On Maple Street

there she stood with her thumb out

on Maple Street of all places

two degrees out, bitterly cold

why would a middle-aged woman hitchhike?

no traffic coming

I looked as I turned

I stopped for her

and learned her story

I gave her a ride a few miles to work

and received a blessing

I took a different route home that day

and found that God needed me

to give a ride and a blessing

January 30, 2014

©Linda H. Feinberg

On my easel today 1-22-14

Rabbi Y'Shia Stebsa Dion, 8" X 10" acrylic painting and pencil sketch (on left)

This is my first attempt at painting a portrait. I did a study in pencil first.  I had taken some drawing classes a few years ago with Jeanne Lachance and I did remember some stuff about the planes of the face. I looked at a book too.  It wasn't as hard as I thought it would be, but I found painting the rabbi very challenging.  I used raw umber, mars black and titanium white (acrylic paints) to imitate sepia, which is used in many old photos.

The Watcher. Seagull at Peggy's Cove, Nova Scotia. Acrylic, 5" X 5"

I was very unhappy with this stretched canvas and won't buy that brand again (Artist's Loft).  I don't think it was primed properly.  Anyway, this is my last experiment (I hope) with limited colors. I just used ultramarine blue, burnt sienna and titanium white.  You can get interesting grays with complementary colors.  I had tried this many years ago with watercolors.  This was my first time trying this with acrylic paints.

Next canvas -- I will be back to full palette for a landscape with a lake.  I'm making a small study first (8" X 10") to see if I want to do a larger canvas of the image I chose.

Limited Color Palette

View from the Noon Peak Trail

I'm still playing around with a limited palette. This is the same one that I used in the painting a couple of weeks ago, of the view from Jennings Peak. The difference is that this time I tried the same colors with Winsor & Newton Artisan water mixable oils.  I felt the result was better. I was able to get better darks with the oil paints. I used ultramarine blue, cadmium red, phthalo green, cadmium yellow light and white.  (I didn't have viridian in my oil colors so I thought the phthalo green was close enough to try the same experiment.)  This is an 8" X 10" oil painting on canvas board. You can buy a card or print on my website.

I did finally put up a few drawings and one painting on ebay.  Only about 20% of art listed there sells, but I thought I would give it a try.  This is the link: http://www.ebay.com/usr/avisiblevoice

My cousins have started some genealogy, trying to go back a few generations.  The photo below surfaced. It is apparently my paternal great grandmother's brother.  We have the name "Rabbi Y'Shia Stebsa Dion" with several different opinions.  "Dion" apparently is a word for judge.  We're not sure if Stebsa is a name or a place, or a variant of one of those.  "Y'Shia" may be short for Yeshayahu. Meanwhile, I keep looking at the photo and thinking it would make a good piece for me to go back to pencil drawing practice. My father's family came to America from Minsk (now part of Belarus) in 1914 and we don't have much information, other than the names of his parents' siblings.

I'm also working on a small canvas with just the seagull and rock from my last post. It needs one more layer of paint (acrylic). I will put that up next week.

New Goals for 2014

I have been doing some reading on alternate ways to get my art sold.  I signed up for ebay, but have not posted anything yet as I'm still researching.  Meanwhile, I pulled out some of my old colored pencil drawings and matted them.  I will put these up first as an inexpensive tryout of the ebay site.  I am hopeful that I will eventually get to a point where I can sell my paintings at a decent price.

I sold several original paintings in 2013 (as well as cards and prints) and would like to sell more.  I thought I would start by offering some of my older work first and see how that goes.  For the most part these are drawings and paintings that are not on my website (although the peppers one is there), but are still pretty and would look nice framed.

I am still painting and doing some experiments with limited colors.  I'll try to finish my oil painting with the same limited colors as I did with the acrylic one in the last post.  I think the colors look better in the oil paints, but I still have the same difficulties as before -- getting the darks really dark and the long drying time between layers.

I did another experiment with ultramarine blue and burnt sienna to get a variety of grays (complementary colors).  I used acrylic paints on watercolor paper.  I don't like this scene enough to make a real painting, but I liked the way the colors worked to get the grays.  I bought a small canvas (5" X 5") to try a painting of just the seagull and the rock, without so much background.

I have some other goals for my poetry and art. I am always learning new stuff and enjoy the challenges of being a perpetual student. Happy new year.

Painting View from Jennings Peak Using a Limited Palette

View from Jennings Peak (White Mountains, NH). This painting was another experiment. First time I have done a 10" X 20" canvas. I enjoyed working on this panorama format.  I combined techniques from two different books.  First I started with a transparent pyrrole orange undercolor. All paints used on this experiment were acrylic paints. When that dried, I combined the orange with some dioxazine purple for the dark areas (also undercolor). (From book: "Brilliant Color" by Julie Gilbert Pollard.) I worked in layers with the limited palette colors.

Actually, I first made a small watercolor study to see if I liked this view enough to paint. I had several photos to choose from.  I thought this view was easy enough to experiment on.

The limited palette idea came from the book "The Painterly Approach" by Bob Rohm, except that I didn't have exactly the same red as his palette was oil paints and I was working in acrylics. I used cadmium yellow light, cadmium red medium, ultramarine blue, viridian and titanium white.

I found that I had difficulty getting the color mixes the way I wanted them, but I am satisfied with the painting.  I struggled with getting the darks dark enough.  I mixed a light lavender for the gray granite rock and I liked that look. (New Hampshire is the "Granite State"). Actual photo I was working from below:

More information about the actual hike in my  posting of August 1, 2010. It was a strenuous hike and I won't be doing that again, but I have my photos and memories to paint from.

Next experiment will be done with similar limited palette, but working in water mixable oil paints.

To purchase a card or print of this painting: View from Jennings Peak