these up on my website, just practicing.  I have several other old paintings I am going to try to improve. I'm still taking online classes and trying to learn more about composition. I'm thinking about signing up for an urban landscape painting in the fall. I'll see how well I feel by then. I am walking a little better now that I have had a series of injections in my knee, but still have pain (much less though). The fall painting class will involve walking to sites downtown to paint so I have to think about that.

 

I spent last week on retreat with the National Havurah group in Rindge, NH. I studied psalms in the morning and some art in the afternoon, also lots of singing. Seeing how other people are dealing with their disabilities and being in a beautiful environment has also improved my attitude.  It helps to be in a beautiful environment too even though I couldn't do the walking in the woods that I usually enjoy.  One of the things I miss here and look forward to on these retreats (the next one is a weekend in December) is the hevruta study. That is pairing students in groups of 2 or 3 to study a passage, then we come back to the group and discuss more. It is great bouncing ideas off other people. The Havurah group is very inclusive and everyone was welcome, there were lots of babies and children there too. 

 

My last post was on Rosh Hashanah cards and I brought some with me to the retreat and sold many of them. There are more Rosh Hashanah designs on my website, not just the ones I posted last time, in the Jewish Holidays gallery.

 

 

 

 

Cottonwoods at Arches

Finally finished this painting. It is acrylic on stretched canvas, 16" X 20".  I loved hiking at Arches National Park, seeing the massive rock formations and spending time with my daughter in Utah. This was really the first time I paid attention to the cottonwood trees and the aspens.  Their fall colors are different from the fall colors I see in New Hampshire. I took lots of photos and had a hard time choosing which ones to paint. I may do some more in the future.  Meanwhile, I have started on a painting of Arethusa Falls in Crawford Notch, New Hampshire.  Maybe I'll have that done to post in a few weeks.

Just for play, I wanted to work with some bright colors.  I remembered how pretty the butterflies were in Costa Rica last year on my trip.  I decided to paint some in a less detailed way.  Usually I paint from my photos, but this one was just from my imagination. This is acrylic on canvas board, 8" X 10".

I am glad that the craft fairs are over for the season.  I sold a couple of originals, several prints and lots of cards.  It is hard work setting up, being there for many hours, then breaking everything down.  I didn't do as many this year as last year.  I do enjoy talking to everybody who stops by my table. There are lots of interesting people in New Hampshire.

We have about 10" or so of snow on the ground now from two storms. The winter sunsets are beautiful and so are the sunrises. I'm not so enthusiastic about the snow shoveling as I get older, but it is good exercise and I'm grateful that I can still do this.

To purchase a card or print of this image: Cottonwoods at Arches National Park

Oil paintings

As I mentioned in an earlier post, I am learning to use water mixable oil paints (Winsor Newton Artisan brand).  I am using small canvases (8" X 10") to practice on.  This painting, of an Israeli goat, was from a photo I took at the Petach Tikvah (Israel) zoo in 2012. I was impressed with his topknot (hair) and loud voice. I thought his horns were interesting too.  I had never noticed that goats have horizontal rectangles for pupils.  Next time I see another goat, I will check if that is true for all goats, or only certain ones.

Anyway, I think the goat is done now and he has to stay dry for about 6-8 months before I can put on a coat of varnish.  That is one of the disadvantages of working with oils.

Las Bailarinas de Costa Rica (the dancers in Costa Rica) is from a photo I took of the folkloric student dancers when I was in C.R. last February. I loved the swirling costumes, but I didn't care for the background of the restaurant we were in, so I just made some pretty colors in the background.  You can click on the paintings to see them larger.

I have a few more weeks of painting classes and I have two more oil paintings in process, but today I'm going to work on an acrylic one I'm doing from photos I took at Arches National Park (Utah).  I am having some difficulty with the color of the cliffs, but I looked in a book that I borrowed from the library ("Painters of Utah Canyons and Deserts" by Donna L. Poulton and Vern G. Swanson) and I guess I can make my art any color I feel like making it.  That is the advantage of being an artist. I will try to make the painting somewhat realistic, but you'll have to wait to see it until I am closer to finished with it.

I posted both of the new paintings on my website in case anyone wants a card. (Goat, Dancers)  I also noticed that I had not put any Chanukah cards on there, so I added a few today.  Chanukah starts at sunset on Wednesday, November 27th.

Sunrise, a new day

I think this painting is done now. I always hesitate to varnish it for a few weeks until I'm sure I won't want to change anything.  I start back in classes in a couple of weeks and will review the painting with my art teacher before I varnish it and declare it "done".  I had a hard time getting a good photo without shadows.  I think my camera lens is not working quite right as I noticed some areas of light where there shouldn't have been light. I moved the canvas to several different areas in my studio and did not use a flash for this photo.

