Category Archives: Landscapes

Paint the Kitchen Table. Paint the Kitchen Sky.

Yesterday I read an interesting post by Daniel Gerhartz about the hubris of ‘needing’ to paint a grandiose image, while neglecting the “profound, staggering elegance of the subject right before my eyes”.

outside my window on a drowsy spring day.  original iPad painting.

matching trees and white clouds outside my window on a drowsy spring morning. original iPad painting.

He’s talking my walk.  I love looking at everything in my path.   Right before seeing Dan’s post I had been mentally composing an image based on the condiment bottles before me on the kitchen table.

The sunlight was falling ‘just so’ on the tops of their caps, making stair-steps of light down through the bottles shaded by the window will.  It would make the perfect line drawing or a juicy value painting.

salt and pepper, mirrored.  original iPad painting.

salt and pepper shakers, meeting their match in the napkin holder. original iPad painting.

And looking up and out the window I noticed that distant treetops were the same yellow-brown-green as my neighbor’s weeping cherry, now that its flowers had fallen.  And gorgeous clouds were slowly sweeping across a strong blue sky.

In honor of Dan and the daily, I decided to grab my iPad and make a few sketches of the loveliness at my fingertips.  I also took some pix of the stair stepping bottle tops — they deserve a painting on canvas!

stairs on my table

stairs on my table.

Continuing to Dabble on my iPad ~~ Summer Memories

I hauled out my iPad quite a bit over the last month.  Thought I’d share a few, bit by bit.  As our days grew shorter and chillier, I started conjuring a scene from our C&O Canal walks last Summer.  This was a real challenge, with all the different elements and reflections.

C & O Canal in Summer.  iPad.

C & O Canal in Summer. iPad.

What was under the water’s calm surface was just as interesting as the shadows falling across the surface and the contrasting views posed by the two banks.  It’s time to clean this baby up again!

Sneak Peak at Paintings I’m Hanging in the Weekend Exhibit

Here’s a new painting I made in gouache a few weeks ago — thinking it would appeal to people who love the C & O Canal as much as Pat and I do.  It’s based (loosely) on a photo I made last Fall on one of our walks.  Pat can’t get much exercise when I’m constantly ‘braking’ to take shots like these!

I decided to hang mostly gouaches this time, with only singles of oil paintings and iPad giclees.  (There will be many more matted & backed in the bins, though, along with lots of greeting cards printed with some of my favorite paintings.)  Remember:  Saturday & Sunday noon to 5, with reception from 6 to 8pm on Saturday.  Yellow Barn Studio, at Glen Echo Park.

Now, here’s a look at the other pieces that will be framed and available to bring home at show’s end:

 

 

 

 

New iPad Art: Fairy Lilies in Negative Space; Pat’s Scarecrow in the Garden; at the O’s Game

I’ve done a few iPad images lately — good fun while sitting around at night.   I just finished a drawing with the ArtRage pencil tool of a sprinkle of fairy lilies against a background clump of ornamental grasses.

Fairy Lilies, original iPad painting, 2013, 1:1 aspect ratio

Fairy Lilies, original iPad painting, 2013, 1:1 aspect ratio

 

And I also had fun doing a more stylized rendition of Pat’s scarecrow standing in our garden, stopping passersby with its cuteness, but doing nothing to deter the critters from eating our veggies.  Pat actually built this wooden adjustable man, based on one our son Sam had seen in a magazine and really wanted.  Sam enjoyed it for years and then Will inherited it.  Pat has now re-clothed it in his old duds for scarecrow duty.

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And I did a quick wild fun sketch of the ballpark when Pat and I went to an Oriole’s game in Baltimore last weekend.

IMG_7370

Then Ceci and I Took A Gouache Workshop

Two days after the portrait workshop, Ceci and I drove over to Easton, MD for another workshop, this time at the Easton Studio & SchoolBernie Dellario, from Washington DC, was teaching a two day workshop on how to travel and paint with dried gouache.   It was Bernie’s first time teaching, but he “nailed it”.  Great demos, excellent circulation among the group of painters, and on-point feedback made for a great two days.

Here’s one of Bernie’s colorful demos (only partially finished because he wanted to save time so we could paint):

bernie-cabin-john-pond

One of my paintings:

palms

And here’s one by my sister Cecilia.  I love it!

cecilias-pond

The group had such a good time during the workshop that we unanimously decided to keep in touch AND even start a blog to record our gouache progress. Check it out:  Marks and Remarks: Gouache and consider subscribing.