Small Paintings

 I have started on a series of small 8 X 10 acrylic paintings on canvas board. I am learning something new from each one.  This is a fall view of the boatramp at Dorrs Pond in Manchester, NH.  I have several other paintings of this pond. It is near my house and I can have a good walk around the pond.  I love it in every season, but autumn is special.

This was a muddy day on a trail in Hooksett, NH.  Originally I had done a watercolor painting on a Fredrix watercolor canvas. I never liked it and put it away in a drawer.  I finally convinced myself one day last week to start cleaning out old drawers and when I found this canvas, I thought I would try overpainting my original with acrylic paint. I like the way it came out this time.

Canoe at Back Lake

The photo for this painting was taken several years ago when we were in Pittsburg, New Hampshire during the spring or summer. Pittsburg is at the top of the state, bordering on Canada.  It is a very large land area with very few people, a good place to have a quiet vacation.  Many people go there in the winter to snowmobile. We prefer to go in the summer to hike and fish and see the moose along the main road. There are many lakes and I've done other paintings from our trips there in the past.

This is a small acrylic painting on canvas board, 8 X 10. You can buy a print or card of it at my new website:
http://linda-feinberg.artistwebsites.com/featured/canoe-at-back-lake-linda-feinberg.html

I have just started working on a series of "trail paintings". I am using 8 X 10 canvases as I work my way through them. Trails can be a metaphor for our journeys through life, or they can just be trails that we enjoy walking or hiking on. Once I'm done with the small paintings, I'll see if I like any of them enough to actually do a larger canvas. I have one left at 16" X 20" and I'm not sure what to put on it.  I still haven't finished the bison painting since I'm unhappy with the sky, but I bought a frame for it so I hope that motivates me to finally finish it.

I'm enjoying the winter and I love looking out at the beautiful snow outside. It's a good time to paint although I do get outside every day to walk too.  The birds are enjoying our bird feeder in the backyard. The birds on the branches of the lilac are juncos. They are small birds. I think the one on the feeder is a sparrow.

Cold Beauty

Waiting for inspiration to come

     on a frigid night

Minus six outside and dropping

     icicles hanging down

Too cold for stargazing

     even the windows are frosted.

Yet the sun was out today

     although the high temperature

     only hovered around zero.

The squirrels were out too ‑‑

     snatching stale donuts

     from a hanging basket,

     chasing away the starlings.

 

The children stayed out to

     ride the sled

          laughing down the hill

          ignoring the cold

Cheeks all rosy

     when they came in

          to warm up at the stove

Hot cocoa and popcorn

     to fill them.

 

Others may choose milder climates

But I prefer it here

     the snow frosted tree limbs

          delight the eye

And the changing seasons

     satisfy the psyche.

ã1990 Linda H. Feinberg from “red poppies and green clover”

This is an old poem probably written around 1983 when I was living in Derry, New Hampshire. I thought it was appropriate for winter. I am looking out my window today and watching the beautiful snow falling. I remembered that line "snow frosted tree limbs" -- that's what made me think of this old poem.

Apache Blessing

There was an absolutely gorgeous sunrise this morning. I saw it on my way to the gym. When I returned home and checked my e-mail, I had an announcement from the new website that I had received an order for a print. What a happy day. :)

http://fineartamerica.com/saleannouncement.html?id=f702275f50c5beaa4ee3e85d0130ca73

New website

Working on new website. It's very tedious loading so many images, but I'm determined to finish it this month.  You can look at what I have put up already and order from it at any time.

http://linda-feinberg.fineartamerica.com

Please feel free to send me any constructive comments.  This is a commercial site so I won't be able to change too many things on it.

Bison on Antelope Island - WIP2

I have made some progress on this painting. I'm going to leave it for a while and think about it some more.  The day I was there, it was very overcast. I think I need more gray in the sky, but I don't want to make it too dingy.

Meanwhile, I am going to change my website during the first quarter of 2013.  I have been researching and found two artist websites that I think will work.  One of them will actually print the cards and prints. That site will also ship them to anywhere in the world. I just need to post the images.  The other is more for Fine Arts and will be a bit more professional.  I'm not sure yet whether I will do both.

I framed my snowmobile painting. It was up at the Bedford (NH) library for the month of December. It was an "Artist of  the Month" winner from the Manchester Artists Association last month. I am happy looking at it and now that we have some snow, I hope we can get out on that same trail with our cross country skis soon.

Happy new year to all.

Bison on Antelope Island - WIP

This is a new piece I am working on. Obviously, there is a lot more to do. I don't think I'll put as many of the bison in as in the photo. I am having difficulty with making my brown paint splotches look like them.  There were many in the herd (also known as buffalo).

Antelope Island is on the Great Salt Lake, near Salt Lake City, Utah. Great place to visit. I'll keep working on this painting for the next few weeks.  I changed my photo around and put different mountains in the background from another photo taken on the same day at a slightly different view.  There was only a little bit of snow on those mountains on that day in November. It was overcast and very gray. Not sure how my painting will turn out. I will probably darken the sky more at the end.

Happy holiday and happy new year to everyone.

View from the Lodge

Full disclosure -- I am not a downhill skier. However, I enjoyed watching the skiers from the lodge on Thanksgiving Day.  I painted this from my photo.  I spent my holiday this year with my daughter in Utah and we had a wonderful dinner at the lodge at the Alta Ski area in Utah. The lodge is about 9000 feet in elevation (3000 meters), the mountains are much higher.  There weren't many skiers out as it was getting to be late in the day on the holiday.

Acrylic painting on canvas, 8" X 10".  I will probably make a few cards from this one too. If you are interested in purchasing the original, or cards, please feel free to contact me.

The Old Gate (again)

I think this is finished now. I worked on the posts some more and glazed the ground (grass) a little.  I touched up some of the leaves and tree branches too. I'll let it dry for a week and decide if I'm done fiddling around.  I have another canvas ready and I need to move on.  It's tempting to overwork a painting and I'm hoping not to do that.

The Old Gate

This is a 9" X 12" acrylic painting done from one of my photos taken in Utah while I was there recently. I didn't have a small canvas in my studio and didn't want to do a large painting of this scene, so I took one of my old paintings, tried washing it off (that didn't work), let it dry, then painting on a layer of gesso, let that dry, then a layer of neutral gray and let that dry.  That worked and covered up the old painting and I have some other canvas boards that I am unhappy with and can use that process on too.  Meanwhile, I had a chance to buy more 8 X 10 and 11 X 14 canvas boards so I don't have to go through that process again. It's good to know that it works and I can recycle old boards and make new paintings.

This scene was at the Fielding Garr ranch on Antelope Island (Antelope Valley State Park).  My daughter and I had a wonderful day there, saw lots of bison, mule deer etc. The ranch was quite interesting too and we spent some time walking around and learning about ranching.  This island is in the middle of the Great Salt Lake.  They were able to ranch there (and the bison herds are able to do well there) because there are natural springs with fresh water on the island. (See Nov. 20 posting -- last 2 photos.)

My painting of the snowmobile won "Artist of the Month" at the Manchester Artists Association meeting this week and is on display at the Bedford (NH) public library this month.  (See Nov 1. posting for photo.)