More details on this painting are on last week's blog post. I will probably make some cards from it and post them on my website. This painting was inspired by a beautiful sunrise I saw in Costa Rica last February.

A little marketing note for artists: If you are selling cards, prints or originals, make sure you keep track of your customers and collectors.  The Jewish new year (Rosh Hashanah) is next week. I looked back through my past order of Rosh Hashanah card customers, sent out some e-mails with links to images of my current cards and received several new orders.  In business remember, it’s always easier to sell again to an existing customer, they are already happy with your work.

Experiments

This is my experiment with palette knife painting. You can see the earlier view in the last post.  It was fun to do and I think I'll just leave it as is.  This started out as a photo of lily pads in a pond with trees in the background. Since I usually paint somewhat realistically, this was a nice change for me. Acrylic paint on canvas board, 11" X 14".  Original photo was from Round Pond on one of the trails at Lake Pawtuckaway State Park (NH).

This one is just a quick study for a larger painting. It is acrylic paint on medium texture artist canvas (that comes in a pad, not mounted). I taped it to a board to work on it.  It is 8" X 10" and I will be doing a 16" X 20" canvas later in the summer as a donation to a group home.  I took the photo of the sunrise when I was in Costa Rica last winter.  Sunrises can also be metaphors for a new day, a new start so I thought that was appropriate for the site it will be going on.

I have started to learn how to paint with oil paints now.  I started a painting today of a Bird of Paradise flower done with acrylic paints. When I finish it, I will do a second painting of the same image with the oil paints so that I can compare them.  So far I have only painted a color wheel with the oil paints to see how the paint goes on the canvas.

Time seems to be going very fast this summer.  Meanwhile, I also submitted an entry to the Currier Museum's poster contest -- "live free and ....."  Naturally, my entry was about hiking. I don't expect to win, but you never know unless you try.

Paintings - finished & WIP

I finished the painting of the roseate spoonbills from last week.  I posted it to my website as well and printed out a few cards to test it out.  I'm not sure if I'll paint any more birds for a while. My mind is back on the trail painting idea.

This is a larger canvas, 16" X 20" that I have started of Franconia Falls (Lincoln Woods Trail) in New Hampshire.  It is an easy trail to hike. In the summer, people jump into the little pool made by the falls. The water is icy cold so I prefer to just look at it (even though I like swimming).  When the painting is finished, I will have several figures in it to show scale.  I think this will take me several weeks to finish. Yesterday I worked on the rocks for two hours in class and they still have a long way to go.

The photo below shows my first block in of the shapes.  I used a yellow ochre mix for the underpainting of the rocks and a neutral gray for the underpainting of the trees. I think this will work. I'm enjoying working on the larger canvas for a change.

Roseate Spoonbills WIP

On my easel, work in progress. These were roseate spoonbills that I photographed while I was in Costa Rica.  I hope to finish the painting in next week's class. This is an acrylic painting, 11" X 14" on canvas board. My teacher suggested I leave out the jungle background and just focus in on the birds at the water's edge.

Another 11" X  14" acrylic painting on canvas board.  This was done from a spring photo of magnolias.  I didn't want too spend much time doing detail, so I made them more in an oriental style.  I felt that the verse from Psalms went well (I left that space empty deliberately so I could put a verse there) and made some cards from it.  I will sell these at craft fairs.  The actual painting doesn't have a verse. I take a digital photo and then manipulate it, either with Photoshop, or simply in Microsoft Word.

I am happy to be back home and back in my studio again.  I cleaned it up a bit today. There has been a great deal of pollen (from oak trees) blowing in the windows. I put a fan in the windows for today. Suddenly it is hot in NH. Weather is very variable in New England, so in a few days it will be mild again.

Snowy Egret in Costa Rica

I finished last week's painting in my class and posted it to my website. I also worked on the exercise I was doing from the book (see last week's posting for more information).  I was not happy with the finished painting, but I cropped a part of it and made some cards.  I can sell those at a craft fair.  This technique is probably one I wouldn't use in the future, but the book was worthwhile in other ways.  I liked the way the author showed the painting mixtures and their ratios for each lesson.

This is the cropped version I will use for cards.

A beautiful weekend with art, hiking and more

I'm having fun experimenting with some new work. The snowy egret (on right) is on "Ampersand Hardbord". I gessoed it and sanded it first.  I am working on this one in my class. I enjoy getting the shapes of the branches and leaves in so that there is some dimensionality to it. I still need to work on the top layer of leaves (not in yet at all) and the layer underneath that also needs to be lightened up. Then I can put another layer on the egret and work on the reflections in the water.

