two-hour Kate

Not only does Kate have a full time job, but she is also in a play at the Flea, so modeling for me is way down on her to-do list. But when she has a couple of hours on the weekend, as she did yesterday, she comes over and sits for me. I figure that with only two hours every now and again, I should just go for it and paint as good a picture of her as I can in the time allowed. So this was my first sortie into the territory of alla prima portraiture. I found it a little nerve-wracking, but invigorating - kind of like an athletic event. And in the end the study is both not as good as I hoped it would be (I didn't get back to correct the values on the nose, for instance) and better than I expected because it actually does look like her. So I hope she comes back soon for another try!

the old Chapman farm, a plein air-ish study

Our road is strictly a farm road. It goes nowhere, really, though I think that the few cars who drive along it on weekends are using it as a short-cut to get from Route 10 over to Route 23 and then on to Oneonta, where there is commerce - the inescapable Hannaford, Home Depot and Walmart - on the outskirts and at the center, a charming main street where several independently owned stores and restaurants struggle mightily to stay afloat in the face of the behemoths at the periphery. But our road is all about the farms - four of them, all dairy. Our farm is not exactly a working farm. We have no cows of our own and the only crops we raise come out of my yearly vegetable patch but the three other farmers from the road make use of our land - take its hay, pasture their heifers, store tractors in our barn and so we feel very much a part of this increasingly rare agricultural community. From my studio I can see the Chapman farm which has been in the same family for at least two generations. It is a little run down now but I have always loved the look of those old barns nestling into the valley as if they grew there as organically as the trees that surround them. The colors of the land right now, just before it turns spring upstate, are beautiful and subtle and a heartier woman than I would have bundled up against the chill and painted this scene outside. But I didn't. I positioned my easel next to the window and while listening to Schubert, painted quite comfortably and with only the faintest twinge of guilt.

drapery study

vase wrapped in liberty scarf

graphite on paper

Rambouillet, recalled

gifts from le patron

5" x 5" oil on linen board

My husband and I spent two weeks at French language school in Rambouillet last fall. Every day after school, we went to one particular cafe for coffee (for my husband) and hot chocolate (for me). Then we would go home to our studio, complete the day's homework and then go back to the same cafe for a glass of wine before dinner. Little by little, the owner of the cafe came to know us and, treating us like true regulars, stopped taking our order each time and just simply appeared at our table with coffee and chocolate or wine (red for my husband, white for me). The last visit we made to the cafe, we mentioned that we were leaving the next morning and after he brought us our wine, he went back to the counter, and returned to our table with a gift of a deck of cards and a tiny bottle of Ricard pastis for each of us. I put a small liqueur glass with the cards and the Ricard and painted this thinking of that cafe with great fondness and a certain amount of longing. Sold.

porcelain roses

5" x 5" oil on linen covered panel

the great Kate

portrait of an actor

oil on linen-covered panel
sold

Virtual Paintout March 2011

The Virtual Paintout location for this month is Cape Town South Africa. There were a lot of rather spectacular seascapes and mountain views, but I was moved by a rather blurry photo of three children sitting on their steps in a shabby neighborhood. In the actual photo you can't make out the features on their faces, but the positions they are in speak of curiosity and enthusiasm as the Google camera car passes by. The details in the photo were indistinct, but the shape, colors and sweetness of the kids intrigued me, so I made a painting that looks somewhat like a poster study. It is 5" x 5" in oil on a linen covered panel.

Oscar Day flower

I hate to admit how excited I always am to watch the Oscars. No matter how lengthy, dull or self-congratulatory the spectacle is, I love it! The dresses, the red carpet, TIM GUNN - what's not to like? What this flower has to do with any of that, I don't know. I found a few dollars in my pocket yesterday as I was walking home from my run in the park, so I bought a stem of these beautiful white flowers which, though they look like roses, are not! Don't know what they are called, but they are really pretty and I had fun painting them while anticipating the evening's big show.

Pink day

skm + gsm

Hot peppers in the cold winter

Depending on your point of view, it is either a sad fact or a wonder of globalization that hot peppers are available in an upstate NY supermarket right now, in February! Being a fan of local foods, I usually pass right by the winter assortment of mangoes, bright red tomatoes, nectarines and fresh basil on my way to the leeks and butternut squash and other more seasonally appropriate, if not exactly local, produce. But last night, I couldn't resist these brilliant peppers. Not for eating, but for painting. They really lit up my studio which, right now, is bathed in a cool blue glow from the three feet of snow on the ground outside. So, yes, I chose art over principle. There you have it. This painting is 5" x 7" on a linen covered panel and if you would like to purchase it, click here.

Virtual paintout submission

This month's Virtual Paintout location is Boston which I found to be an interesting, if slightly difficult challenge. Although there are all kinds of tempting old townhouses and colonial churches and some interesting juxtapositions of steeples and modern towers, there is not too much drama in the cityscape, so paintings didn't jump out at me from every Google street view as they did last month in Ireland, for example. But I found myself drawn to this modest grey shingled house in the Melrose section of the city - probably because it is from the same era as the house I grew up in outside of Philadelphia. I painted it with a limited palette of ivory black, yellow ochre, french ultramarine, alizarin and titanium white on a 5" x 7" linen covered panel. Sold.

Valentine's Day??

When I was putting the ornaments away after Christmas, I kept this one out thinking that with the hearts, it would make a good subject for a Valentine's Day painting. Now having painted it, I can see that is not the case. For Valentine's Day, you need pink or red or fuschia - candy or doilies, something sweet and tacky. So herewith, a painting of a Christmas ornament - in January! The gorgeous orange cloth it is sitting on came from Fabricana, an Etsy store that sells wonderful fabrics from India. The painting is 5" x 7" in oil on a linen covered panel. Click here to purchase.

I always try to find a blue pitcher whenever I travel. Why blue? Not sure and over the years, I have loosened the requirements so that the pitcher needs only a touch of blue to qualify. My newest pitcher - the one at the back - came from a tiny hole-in-the-wall antique store in the medieval center of the town of Thouars in western France and is interesting because the handle is on the side, close to the spout. The pitcher on the left is made of ironstone. I found it in a big junk store near Cooperstown, NY. And the pitcher on the right at the front is from a favorite little shop on the Rue Jacob in Paris that sells ceramics and linens from Provence. The painting of these three pitchers is oil on stretched linen, 10" x 12". If you are interested in purchasing it, click here.

County Clare, Ireland

December's Virtual Paintout site was County Clare,

Ireland. Here are two paintings I made from

Google views - the landscapes look very very green, I know,

but if the photos are telling the truth, Ireland is indeed

emerald! Quite beautiful and lots of fun to paint, even

from a photo.

Quick study - baseball, handball

present for Tom

rose study

more and more roses, even in October

8" x 10"

oil on panel

a couple of landscapes

la petite rue de montagne

6" x 8" oil on panel

on the road to Auzay

8" x 10" oil on panel

rose study

oil on gessoed card

For Ronnie who will be sixty in the year 2010

bon anniversaire, mon amie!

plein air sketch