The painting on the left is an experiment from a book, "Brilliant Color, painting vibrant outdoor scenes" by Julie Gilbert Pollard. The book is really for oil painters, putting acrylic undercolors on the canvas first, but I'm planning on using acrylic for the whole piece. That is on the standard canvas panel.  Both of these are 8" X 10". The under layer is done with watered down acrylic paints, just like watercolors.  It is an interesting process.

We did some hiking over the weekend and took the trail up to the fire tower at Oak Hill Trails in Concord/Loudon, New Hampshire.  Fire danger is very high now. Beautiful views from the tower. I saw some pretty blue, very small, butterflies. I think they may have been Karner blues because they are in that area. I think that is Mount Monadnock in the distance on the first photo below.

And to finish off a wonderful weekend, we took part in an event in Derry, New Hampshire at the Etz Hayim Synagogue. Joe & I had a craft table there and sold cards, prints &  books.

Hibiscus in Costa Rica - finished

I worked on the painting some more and with helpful comments from my teacher and another artist, I think it is done!

I am also working on a painting of tulips.  This one is almost done. It is on a birch panel this time. My first time experimenting with this support.

Next craft show is in Derry, New Hampshire on May 5th. I posted the details in a press release on my website.  Happy spring!

Hibiscus in Costa Rica - WIP

I noticed that I have been to busy to do a weekly post this week. I started back in art class this week and I asked the teacher to work with me on making my paintings more three dimensional.  I had started this painting and had the basic shapes in before the class.  The leaves on the left were worked on in class and I do think that they have more dimension.  Over the weekend, I hope to do more.  I also worked on some of the leaves on the right. You'll notice that the ones in the middle are quite flat yet. Those are next on my schedule.

When I have finished the leaves, I will work more on the stems connecting them (they need a bit more color) and then finally on trying to get the hibiscus more toward the color in the original photo (more toward the red shade) while still keeping it light in value.

In my last online order, I bought a red acetate sheet.  I find this very helpful in seeing the values (light/medium/dark).  I put it over the photo first. The lights really pop out. Then over my painting and I see what I need to fix.  This is a good tool for an art student. (Inexpensive too).

I will post the same painting again next week and I hope you will see a big difference in the leaves.

If you are in the southern New Hampshire area, I have nine paintings on exhibit at the Derry Public Library for the month of April.

Green Lizard - Costa Rica

A small study of the Emerald or green lizard from Costa Rica done from a photo I took while on vacation. I didn't like the way the photo showed the lizard on the ground (it was boring), so I placed him on a branch with his tail hanging down.  I thought that was a better composition.  This is on 8" X 10" canvas panel.

This is the male lizard of this species (basiliscus plumifrons). The male has plumed crests which reminded me of the dorsal fins on fish. They are also called "Jesus Christ" lizards because they can walk on water. I thought these were prettier than the iguanas and other lizards that I saw.  I posted it on my website and printed out some cards for myself. Emerald Lizard Cards

I start back in art class next week. Looking forward to learning more and painting more.

Sketches from Costa Rica

I did a little sketching while on vacation. These two were scenes from the porch at the lodge in the Tortuguero national park. It was a 2 hour ride on a boat to get to the lodge. The cabins were rustic, but comfortable. Beautiful flowers all around. I watched a hummingbird as I was sketching.  This park goes out to the Atlantic side and the turtle nesting area.

This sketch was done from the Pacific side of Costa Rica, at the Marriott, Guanacaste.  The wind was blowing and the tree was swaying. There were birds flying around too. I don't know the names of the different kinds of palm trees, but there was an interesting variety of them in the country.

Costa Rica photos

Sloth (oso perezoso) in Costa Rica. I had a wonderful trip to Costa Rica with a friend. I posted my album at this link: Costa Rica photos

We saw many animals along the river, learned about turtle nesting sites and the ecology. We traveled from coast to coast, the Rain Forest, the Cloud Forest, the Dry Forest. I enjoyed hiking in the Arenal area on the hanging bridges.  Best of all was swimming in the hot mineral pools.  A great trip.

Also, I got to practice my Spanish.  I had taken a review course in the fall and I enjoyed using it.  I definitely need more Spanish classes to become fluent again (I had studied Spanish more than 40 years ago and have forgotten most of it).  I am a perpetual student and always looking to learn new things and more about them. This trip was educational as well as enjoyable. Highly recommended!

I met and enjoyed speaking with another artist, Edgar Yerar, but could not find a link for him online. The one he gave me did not work. He gave me some great ideas for future artwork. I took a picture of him and his display.